by K. A. Linde
“Why, that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said,” I joked.
He wove our fingers together and gave me a look that made my insides squirm. “I can be romantic later.”
I feigned indifference, but Grant ignited a fire with a single smile.
“Let’s look at the rest of the house before you start ripping my clothes off.”
“Is that an option?”
“No!”
He chuckled and then proceeded to follow me around the house. His eyes were as big as saucers through most of the downstairs.
I opened a sliding double door, and he peeked inside.
“A library? Really? No wonder you’re obsessed with the one at school.”
I laughed. “This was my favorite room growing up.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said with a smirk. “I didn’t even realize people actually owned libraries. Just thought it was Disney’s way of making women have even higher expectations of men.”
“Did you just make a Beauty and the Beast reference?”
He shrugged. “You’d never guess now, based on her slutty cowgirl getup, but Sydney used to be a princess with dresses and fake plastic heels included.”
“You’re right. I can’t imagine that.”
I eased the door closed, and then we walked up the stairs to the second floor.
Grant wrapped an arm around my waist and leaned in close. His breath breezed against my neck, and I shivered.
“So,” he said, “where’s your room?”
I cleared my throat and then pointed at the door at the end of the hall. He took my hand and did all the directing. Opening the door, we entered into the midst of my childhood.
The walls were still pale pink with white sheer curtains hanging in front of the windows. I had all white furniture and a plush white-covered queen-sized bed with pastel pink throw pillows. My mother had offered to redecorate for me while I was in high school, but at the time, I hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with it. This had perfectly fit my personality.
Now…I was actually embarrassed to show my boyfriend.
Grant closed the door behind me. He slowly walked forward to me, backing me up toward my bed. My heart thumped in my chest, and heat radiated out of my body. I couldn’t believe the way he was looking at me…as if he were going to eat me alive. And I was going to let him.
His hand trailed from my neck to my shoulder and then lightly to my waist. “What would your father say if he knew I was thinking of fucking you in your bedroom?”
“He, uh…” I mumbled incoherently.
His hand slid to my ass and then hoisted a leg up around his hip. My body pressed back into the bed as he leaned forward into me. I could feel my heartbeat in my core, begging him to follow through on his promises.
“Hmm…Princess?” he murmured against my neck.
His lips were sending goose bumps down my whole body. His tongue flicked out and caught the sensitive skin. Without thinking, I dug my fingers into his back, urging him onward.
I knew this was dangerous. I knew we could be caught at any minute. But it was a huge house. We weren’t needed at dinner right this second. Maybe…maybe I could break the rules just this once.
“I don’t care what he’d think. D-do it.” My voice wavered, but I hoped that my eyes held confidence.
Grant pulled back to stare in my eyes, which gave me away. I was nervous, unbelievably nervous. But at the same time…I so desperately wanted to sleep with Grant right now, to defy my parents in this way. I wanted to take control of my own life and not have to feel the constant weight of their expectations.
“Do it,” I repeated stronger.
I reached for his shirt collar to drag his lips back down to mine, but he stepped away from me. He visibly adjusted himself in front of me. I could see the outline of his erection in his jeans. I reached out to run my hand down it, but he pulled back.
My face reddened at the rejection.
“That was one of the hottest fucking things you’ve ever done, Princess.”
“And you turned me down,” I said glumly.
He smiled that heart-stopping smile. “You know I love you when I turn you down.”
“How?” I asked, hating that I sounded small. My body was traitorous in its desire.
“Because I love you so much that I want to make the right impression. I want to be good enough for you. I want your parents to like me.” He tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “Something tells me sleeping with their daughter in her bedroom might not help matters.”
“It might help something,” I said, leaning toward him and planting another kiss on his lips.
His hands landed on my ass. “Restraint is not my forte. You’re playing dirty.”
“You like it.”
My hand traveled down his front and toward his jeans just as the door burst open.
As the door swung inward, Aribel and I sprang apart as if we’d been electroshocked. Aaron stepped into the room.
He looked between us in silence for a moment before shaking his head. “Dinner is ready.”
Then, he turned and left.
Aribel sagged against me. “Oh my God. I can’t believe he saw that.”
“Could have been worse.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Still true.” And it was. We could have been fucking when her brother walked in. It wouldn’t have been the most compromising position I’d ever been in but close.
She nodded. “Okay. Time to meet my father. Are you ready?”
Was I? Fuck no!
Her mother and brother already seemed to despise me. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to take on the man of the house. But I’d do it. Apparently, I’d do fucking anything for Ari.
So, I followed her down the huge-ass staircase to the first floor. The place was a fucking mansion. I’d never seen a house this big, let alone stepped foot in one. It showed me again that Ari and I were worlds apart. The only place we found our middle ground was when we were alone.
I’d never thought much about my future. I’d figured if the booze didn’t kill me, then my reckless behavior would win out one day. The motorcycle accident was proof of that. But being here with Ari changed everything. She changed everything.
She made me think maybe middle ground was possible.
Ari walked into the dining room first. Her father was an imposing man in a crisp black suit. He was talking to her mother, but when he saw her, he broke off his conversation.
“Baby girl,” he said, pulling her into a hug.
“Hey, Daddy.”
I held my arms loosely at my sides and waited to be introduced. Aribel pulled back and then stiffened.
“What is he doing here?” she demanded.
My eyes shifted from Ari and her father to the person standing behind them—Henry.
That motherfucker.
I glared at him, but he only had eyes for Ari. This had gone from having potential to being potentially fucking disastrous. With the look in Henry’s eye, it was leaning more toward completely fucking catastrophic.
“Aribel,” her mother said disapprovingly.
“I thought this was a family dinner.”
“It is,” her father said.
“Then, what is Henry doing here?”
“He’s here because I asked him to be.”
Ari rolled her eyes. “Well then, you can ask him to leave.”
“I’m not imposing, am I?” Henry asked.
He was playing the victim, and I could already see that it would work.
“Of course not,” her mother crooned. “Aribel is happy to have you here as a family friend. Aren’t you, Aribel?”
“No,” she said, looking Henry straight in the eyes.
I saw this going south from real far off, so I slowly reached forward and took her hand.
Who cared if Henry was here?
He wasn’t with my girl. We were about to show them that it didn’t matter that he was fucking here
. I’d beat the shit out of this douche bag before letting him near Ari again.
Her eyes met mine, and I saw she was fighting to remain calm. I tried my best to let her know it was all right—even though it wasn’t fucking all right for her parents to pull this shit on her.
She nodded understandingly and then took a step toward me. “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Grant.”
I reached my hand out to her father, and we shook. It was a challenging hard handshake, but I gave it right back. I wasn’t fucking afraid, and I wasn’t fucking backing down.
“Mr. Graham, it’s nice to meet you, sir,” I said, dropping back into my military upbringing.
“Grant,” he acknowledged me.
I could tell from his stare that he wanted me to feel about two feet tall, but I was used to intimidation factors from my old man. At least this guy wasn’t going to come after me with a gun.
I hoped.
“Well then, let’s all sit down at the table.” Ari’s mother rounded us up and deposited us into our assigned seats.
Her father was at the head of the table with her mother across from him. Henry sat at his right, and Aaron was on his left. That left Ari and me sitting across from each other. I moved to take the seat next to Henry, so she wouldn’t have to be near him, but her mother shoved her toward the seat as if it were life and death. I tried to remain calm. It wouldn’t do any good to blow up now. So, I took the seat next to Aaron.
Wait staff appeared almost immediately with food and drinks. It felt more as if I were at a fucking restaurant than at a family dinner. At my aunt and uncle’s, dinner was a loud, messy affair with friends over all the time, scooping out lasagna onto paper plates and circling around the TV.
Being here was like a fucking cage. It made me understand Ari a little more, and I also wondered how the fuck she had turned out so normal.
“So, Grant,” her father said after dinner was served, “what exactly do you do?”
Everyone’s eyes shifted to me.
“I’m in a band.”
“Right. But what do you do?”
I stared back at him, wondering if this was a fucking trick question. “I play guitar and sing lead vocals.”
“Uh-huh. So, you don’t have a job then?”
Ari’s hand came down on the table and rattled her drink. “Didn’t you hear him? He says he plays in a band.”
“Do people consider that a real job?”
I ground my teeth together. I would not fucking explode. “Yes. I’m signed with Pacific Entertainment. They’re a major record label. We’re on tour with The Drift, a popular rock band.”
“And that pays?”
“Yes.”
It was easier to agree than to go into the details of how advances worked.
That seemed to momentarily satisfy him because his attention shifted to Henry. He asked him super specific banking questions that were clearly directed only to Henry.
Great. I fucking understood Henry was a fucking hotshot douche-bag banker.
He’d graduated from fucking Harvard. I’d come to realize that people who went to Harvard all had one fucking thing in common. They made sure everyone fucking knew they had gone to Harvard.
Conversation was going on all around me, yet I didn’t seem to be included in anything. Ari was turning red with anger. My blood was boiling at the whole exchange. This wasn’t how you fucking treated people. Just because I wasn’t in line to become a CEO of a bank didn’t mean I wasn’t good enough for his daughter.
“Mother,” Ari snapped. “I’m sure you’re dying to get to know Grant better, aren’t you? He’s only here for one night before he has to go back out on tour.”
“Oh. Of course. Grant, how did you and Aribel meet?”
We exchanged a glance. It wasn’t exactly a family-friendly conversation.
I figured I’d fucking paraphrase. “Her roommates liked my band, so they got her to come to one of my shows. We hit it off from there.”
“Fascinating,” her mother said dryly.
“Okay. I can’t hold it in any longer,” Aaron said in frustration. “Did you sleep with Mary Beth Hensen?”
“Aaron! Oh my God!” Aribel cried.
“Let him answer the question,” Aaron said.
I shrugged my shoulders. How the fuck was I supposed to know if I’d slept with a chick? How many times had I met Kristin before I remembered who she was? Five or six, and I only remembered it because she was the cause of my fight with Aribel. I was horrible with names and faces.
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?” Henry asked.
“Stay out of this,” Ari growled. “Grant, ignore them. They have no right to interrogate you.”
“Seriously? You can’t remember if you slept with her? It was my best friend’s girlfriend.”
Aribel smacked her forehead with her hand and sighed dramatically. “So fucking ridiculous.”
“Language!” her mother cried.
“This is like a circus. Fuck,” I mumbled. “I don’t know if I slept with your friend’s chick. If that’s what you’re holding over my head, then there’s not much I can fucking do for you. I never forced anyone to have sex with me. So, she must have been willing.”
The table went silent, but all eyes were on me.
Great.
I must have fucked up and pulled some social faux pas, but no one was freaking out that Aaron had brought up me having sex with some other chick in the first place.
“Aribel,” her father said. Disapproval rang clear in his voice.
I couldn’t stand for it. They couldn’t talk to her or look at her like that.
“Hey!” I cried. “You can’t be disappointed with her. She’s brilliant, beautiful, strong, hard-working, and unbelievably confident. Look down on me for whatever bullshit you’ve thought up in your head. I’m poor with no college education and no real job. I’m everything you wanted to keep away from her, but you can blame me for that. You can’t fucking look down on her—not her, never her. She’s spotless, pristine, and she’s the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I stood up from the table and tossed my napkin down.
“You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
In horror, I watched Grant walk out of the dining room through the back door and outside. How had it all gone so horribly wrong so fast?
“Good Lord, Aribel,” my mother said. “What kind of person did you bring into our home?”
“This will not do,” my father said.
I closed my eyes for two seconds and tried to calm down.
Grant and I might have had our problems in the past, but we’d worked through them. We had figured out how to have a real relationship despite our differences. With him on tour, we had tried to trust each other, work through the issues with his dad, my parents, our friends, and so far, we had come out ahead. There was no way I was going to stand by and let me family insult him for their prejudice.
“I cannot believe you all treated my boyfriend like that.” My voice came out steady as I slowly rose to my feet. “None of you know him. None of you have any clue of the kind of person he is!”
“Your brother and Henry were both very clear about the kind of person he is,” my father said.
“Neither of them know him!” I cried. “You’re all going off of a stupid prejudice, and I’m over it. I’m done.”
I left the table and walked toward the door.
Henry tried to stop me. “Aribel, wait. Be reasonable,” he said.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelled at him.
“How can you go after him? He yelled at you at the concert. It was completely unwarranted. Aaron tells me he’s slept with half of Princeton. He’s on tour and probably sleeping with a different girl in every city. And now, he made a fool of himself in front of everyone.”
“So, this is what you think of him? This is what you all think of my judgment?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“
We want what’s best for you, honey,” my mother said.
“I don’t want you getting caught up with someone who is going to take advantage of you,” Aaron explained.
“Is that so?” I asked, feeling my anger bubbling up.
My father looked me square in the eyes. He didn’t have to say anything to me in that moment. I knew that he agreed with them.
“You want what’s best for me? And you think the best for me is…Henry?” I asked.
No one answered directly, but I knew. Henry even smiled as if he believed I was finally in on the secret. From the beginning, I’d known that my family was trying to pit us together.
“Well, that truly shows you how shitty your judge of character is! Henry has hounded me to see me when I’ve told him I wanted to be left alone. He got me drunk after New Year’s and tried to take advantage of me, and then he did so again in my hotel room in New York City on my birthday. He’s an asshole, who is just trying to get an in with me so that he can get another promotion in the company. Think about the person you’re trying to set me up with when you’re pushing my boyfriend away.”
With that, I turned and left.
Henry didn’t follow.
No one followed.
I found Grant a few minutes later. He had walked out across the patio, through the garden, and into the outdoor pool area. He was leaning against a wooden pillar and staring off into the still water.
“Hey,” I said softly. I came over to him and immediately wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m so sorry about my parents.”
He circled my waist and kissed the top of my head, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know what he was thinking. Was he regretting his decision to come here? I wouldn’t blame him. My parents had been truly awful.
“Grant?”
“You shouldn’t apologize, Princess. I tried to hold it in, but I fucking blew up anyway. I’m sorry that I embarrassed you.”
I sighed. He was sorry because he thought I was embarrassed.
“Oh, Grant, no. I’m not ashamed of you.” I pulled back to look at his face. “I’m ashamed of them.”
His eyebrows scrunched together. “I know I’m not like Henry.”
