CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mia

The present…

“Hey, baby, did my phone buzz?”

I glance up to find Grayson standing in the bathroom doorway, now wearing sweats, his perfect chest naked, and shaving cream all over his face. “Yes,” I say. “It vibrated on the nightstand. Why are you shaving?”

“Your face is all red.”

I reach up and touch my cheek where the sting of his whiskers remains for the first time in far too long while he rakes his gaze over my naked body. “And if you don’t get dressed, you’re about to have shaving cream all over you.” He winks. “Check the message for me, will you?” He disappears into the bathroom. “Read it out to me!” he calls out.

I inhale and let my breath out, ticking through all the reasons why I am not going to leave.

He left his phone behind last time and now. He didn’t feel like he had anything to hide then or now. He’s shaving for me. He was always thinking of me. When I went to him at the funeral, we felt real and honest, like we do now. When I’m with him, despite every piece of evidence that says he’s guilty, my heart says that he’s innocent. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here now trying to protect him; trying to protect someone who I know to be a good, fair, honest person.

I grab his phone and I don’t look for anything to cover up with, because naked says I’m willing to be vulnerable with him again. And I have to be if I’m going to stay here, and I am. Everything inside me says that I belong here. I walk into the bathroom and slide between him and the counter.

“I told you to get dressed,” he reminds me. “You never did follow orders well.”

“That hasn’t changed and it won’t.” I lift his phone and read the message. “It’s from Eric.” I say, glancing at Grayson and then back to the screen, to add, “he says: We aren’t going to get anyone closer than Mia is to Ri to take him down. You need to be reasonable on this. We’ll protect her. You have my word.” I look up at him. “He’s right. I came here to protect you. Let me protect you.”

He studies me for two hard seconds and then he grabs a towel, wipes his yet to be shaved face, and tosses it. “No. Not just no. Hell no, Mia. I am not making you a target.” He walks to the door, grabs my pink silk robe I left here a year ago and pulls it around me.

“No,” he says, tying the belt for me. “This isn’t a discussion.”

“I was always a target, Grayson,” I say, sliding my arms into the robe. “Always. He wanted to hurt you. He used me and I let him. I hate that I let him. I don’t know how to undo that but to go after him for you.”

“You’re not going to go after anyone. That’s what I do. Not you, Mia. Not you.”

I reject that idea immediately. “You don’t go after people. That’s one of the things that makes you you and not him. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.”

“And yet you’ve spent the last year with him.”

“Working at his company, not with him. I didn’t lie. I haven’t been with anyone, I haven’t been with him.”

He grabs his phone and exits the bathroom. I feel the blow of his words and it hits me then that if I’m wrong, if he didn’t do what he appeared guilty of doing, I’m the bitch. I’m the one that doesn’t deserve him. I owe him in so many ways and I decide right then that I love him enough to accept the guilt, because he doesn’t feel guilty to me.

I race after him and I exit the bedroom, a gust of wind blasting through the now open patio door. I exit into a chilly breeze to find Grayson standing at the railing facing the ocean, his upper body naked, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunched. I don’t even hesitate. I go to him and the minute I’m by his side, he pulls me between him and the railing but he doesn’t speak. He just looks at me.

I reach up and brush my hand over his unshaven face, the rasp of whiskers on his jawline, then along the thicker edge of his goatee. “I like having your whisker marks on my face and everywhere else. I miss seeing those marks on my body.”

He pulls away the silk tie at my waist, parting my robe and then molding my naked body to his body. “I stood out here wondering if you’d just leave again, Mia. I didn’t know for sure that you’d follow me out here. I can’t walk out of a room and have you disappear again. If that’s where this is headed, then we need to ignore the pizza, fuck again right now, and make it a final goodbye.”

“Can we fuck again right here and now before the pizza gets here, and just not say goodbye?”

The buzzer that signals a front gate visitor goes off and Grayson ignores it. “I don’t want the fucking pizza. I want us to make a decision about us, but we have a pizza at the damn gate.” He releases me, grabs his phone and hits a button that opens the gate on his security system app.

I yank my robe shut and his eyes meet mine, heat and anger in the depth of his stare. And then he just turns and leaves the room. It’s then that I feel as if I’ve been punched. It’s then that I realize that in the midst of finding each other again, we’re closer now to losing each other for good than ever before.

I enter the bedroom and stare at the massive space, and the bed where I have slept so many times with this man wrapped around me. I miss sleeping like that, with him. I don’t know how long I stand there imagining those moments with him holding me, but he doesn’t come back. Time ticks by and Grayson still doesn’t come back to the bedroom.

It’s been too long and I hurry down the hallway and start hunting for him. I enter the living room and find the pizza box on the island in the kitchen, but he isn’t there. My gaze lifts to the patio, and I know then that he’s back outside, but he’s chosen to exit through a location that divides us this time. I don’t let that dissuade me. I cross the room and exit to find him, just as he was on the other patio, his back to me, leaning on the railing.

“I don’t want this to be goodbye, Grayson. I don’t know how to make sure it’s not goodbye. There’s so much bad now. I’m afraid there’s too much bad. Are we just here to find that out?”

He inhales and pushes off the railing, turning to look at me, his hands on his hips. “I am angry, Mia. Because being with you, feeling how good it is, makes me wonder if you ever felt what I feel.”

“It wouldn’t feel this good if I didn’t. You know I did.”

“Then how can you believe that Ri could set me up with the DA and not set me up that night?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. “Eric called. He has a source he’s been working for a while now. He’s been nickel and diming us with information about Ri, who we knew was up to something. Eric offered him an excessively large sum of cash and he delivered in a big way and fast.”

“What does that mean?”

“He says that this plan to take me down has been two years in the making, before my father died, and right after we got together. The reason I believe him is that he named names, people working inside my operation and working for Ri. Two of those people were identified as problems and are already gone.”

My stomach knots. “She was one of them, right?”

“Yes, Mia. She was one of them.”

It’s then that I know that Grayson didn’t betray me, but instead, I’ve betrayed him and us.