CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mia

The present…

I’m still standing on the patio of Grayson’s Hamptons home, in nothing but a silk robe I bought when he was mine and I was his. I’m staring at him and he’s staring at me, and there are steps and space between us that reach beyond the physical. The night we broke up is right here with us, a wedge that won’t collapse. Images of Becky pressed against him pound at my mind, driven home by that damn text message I’d read the night of his father’s funeral. It zaps that blame I’d put on myself. It says that I’m not the one who betrayed us. It says he did. It’s the message that could catch him in a lie. I don’t want him to lie, but I need to know if he will. Emotions rush at me hard and fast. I need the truth once and for all, but I can’t do this in this robe. I can’t be that vulnerable.

I rotate and exit the patio, hurrying through the living room and I don’t stop until I’m in the bedroom. I hunt down my clothes and sneakers, scoop them up and retreat to the closet. I’ve just managed to fully dress when Grayson appears in the doorway, and he too now wears a T-shirt with his sweats and sneakers. “Leaving again, Mia?”

“Not yet, but you’re right. If I leave this time, it will be for good. Tell me,” I order, my voice cracking. “When did you start fucking her?”

He curses and runs his hand through his hair, his dark waves left in disarray as his hands settle on his waist. “Really, Mia? That’s where we’re still at right now?”

“Tell me,” I order again. “Just say it all. Say it all.”

He is in front of me in a snap, pulling me to him, his body absorbing mine and not gently. “There is no when, Mia. I was not, and have not been with Becky. She came into my office. She shut the door. I told her to leave. The phone rang. I thought it was you. I was hoping it was you since you’d shut me out over pulling you off the case. I turned my back and took the call. It was Eric with a problem. When I turned around, she’d stripped and rounded my desk. She flung herself at me and then you opened the door. I don’t know how the hell it was planned that well, but it was planned.”

“Mitch,” I say, my throat going dry, my hand flattening on his chest, heat rushing up my arm. “He called me and told me that there was a blowup on the case and that it was critical I get to your office right then.”

“And you took Mitch’s call, but not mine?”

“I was furious with you, Grayson.” I twist out of his arms and move to the opposite side of the dresser that sits in the middle of the closet. “You pulled me off the case and didn’t talk to me about it in advance. Me. The woman lying naked next to you in bed every night”—I hold up a hand—“but that’s another subject. Mitch still works for you. Mitch clearly made sure I saw you and Becky together, which means he’s working against you.”

“Becky and I were not together, Mia. Holy hell, woman. What do I have to do to get you to understand that?”

“You can’t,” I say, emotions welling in my throat. “You can’t.”

“Then why are we even here right now?”

“Right. Why? I’ll leave.” I round the dresser, but he catches my arm and pulls me to him.

“Are you really going to do this to us over a lie?”

“Ask why I left after the funeral?”

“I take it that’s a yes. A lie that isn’t mine destroys us.”

“I read your text message that day. You went to the bathroom and it was under my arm on the bed and I read it: Grayson, I saw Mia with you. I didn’t want to come up to you and start a war. Thinking of you. Love, Becky.”

He blanches and I’ve never seen Grayson blanch. “First, Becky never had my number. I have no clue how she would get it. I have no relationship with her. And the day of the funeral, the whole weekend of the funeral, I had hundreds of messages and barely glanced at any of them. I was focused on my father and you.” He releases me and reaches for his phone, snagging it from his pocket. “She signed it Becky?”

“Yes,” I whisper, hugging myself.

He types in the name in the search bar and pulls up the message. “And there it is,” he says, his lips thinning. “That little bitch. I didn’t read it or respond to it.” He hands me his phone. “I didn’t respond to most of the messages I got that day. You know how this goes. People use everything, including death, as an excuse to try to get a piece of me. I didn’t have it in me to deal with any of that. I didn’t respond to anything for days after you left and I didn’t try to catch up. You can see her message and all the rest that are unread and without response.”

I blanch, shocked by the idea of such a complete shutdown. “None of them?”

“I wouldn’t even talk to Eric for a week after my father died and you left. Leslie had to come knocking on the door because I didn’t respond to her either. And when I did come out of the haze, anyone that mattered had already found another way to talk to me. The last thing I wanted to do was read the damn messages. Go through my phone, Mia. There is no interaction between me and another woman. Nothing. Because there is no other woman.”

I start to shake and I drop his phone without meaning to, but neither of us reach for it. “You really didn’t do it?”

“No, baby. How could I want anyone but you? We were, we are, in love and it’s a passionate love.” He pulls me to him. “The kind of love most people never find.” He strokes hair from my face. “Tell me you believe me.”

Air lodges in my throat and I press a hand over my mouth, holding back a sob. I hurt him. I hurt him in a way that’s unforgivable. “I left you the night of the funeral. I’m such a horrible bitch.”

“No,” he says, pulling my hand from my face, his fingers tangling in my hair, tilting my gaze to his. “There were devious people at play here. People who meant to break us up to hurt me. And I promise you, Mia, they will pay for the pain they caused you, caused us.”

“I left you after your father died. You can’t forgive me for that. How can you even consider trying?”

“We were fighting when this happened. And it was a big fight. You already felt betrayed. I’m not blind to my part of this. I made mistakes that made this possible.”

“Yes. I was angry. And yes, there are reasons we were fighting. The case you pulled me off of. The timing. It was everything at once. It was—it was more than Becky and things we need to talk about, but those things weren’t me leaving you after your father died. I betrayed us.”

“No, baby. You didn’t. I did. I let us be that vulnerable. I did things that day that I didn’t explain. I allowed us to be that exposed and it won’t ever happen again. I’ll protect us. I’ll protect you. And Ri will pay in blood for what he’s done.”

Anger quakes in his voice and Grayson is not a man who allows such emotions to control him. Anger that I know is not all about Ri and what he perceives his role to be in our breakup. It’s about me leaving him, me walking away. No matter what he says otherwise, we’ve betrayed each other in ways that have led us to where we are now. We can’t just kiss and make up. We have to fight through the emotional storm to follow. We have to fight for each other.

“We’re going to be okay,” he promises, and I wonder if he’s trying to convince me or him, or both of us. It doesn’t matter though. I want him to be right. I want him to be right so badly that when his mouth comes down on mine, I am instantly clinging to him the way I would a ledge for dear life. I can’t let go or I’ll cease to exist. I won’t let go. Not this time. Not ever. No matter how fierce that storm becomes. No matter how brutal the fight I know is to come.