CHAPTER NINE

Mia

The present…

I come back to the present, back to the retired lighthouse Grayson bought to please me, back to my present location of the cozy chair we’d picked out together, but I’m not really here. I’m not fully outside the memory of the funeral, and I’m as confused as I was that weekend. When he’d seen me at the church, when he’d pulled me to him, I’d thought I’d been wrong to leave him. I’d thought I was wrong about so much and that I belonged with him.

And then there was the text message.

The message that made me leave again. The message that told me that he would always hurt me, but one look into his eyes, one touch of his hand, and I’d believed we were real and pure again. Like I do now. What am I thinking, being here? What am I trying to do to myself?

I stand up and rush toward the stairs as Grayson appears in front of me, so damn good looking, so damn perfect in so many ways. His hands settle on my waist, branding me. His touch, his presence, always claims me, even when I don’t want to want to be claimed. And yet I always do with him. Right now, I’m lost, that familiar, woodsy, delicious scent of him mixing with the ocean air and consuming me as easily as the man himself. “Looking for me?” he asks softly, backing me up until I’m pressed to the bright blue wall of the lighthouse, a color we chose together. We did so many things together, everything together. He was my life, my love, my best friend.

I thought.

I flatten my hands on his chest, hard muscle beneath my palms, and I intend to push him away, but instead, my palms settle there, they feel as if they belong there; the ease at which I touch him, defying our breakup and his betrayal. “Your meeting was short, too short. What are you doing about Ri?”

He studies me, those green eyes far too intelligent for my own good. “You were about to run again, weren’t you?”

“I never ran,” I correct him. “Leaving and running are two different things. I made a decision. If I leave now, it’s another decision.”

“A decision to leave me over a lie someone else set up.” He releases me and presses his hands to the wall, no longer touching me. “Obviously there’s a bigger picture here. If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t have believed the lie.”

“Lie? Regardless of the portions of this that you call a lie, there was more to me leaving, and you know it.” I curl my fingers on his chest. “I said I didn’t want to talk about this.”

“Just like you didn’t want to talk about it at the funeral?”

“Your father had just died, Grayson. I wasn’t selfish enough to make that about me. I cared about your father. I still loved you.”

“Loved?”

“If I didn’t still love you, do you think I’d really be here?”

He stares at me, his eyes suddenly hard. “Then why the fuck were you with Ri?” he demands, his voice low, hard, affected.

He pushes off the wall and turns away, walking to the half wall encasing the private sitting area, his shoulders bunched beneath his T-shirt. I inhale with the bitterness in his words and the pain beneath them. He hurt me, but I hurt him back and I don’t like that about me. It’s my turn to push off the wall. I close the space between us, and once again we’re side by side, facing the ocean, both of us gripping a railing when we could so easily be touching each other, too easily, and yet, not easy enough.

“I should never have gone to work for Ri’s company. I regret it. I’m sorry.”

We look at each other. “You were trying to hurt me. It worked.”

“No. No, I never wanted to hurt you.” I turn to face him, but he doesn’t face me. “I’ve thought a lot about this in the last twenty-four hours, especially on the drive up here. I asked myself if I went to Ri to hurt you, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you. I was trying to survive.”

Now he rotates to face me. “By going to him? By leaving my bed, not once but twice, and going to him?”

“I didn’t sleep with him. Ever. And I didn’t want to hurt you. I was desperate for a place to shelter that you didn’t own, and Ri’s world was the only place I knew you didn’t own.”

“You wanted away from me that damn badly?”

“No. I wanted to go back to you that badly and Ri’s world was the only world that made that unacceptable. It was the only place I was strong enough to just say no, but I see now that I made a mistake. I opened the door for him to go after you. Why are you here, and not talking to Eric and Davis about Ri? You need to deal with him. We need to deal with him.”

“We? That’s a loaded word.”

“I’m here for a reason,” I say. “I want to help.”

“You told me. I’m handling it.”

“What does that even mean?” I press.

“It means that I don’t go after many people, but he’s pushed my limits.” His jaw sets, hard. “You need to know that I plan to hurt him. I plan to make sure he can’t come for me, or you, again and that’s not on you any more than his actions are on you.”

“If you expect me to tell you not to hurt him, if this is a test of loyalty to you or him, I’m not failing that test. Because we both know it is. You need to hurt him because he will destroy you if he can. I’ve seen how he works. He’s not you.”

“Did you think he was? Did you think he could be?”

“Never, Grayson. I told you. I wasn’t with him.”

“But you went out with him.”

“Long after we broke up and yet, I still said your name when I was with him. I told you. I was alone. I was alone and—”

He shackles my waist and pulls me to him, the heat of his body enveloping mine. “You didn’t have to be alone. You were never supposed to be alone and neither was I.”

“You’re never alone.”

“I am always alone without you.” His forehead lowers to mine. “I stood in that church and willed you to appear.” He pulls back to look at me, his hand sliding under my hair. “I couldn’t breathe until you were there. That’s how much a part of me you are.” His lips brush mine, a feather-light touch I feel in every part of me before they part mine. We linger there a moment, breathing together, the way we haven’t in so very long. “You have to feel how much I need you,” he whispers, his hands sliding between my shoulder blades.

How much I need him, I think. “I’m still angry.”

“I’m angry with you, too,” he says, and his mouth comes down on mine, with his promise that the next time he kisses me he won’t stop in the air between us but it doesn’t matter.

Right now is just like after the funeral. We’re here. We’re alone. I have been so alone without him and I don’t want to think about the past. I want to think about the here and now and him. The muscles low in my belly clench. My nipples ache. My heart melts. He turns me and presses me against the wall of the lighthouse in a small alcove between the stairs and the cutout view.

He reaches for the zipper of my hoodie and the lick of his tongue consumes me. I moan into his mouth and somehow his hand has caressed up my sweater to cup my breast. I gasp and arch into the touch, but a rumble of thunder shocks me, pulling me back to reality. I grab Grayson’s hand. “Wait. Wait. Not here.” I press on his chest and when he pulls back just enough to look at me, I add, “This place is special and not for one reason. I don’t want to be here with you when we’re like we are now.”

“It is special, which is exactly why we need to be here, to remember who we are together. I know you don’t want to talk now, but we have to talk. It’s time, Mia. It’s past time.”

“I know,” I concede, “but not before we—not tonight. I don’t want to need to leave again. And I don’t want this place to become about a final goodbye.”

His lashes lower and he cuts his gaze, torment etched in his handsome face before he looks at me again. “Be clear, Mia,” he says softly. “We will not part ways in the middle again. I want you. I will fight for you, but we’re in or we’re out. We’re together or we both move on once and for all.”