Chapter 3
The next morning, the plane accelerated down the runway. Grey glanced at the seat next to him when Evie began humming. He couldn’t hold back his chuckle, and he arched an eyebrow at her. “The Star Wars theme song?”
“Sorry,” she said, eyes crinkling with amusement. “I can’t help it. It’s so fitting, don’t you think?”
“You’re cute and amusing, that’s what I think.” He stretched out his legs, thrilled she was smiling again.
This morning when they arrived at the airport, Evie hadn’t been particularly happy to learn that when Grey bought his ticket yesterday, he’d upgraded both his and Evie’s ticket to first class. She’d taken it personally, probably thinking he was trying to buy her affection. But she’d been wrong. He simply hadn’t flown coach in his life, ever, and he didn’t plan on squishing himself into the tight seats today for no other reason than to avoid her annoyance.
She squinted at him, all tense in her seat, and then said, “Nope, I can’t hold it in.” She hummed the song again and then even did the arm movements of an X-wing Starfighter flying in the sky. “Okay, I’m done,” she said, laughing, once the plane leveled off.
He chuckled too, impressed that she wasn’t more guarded. So many women in his past took themselves so seriously, but she didn’t seem to be one of them. He liked that about her. When she needed to be serious, like on the job, she was, but then there was this side of her he’d never seen. Playful, sexy.
“I’m actually surprised you even know the Star Wars song,” she said, dragging him out of his thoughts.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He frowned, a little offended. “Do you honestly find me that stuffy?”
She regarded him, lips pursed, then she finally half shrugged. “Not stuffy necessarily, but not really a guy I’d imagine sitting on the couch, eating popcorn, and watching Star Wars.” She studied his face and then laughed softly, shaking her head. “Nope, sorry, I can’t picture it at all.”
“Why is that picture so unbelievable?” He honestly wondered.
“I don’t know,” she explained, searching his eyes again. “Too busy working. Too busy at fancy dinners. Too busy sipping scotch and smoking cigars.” She glanced out the window, having no idea how much those words impacted him.
She wasn’t wrong. That was his life, sort of. He’d grown up surrounded by wealth and extravagance and stuffiness of all kinds. Until he met his friend Maddox through another friend. Maddox showed him how true friends were with each other, not angling for some favor or looking to get in good with his mother, but real. He’d also introduced Grey to the world of wild parties and dark, sensual sex clubs of all kinds, including private parties that catered to BDSM.
“I have seen the Star Wars movies,” he told her, garnering her attention again. “I also liked them…and the popcorn. Honestly, Evie, I’m not as fancy as you think. My closest friend is a cop. I spend more time with him doing normal guy stuff, like eating chicken wings at a bar every Thursday night than drinking scotch and smoking cigars.”
“Interesting,” was all she said.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Again, in a good way or bad?”
“Good.” She gave a decidedly firm nod. “You’re proving very good at surprising me.”
“And that’s good, too?”
She laughed and nodded softly. “Very good.” She glanced out the window, and he could still see her smiling.
Though his smile was nowhere to be found. Now that he thought about it, and as his ears popped with the pressure change, he realized this was the first personal trip he’d taken in years. Sure, he’d gone on business trips a couple of times a week for clients who lived in different places across North America, but a personal trip? Not since his buddy Maddox and he went to San Francisco back in college for a fun week at the four luxurious sex clubs they have there.
Breaking into his thoughts, the flight attendant stopped at their seats and asked, “Something to drink?”
Grey glanced at Evie, and she said, “Coffee, please.”
“One milk and a little sugar for her,” Grey added. “Black for me.”
The flight attendant smiled, accepting the order, then moved to the next couple behind them.
When he looked at Evie again, her eyes were narrowed. “And just how do you know how I take my coffee?”
“Because you worked for me.”
“Seriously?” she asked, eyes wide. “You remember what I take in my coffee? Damn, Grey”—she leaned her head back against the headrest and grinned at him—“you better not be too good, or you’re going to start making me look bad.”
He didn’t want to put her in a poor light, but he definitely wanted to make himself look better. He never regretted the man he was or made a single apology for the life he led, but somehow, the way Evie seemed to see him got right under his skin. “So,” he said, getting his mind off things he couldn’t control at the moment, “tell me the history of the people I’ll be meeting this weekend.”
She sighed, keeping her head on the headrest, eyes on him. “I guess you need that information, huh?”
“A little backstory would be good for our relationship to be believable.”
She hesitated and blinked. “We’re in a relationship?”
He nodded. “As far as all the people at the wedding know, we are. You can hardly look like you own the world if all I am is a short-term piece of man candy on your arm.”
“So?”
“So we’re in a relationship,” he confirmed. “No one needs to know it won’t go beyond this weekend.”
She hesitated. Then, “Oh, my God!”
He wasn’t sure what caused her face to tighten like she’d eaten a lemon, but suddenly, she dropped her head into her hands and mumbled something.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” she said, lifting her head and looking at him again, eyes tight, cheeks flushed pink. “I mean, honestly, this entire thing is crazy!”
“Why crazy?” he asked, not seeing it that way at all. “There is nothing wrong with sweetening your life a little for this weekend so that you take what could be a shitty situation and make it better for you. At the end of the day, you’re not hurting anyone, but lessening the hurt you feel. In my eyes, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.”
She pondered and then sighed, her shoulders lowering. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course, I am.” He winked. “Now, tell me more about these people so I understand all this.”
Her lips parted to reply, but the flight attendant placed her coffee down on her tray table and then delivered Grey’s. “Thanks,” she said with a smile to the woman. She sipped her coffee, then explained to Grey, “It’s actually not all that complicated, to be honest.”
“I find that incredibly hard to believe,” he said, wrapping his hand around the mug. “Your best friend is marrying your ex-boyfriend. There has to be some complication there.”
She shrugged, giving a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “My ex’s name is Seth, and we dated from the time I was fifteen until right before college.”
“I take it you broke up when you went to school?” Grey asked, then sipped his piping-hot coffee, appreciating the touches of hazelnut.
She nodded. “You know, it was funny at that time, but when I moved to Seattle…”
“Sorry,” he interjected, needing to fill in the missing pieces of her life in case anyone asked him. “Where did you live before Seattle?”
“Grand Rapids.” She picked up her coffee again, taking another small sip before addressing him. “I decided on Seattle for schooling, and Seth wanted to stay in Michigan.”
“You didn’t want to do the long-distance thing?”
She shook her head, hugging her hands around her mug as the plane bounced with the turbulence. “We thought it would make things complicated. But you know”—she paused, her gaze darkening, lost in a memory—“I hadn’t thought it was a deal breaker for us at the time either.”
That darkness in her eyes, that pain…Grey didn’t like it. “What do you mean?”
She blinked, washing away any hint that talking about this brought up painful memories. “I mean, I figured we’d take some time for ourselves, finish schooling and all that jazz, and then I’d move home and marry him.”
“You were that sure about him?”
She inclined her head. “I was that sure about him.”
Even though Grey came from a happy home, where his mother and father had had an incredible marriage before his father passed away, he’d never pictured himself as a one-woman man. Marriage was an endgame, and he’d never wanted to take part in that with anyone. “So, then, what happened?” he asked, placing his coffee cup on the table in front of him.
She glanced at her coffee mug, drawing in a long, deep breath, obviously steadying herself for the conversation ahead. “It was the Christmas before I was supposed to move home. That winter was bad and, God, I remember how pretty Grand Rapids was then. All the ice and snow…it was a perfect winter.” Suddenly, she laughed quietly and looked at him, eyes haunted. “I guess those aren’t the details you wanted to know.”
“Actually, I do want to hear those details,” he corrected. “It tells me a lot about you.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “What could it possibly tell you?”
It tells me everything… “That in an obviously dark memory, you’re still able to see the beauty in life.”
She stared at him for a long time, looking at him, completely unguarded. “You know, I never really thought of it like that, but it was a dark time. A very dark time in my life.”
Grey forced his hand not to clench into a fist, an odd burn to protect her overwhelming him. “Did you find them in bed together?” he guessed.
She smiled softly. “My face is that easy to read, huh?” She picked up her coffee, and he noticed the shake in her hand when she raised the coffee cup to her mouth.
After a long sip, she continued. “I went over to my best friend Holly’s house to surprise her. You see, we’ve been friends since we were seven years old. We were as close as two friends could be, and my going to a different college really hurt her. So I wanted to make it up to her over the holidays.” Her eyes went distant again; voice took on a chilly tone. “I didn’t tell anyone that I was coming home. So, I went there, opened her door, and there they were…”
“I take it you lost it?” Grey asked, knowing he would have.
She snorted softly, shaking her head. “I think I was too shocked at the time to do much of anything. I stood there while they scrambled to get their clothes on. And then after…well…how could I hate them?”
Grey’s brows rose. “How. Could. You. Hate. Them?”
“I left them,” she said and nodded, staring at the back of the seat in front of her, misty-eyed. “They looked to each other for comfort. They told me it didn’t happen on purpose. They didn’t seek it out, but it just kinda…happened. They fell in love.”
Grey already hated these people, and he hadn’t even met them. “I take it you accepted their admission as somehow acceptable?”
“Of course, I did,” she said, wiping at her eye, erasing the moisture there. “What they told me felt like the truth. We all sat and talked, and it was clear to me that they were madly in love, and I loved them. How could I hate them for being happy?”
Grey glanced up at the light above him, feeling the air conditioning blowing on his face as he gathered his thoughts. He wouldn’t have been so kind to these people, but that was his opinion, and he wouldn’t shove his on to her. In a small part of his mind, he could understand where she came from, even if he wholeheartedly disagreed with her.
When he looked back at her, he found her uneasy eyes on him. “Your reaction speaks of how you love,” he told her. “And it is clearly without restraint. It also shows that you’re fiercely loyal. That’s something to be admired. But do you think it’s wise to swallow your pain to appease others?”
“No, you’re right, it’s not wise, it’s probably something every therapist would say not to do.” Again, she inhaled deeply and then blew the breath out slowly. “But I choose to ignore my pain to allow them to be happy because I’m strong enough to do that.”
He pondered that and then shook his head, still disagreeing. “Listen, I’m not judging, but I am wondering if they are really worth the damage to your soul?”
She paused, considered, and then half shrugged. “At the time, I thought so.”
“And now?”
“Now”—she gave a soft smile devoid of any emotion—“so many years have passed, that it no longer matters.”
“It should still matter,” he stated. “Once a stain on your soul, always a stain, unless you cleanse it.”
“Maybe.” She glanced out the window.
He let the silence settle in and took a sip of his coffee, thinking everything through, then wondered something else. “Explain something to me. If what you’re telling me is true and you’ve accepted them being together, then why the tears? And why did you agree to my idea of making them believe you’re fine and have a perfect guy of your own?”
She gave a tight smile. “I said I was okay with their relationship, but that doesn’t mean it won’t sting to watch their love story play out all weekend as I stand off to the side.”
“Which is exactly what’s unforgivable,” Grey muttered.
Warmth filled her expression. “So, what are you saying? That you would have hated them?”
“I would have hated her, and she would have felt an inch tall by the time I was through with her,” he said, implicitly stating his view of all this. “And I would have beat the shit out of him.”
Evie cocked her head, her eyes searching his. “All because they chose to love each other and it ended up hurting me in the process? You wouldn’t have been able to forgive them?”
“No, Evie,” he stated firmly. “I would have never forgiven them. And I certainly wouldn’t have stood up for their fucking wedding.”
“Well, I guess they should be glad I am not you,” she said with a laugh, obviously to lighten the mood. “Anyways, will you play nice this weekend?”
He arched a brow at her. “Do you want me to play nice?”
“I need you to play nice.”
“Then around them, I’ll be on my absolute best behavior.”
She paused, regarded him, then gave him a look. “Why do I get the feeling that your best behavior might not be up to my standards?”
His arched brow rose higher. “I told you I’d be nice to them, I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“Hmm.”
“But, Evie,” he said with a grin, “playing nice isn’t really in my plans when it comes to you. As a matter of fact, nice is the last thing you’re going to be thinking when I’m between your thighs.”