Chapter Twelve
Hayden
It was easy to open up to Grace. And ever since that movie we went to, I found myself wanting to do it more. Instead of cooping myself up in my room, I started enjoying more routine things with her. Quiet banter over morning coffee. Topical banter over lunch. And while her dinners were growing more and more terrible, I enjoyed winding down my days with her at the table. She really must’ve put her all into that first dinner she cooked for me, though. Because that meal had been spectacular.
My arm had finally healed and I was able to wheel myself around without pain. We had stopped the physical therapy on my arm completely and it was nice to feel a little more human. But the physical therapy in my hip was almost unbearable. I knew I had to prepare for my upcoming surgery, but it was rough. Thirty minutes of physical therapy and the pain alone had me sweating through my clothes.
Grace was an angel. Though that was something I wouldn’t admit to her. Didn’t want to fluff up that ego and kick up that attitude she had anymore than I already was. I took over cooking dinners from her so we could eat something a little more palatable, and she seemed to be grateful for it. The first night I cooked I whipped up steak and potatoes. The second night was a seafood linguini with a homemade white sauce, and the third night was a nice, juicy roast.
After that, she started assuming I was cooking dinner.
And the routine was nice.
We fell into a distinct dance. One that became more familiar and more enjoyed as the days rolled on. We woke up and had coffee before I would go clean myself up, then the two of us would sit together and read in the library until it was time for lunch. She’d pull out some things for sandwiches and I would grab some sides, then we would sit down and talk about the books we were reading. I found that she was a fan of old-school love stories. The kind where the man was a man and the woman was beautiful and succulent. The kind where a man knew exactly how to sweep her off her feet and the woman had no problems falling into his arms.
Her eyes lit up whenever she talked about them.
After lunch was an episode of NCIS to allow my food to digest, and then physical therapy was upon us. It was an hour of absolute torture, but I tried to focus on Grace’s hands. How they meandered up my leg and steadied my body as she rotated my hip joint. How her fingertips would slide into the band of my sweatpants and slowly pull them down my body. If I was lucky, her skin would graze mine, and that healthy flush her cheeks sometimes held would kick into overdrive.
Little by little, Grace was chipping away at the hard outer material I’d covered myself in after the accident.
After physical therapy was another clean-up session, only that one she would help me with. She would pull my shirt over my head and help me into a bath, and then I would discard my boxers once the water and the bubbles were covering my body. I wanted to pull her in with me. Strip her of her clothes and hold her against my body. I wanted to stroke my fingers down her neck and flutter them down her spine. I wanted to feel the curves of her body fill the crevices of my defunct one.
Just once.
Just one time to feel as if I was a man again.
I started dreaming about her at night. I’d see her innocent smile and her twinkling eyes and I’d wake up in a cold sweat. I’d reach for her in my dreams and end up pulling my pillow next to my body. She was permeating my entire existence, and it all started with that one damn dinner.
Why had I come out for that dinner?
It wasn't like me to be this captivated by a person. I made it a point to keep women at arm’s length for this exact reason. Women were distractions. And I couldn’t afford distractions with the company I was running. I finally had things back on track with the build in the Caribbean and my COO, Mike, had gone down there to set the record straight with that contracting company. I’d finally gotten Alicia promoted to Project Manager and I had just hired another receptionist that was being trained.
Things were finally looking up, and the last thing I needed was a distraction like Grace.
But every time I tried to push her away again, it didn’t work.
Suddenly, my mind was wandering to all sorts of things. We’d be sitting in the library and I’d look up and wonder if she’d let me sit beside her. We’d been doing physical therapy and I’d wonder if she would allow her hand to travel just a little to the left. To fall into the dip of my thigh. Whenever we were drinking coffee in the morning and she was staring off into space, I’d wonder if she would want this.
If a life in my penthouse apartment was something she would accept if offered to her.
She could wake up every morning and stare at the sun rising over the city like she did. She could fall asleep in my arms every night after I carried her to the bed myself. She could experience the feeling of being the woman she wanted to be instead of having to lose herself in those books simply to experience it.
I could give her the man she wanted.
The man she needed.
The man she craved.
But when I was back to being a billionaire with a company to run and constantly on-call and taking business trips, would she want all that? Would those kinds of moments be enough when I was called away during dinner dates or personal vacations or in the middle of arguments?
Would it be enough for a woman like her?
I saw the stolen glances. The moments where I thought she wasn’t paying attention. I knew she had her eyes on me. She played a good hand in trying to keep it concealed, but there were moments where she simply couldn’t. Moments where her hands would tremble as they massaged my bare thigh and moments where she would help me into the bath and I could feel her holding me a little longer than usual before putting me into the water.
She craved me. And I her.
Then, it changed. One morning I woke up and Grace wasn’t out there making coffee. In fact, the coffee pot looked like it hadn’t been touched. No mugs were out and no lights were on. Her favorite part of the morning was already beginning to wane and she was nowhere in sight.
And the panic that gripped my stomach was unbearable.
I wheeled through the house, throwing open every door to try and find her. The laundry room. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. My bathroom. I checked the library and behind the couches. I checked underneath the breakfast table and around the bend that separated the living room from the bedrooms.
Then I rolled myself to the bottom of the stairs and prepared to throw myself onto them.
If Grace was upstairs and she was hurt, I was going to get to her. Whether or not my fucking leg worked.
But before I could, I heard a key slip into the front door. I whipped around in my chair as my eyes hooked onto the door swinging open. And there, with her hair piled high and her makeup running underneath her eyes and her baggy clothes wrapped tightly around her body… was Grace.
Holding two cups of coffee.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “We’re out of coffee and I didn’t know. I hope that place up the street is good because that’s where I went.”
My heart slammed heavily against my chest as the panic began to recede.
Grace was okay.
She wasn’t hurt.
And I was way too attached.
“Hayden? You okay?”
Her voice snapped me out of it and I began rolling myself into the kitchen.
“We can go to the store later and get some more,” I said.
“Hayden, you seem upset.”
“Does the coffee have cream and sugar?” I asked.
I whipped my head around and saw Grace cock hers at me.
“Not yours, no,” she said.
“Good. Come sit. I’ll get us some fruit.”
“Hayden, are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I never said I was or wasn’t. Come and sit, Grace.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you if I did.”
“You didn’t,” I said quickly.
I drew in a deep breath as my eyes closed tightly.
“You didn’t,” I said as I let out a sigh.
“Okay,” Grace said meekly.
And it was the truth. She hadn’t worried me. She scared me. Frightened me.
Made me vulnerable.
And I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.