Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
“I don’t know, man. I wouldn’t have thought she’d take a job with him. Not Ri. She knows how much he hates you.”
I love you, she’d said on the phone days ago. More like she fucking hates me. “Leave,” I order softly.
“Grayson—”
“Eric, man, I love you, but get out of my fucking office. I need to be alone.”
“Right. I understand.” He turns and heads for the door. He’s just exited when Nancy, my forty-two-year-old, quiet, always smart assistant appears in the doorway, proving she’s not smart right now. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be about to speak to me. She shoves her black-rimmed glasses up her nose and clears her throat. “Courtney is here. She’s a—”
“I know who she is,” I snap because of course, I know Mia’s best friend. I look skyward and then say, “Send her in.”
I stay where I’m at, needing control in a way I normally assume in less obvious ways. Courtney walks into my office and shuts the door. She’s wearing funeral black, her blonde hair a mess, which tells me she’s a mess, which isn’t like her. “I know about Ri,” I say.
She reaches into her purse and closes the space between us and I’m aware of her hand in that bag, waiting to deliver another blow. “She gave this to me three weeks ago to give to you and I didn’t. I thought she’d take it back, but I can’t hold on to a hundred-thousand-dollar ring.” She pulls her hand from the bag and hands me Mia’s ring box.
“Two hundred thousand,” I say, not because the money matters to me, but because of the impact of Mia giving it back. She never wanted my money. Fuck. She’s perfect, and in this moment I know the war is lost. She’s gone. I’m not getting her back.
I take the box.
Courtney opens her mouth and shuts it. And then she turns and walks toward the door. A minute later, she’s gone and the door is shut and my mind goes where I don’t want it to go. The timing of the news about Mia with Ri and this ring are hard to ignore, no matter what Courtney claims about the timing. Mia’s made it clear to me that she’s with Ri now and I know she knows that’s the end for me, for us.
“Grayson?”
I blink back to the present to find Mia looking up at me. “Yeah, baby?”
Her eyes soften and warm. “God, I missed you calling me that. I just missed you, period. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You could have sold the ring to help your father.”
“Sell my ring? I wouldn’t sell my ring. It’s—special. It was—”
I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her mouth to mine. “I know you wouldn’t. I doubted you, too, though. You know that, right?”
“You thought I went to Ri to hurt you.”
“Yes. I found out you went to work for him the same day Courtney brought me back the ring.”
“But I gave her the ring the day we broke up.”
“She didn’t bring it to me.”
“She brought it the day you found out?”
“Yes. She did.”
She sits up and climbs on top of me, her hands going to my cheeks. “That must have felt like a ‘fuck you’ and it wasn’t. I would never—”
“I know. I should have known there was more going on than met the eye, but damn it, Mia, you should have known I wouldn’t fuck around on you. We were not as strong as I thought.”
“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I thought we were perfect.”
I turn her over, and lay her on her back, pressing my leg between hers, and I lean over her. “So did I. Maybe that was the problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re human. We’re flawed. We can’t be perfect. We need to remember that this time. We need to know that it’s our flaws, our imperfections, and how they come together to be perfect that makes us perfect. But we have to see the flaws and deal with them to get to perfect.”
“And what were our flaws?”
“That’s what we need to figure out, baby.” I stroke her cheek. “That’s what we need to figure out, and if we do, we’ll be stronger. We’ll be better this go around.”
“Promise me because I suddenly feel like the room is spinning like we’re uncertain.”
“I promise you that there is nothing uncertain about my love for you or my intention to keep you this time.”
She strokes my cheek. “I promise you that there is nothing uncertain about my love for you or my intention to keep you this time.”
I push off the chair and take her with me, carrying her to the bed, where I plan to hold her tonight and every night going forward, but I know that means dealing with our flaws. I know that means admitting we have them.