Page 47 of The Dis-Graced

“You’re going to be alright, Gracey. I know you’re scared, that moment doesn’t have to define your career.”

I know the words are meant to be nice, but it piques my anger. I force a smile and remind myself it’s not his fault that he believes these things. Heck, I’d think I was a whore too. “I hope your brother is okay,” I finally muster, hoping it will change the subject.

Drake downcasts his eyes. “He’s not. He hasn’t been for a while. It’s a well-kept family secret that he just can’t function, but for some reason, I thought this time, he’d succeed.”

“Can you, you know, get him help?”

“I wish it were that easy. My mother got so fed up with him that she sent him to a resort a family friend owns. It has all the creature comforts he could ever want, but it doesn’t have heroin.”

I blink, trying to process what he just told me. As a teen, I was offered drugs, but never in a million years would I have taken one because I know the price people pay for addiction. The fact that Devon Dallanger has everything he could ever want, yet he chooses to drug himself into a stupor, is shocking to me.

“Grace, I admire the heck out of you,” Drake suddenly says.

“Oh?”

“I mean, God, what a fucking ass I was. I should have done more for you. Something. I just never thought to.”

“I wasn’t yours to take care of, Drake.”

“But you are now.”

He’s looking at me so intensely, I’m a little afraid, not just of him, but of me, and how my body is responding to him. It’s like he’s the sun, and my body is a plant opening up for him, taking in his warmth and radiance. But if he burns too intensely, I’ll be destroyed.

“Grace,” he says, his hand finding my neck, his lips parting.

“Drake,” I say in a shaky voice.

He’s breathing so heavily, and I’m barely breathing at all. God, I want him, more than I ever wanted Frank.

“Hey…” a voice calls.

We jump in shock, and look over and see Devon standing in the kitchen doorway.

“I don’t want to go back to that life…but I can’t return to the island. I need help, Drake. No one else will give me another chance.”

I get up, barely making it out of the chair without falling.

Drake grabs my wrist. “Grace.”

“It seems like you guys have a lot to talk about, so I’m going to sneak back into my room.”

I dart away before Drake can say anything else. I just can’t handle any interaction with that man, not when I’m so unsure of how I will react.

Before I enter my room, I set my phone on a shelf and say, “ALAN?”

“Yes, Grace?”

“Thanks!”

Chapter 13

Drake

Sitting at a table with my brothers Dalton and Devon is quite possibly the last place I want to be on a Monday morning, but I’m convinced that what I’m doing is the right thing, and I hope Dalton agrees.

Dalton refuses to so much as glance in Devon’s direction, and Devon has all the personality of a sad, abused puppy.

“I think if we just gave him some small jobs to keep him occupied while he’s in a program—”