Page 21

Chapter Fourteen

Daniel

I woke with a start, as if something had jerked me awake, though now that I was up, I couldn't say what. I blinked in the low light, taking in the unfamiliar room.

Through the window facing me, the sky was dark, the room dim, except for the soft glow from the lamp on the side table next to me.

For a split second, I forgot where I was and why, then memories flooded over me like a wave. The vanity collapsing under me when I’d tried to lean back against it. A trip to the ER for stitches. Oliver Mackenzie’s house. Grey and the best damn blow job I’d had in years.

Warmth spread through me like melted honey, leaving my limbs heavy.

Grinning to myself, I rolled onto my back and stretched.

Turning my head slightly, my gaze locked with Grey’s.

He sat on the edge of the bed and staring down at me intently.

A deep line grooved the skin between his brows.

His dark, wavy hair stood out at weird angles as if he’s been repeatedly running his fingers through it.

Unease slithered through me, chasing away that warm sense of contentment. Shit, maybe he was regretting what we’d done.

“Have you been sitting there watching me sleep this whole time? Because that’s pretty weird,” I teased, hoping that the intensity in Grey’s stare would let up a little. That he might crack a smile.

No such luck. If anything, his frown deepened.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need to ask you something.”

Apprehension tickled up my spine, and I sat up holding the blankets to my waist—which probably was unnecessary given everything we’d done a few hours ago, but this looked like the sort of conversation I should be having while wearing pants. If only I had any idea where they were. “Okay.”

“Back when I was here before, were you and Ryan seeing each other while we were seeing each other?”

This again? I might have scoffed at the ridiculousness of his question if I hadn’t noticed the way his jaw clenched or his pulse flicking at his throat. “I told you; Ryan and I were just friends. We were never into each other. Probably because we’d known each other since we were seven years old.”

His eyes narrowed, mouth pressing into a thin line. “I saw you together.”

“Saw us together doing what ?” I tensed at the heavy accusation in his voice. There hadn’t been anything for Grey to see. Ryan had been my best friend, and I still missed him every day, but there had never been anything romantic between us.

Grey’s gaze slid away from mine, and he plucked at the edge of the sheet. “He was… holding you, and you were leaning your head on his shoulder.”

I rubbed my forehead, struggling to picture what Grey saw—or thought he had seen. “Are you sure it was me?”

He swung his head around and pinned me with a furious stare. “Of course, I’m sure.”

When the hell had Ryan ever held me? We had never been all that physically affectionate. The occasional shoulder squeeze. I think the only times we hugged even was when he got married, when my mother died, and when I got the news about Ramona… Holy shit—was that what Grey had seen?

“Is that why we broke up?” I asked, feeling as if someone had kicked my feet out from under me. “Because you saw Ryan hug me, and you thought I’d been cheating with him?”

Grey held my gaze, and his throat jumped. “Did you?”

“I’ve already told you, I didn’t. I wouldn’t have done that to you.” I loved you. Clamping my mouth shut before the words could escape, I made this conversation even more awkward than it was.

“But I saw you.” There was something almost beseeching in his tone—but whether he was asking me to confirm what he believed so he could be sure I’d done what he’d thought all these years or prove to him he was wrong and I’d never betrayed him I couldn’t have said.

“You saw him hug me. I’d found out about Ramona, and I was upset—”

“And he’d hugged you because he was your friend, and why wouldn’t he?” Grey stood and began pacing.

“So, that’s it. You ended things with me because you thought you saw me with Ryan.” Hurt and anger tangled inside me until I couldn’t tell one from the other. I wanted my pants, and I wanted to get the hell out of there. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

Grey stopped pacing and looked right at me, his expression impossible to read. “Because someone had already told me they’d seen you together.”

“Who?” Who would have told him something like that, something so far from the truth?

He didn’t answer. Instead, he snatched a thin stack of folded papers from the side table and shoved them at me. I took the pages hesitantly, like they were a snake I was afraid might strike. “What is this?”

“Guilty confessions from a man who lied to us both.” Grey was seething. His dark eyes burned hot, his entire body practically trembling with rage.

I opened the letter, then looked back up at Grey. “This is from your father. Are you sure you want me to read this?”

Grey waved his hand. “Go ahead. It affects us both.”

Frowning, I started reading, then wanted to shrivel up when I saw how desperate Oliver had been to keep me out of his son’s life so I wouldn’t weigh him down like an anchor.

“He really didn’t think much of me.” My voice rasped as if I hadn’t used it in years.

“Keep reading,” Grey said, dropping onto the bed next to me. “He warms up to you at the end.”

I snorted when I got to the line about me being one of the best men I’ve ever known . Maybe he’d been starting to go senile, and I hadn’t realized.

When I finished, I folded the letter and handed the pages back to Grey. Before I could lean back, Grey cupped the side of my face with his hand, forcing me to meet his dark gaze.

“I am so sorry for everything,” he said earnestly.

I swallowed, though my throat suddenly felt tight. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It was a long time ago. I just wish you'd talked to me first. I hate that you went all this time thinking I did that to you.”

“I wish I did too.” I thought he might kiss me, and I wasn’t sure how wise that would be, but I was fairly sure I wouldn’t push him away if he tried. Instead, his hand fell away. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

I shrugged and leaned back against the headboard. “Sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Ramona?”

“I probably would have, eventually. After all, everything changed for me that summer, and fast. I should have told you, but I didn’t and for purely selfish reasons.

” I picked at a loose thread on the bedspread, pulling it tight and wrapping it around my finger until my fingertip turned purple before unwinding it again.

“Such as?” Grey prompted.

“When I met you, Ramona was already showing symptoms. We didn’t know what was wrong.

She was too young, I thought, to have to worry about anything like Alzheimer’s, but there were enough odd occurrences for us both to worry that something was wrong.

So she went to a doctor, they ran some tests and came back with early onset Alzheimer’s.

The thing is, the decline can be rapid, and it was for Ramona, and I was watching her fade a little more every day. ”

“I’m so sorry you went through that.” Grey shifted closer and took my hand, sandwiching it between both of his. “I wish I could have helped you through it.”

“You did,” I told him. “Every part of my life sucked that summer except when I was with you. I could let myself forget and feel like me when I was with you. There were no questions I didn’t have answers to like, what are you going to do?

I could escape from all that with you as if we were existing in our own bubble away from all the things I didn’t want to think about—at least for a little while. ”

Gripping my hand with one of his, he reached out with the other and brushed my hair back from my forehead. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

“You were. The time we spent together felt like the only thing keeping me together.” Until he’d gone, and everything we’d had just meant more loss. I ignored the ache in my chest. It had been a long time ago, and we’d both moved on—mostly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if reading my mind. His gaze, dark and intense, locked on mine. “I’m sorry I left the way I did. That I believed the worst so easily. That I didn’t talk to you first.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It was a long time ago.” After all, what happened all those years ago was no more Grey’s fault than mine. “It is what it is. We can’t go back and change the past, so there’s no point dwelling on it.”

Grey’s hand tightened around mine. “You’re right, we can’t change the past,” he drawled, as if caught up in his own thoughts. “But now we know the truth. We’d could try again—a fresh start.”

My heart stuttered in my chest, and everything inside me turned cold. “You can’t be serious.”

“I know it’s been a long time, but in spite of what we both believed, we still wanted each other.”

Wanting Grey had never been a problem. Even since he’d come back into my life and we’d been at each other’s throats, I couldn’t stay away from him.

But outside of mind-scrambling sex, he had to know this wouldn’t end with a happily ever after, and I knew I couldn’t go through letting myself love him, only to lose him all over again.

“We deserve to be happy, Daniel. My father’s lies stole years from us. We could start again now and make up for lost time. What do ya say?”

I shook my head and tried to swallow past the lump thickening in my throat. “You know it’s not that easy. It’s been seventeen years. We’re not the same people.”

“Of course, we’re not,” he agreed, impatience turning his voice urgent, and he leaned closer to me. “So, we get to know each other again. Despite what my father said, what I thought I saw, I never stopped thinking about you. Did you think about me?”

“I did,” I admitted. I’d loved him, and I had never really understood how everything had changed between us almost overnight. It all clicked into place now—how he’d gone from wanting to move to The Square with me to despising me overnight.

Yet as much as seeing the one bright spot in my life snuffed out before my own eyes, I’d still loved him.

Even now, I knew that if I let myself, I could fall in love with him all over again.

Just like I knew whatever Grey was feeling for me now—sentimental, nostalgia, or just plain old lust—it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.

He was Greyson Mackenzie, a successful businessman with more money than I would ever see in my lifetime. I was the same as I’d always been.

“We can start again, start over,” Grey said. “We should be together.”

“What your father did, lying to you, it was wrong, but he wasn’t wrong about me.”

Grey dropped my hand and leaned back as if physically recoiling from my words. “How can you say that?”

“ Look at me. I’ve done nothing with my life. I’m exactly where you left me.”

“My father was not right about you. He even acknowledged it in his letter.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe he was feeling guilty.” Grey opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “Look, this co-workers-partners-with-benefits thing, I’m fine with that, but anything more isn’t realistic. I just don’t belong in your life that way.” No matter how badly I wanted to.