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Griffin sat down on the couch next to me and pulled one knee up, turning to face me. He looked completely at ease, whereas I was concentrating hard to keep my hand from shaking. I really didn’t want to slosh red wine all over his white furniture. He noticed and put a hand on my knee. “Relax. I’m not going to bite.” An adorable boyish grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Unless you want me to.”
I gulped down half the glass of wine.
Griffin arched a brow. “Feel better?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
He slipped the glass from my hands and set it down on the coffee table, along with his untouched one. Then he took both my hands into his and looked back and forth between my eyes. “You’re even more beautiful in person.”
Heat crept up my cheeks. “Thank you. I can’t believe you even recognized me. How old was I in the one photo you’ve seen of me? Twelve?”
Griffin looked down at our joined hands and squeezed. “I think we both have a lot to come clean about. So I’m going to start right now. I didn’t recognize you from the picture that you’d sent me in middle school. I hired a private investigator to follow you and take some photos of you.”
My eyes bulged from my head. “You what? When?”
“A few weeks ago. He took some pictures of you coming out of the post office. And then . . . he followed you across the country over the last week.”
Not knowing someone had been watching me made me suddenly feel very violated. I pulled my hands from his. “Why would you do that?”
Griffin raked his hands through his hair. “I wanted to see what you looked like.”
“I asked you to exchange photos. You were the one who said you didn’t want to.”
“I wanted to see you. I just didn’t want you to see me. But I guess you knew who I was all along, so the joke was on me anyway.”
My brows drew down. “What are you talking about? I only found out this morning who you are.”
He looked genuinely confused. “Then how did you happen to arrive on my block?”
“You left an eBay receipt in the bottom of the box of Furbys you sent me. It had a shipping address of Marchese Music. I figured that was where you worked.”
Griffin shook his head. “But if you didn’t know who I was, why did you drive all the way across the country?”
The fact that he’d even had to ask that question told me so much. This beautiful man with this big, beautiful house thought people were attracted to him for his fortune and fame. This time, it was me who did the assuring. I reached out and took his hand in mine, looking into his eyes as I spoke. “Because I had a crush on the boy who wrote me letters all those years ago, but I started to fall for the sweet man who seemed to like me for who I am—broken or not—and I needed to see if maybe we could have a chance if we met in person finally.”
Griffin leaned in a little closer. His eyes jumped back and forth between mine, searching for something. “You really had no idea who I was until this morning?”
I half smiled. “I hate to bruise your ego, Mr. Rock Star, but not only did I have no idea who you are, I’d never even listened to your music.”
Even though I’d just insulted him, Griffin smiled like my answer was the best thing he’d ever heard. His eyes lit up. “What if you came all the way out here, and I was homeless, bald, and had a few missing teeth?”
I covered my mouth and laughed. “That’s pretty much what I was expecting. You said your career choices had cost you more than you anticipated. So I thought maybe you were poor and ashamed about it.”
Griffin looked bewildered. He squinted. “And yet you drove three thousand miles anyway?”
I shrugged. “I liked you for you. I was willing to accept whatever your situation was. But don’t get me wrong. The fact that you look”—I waved my hand at his face—“like this . . . is a very nice surprise.”
Griffin wrapped his hands around the backs of my knees and tugged me closer to him. “Oh yeah? Are you saying you like the way I look, babe?”
Babe. I definitely liked that. I tried not to smile but failed miserably. “I guess you’re not so hard on the eyes.”
He cupped my cheek. “Is that so? Well, you’re not so bad yourself.” His eyes fell to my lips and he rubbed his thumb over my bottom one. “This pouty mouth. I spent hours staring at it as a teenager. You don’t even want to know all the things I used to fantasize about doing to it.”
