“Um, uh, I’m not sure,” I say, tripping over my words.
He straightens, a muscle in his jaw ticking before he cracks his neck. “I’m not looking for anything serious right now, Emma. I want to go with the flow.”
“Go with the flow?”What decade are we in?“As in friends with benefits?”
Grayson puts his hands in his pockets, about to answer, when Ben says, “Haywood, I need you out of the shot.”
I put a hand up to silence him. “Professor Hayes is answering an extremely important question right now, Ben. I need a minute.”
He scoffs. “You’re the boss.”
Looking back at Grayson, I catch his nostrils flaring. “He likes you, you know?”
My eyes widen, and I glare at him. “Oh no. You do not get to switch topics. Not when it’s something as important as where this is going. Besides, you don’t want anything serious. I’m assuming that means we aren’t going to be exclusively fucking each other.”
“I don’t share either, Emma,” he practically growls.
“Then what do you want?”
Grayson mumbles a curse and taps his foot. “I’m not sure, okay? Can we talk about this after the photo shoot?”
“God, you can be so…so…”
“So what?”
“Insufferable,” I grit out. “I swear, you drive me crazy sometimes.”
His sarcastic laugh catches Ben’s attention, and I give my coworker a reassuring smile before turning my focus back to Grayson.
“You drive me fucking nuts, Emma,” he whisper-yells. “You’re in my head all the fucking time, but I just went through a divorce, and I need some time.”
I flinch at his last statement. It sounds as if he is genuinely confused about how to feel, yet he said I’m in his head all the time, and that has to mean something.
“Why did you get a divorce?”
His eyes close, and he shakes his head. He’s been putting it off for too long, and I need to know. He takes a moment, and his lips tighten. “Off the record.”
“Of course,” I confirm.
“We got married too young, she moved to Europe for me, and that caused resentment throughout the years. It led to a lot of pointless fighting, and eventually we fell out of love with each other.” I don’t move, expecting something dramatic. “We were separated for a while, but it was over long before then. We finalized the divorce, as you already know, and moved on. We haven’t spoken in months, but overall, it was amicable and neither one of us holds any resentment toward the other.”
I stare at him wordlessly.That’s it?I mean, of course it means a lot, he was married to the woman, but why was he so reluctant to talk about it? It’s not even interesting enough to put in the article.
“Is that enough?” He continues to tap his foot impatiently.
“What’s her name?”
He hesitates for only a moment. “Chloe. Now is that enough?”
“Yes. Thank you for telling me.”
He gives me a quick dip of his chin. “As I said before, I need some time.”
Nodding, I close the container of powder. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeats.
“But, Grayson,” I speak quickly. His eyes bore into mine with impatience. “If all you want is something casual and you see absolutely no future between us?—”
