“How?” she asked, exasperated. “You were asleep when you reached out to hold me.”
Grayson refused to let her walk away without a fight. “We’re going to adjust,” he repeated, insistently. “There’s nothing we can’t figure out. Together.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wren stared at Grayson, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because it always dropped.
He merely stared back at her—then something dangerous flashed across his face. It wasn’t directed at her but at the man who’d hurt her, at the story she’d told, and the years she’d carried it alone. “I fucking hate what that man did to you, and I’m so sorry you’ve been alone and hurting all these years. But, Wren, I’ve told you before. I’m never leaving.”
There was that beautiful word again.
Never.
Wren didn’t have a response to that because…it sounded too beautiful. Too perfect, too good to be true.
However…she’d spent enough time with Grayson to know she could believe him.
No. More than that.
She trusted him.
She’d fallen hard for this man. Probably that very first weekend they’d spent together at the wine festival. And losing her heart to him hadn’t been hard, because he was so easy to love.
But for her, trust was so much more important. She realized that, except for her family, she’d never trusted anyone enough to share not only her secret…but herself.
Not Jake, not Charlie, not her high school or college friends.
No one except Grayson.
“What about the legend?”
She hadn’t meant to blurt that question out, but it was apparent, she still wasn’t quite finished fighting her fear that this couldn’t be real, that it couldn’t last.
“Legend?” Grayson asked—before the light came on. He grinned widely. “My family’s legend?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t know you knew about that.”
“Your cousins and Edith talked about it at book club one night,” she responded. “When we touched at the wine festival…”
“The world shook so fucking hard, I nearly fell over,” he said.
Wren blinked, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. “It did?”
“Jesus, yes! Which was problematic, because I thought you were Lark at the time. I think we can both agree that your sister and I would be the mismatch of the century. Even more so than her and Tommy.”
Wren put her fingers over her mouth, desperately trying to hold back a laugh. Because holy hell, was he right about that.
Grayson tugged her hand away. “Trust me when I say, we’ve definitely reached the point where we can laugh about the switcheroo.”
His words set her free, and she barked out a loud laugh, and he joined in, the two of them laughing for so long, they were soon gasping for air.
“You could never be with Lark,” Wren agreed, once she was able to talk again. “You’d kill each other within five minutes.”
“Never gonna be an issue, because the legend has spoken. You’re the one for me, Wren. You and only you.”
Her lip trembled, though this time, the tears threatening to fall were happy ones. She nestled into him, feeling that same sense of safety and comfort she’d experienced at the festival. “My world shook too,” she confessed. “I felt it the second you held me.”
