Page 118 of Love Felt Like This

I wonder if he’s embarrassed that it’s me on his lap causing this to happen. I’m the woman he brought as a date only to stick it to my ex, and now Griffin is caught looking like he’s into me when it’s just normal reactions he can’t control.

“This is fine,” I repeat. “I’m in a pretty dress with makeup, and I’m moving in your lap, and…it makes sense. I’m not taking it personally.”

Griffin grips my hands tighter. His beard scratches over my bare shoulders.

Beau stares at me curiously, and Poe is laughing, and the music is too loud, and the butterflies in my stomach are raging and fighting and gnawing and—

“I don’t feel good,” I murmur.

Griffin disentangles our hands and grips my hips, starting to stand.

“Let’s get you to a bathroom,” Griffin says.

“She’s fine,” Beau says, reaching past Poe to grab my hand.

My stomach churns. “I don’t feel good,” I repeat.

Beau’s thumb strokes over my palm. Griffin’s fingers clutch the fabric of my dress, and his nostrils flare.

“I’m going to need you to remove that hand, or I will do it for you.”

“So angry,” Beau says with a smirk.

“Leave Griffin alone,” I snap, but the words strain to come out. I reach behind me to tap Griffin’s hip. “Griffin, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Tucking his palms under my knees, Griffin swings me into his arms. Easy. Effortless. He pushes past crowds of people toward that same hallway he took Poe to, shouting, “Move!” to nobody in particular.

He takes me to the men’s restroom, shouldering past the door and then depositing me onto the tile. Then he holds back my hair as I hurl into a toilet. I press my hand to my chest, securing Griffin’s necklace out of the way. After all, I promised him I’d keep it safe.

When we creak open the door to Griffin’s mansion, it’s who knows what time o’clock, I’m drained from puking out everything I’ve ever eaten, and I’m embarrassed from doing it again outside the limo in his perfectly manicured yard.

“I’m so sorry,” I whine.

“I hated that patch of grass anyway,” he says, gently coaxing me into the house.

Ava is already in bed. Maybe it was Nancy the nanny who took care of her.

“What?” Griffin asks.

“What?”

“You mumbled something about a nanny.”

“Never mind.”

Griffin escorts me down the long hall—Was it always this long?—and to the guest room. We stumble into the en suite bathroom. The light is too bright when he clicks it on, so amid my involuntary whines, he clicks it back off. He sits me near the toilet, pushes back my hair, and tucks it behind my ears.

“Greta told me not to mess my hair up,” I protest.

“I think this can be an exception.”

He pets the back of my head, strokes his thumb over my temple, and wipes under my mascara-streaked eyes. I’m sure I look like a total delight. Definitely someone to get a boner for, without a doubt.

I groan out loud.

“I need to go wake up Nancy,” he says. “But I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Nancy nanny?”