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Grant laughed and the sound was music to my ears. “You were beautiful. You had a light about you, you were smart and funny, and your smile lit up a room.”
I shook my head. “I had no idea.”
He smiled as his hand fell to my hip. He stroked my skin with his thumb and it shot electricity up my spine. A simple touch from him was all it took to send my body into a frenzy.
No man had ever done that to me before.
“Guess I hid it better than you did,” Grant said, grinning.
“What my father did was wrong, Grant.”
“It was. Especially after they took me in the way they did. I wouldn’t have acted on my crush. I respected them too much to do something like that under their roof. And I figured, with time, your crush would’ve faded.”
His eyes grew far away as I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“I didn’t want to upset your parents. They had been everything to me at the time. What they pulled me out of with my parents? I owed them everything for that.”
“But you don’t owe them anything now,” I said.
“I don’t want you to hate your father for kicking me out.”
“That isn’t your call.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
I raised my head up and caught his gaze as he situated me on his hips. His hands gripped my waist, and he held me steady as his eyes bored into mine. I’d never seen him so serious around me. I was beginning to worry about what was coming next.
“I don’t want you to hate your father for kicking me out. But I do want you to be upset with him for trying to control you. That’s what this was about. Your father didn’t kick me out because he thought I was fooling around with his daughter.”
“He didn’t?” I asked.
“No. He kicked me out because he thought I would become a distraction for you, and he said you couldn’t afford that.”
I shook my head in anger.
“Your father kicked me out that day not because he thought we were together, but because he thought the idea of your crush could lead you away from a path he was determined for you to walk.”
If I hadn’t been so tired of being so fucking angry with my family, I would’ve called him right then and there. But my body was drained, and I could tell Grant only wanted me to listen.
So, I did.
“Be angry at that. But don’t hate him. Hate controls you. And after a while so does anger. You’re a strong woman, Theresa, and whatever you choose to do from here on out, I’ll support you. But don’t succumb to yet another control factor. Don’t let your anger and your hatred manipulate the conversation and the decisions you make. If you want to be free—truly free—then find a way to move forward.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked.
His eyes dropped to my chest before he pulled me back into him. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed my head into the crook of his neck. He stroked my hair and kissed my cheek, allowing the sounds and smells and sensations of the ocean to drape over our bodies.
“Not forward enough,” Grant said, murmuring. “There was one thing I just could never let go of.”
Then he kissed me on my cheek again, and I felt what he was trying to communicate.
Grant had never moved on from me.
And I guess, in a way, I had never moved on from him.
But that still didn’t change what I needed to do next.
It still didn’t change the fight I knew was coming.
