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His forehead settles on my forehead. “I keep seeing that gun in his hand, at your head.” He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. How are you?”
“It’s not just about me, Grayson. It’s about you, too.”
“How are you?” he repeats. “How are you really?”
“Remarkably good, but you’re not.”
“If you’re good, I’m good.”
My rejection is instant. “No. No, you’re not. And I’m probably not, either. I have some sort of barrier up, a wall that I’ve pushed all this behind. I’m not sure which is better. You with no wall or me with one that isn’t allowing me to deal with this at all. I wish—” so many things, I think.
“You wish what, baby?” His voice is softer now, velvet meant to soothe my nerves. He is always about me and that is why I have to be about him. He needs that. He deserves that.
“I wish we could be here for weeks on end and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. But I also wish for our life back, completely back. I want to be in our apartment. I want to live our life. I want to find our routine again. There’s security in those things, Grayson.”
“There is,” he agrees. “But when we go back, the press won’t be gone. This Ri situation won’t be gone. Are you sure that you’re ready for that?”
“I have a deep need to be past this. I want to ride this storm and get past it. And your staff needs to see you. They need to know Ri and his attacks on your firm have no impact.”
He skims fingers through my damp hair. “You’re sure?”
“I am,” I say, but again, I’m cautious not to make this just about me. “What do you want, though?”
“You. All I want is you, safe, and happy.”
“You have me, safe, and happy. So, we go back?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “We go back.”
I kiss him and smile. “Good. I can show off my ring.”
This earns me his smile and I watch the tension in his shoulders slide away. I’ve made him happy. And that is what I want.
CHAPTER THREE
Mia
Grayson and I sit at the island facing each other, sipping our coffee and talking about his father, with shared smiles and laughter between us. It’s a magical moment in time that has successfully crushed those demons that he’d been battling upon my entry into the kitchen, and left me with the man I love. The man who cares about people. The man who is filthy rich and never acts as if he deserves it. The man who would die, and literally kill for me, and yet, I’d dared doubt him. I do not believe I will ever forgive myself for slighting our love in such a way. I’m fighting the need to ask him if he’s sure he will when his cellphone buzzes with a text message.
His expression doesn’t change, but I don’t miss the subtle tensing of his jaw, and that’s before he even he reads the message. A sign that he’s expecting bullets to fly, that perhaps he doesn’t think this Ri thing is over. Reluctantly it seems, he picks up his phone, reads the message, types a reply, and sets it back down.
“Blake, and his team at Walker, want to update us on the Ri investigation at his office and talk through a full security plan until this mess completely passes.” He glances at his watch and then me. “It’s ten now. He’s sending an escort to take us to the airport at one.”
I study the handsome lines of his face. “What else?”
“Nothing else.”
“You’re turned off. I saw it happen.”
He catches my hand and kisses it. “It’s going to be a week or two before we find our sweet spot back home. You know that, right?”
“You mean because of Ri and the press?” I clarify, just to be sure I know where his head is right now.
“Yes. Because of Ri and the press. You say you’re okay, Mia, but there’s no way you can be unaffected by what happened with Ri in that stairwell. Blake suggested you talk to a counselor.”
“I don’t need to see a counselor,” I say, dismissing the idea quite emphatically. “I’m fine. Stop worrying.” My coffee is gone, so I drink his. “But I do think we should talk about that case I’m bringing over with me. The Wittmore case.”
“How can I forget Mitch Wittmore, the billionaire tech genius, being killed by his wife?”
“In self-defense,” I remind him.
“I remember the details. She was a battered wife.”
“Yes and I believe her. When you see the file, you will as well.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We’re trying to get rid of the press. He was Mitch Wittmore. This case will bring more press, not less.”
“Months from now,” he says. “And we as a firm are used to that kind of press.”
