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“Back then he drew on my hip and I had it converted into a tattoo.”
“He didn’t just draw on a million girls, did he? He remembered you.”
“Not at first. I wasn’t taking any chances and kept it covered with makeup. But we were in the hot tub and there was some vigorous towel drying and more sex and he must’ve noticed the makeup had gotten rubbed off while I was asleep. He thought he’d bruised me, so he looked closer.”
“Potentially bruising sex. I am in heaven.”
And Mena was in purgatory. Keeping her job only made her feel worse, as if it sanctioned her behavior. She had to make Caroline see what a loathsome person she was.
“What’s worse is that all the way back when he was drawing on my hip, he’d wanted more. He told me he remembered Philly as the one who got away and still I lied about who I was to him. I behaved unforgivably.”
“He was devastated.” Caroline clutched both hands to her heart. She was missing the point. Mena was going to have to hammer it home.
“I betrayed his trust and our history. I humiliated him. I made him distrust me in every way, including my financial advice. He was furious and he has every right to be.”
Caroline’s expression changed. She wasn’t the sleep-deprived executive on mat leave in need of entertainment anymore. “Are you worried what was once consensual might become vindictive?”
“No. Before he found out the truth, he volunteered to come in and talk to you about it. He wouldn’t hurt me back.” That wasn’t Grip. “I’m worried I’ve lost the only man I ever loved.”
Caro
line bent forward and picked up her shoe, waved it Mena. “That’s not going to happen.” She put the shoe on. “You were right when you said you had a talent for getting what you wanted. You have always applied that to your work with clients. You need to think this through. Put a strategy together. If you’re genuinely sorry and if he’s the man you think he is, and you find the right way to apologize and mean it, he’ll forgive you.”
Mena frowned. Grip’s anger had been a current in his body, hot, sparking. She’d seen how the light in his eyes had gone dark.
“My job is making sure our client understands we know we messed up and we will make it right. Your only job right now is to go get the man you’re in love with and ask for another chance.”
She’d felt sick. She’d felt anger with herself. She’d been unable to sleep and unable to be still and now Mena felt tears queue in her eyes. Grip would never trust her. He would never want her again. And as unexpected as it was, she was in love with him.
“I don’t know how.” She looked at Amelia who opened her eyes, the deepest blue, and smiled.
“That’s probably wind,” Caroline said, scooping to rub the baby’s cheek and pick up the carrier. “Your suspension starts now. I’ll review your investment plans, which I know will be in good order, and ensure Grip is comfortable with our advice and continuing as an S&Y client.”
Caroline moved to the door and Mena came out from behind her desk, body wavering, dizzy with emotion. She would pay in career terms, but the cut was far less deep than she’d expected. She might bleed forever over losing Grip.
At the door, Caroline paused. “It would be all shades of wrong if I made getting Grip back a condition of your continued employment.” Amelia opened her eyes and looked at Mena in horror, her bottom lip trembling. Mena felt that horror up and down her spine. “But I’d be super pleased to see that level of tenacity from someone we’d still consider for partnership one day,” Caroline said.
Mena would’ve wailed in distress, but Amelia got there first.
TWENTY
Grip stumbled off-stage, heat steaming from his body, skin glossed with sweat. It’d been an indulgence to close the show on a ratshit, held together with gaffer tape and glue, upright piano, and he’d played it literally to pieces. The backboard had fallen off and the damper pedal broke. He’d thumped it so hard, one of the casters shot straight through the toe-block, and it’d lurched to one side.
He’d played through it all, lucky jeans on, shirt off, effortless, first to stunned silence and then as the rest of the band and all the other artists performing in the charity concert finale joined in, to whistles, screams and thunderous stadium-shaking applause.
It wasn’t Beethoven but it was his and he’d fucking loved every minute of it. He was fully alive again, straight in his head again, as if he’d finally sweated the deceit and disappointment of Philomena Grady out of his system for good.
One of the boys was probably going to take a swing at him. They’d walked this though, but since this was a hastily thrown-together gig, there wasn’t a proper rehearsal, and no one had heard him play. They’d all heard him now and he wasn’t going to silence that part of himself again.
Evie got to him first, from her spot at the side of the stage where she’d stood to watch Jay perform and to see Layla Flowers sing one of her new songs.
“You sneaky weasel.” The punch she threw at his bicep slid off harmlessly. “Where did that come from?”
He shrugged, tamed his smile, trying to come off way cooler than he felt. “I’m a deep guy. I have hidden, you know, depths.” And wings on his feet to soar above them.
“They’re not hidden now. Knew you played, but that,” she shook her head, “that was wildfire. Abel is going to rip you a new one.”
Abel had never been interested in using a piano and Grip had never pushed the idea until this concert had come up, giving him the perfect excuse to indulge his whim. In the rush to get organized, no one had much cared and the change-up had seemed like something fun to do for one night when the stakes were so low.
