by Kris Jayne
Tears hovered in his eyes.
“You’re trying not to lie to her, so this is your only option,” I said and rubbed his chest, then kissed his bare shoulder.
“And Dad wanted to chat. I had to make up some excuse about having promised Grace I’d read her a bedtime story but not having much time. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few days.”
“Just tell him that we need to lock ourselves away and knock out work before I head back to Dallas on Sunday. Then, you don’t have to worry about getting through morning coffee with him and Carter until Monday.”
“Or worry about running into Marisa.”
The mere mention of her name made him tense up like he wanted to punch something. I knew he wasn’t attracted to her, but the fact that she could get to him at all triggered an irrational jealousy in me. Griffin and I hadn’t talked about it, but since he’d come home from confronting Marisa, he had stopped talking about “if” Grace was his daughter. Something in his ex’s demeanor, arguments, and tone had erased his doubts. It was still possible Grace wasn’t his, but Marisa sure thought she was.
I wanted to avoid his possible baby mama myself. Being with Griffin was going to mean dealing with her. Birthdays, holidays, graduations—all sitting across an elegantly styled dining table from that duplicitous little…I had to stop it with the slut-shaming epithets. Nevermind the instantaneous flood of synonyms for “harlot” that poured into my head every time I thought of her.
“Good idea. We could even take a couple of days and head to the beach and stay the weekend. Hang on.” He opened an app on his phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Finding a place to stay.”
“Now?” I leaned over to see his screen.
“I want to see what might be available to rent tomorrow. Let’s just see.”
My mind went to all the research I’d do before staying in someone’s rental house. The reviews I’d have to read. The comparison shopping. The—
“Found one. Pictures look amazing. The tool will let me book it for arrival tomorrow after four. We could drive out at noon and stay for a couple of days. It’ll be too cold to be on the beach, but look at the view.”
He showed me the pictures on the listing, and I smacked his leg. “We can’t just pick up and head to beach.”
“Why not?”
“The idea of packing up for the beach and going out there and then hurrying back here on Saturday for my flight Sunday gives me heartburn.” I clutched my chest.
“I move fast when I know what I want,” he said and crooked his finger for me to come closer. I leaned over, and he slid his hand under my shirt. He splayed his hand on my hip, played with the hem of my underwear, and kept talking.
“You’re right. I was struck by the idea of having you all to myself between now and Sunday. Just us. I hate that you’re leaving me.”
He bent forward and gave me a languorous kiss.
The slight stubble on his face burned, but I loved the feel of it under my fingers. How was I going to go back to Dallas and then head to France and not see him until God knew when?
I pulled away and sighed. I had to get back to my regular life. Vivienne and I traded emails the past few days, and I lined up clients for April via video conference. Dallas was where my business was. My home.
“How much longer are you going to be here, do you think?” I asked, swinging my legs atop his and scooting onto his lap.
“The board meeting is in mid-April, but I’ll be done with what my father needed by the time you get back from France. I figured I’d get back to Dallas around the same time you did and then come back for the meeting. That’ll just be for a few days.”
“Oh, good,” I said, more relaxed.
He scowled. “We’re not going to see each other for over a month. I’m not thrilled.”
“It’s just I thought it might be even longer. That you’d be here through the meetings and then with the test—”
He cut me off. “Nah, I gotta get back and see my girlfriend.” He trailed a finger down my thigh over my knee and down my shin. His chest swelled then fell in a rush. “She’s got great legs.”
It was a distraction. I stilled his hand with mine. “Then, what? Have you thought about it?”
“The ‘what if’s’ kill me, Delilah. I can’t think about what I’m going to do about my living situation until I know.” He squeezed my calf. “I’ll know by Monday if not sooner.”
“You’re lucky, you know. Back in the day, they’d likely never be able to tell you—especially since you and your dad…sorry. The whole thing is awful.”
He spread his legs so my ass was cradled with his left leg at my back and my legs curled over his right. I leaned into his chest, and our lips met again.
“How are you with this?” he asked.
“I’m fine. It’s not about me.”
He pressed me between his legs. “I want you in my life, so yeah, this is about you. Tell me what you think about all this mess and about how fast you want to run away.”
I played with the fine hairs on his chest. “If…whatever news you get, I’ll be here for you. I like things nailed down, but I’m not the runaway type.”
“I know. I love that about you.”
My skin fired like a struck match, and I closed my eyes, summoning the courage to say I how I felt. “You might be stuck with me,” I joked.
“Good.” He kissed me. “Because I love you. Full stop.”
Then, he pulled my face to his, and we touched noses.
“I love you,” he said again.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he put a finger over my lips.
“Shh. Don’t say anything back right now. I just wanted you to know. I thought I knew what love is and how it felt. I see how wrong I was before, and now, how I feel is clear even if what I’m going to do about it isn’t. Okay?”
Griffin’s words relieved me, yet left me more lost and confused all at the same time.
“You don’t want me to tell you that I love you?”
He sighed, and a faint gloss of tears returned to his eyes. “I want to give you time to think about us. I figure you have a spreadsheet somewhere tracking the pros and cons of Griffin Kelso, and with all the cons stacking up, I had to make sure I got something big in the pro column.”
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
“‘I love you’ is big,” I said.
He ground his crotch into my ass. “That’s not all that’s big.”
“No jokes, Funny Boy.” I held his face and brushed my lips across his cheek and stared into his eyes. “I love you, too.”
Rather than say anything else, I fell back and pulled him to me.
Chapter 27
Griffin
I got the news earlier than expected on Friday afternoon.
Staring at the screen in front of me, my mind and body buzzed from the expected, but still stupefying, truth.
I was a father.
Delilah hugged me from behind over the kitchen chair. “You finally have an answer.”
“I think I knew. I felt connected to Grace the minute I saw her.”
Her little face swam in my mind. Her curious eyes. That little candy cane sticker. Her sadness at having a big brother whom she never met. She loved her family and having all of us together as much as Dad did.
And she loved my father. Her father—as far as she knew.
I hated Marisa and what she’d done, but she wasn’t wrong that Grace might hate me for ruining her family.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything to anyone,” I wondered aloud.
“Marisa’s going to want to know the results.”
“If I told her I was dropping this whole thing, and I don’t think she’d care about the results.”
Delilah’s arms disappeared from around my neck, and she shrieked, “Drop this? You can’t drop this. She deserves to know the truth.”
I dropped my face into my hands. “I know. Dad d
oes, too. But I keep thinking about how her life is good. She loves her family—including Marisa. Do I want to be the reason that all blows up?”
“Wouldn’t Marisa’s lies be the reason?” Delilah volleyed the question back to me.
I shoved away from the table and turned in my chair to look at her. “Does it matter? Fact: Grace has a mother and a father and a brother and life that is solid. Fact: I’m going to drop a bomb on that life.”
Delilah kneeled beside me with a panic and beseeching in her eyes that I’d never seen. “Don’t lie to her. She’ll live her entire life thinking one thing is true, and if it ever came out that everyone around her was telling her a fundamental lie, there’s no telling the damage that could do. The truth might be hard, but it’s always better than a lie.”
Is it? I didn’t say it, but Delilah could read the doubt on my face.
“It is, Griffin. And think about your dad. He deserves to know. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who wants to wander through life in ignorance.”
“He’d want to know the truth and then deal with the fallout head on. That’s the thing. I know exactly what’s going to happen. My dad can be loving and kind, but he can also, God love him, be an absolute prick. If you’re his enemy, he will destroy you. A divorce is not going to go Marisa’s way. They have a prenup, and as infuriated as he’ll be, Dad will leave her with nothing. He’ll get custody of Grace and Gregory and never look back. I’m not sure that’s good for Grace either.”
“You have a better chance talking your father into being reasonable than you do keeping this thing a secret from him.”
The dread that had slowly stalked me since my conversation with him last week took me by throat, and I could barely choke out a response. “I know. I have to tell him.”
“When?”
“Today. Waiting isn’t going to do me any good. It’s strange. He’s been calling and texting non-stop the past couple of days since I told him I needed time to work on my company’s business, but I haven’t heard from him today. I’ll call him and ask him to come by. I don’t want to have this conversation there. Marisa’s not expecting any news until next week.”
Delilah’s shoulders relaxed with a sigh. “You’ll be glad when this is out in the open. Do you want me to stay or I can go run errands or whatever? Whatever you want.”
“Could you go? I think it’s best if Dad and I talk on our own.”
She squeezed my knees and stood up, then ran her fingers through my hair. “Of course.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
She pressed her lips to mine. “One hundred percent, no. I need to turn in the rental car, so I can do that and cab it back. Call me or text when it’s safe to return.”
Her tiny smile sparked a larger one from me. “I’ll be fine. It’s Marisa who better watch out.”
I didn’t talk to Dad before he came over. I called the house, and no one answered. I left a couple of urgent voicemails and sent insistent texts, telling him I’d be home all evening.
Then, he showed up three hours later, around six o’clock, in a hyperactive lather.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. I’ve been at the lawyer’s all afternoon.” Dad thrust himself through the front door and stopped in the foyer, looking around the townhome. He hadn’t been over before. We always met at his house or the office.
“Something going wrong with your development deal in Georgia?” I asked.
“Not Dave,” he said, referring to KCRE’s general counsel. “Leslie Cunningham.”
My mouth dropped open. Leslie—a man Dad had known since pre-school—was a divorce attorney. He’d handled the business of dividing my parents’ assets and sending my mother off to South Carolina with a relative pittance. She hadn’t cared much as she had her own family money.
“Why are you talking to a divorce attorney?”
“Because I can’t stay married to that deceitful viper anymore,” he raged.
He couldn’t already know about Grace. I had only told Delilah, and she wouldn’t have said anything. Marisa would commit seppuku before spilling the truth.
What else had she done?
“I thought you two had an…agreeable marriage,” I said, deciding against “an understanding” or “an arrangement” because those sounded like they agreed to bang other people. My father would never sign up for that.
“This morning, Carter came by, and well, he had some…I still can’t believe it. But I can at the same time. I never should have married her.”
“Wait. Let’s go into the kitchen,” I said, leading him out of the entryway to what had become the drama hub of the house—the kitchen table. “Sit. I’ll get you something to drink. Delilah, bought some tea.”
“For fuck’s sake, Griffin, get me a real drink. Surely, you have some whiskey.”
“Bourbon or Scotch?” I hurried to the cabinet where we kept the booze.
“I’d say surprise me, but I’ve had enough surprises for one day.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach, and I almost couldn’t move. “What— Nevermind. I’ll get us a drink.”
I returned to the kitchen with two heavy pours of single-malt and slid into the seat next to him. His leg shook, and his hands clenched in fists on the table. He pried one open to snatch up the tumbler and drain half his drink.
“Whoa. Slow down, Dad.” I grabbed the glass from his hand. “No more until you tell me what happened.”
“Marisa tried t-t-to…seduce Carter.” Dad took his drink back, but thankfully, only sipped this time.
“Did they sleep together?” That would make sense, sort of. Carter had a strange energy around Marisa—jumpy and, well, avoidant. That’s what didn’t make sense. Maybe they had sex before, and she was still pressing, and he wanted to stay away from her.
“No. No, I don’t think so. I doubt it.” Dad sounded like he was trying to convince himself that Carter would never do such a thing.
“What did he tell you?”
“Marisa’s always been friendly with him and maybe sometimes flirtatious. Nothing over the top, and he never seemed receptive, so I didn’t think anything of it. Marisa can be a flirt.
“Apparently, in the last few weeks, she’s been getting more aggressive. Not around me, but when Carter comes to the house, he said she’s been dressing differently and…” Dad drained his glass and closed his eyes. “A couple of days ago, she propositioned him. We’d been working at home, and I had to leave for a meeting. He was about to leave himself and she came in and just…offered herself. Asked him…I can’t even say it. But he was on his computer, so he recorded the conversation. I heard her with my own ears, and I heard him shoot her down, and she pressed him.”
Marisa must have been putting another iron in the fire in case something happened to Dad or in case he found out about Grace and divorced her. In a few months, Carter would have a big share of the business.
I tapped my drink on the table idly. “She must have been desperate to throw herself at him. He’s the king of strategy and discipline, and he’d know better than to have sex with his boss’ wife.”
“And he’s loyal,” Dad said. “I know you’re not his biggest fan, but he is a loyal and principled person who takes great care with his reputation. Marisa knew that, too. That’s why after he turned her down, she threatened that if he told me about her offer, she’d tell me that he tried to force himself on her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. You’d have him arrested.”
“I might have. I’m sorry to say. It’s a good thing he knew to record her. I heard her say it. ‘If you breathe a word of this to Gregory, I’ll tell him you propositioned me and that you wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ Then, she laughed. I can’t understand what would make her do such a thing.” Dad stared into his empty glass, turning it in his hand.
We sat in silence for a minute, and Dad talked about all the times he’d given her the benefit of the doubt because he wanted to keep his family together for Grace and Grego
ry Jr.
“I didn’t need to have a great love story, but I did want to have a great family.” The cracks in his voice revealed more heartbreak than his words.
“I’ll get you some more,” I said, taking his glass and heading back to the cupboard.
“I thought you were teetotaling me.”
“We can always get you a rideshare.” My ability to drive was rapidly fading as well.
“Oh, no worries. I brought Randy today.”
Randy worked security for Dad and occasionally served as his driver. Since we had that covered, I topped off both our drinks and returned to the table.
I swirled the liquid around its container and inhaled the hint of sherry and spice. “I think I know why she did this, and I don’t know how to tell you.”
“Does this have something to do with why you insisted I come over?”
“Yes.”
My dad’s face fell. “Did you have sex with her again?”
“Hell, no! Why does everyone think I’m so hot to fall back into the bed with that…” I stopped before I added insult to the injurious news he’d already had to swallow. Then, I continued, knowing his day was about to get exponentially worse in ways he could never imagine. I’d scripted a speech in my head and figured getting through it in one go was the best way to tell him.
“Seven years ago, even though we were broken up, Marisa and I started sleeping together again. I didn’t know that she was seeing you, and when she said she was pregnant and you two told me that the baby was due in August, I didn’t think there was any chance that I—”
“If you’re going to say what I think you’re about to say, you’d better be sure.” My father’s voice roared like a wounded predator—laced with pain, yet dangerous.
“I am.”
“How?”
“A couple of days after you told me about Marisa’s due date, I confronted her and got her to submit a DNA sample. And we got one from Grace without her knowing. I sent everything to a lab, and I got the results back today.”