by Megyn Ward
“So you can leave.”
I don’t mean to say it.
I certainly don’t mean to sound so small and wounded when I do but that’s how it sounds when it comes out of my mouth. Gray stops what he’s doing and drops his foot to the floor. Turns to look at me like I just spit in his face. “Del—”
“I don’t have to check,” I say quickly, cutting him off because if I have to listen to him say my name right now, I might actually lose my shit. “He’s not here.”
The scowl, which seems to be a permanent fixture on his face whenever he looks at me makes another appearance. “How do you know that?” he asks, taking another irritated swipe at his face. “We’ve been up here—”
“Fucking each other for hours now, I know.” I cut him off again while I shove the covers off and swing my bare legs over the side of bed to stand. Gathering my hair in my hands, I coil it into a long, loose rope before wrapping it around itself to form a sloppy top knot. Tucking its tail into the center of the knot, I drop my arms and smile at him. “but I asked Nat to call the landline when he came home and I can hear the phone just fine, even when I’m getting railed.”
The scowl on his face deepens into a snarl and he reaches for me, snagging a loose hand around my arm when I turn away from him. “What just happened?” He glares down at me, his dark gaze searching mine for answers.
You lied to me.
You don’t trust me.
And really—why would you?
“Nothing just happened,” I say reaching up to peel his loose grip away from my bicep. “If you’re cool with it than so am I.”
Instead of letting me go, Gray tightens his grip on my arm when I throw his own words back at him. “Del—”
“You’re hurting me.” He isn’t. He isn’t hurting me even a little bit but hearing me say it is all it takes for him to drop his hand away from my arm and take a step back. “You can go,” I tell him on my way to the bathroom. “The elevator will lock automatically after you leave. No one will be able to get up here except Went, unless I send it down for them.”
He doesn’t believe me.
Is ready to stay, either out of pity or some strange sense of duty. I don’t want him to stay here because he thinks he has to. Because he feels sorry for me. I can’t stand the thought of either.
“Seriously, Gray—you should go. I want you to,” I tell him because it’s my turn to lie as I move to shut the bathroom door between us. “I’ll be fine on my own—I always am.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Grayson
I REALIZE WHAT JUST HAPPENED IS MY FAULT.
I freaked out.
I know your secret.
When she said it, I turned to see her lying there all warm and naked and sexy as hell and I freaked out because for a split second I thought she knew the truth. That Jase and Tob aren’t just a couple of guys I work for—that they’re my brothers. That I’m a Bright, same as them. That it’s my name on the side of just about every fucking building in Manhattan, same as theirs.
And I thought that the knowing is what put her in that shower with me. What opened her legs for me. What made me good enough to fuck on her silk sheets, in her palatial hotel suite. Because I’m a Bright and that makes me better than what she’s spent the last six years thinking I am. Because what happened between us in the VIP corridor at Level six years ago was nothing—almost as nothing as what happened in the stairwell last night. It was a game. A distraction. A way for her to play with me. Work herself deeper under my skin.
But what happened this morning—that wasn’t nothing.
It was something.
More than something.
It was everything and I’ve been lying awake for the last three hours, watching her sleep, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her of her chest against mine, trying to figure out exactly what everything means.
Thinking I had the answer, I eased myself away from her and called Jase to tell him that I wasn’t coming to the hospital to see Silver. Not today. Not until I knew Delilah was safe. Until I knew who’d tried to take her and he was either dead or arrested and put somewhere I couldn’t get to him and kill him.
I know your secret.
That’s all it took.
That’s all she had to say to send me into a shame spiral of doubt and self-loathing. One I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of, even after it became clear that she didn’t know as much as she thought she did. Because she thinks Jase and Tob are just a couple of guys I grew up with. That maybe my parents took them in. Fostered them. She’d doesn’t know that they’re my family.
The only family I have left.
So, yeah.
I freaked out.
I took the first swing but she took the second.
And then she just kept swinging.
Cheapened what happened between us. Made it dirty. Subtracted and divided it down to nothing more than a way to pass the time. Dismissed me like I was just another servant she was finished with.
I knew what it was.
What was happening.
I spent my formative years in an institution—I know what a defense mechanism looks like. What bothers me is that I hurt her enough to force her to use it.
So, no.
I’m not cool with it.
I’m not cool with it at all.
I stood there, staring at the bathroom door she slammed closed between us and thought about kicking it in. Forcing her to look at me. Talk to me. Fix this thing before it’s too broken to put back together.
Fix what, pendejo? There’s nothing to fix. It’s just your own wishful thinking so why don’t you do what the lady said and move the fuck on?
Instead of kicking the door in, I finish putting on my boots. Push myself out of her room and down the hall. Across the living room and into the foyer. Jabbing the call button, I step into the elevator and the doors close behind me. Seconds later, they open again and I step into the lobby. The doors close behind me. I turn around and press a testing thumb against the call button and it flashes red at me. The doors stay closed.
I try again and it does the same thing.
The only thing stopping me from trying a third time is the fact that a nearby security guard is glaring at me like he’s hoping I do so he can tackle me.
She’s home, pendejo.
Safe in her ivory tower.
She doesn’t need you to protect her.
It’s not your job.
I walk out in my borrowed clothes, away from her, feeling like the worst kind of liar.
When I step onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, there’s a limo waiting at the curb. When he sees me, the driver gets out—the same driver that brought Delilah and me from the airfield to the hotel this morning—his name is Enrique.
I watch as he skirts the front of the car, smiling and gesturing to me, indicating that he’s waiting for me. “Miss Delilah has instructed me take you wherever you’d like to go—she mentioned Manhattan, maybe?”
This man is willing to drive me home, nearly two-hundred miles, simply because Delilah told him to.
Bizarro World.
“Actually, I’m going to the Bright Medical Group building In Cambridge,” I tell him as I reach out to open my own door. “Do you know where that is?”
Enrique gives me a wide smile before leaning toward me a bit. “I do—this is where Ms. Hawthorne, Miss Delilah’s mother has her annual touch-up,” he tells me in a conspirator tone while circling his face with his own finger. “Are you okay?” he drops his hand and gives me a look of concern like I might be sick.
“I’m fine—just visiting family,” I tell him. “And you can leave the partition down if you want—I happen to really be into podcasts too.”
TWENTY-SIX
Delilah
I RATIONALIZED LEAVING THE HOTEL BY REMINDING myself that I never actually promised Gray that I wouldn’t. I never said I’d stay put. All I promised him was to not let anyone up that I didn’t absolutely trust, so it’s not like I’m
lying.
Besides, I did make a promise to Silver—one I’ve already broken because I wasn’t there for her while she was having the baby. I’m not going to make it worse by not showing up at all.
But I can’t drive and Rivers is in New York where I left him. Calling him to come get me would take hours I don’t want to waste, and I sent Enrique with Gray. I don’t know any of the other hotel drivers so there’s no way I’m going to get into a car with one of them—because while I’m dumb enough leave the hotel, I’m not dumb enough get into a car with a total stranger.
So that means using a ride share service is out too.
I consider calling Went but there’s no telling where he is and to be honest, I don’t want to call him because the longer I can keep him in the dark about all of this, the longer I can avoid hearing him say I told you so.
That leaves me only one option.
Jane.
I call her, using the suite’s landline and after some light grilling about where I’ve been and how could do this to Silver again, she agrees to come get me.
“I’m actually on my way to the hospital now, so I’ll just swing by—I’m serious, Delilah—swing by. You better not make me wait,” she warns me, her tone telling me she’s already resigned herself to the fact that her demand is falling on deaf ears.
“Thanks, Jane—you’re the best,” I say before hanging up. As soon as the line is clear, I call down to the front desk.
“Hey Nat, got any good stuff in lost and found?”
It takes me a while to get my disguise pieced together. But the time I’m ready, I know Jane is downstairs and probably ready to kill me.
Regardless, it takes me more time than it should to talk myself into the elevator.
It’s okay.
He’s in New York.
You look like a total soccer mom.
No one will recognize you.
The lost and found trick is one I learned from my grandma. She’d call down to the front desk and have someone bring it upstairs—one of the huge blue industrial sized laundry carts, full of all the things people forget in their hotel rooms after they check-out. She’d pick through it, finding articles of clothing. Hats and sunglasses. Accessories—then she’d build a disguise.
We never keep, Delilah. We borrow, she’d tell me. These are peoples’ things and they might come back for them.
As a kid, it always felt like a game to me. Funny hats and tourist T-shirts. We’d play dress-up for a while, trying things on and picking out our favorites—and then we’d go to the park or to the farmer’s market in Dewy Square. Afterward, we’d put everything that we borrowed back in the cart and send it back downstairs.
I thought we were just having fun. I didn’t understand why we did it until later. Until I was older and able to understand that my parents’ tumultuous relationship—the cheating and melodrama that swirled around them—made me the target of tabloids and photographers looking to make a quick buck off my picture. I didn’t realize my grandmother dressed me up to protect me. Keep me out of the public eye. Keep me safe.
I haven’t done it since she died.
Finally managing to force myself into the elevator, I keep up with my mental pep talk on the way to the lobby, all the while painfully aware that if Gray were here with me, I wouldn’t be nervous. I’d feel protected. Safe.
If Gray were here, you wouldn’t be dressed like a PTA president. You’d probably still be naked.
Yeah, well he isn’t here, is he.
He’s gone—probably halfway to New York by now.
Yeah, because you pawed through his personal life and then got your feelings hurt and went full blown heiress on him when he didn’t develop diarrhea of the mouth and spill all his deep dark secrets for you.
Telling myself that I’ll find a way to apologize, even if he doesn’t want to hear it, I step off the elevator, using the cover that the hotel’s water feature provides to make sure my hair is sufficiently tucking into my borrowed hat and adjust my hideous sunglasses. Stepping from behind the waterfall, I stop short, my stomach instantly hitting the soles of my pilfered New Balances.
Liz is at the front desk, Jordy standing quietly beside her, her dutiful if not slightly bored, exasperated shadow, while she nags at Nat who has the front desk phone wedged between her ear and shoulder, a pleasant smile plastered across her face despite the fact that Liz is about to spin off into orbit. On the counter between them, is the clutch I lost last night.
I take a step back, behind the screen of the waterfall to hide because even though my own grandmother probably wouldn’t recognize me, I don’t want to take the chance and I really don’t want to deal with Liz right now, even if she did somehow manage to somehow find my purse. I’m not surprised she’s here. She missed last night’s fireworks—probably went to my suite in New York as soon as the news about the fire hit TMZ so she could soak up all the drama. I can only imagine how pissed she was when she realized I wasn’t there.
Not worried.
Pissed.
Because Liz doesn’t really give a shit about me. All she cares about is the attention and press that being Delilah Fiorella’s BFF attracts for her.
I don’t know how she knew I was in Boston. It could’ve been as simple as someone snapping a quick shot of me on the sidewalk this morning outside the hotel and posting it on Twitter.
And just like that, the entire world knows where I am.
Suddenly, leaving the hotel doesn’t seem like such a great idea after all.
Nat hangs up the phone and shakes her head, her pleasant smile turned apologetic while she reaches for my clutch, probably with a promise to make sure that it’s returned to me. Liz snatches it off the counter before she can get her hands on it like Nat tried to rob her. Slapping the clutch against Jordy’s chest for safekeeping, she keeps up with her finger jabbing tirade while Nat stands by quietly and takes it.
It takes everything I have in me to keep myself from marching over there and punching Liz in the mouth. Finally, Jordy works up the nerve to step in. Whatever he says quiets Liz instantly.
A few seconds later, she lobs a parting shot at Nat over the desk before huffing her way through the lobby toward the bank of public elevators, Jordy trailing behind her, my beaded clutch in hand—which means they have a room here.
Shit.
As soon at they’re gone, I leave my hiding spot, surveying the lobby until I spot Jane, sitting in one of the conversations area’s waiting patiently despite the fact that she told me she wouldn’t. I knew she’d be here. I knew she wouldn’t leave without me because she’s a real friend, like Henley, the pretty redhead from the plane last night, and for a second, I’m so fucking lonely I want to cry.
When Jane sees me, she does a double take which I take as good sign that my disguise is actually working and after a few minutes and trading a few barbs which is standard for Jane and me, we’re on our way to Cambridge. Forty-five minutes and one stop at Starbucks (for the sake of normalcy) later, we’re walking into Silver’s hospital room.
As soon as she sees us, Silver gives us a tired smile and struggles to sit up despite the fact that she just spent the last twelve hours pushing a tiny human out of her body. As soon as she starts to move, Jase, who’s sitting at her bedside, jumps up to help, gently lifting her and fussing over her while she halfheartedly tries to fend him off. I barely notice because Gray isn’t on his way to New York like I thought. He’s here. Standing in the corner, talking intently to another man—his dark, unruly hair and heavy framed glasses marking him as the fourth mystery boy I saw in Gray’s photograph this morning.
Security.
He’s the head of Tobias’s security—CSO. That’s what Jase called him yesterday. Chief security officer. It makes sense that he’d be here. Tobias is completely insane when it comes to protecting Silver and Noah. He’d call on his head of security and friend to lead the security detail while she’s here.
But that doesn’t explain why he’s holding Silver’s ba
by like he has every right to.
Like he belongs here.
“You don’t have to fuss over me,” Silver says, giving Jase an amused yet slightly exasperated smile.
“This isn’t a have to, Fancy Face,” Jase tells her while he tucks pillows around her and adjusts her covers. “this is a get to—besides, how else am I going to prove to you that I’m better husband material than that cranky brother of mine?”
She laughs and tells him he’s impossible and he gives her one of his knee-knocking grins before he looks up at us. “I’m Jase—the hot brother,” he says, aiming his self-introduction at Jane since I already know who he is. “The big, dumb one is Gray, and the weird one in the cat shirt is Logan.”
Brother.
Did Jase just call Gray his brother?
I mean, he didn’t but the inference was there.
Jase aims a quick chin jerk at the men across the room. “They’re over there, hogging the baby if you want to get a look at her.” Hearing him, Gray’s head comes up and swings around, his face split wide in a good-natured grin I’ve never seen him wear before.
“I’m not hogging shi—”
As soon as he sees me, the grin evaporates and his eyes narrow.
“Is that the kitchen?” I ask, gesturing toward what I know is the kitchen before making a run for it.
I don’t even have to turn around to know that Gray is hot on my heels.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Grayson
SHIT.
Aiming a quick, I’m going to kill you later look at Jase, I pass the baby off to Logan as quickly and gently as I can before going after her, pushing my way past her surprisingly normal-looking friend with a muttered ‘scuse me on my way to the fully-equipped kitchen that’s attached to Silver’s hospital suite.