by Cari Quinn
“I didn’t get to spend much time with you when you were little. You remember how much I had to work back then.”
“Yes, I do.” I popped the top on the bottle and shook out three pills. On second thought, four would be good.
This headache wouldn’t be vanquished easily, I could just bet.
“So I’d like a chance to do better with the next generation. Maybe do a bit of spoiling. Brant has some money put aside, and we can live as we choose to now.”
“You don’t need his money. You have mine.” There was no keeping the hard edge out of my voice, even if Brant had been on a ship and not sorting through my personal belongings.
Someone had been.
That he hadn’t physically been on the premises knocked down his possibilities of being involved, assuming he wasn’t working with a partner. Two people working together could always accomplish more than one, though of course then you had to trust them not to spill the beans through malice or sheer ineptitude.
I dry-swallowed the pills and replaced the bottle in the drawer. Hmm. Two people was an option we hadn’t really considered. We’d always imagined a lone wolf working alone, but two people could definitely go places where one on his own could not.
That was an angle we’d definitely have to pursue, if I ever got off the phone.
“I don’t want to rely on my son, and I don’t want to rely on Brant either. I was a careful saver, and I do have a little of my own. But I like that girl, Blake. She’s good for you. And she’d make beautiful babies, so don’t chase her away with your growling and snarling.”
“She happens to like my growling and snarling, and babies are not a concern of either of ours. I’ll let you know about Christmas.” After a moment, I gripped the phone tighter. “We’ll try to stop by, at least for dinner and gifts.”
Gifts. I needed a gift. Lavish or not, right now I had nothing for her. Or Grace, dammit. And Grace for sure wouldn’t be interested in the jelly of the month club I’d bought my mother three years running, along with other assorted things I’d boxed up and sent over.
Truthfully, my assistant at the time had boxed them up and sent them over, but there had been no time for that this year.
So much for me being prepared.
My mother tut-tutted and made noises about being so excited to see us, and about wanting to have a “girls’ night” with Grace to do their hair and makeup and trash men. I guess that meant I wasn’t to chase the beautiful baby maker Grace away, so that my mother could do the honors for me.
Whatever. I had bigger concerns at the moment.
As soon as I hung up, I called the Hawthorne Hotel in nearby Salem to book their best room for New Year’s Eve. Shockingly, this was not available until I offered to up my compensation dramatically, and suddenly within a few moments, a cancellation had been found. I figured that would do in a pinch as far as holiday gifts went. I’d tell Grace I’d booked us a romantic hotel suite and we could dance the night away with a bunch of other besotted drunken fools.
Revelers. I meant revelers.
My next step was to go on Amazon, where I bought my mother a bunch of the things she had on her wishlist. I had them gift-wrapped and sent via Prime, then added in a few more things for Grace as well. Some artist’s tools she might enjoy, and a scarf in the exact blue-green shade as her eyes. I’d failed on the lavish score this year, but I still had a day or two left to shop. At least this way I wouldn’t be empty-handed. What online shopping lacked in personality it made up for in convenience, and I took advantage of it gladly.
Especially since a metric ton of data was still waiting for me.
I was wading through more of it, cross-checking with the list of addresses I had running on my second screen, when the door behind me banged open. Instead of jumping to my feet to face the threat, I calmly eased open the keyboard tray where I’d stashed my gun that morning.
And turned to find Grace cradling my clock with murder in her eyes.
Her gaze dropped to my hand and she huffed out a breath. “Is that how you greet people now, Blake? Gun in hand?”
“Obviously, I didn’t know it was you.”
As discreetly as possible, I tucked the gun into the back of my waistband. I had a feeling opening a drawer would incense her even more.
To be honest, I wasn’t certain I possessed enough strength to turn back to the desk. Just slipping the gun into my waistband had taken untold effort. My limbs felt frozen, disconnected. White noise buzzed in my ears.
Grace had my clock. The one I’d assumed gone so many years ago. I’d grieved for it as I’d grieved for so much else.
“But we’ve fallen so far that if a door bangs open, someone has to be trying to kill you. That’s where we’re at now. Buried in secrets and lies and deceptions. Like this.” She slammed the delicate clock down on a table, and I felt more than heard the glass break. It was if something had been ripped to shreds inside my chest.
But the pieces left behind still ached. That clock represented her more than it did me, and that made its value immeasurable.
I jerked to my feet and rushed forward to still her hands. I was afraid she intended to rip the glass and copper apart. “Don’t. Wait. I can explain.”
“Explain what, Blake? That you built this clock and sold it to my grandmother, then replicated it in your office? That I can believe. Artist Blake finds a good design and makes it his trademark. Hard to imagine something so delicate being so strong, but that’s your specialty, isn’t it?” She traced the hairline fracture in the glass that protected the fragile hands of the clock, and I knew some part of her had to hurt at the damage. She was more of an artist than I would ever be.
But that didn’t mean I was sure she wouldn’t dismantle the rest while I watched. And I wouldn’t stop her, because I loved her.
Good Christ, I loved her, and she was looking at me like I was worthless. This Grace would never feel anything for me but disgust.
Our past, present and future had converged, and I was seeing what was to come. There were emotions far worse than hatred. She would soon reach the point where she felt nothing at all for me. I’d tried to stave off that moment, but it had arrived just the same.
Because of this. The testament I’d built to her of how I felt had made her despise me.
I didn’t understand, but it didn’t really matter. She’d found it and if she destroyed it, I would go on as I had for all these years assuming it was gone. I certainly hadn’t believed her grandmother would keep it. Why would she? Back then, its worth had been in materials. I had been a nobody. Less than.
She couldn’t have known what I would become. I certainly hadn’t. And funny, wasn’t it, that standing here while Grace dismantled me with little more than a look, I’d been tossed right back to that same place.
“Yeah, your silence is about the explanation I expected from you. That’s okay. I don’t need it.” She tapped a folded piece of white paper against the side of the clock.
It didn’t work anymore, but I could still hear the hands ticking off the time.
One second became another as what mattered most to me detonated before my eyes.
“I wondered why you’d lost your supposed fascination with me as a teenager. You were fixated. It seemed to me that if you’d really gone so far as to stalk me for years, to even buy my first piece at the gallery, that you wouldn’t have just ghosted without making a move. Not really your style.” She angled her head and a piece of her hair slipped across her cheek. She flicked it away without a thought.
I hadn’t even had a chance to ascertain she was okay at the house. I’d wanted to give her time. To not crowd her. To trust she could handle herself for the few hours we’d be apart.
Few would become many, and my stupid app wouldn’t be able to cover the miles she traversed to escape me.
“But I didn’t ask you. I guess I didn’t want the answer. Whether you’d just been distracted by another woman, or simply focused on building your empire, it didn’t r
eally matter, right? We’d found our way to this place. Sure, I’d lied to get to you, and you’d lied to keep me around, but none of that was important. The most important thing was that I loved you. I loved you,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she slapped the folded paper against my chest. “And you sold me off like I was a business transaction.”
Her words echoed in my head as I focused on what she held. I didn’t need to read it to know the contents.
All at once, I knew.
“The contract your grandmother asked me to sign,” I said hollowly.
Sixteen
Blake
Her grandmother had kept the clock, so of course she’d kept the contract I’d signed too.
More nails in my coffin of glass.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Right. The contract she asked you to sign. Make her the bad guy. She paid you off to keep your distance from me, and you did it. You told me yourself you needed money to start your company.”
“I did.” It took everything I possessed to keep my voice even. I wanted to grab her shoulders and force her to see things the way they’d been for me, but I couldn’t.
The cards had already been laid on the table. Now I had to play where they landed.
“I told you what I came from. What I had to break ties with.”
“So what, Blake, you figured it counted as legit if you took money from an old woman rather than the mob? Except we both know the truth there. If my grandmother was paying you to stay away from me, that meant she feared what kind of person you are. She wouldn’t let you near me.”
I couldn’t stop myself from fisting a hand in her hair and jerking her up to her toes until our gazes were closer to even. It always surprised me she wasn’t as tall as me, since I’d never been with someone whose presence more filled up a room.
“I’ve been near you. I’ve been all over you.” I lowered my head until our noses were nearly touching. “You smell like me right now.”
She shoved me back with the hand still gripping the proof of my betrayal. That I hadn’t even known her then, not for real, didn’t seem to matter.
Because she’d loved me, past tense, and somehow, I should have known to fight for that love even before we’d ever had a conversation.
Worst of all, she was right.
“I cleaned myself up for you.” Saying it aloud felt like telling a joke with no punchline. Correction—the punchline was me, and my stupidity.
As if someone who’d come from what I had could’ve made myself clean enough to be worthy of a Boston blue blood like Grace Copeland. Rich, poor, she carried herself with a class I’d never have.
Fucking her hadn’t given it to me. Becoming a millionaire before thirty definitely hadn’t. Nothing would, because the dirt from my father was permanently scored into my veins.
“Right. Sure you did.” She pushed me again with the paper crumpled in her fist. It was damp now, from her sweat or her tears. Those wet blue eyes tore me open in ways that words never could.
“I made this clock for you. Every piece of it, I put together in the hopes of impressing you into giving me a chance. It’s a clock, Grace. You know why? Because every day I was waiting for you.”
This time when she shoved me back, I didn’t resist. I made myself return to the computer and pulled the gun out of my waistband. The thud of the barrel as I laid it on the desk seemed as final as if I’d cocked the trigger and placed it against my own temple.
I’d already lost her. How many times could I expect to win her back? I’d need my half brother’s sorcery to accomplish that again, and I didn’t believe in magic. So I’d give her the one thing I had left.
The truth.
I reached up and took the picture of Harbor off the wall. Behind it was another safe. I’d gone closer to traditional in here, because what I kept in that safe wasn’t something a thief would want.
I could’ve just recited it to her from memory, but she needed proof. She needed to hold something with more weight than the burden of my lies.
After undoing the combination, I pulled out the single item the safe contained. The paper was as yellowed as the one she held was pristine.
Even my paper didn’t hold up to the test of time.
I turned back to her and held out the letter. “I sent this to you three days before your grandmother made me sign that contract.”
She gripped it in fingers that shook, reading it silently. I started to speak again before she’d finished.
I couldn’t wait. Not any longer.
“She got the letter and she invited me to the house when you were out with your friends. I brought the clock I’d made for you, foolishly hoping you’d be there.”
Lips trembling, she lifted her head. And said nothing.
“You weren’t.”
I took a breath and grazed my fingertip along the crack in the glass. The fragility of the piece was all the more poignant for its flaw.
“She promised me if I truly cared about you, the best thing I could do was to stay far away. She’d been in love with my father, and he was no good, just like me. Everyone knew I was a thug, just like him. A street criminal. But she’d help me, since she’d once cared about someone she shouldn’t too. She’d slummed with my father, but she wanted more for you. If I loved you, I would leave you to the world you belonged in.”
“You couldn’t love me,” she breathed, shuddering so hard that she barely remained standing. “You didn’t even know me.”
“I loved you from the first moment I set eyes on you.” Saying it aloud seemed like coming full circle. Like I been razed by fire, scorched to the marrow and burned clean.
Her eyes brimmed and overflowed. “You took a million dollars to pretend you’d never even seen me.”
“And I built a company where every piece of it was a testament to you. Every goddamn pane of glass. Every clock on the wall. I’m still fucking waiting, Grace. I would’ve waited until the end of time for you even if you’d never stepped foot into the shrine I’d built.” I gripped her shoulders, but I didn’t shake her. I didn’t need to, since I was shaking hard enough to rock us both. “But you did. You walked in and your first words to me were lies. And I didn’t care, because even a lie from you was more than I’d ever hoped for.”
She yanked back from me and took a step away. Two. Then she bowed her head, and it was all the opening I needed. I enfolded her in my arms and spoke against her cheek, barely conscious of the thud of my racing heart. It filled my head, pulsed through my body. She probably could feel it right through her back.
I hoped she did. Maybe then she’d believe me.
“I love you. I’ve always loved you. If I’d known then that this was even a possibility, that you could’ve needed me, I never would have signed. But I thought I was doing what was best for you.”
She reared out of my arms and whirled to face me. Words, I would’ve been prepared for. Even screams.
For her to swing at me—not so much.
Her fist glanced off the corner of my mouth and the sting caught me by surprise. She had more power in those knuckles than I’d given her credit for. When matched with the overpowering fury in her gorgeous eyes, she was beautiful in a way I couldn’t comprehend.
And fuck, my lip was throbbing.
“You have no right, absolutely no right to decide what’s best for me. You got that, Blake Carson? You didn’t back then, and you sure as hell don’t now.” She gripped the lapels of my shirt and dragged me down until my bloody lips were on hers.
Jesus, she’d hit me hard enough to make me bleed, and she was still kissing me. Still raking her nails down my chest as she pulled me down into the madness of her, so far down I’d never be able to see my way clear again.
I didn’t want to.
Just as abruptly, she pushed me back and wiped her mouth. “You’re bleeding.”
There was no reason I should’ve found that funny. Especially now. But Christ if I didn’t drop my head back and roar with laughter.
“I did that?”
“You did that,” I affirmed, wiping away the evidence.
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed then smoothed. “Well…good. Now you know I mean business.” She went toe to toe with me. “This is the last time. If you ever tell me another lie, I’m gone. I don’t care if you reimagine the Taj Mahal for me out of glass and slap my name on it in neon pink lights, I’m finished. I won’t be with someone who doesn’t treat me as an equal or keeps me in the dark. My grandmother hid things from me for years, and now I don’t think there’s a single thing that happened between us I can trust.”
“You can. There’s one you never have to doubt. She loved you with all her heart.”
Grace started to turn away but I cupped her cheek. “She asked me to stay away from you because she believed you were better off without me. I truly believe that.”
“And then she died and left me all alone. If there hadn’t been you…” She shook her head, shaking off the tears that had formed in her eyes again as if she could make them disappear just as easily. “I can’t forgive her for that.”
Her stubborn tone brooked no arguments. In time, I thought she’d change her mind.
Time was the one thing we had now.
“But wait.” Her throat rippled as she looked back at me. “You said she begged you to buy her house. Why would she do that if she wanted you to stay far away from me? She knew how I felt about that house. I wouldn’t just forget about it.”
Of everything I’d said aloud, this was the most difficult.
I cupped her damp cheek, rubbing my thumb over the tears she’d cried over us.
Me and her grandmother, illicit conspirators in a war I’d never known I was fighting.
I did now. Now I knew what was at stake.
“Because she knew she’d be leaving you alone, and she was giving us back the chance she’d stolen from us.”
Seventeen
Grace
My head was full of cotton. There were far too many realizations in one day to comprehend. There was no way I could stay in the office when I looked like I’d been hit by a bulldozer. Not to mention that I was still wearing my work overalls.