by J. Kenner
“They might,” Pierce says. “I was thinking about getting that little number Gracie modeled first for Jezebel.”
“And the owner has an interest in the distillery. I bet some of these guys buy a bottle or two.”
“Fine. You’re all right.”
Kerrie’s eyes narrow, but I ignore her. I know I’m being defensive and prickly. I don’t need her narrow-eyed stare to remind me.
“I saw you talking to Cecilia,” I say to her, because I think I need to change the subject.
“Yeah, I didn’t realize the women are all her models. She said if I ever want to try my chops at something like this to let her know.”
“Really?” Gracie smiles. “That’s great.”
“Maybe. I didn’t think I’d like it, but maybe I was wrong.”
I fight a grin. I can’t help but wonder how Connor would react. He says there’s nothing between them any more, but would he be willing to sit here like me and watch her parade in front of other men in her underwear?
“Just let me change and we can go,” Gracie tells me, interrupting my musing.
“Sure,” I say, falling in step as she walks toward the back. It takes forever, because most of her fans are still lingering, and she’s stopped every few steps by another man who wants her autograph or wants to tell her how he follows her and has her picture as a screensaver. None go so far as to say they jerk off to her picture, but I think it’s implied.
And Gracie of course is lovely to each and every one of them. Smiling and chatting and telling them how nice it was that they interrupted their busy day to come to the show.
By the time we get to the door to the back room I feel like putting my fist through a wall.
“You okay? You look tense.”
“A little bit,” I admit.
“I have an idea,” she says. “Tomorrow, after it’s all over—whether we catch Peterman or not—lets go to Fredericksburg for an overnighter. Just you and me and no drama.”
I want to say yes. Hell, I want to grab her hand and race down the street with her. I want to hop in my Jeep and drive until we can’t stand it anymore and then make love under the stars.
But we live in the real world. A world where wives cheat. Where temptations are dangled day and night. Where husbands get jealous.
Where boyfriends have to admit that they can’t handle the thought of men pawing all over their girl, fantasizing about her.
And where sometimes you have to know when to walk away.
“I don’t think so,” I say softly, then watch as she stiffens.
“This is about today? About the fans. The comments on my posts. The things they said. You can’t deal with it. The big tough guy who fought in the Middle East can’t handle a few lonely guys looking at his girl. Is that it?”
It is. Of course it is. But all I say is, “You deserve better, Gracie,”
She looks me up and down, anger and hurt shining in her eyes. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I do.”
Chapter Fourteen
We rented the Dufresne Mansion near the Capitol for our faux engagement party, and we were lucky to get the stately southern mansion on such short notice. A frequent location for weddings and anniversaries, it has an excellent set up for our sting. Although, if we’d had more time to look, I would have preferred someplace slightly smaller so we could control and monitor the crowd a bit better.
Because we had to, we put the announcement out on social media, and not just through Sheila. And though it would be too obvious for Gracie to make an out-of-character announcement of the place and time, we did have her post a picture of herself holding up a new dress, and say in the comments that it was for her “special day tomorrow.”
Sheila also mentioned the party would be a “crush” so that our ballsy, psychopathic stalker would feel comfortable infiltrating the place.
In fact, it’s not that crowded, and most of the guests are colleagues from other security firms, off-duty cops who Landon wrangled, and other handpicked friends.
We even have last minute catering arranged by yours truly. As much because we need it to seem real, but also because I needed to keep busy. And last night was the first night in over a week that I’ve slept alone.
I stayed in my tiny, quiet, empty house. Connor stayed with Gracie. And on the whole, it sucked.
We arrived together, of course, presenting the image of the happy couple, but after a few circuits, Gracie gave me a chaste kiss and said loudly that she needed to go gossip with her girlfriends. Then she clung to Kerrie’s arm and slipped into the crowd, with Pierce texting me immediately that she was in his sights.
Now I grab a sparkling cider, wishing I wasn’t on the job and could slam back a few glasses of champagne, and start to head outside. I’m intercepted by Kerrie, who approaches me with such a stern face that I know I’m in for a lecture.
“I’m not in the mood,” I tell her, then start walking away.
“Fine. Whatever. I was just going to say that I was wrong.”
I pause and look back over my shoulder.
“I thought Connor was the idiot for dumping me. But it’s you.”
“Thanks. Appreciate the support and understanding.” I turn away again.
“Oh, I understand. I understand that you’re a chickenshit.”
Her words follow me, but I don’t turn back again. Instead, I keep walking until I reach the flagstone patio. I’m on a mission, but even so, I’m looking at every face, examining every pair of eyes. I’ll know him when I see him—but he’s not here yet.
Then I see her.
Gracie.
And maybe it’s a mistake—maybe I need to wait until wounds are healed and we don’t risk causing a scene. But I can’t. I have to talk to her. Have to find forgiveness—or at least understanding—in those beautiful blue eyes.
She’s talking with one of her modeling friends, and I step up, telling the girl that I need my fiancée for a moment.
“Is he here?” she asks once I’ve steered her to a cordoned-off room, because under the circumstances, I have no other reason to talk to her. “Did you see Peterman?”
“I need to talk to you.”
I see her body crumple under her false facade of strength. “No,” she says. “Please, Cayden. Just, no.”
I should walk away, but I don’t want to lose this chance. I’m not sure, however, if I’m looking for the chance to fix things or the chance to make her understand.
Mostly, I know that I want to apologize. To make it right. But I really don’t know how.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say, and she laughs. An ugly sound that makes me wince.
“Did you think that I’d be happy?”
“No, of course not. I—”
“This isn’t about me, anyway. Or, actually, it is. Because you’re jealous, and I’m right there in the center of it.”
“I am,” I confess, more relieved than I expected to have it out in the open like that. “I’m jealous of all of those men who want you.”
“Why?” she demands. “Tell me why that matters to you. Why?”
The words hang between us, and I see the answer. It flashes in my mind as clear as it had been all those years ago. My wife with another man. A man who was fascinated. Who desired her. And whose desire she wanted.
Gracie shakes her head sadly, and I know that she’s understood all along what I’m only now seeing. “Maybe she wanted that, but I don’t. Those men that look at me? That desire me? I don’t care about them. Don’t you get it, Cayden? I only want you. But I’m not going to be the woman you look at that way. It’s not love—it’s not trust—if you’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I—” She breaks off, her voice cracking. “I can’t live like that.”
I want to argue. To tell her that’s not how I feel.
Except she’s right. Of course she is. I don’t give a flip what those men do.
All I care about is her.
All I’m scared of is having my heart broken a
gain.
I take a step toward her, searching for the words, but we’re interrupted by Jez who’s come to tell us it’s time for our toast.
I start to tell her we’ll be there soon, but Gracie nods and follows her out, leaving me to hurry and catch up so that I can take her hand and we can walk in together, the happy couple.
My insides would be in tatters if it weren’t for the job. Because instead of focusing on Gracie and my mangled heart, I can focus on all the faces in front of me. And while the crowd applauds and Connor says they all need to raise a glass to his brother—I’m scouring every person looking back at us.
And I’m seeing nothing.
Beside me, Gracie smiles at the crowd. “We decided not to make a speech so that all our friends could get back to the important business of drinking,” she says, as we’d planned. But then she continues, and I turn to her in surprise. “But I want to say a couple of words. Just a few. To memorialize how I feel right now.”
She draws in a breath and faces me. “When I first met Cayden Lyon, I thought, wow. This is a man I could love.” Her smile is watery, her eyes glistening with tears. “And here we are now.”
She lifts herself up on her toes and kisses me so softly it feels like goodbye. Then she raises her glass to applause, even though almost everyone in the room knows our engagement is fake.
And I’m the only one who knows that her speech was real. Here we are now indeed.
As soon as the applause dies down, we mingle, and cake is served, and I lose sight of Gracie. “Where is she?” I ask Sheila, the owner of the magical Instagram page that made all this possible.
She points vaguely toward the stairs. “Dressing room. She said her shoes were hurting her.”
More like her heart. And even though I’m certain she wants to be alone, I head to the back and climb the carpeted stairs. If nothing else, I can tell her I came to let her know we’re calling the operation a bust. It’s been two hours with not a sign of Peterman.
But at least we had some decent cake.
There’s a hall at the top of the stairs with three doors, the one at the far end being a giant bathroom that is used during weddings as a dressing room. As I step into the hall from the stairs, I see a frail woman in a loose flowered dress, practical shoes, and frizzy red hair step into the room.
For a moment, I assume she’s just there to use the facilities. But, of course, there are bathrooms downstairs.
I’m running even before I think about what I’m doing. And maybe I’m being paranoid—maybe I’m about to give an old lady a heart attack—but I’m not willing to slow down and take that gamble.
I throw myself against the door and, sure enough, someone had latched it. But the wood shatters under the force of my impact, and in the second that I burst in, Peterman looks up, his red wig now lopsided from where I assume Gracie grabbed it.
She shoves him, and as she falls backward, he drops a knife. Gracie scrambles out of his way on hands and knees as I pull out the gun I’ve had holstered inside my waistband all night and aim it at the fucker’s chest. “Just try it,” I say. “Just try it and I will end you.”
He stands there frozen, a dangerous man in a comical wig and a flowery dress.
“Call Landon,” I tell Gracie, but she already has her phone out, and though she’s shaking, her voice is strong when she tells him to come upstairs.
He arrives in a minute, Landon and Connor and Pierce. And while I holster my gun and move over to sit on the floor and pull Gracie against me, Landon takes point in clearing the bastard out of our sight.
It seems to take forever. And, at the same time, it feels like we’re in that little room for no time at all.
“He’s gone?” Gracie asks Landon when he returns to the dressing room. Though we’ve moved to a small velvet divan, her hand is still tight in mine, her normally pale skin almost translucent.
“In cuffs with four of my best men,” Landon assures her. “He’ll get a full psychiatric evaluation and the district attorney will get involved, too. No matter what, I don’t see him getting out of confinement for a long, long time.”
“Thank you.” She releases me to hug him, and when they break apart, my fingers itch for her touch again. But it never comes. Instead, she says goodbye to him, then to Pierce and my brother.
They all leave, knowing that we need a moment alone.
“Well,” she finally says. “I guess this is goodbye.”
The word feels like a kick to my heart. “Gracie, please. I never meant to hurt you. Do you have any idea how special you are to me?”
They are, I think, the truest words I’ve ever spoken. And also the most useless. Because the woman standing in front of me is shaking her head. Not in denial of my words, but in denial of me.
“Don’t,” she says, and I can see the tears pricking her eyes. “You saved my life, and that’s amazing. But don’t try and be sweet to me. Not you, Cayden. You already told me why it can’t work. And I told you why you’re right. I won’t sit around waiting for you to think I’m cheating. And I don’t want to spend my life nursing your jealousy. I can’t. I won’t. And I need to go now, because thinking of what we’ve lost hurts too damn much.”
I watch her leave, my body and soul aching. And as she disappears down the stairs, all I can think is that I fucked up royally. And I don’t have a clue how to fix it.
Chapter Fifteen
It’s a terrible feeling to walk through a gray world and know that you’re the one who made it that way. Worse, to know that although you brought it on yourself, there is nothing you can do to fix it. Because it all boils down to trust.
You trusting her.
And her trusting that you’re finally over the bullshit jealousy that you’ve been wallowing in for years.
There’s no switch to flip. No fight to win.
No bang, no whimper.
There is simply no way.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself since the engagement party. And I know it’s true. But it’s been two weeks now, and even though I know it, I don’t believe it.
There has to be a way. There has to be a way to get Gracie back.
“I don’t know how,” Connor says when I gather the troops in the break room.
“I’d like to figure it out though,” Pierce adds. “Because you’ve been distracted as shit.”
I glare at him, because he’s right—but only during my off time. Professionally, I’m still on my game. It’s killing me, but I’m still on.
“Fine,” he says, when I demand that retraction. “But honestly, you need to figure it out. Not only because you’re a miserable fuck without her, but because you two were good together.”
“What does Jez say?” Kerrie asks, and I turn my attention sharply to her.
“What does Jez have to do with this?”
“They hit it off,” Kerrie says. “And from what Jez tells me, Gracie isn’t much perkier than you are.”
That news doesn’t particularly make me happy—I don’t want her to be miserable—but it does give me a strange sort of hope.
“I’ve called her. Several times. She won’t return the calls.” And I can’t call anymore. She already battled off one stalker. I’m not going to step into that role. If she really wants me gone, I’ll go. But not until I’m sure I’ve done everything in my power to convince her she’s wrong.
I catch Kerrie later at the elevator as she’s about to leave for the day, then slip on and ride down with her. “I called Jez,” I tell her.
“And?”
“I got voicemail.”
She steps to me, puts her arms around me, and gives me a hug.
“What was that for?” I ask when she’s back on her side of the elevator.
She shrugs. “Just seems like you could use it. Look, just call her. Not Jez. Gracie. Tell her you want to meet someplace neutral and talk like adults. And somewhere in all of that, tell her you’re sorry. And maybe even tell her you love her. I’m not sure. That might scare her
off.”
“Would it scare you off?”
“Love? Hell, yeah.” Her smile is wide. “That’s scary shit.”
I laugh, but the truth is she’s right, and I’m still thinking about that as I pull into the driveway of my crappy, tiny house. A house that is now officially on the market because I’m tired of living in a place that feels temporary. I want a home.
I want it with Gracie, but either way, I’m finding a real place. With room to grow, to have a family. To have the life I want and not just mourn the one I lost. Because the truth is I never lost it because I never had it. Because Vivien never really loved me. We never connected.
She was never Mona to my Ted.
The memory of that couple—of that night—makes me smile, and I’m grinning as I put my key in the lock. Then I step into the boring, boxy living area and see her. Gracie. Sitting right there on my couch.
“Hi.”
“Um, hey.” I step inside, treading carefully so I don’t accidentally crush the possibility that is laid out in front of me. “How did you get in?”
“Jez said you called. And she said I was being stupid. And she gave me your spare key.”
“Stupid?”
“Not her words, but the sentiment was the same.”
I sit tentatively on the coffee table facing her. “Ah, was she talking about, say, your skill at calculus?”
“More like my skill at interpersonal relationships.”
“Then you must have misunderstood. I promise you, I’ve been the stupid one.”
“I’m going to give up modeling,” she says at the same time I say, “I was so busy painting everyone with the Vivien brush I forgot that most women are Monas.”
Her brows rise. “Who the hell is Mona?”
I explain about the couple from the bar the first night we met.
“You asked her name?”
“That part’s made up. But the affection, the trust…” I trail off with a shrug. “They had a connection. You could see it. Hell, I could almost feel it. It’s what Jez has with Pierce. And though I won’t ever tell my brother, I think he and Kerrie have it, too.”