Suffice it to say Catie was all for me having a fling on my ski retreat. Therefore I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I knew deep in my gut that this thing between me and Gray was so far beyond fling material it wasn’t even funny. However, I didn’t want my best friend to think I was crazy or naïve, so I didn’t confide that to her.
Moreover, when Killian and Skylar called earlier I’d left all mention of Gray out. My brother would stew with worry if he knew I’d met a man over here.
As I’d gotten ready for dinner, those butterflies came back. To be fair, I’d had them all day but as the time for our date approached they began fluttering around in my belly like wild things. Assuming we’d be dining at the only nice restaurant on the resort, I put on a pair of black cigarette trousers with a silk long-sleeved shirt tucked into them. The shirt was my signature color—emerald green. I’d left a few buttons undone, showing a sexy hint of cleavage. Years ago Killian had bought me a rose gold necklace with a delicate chain and an even more delicate diamond ‘A’ pendant. The A nestled seductively between my breasts, catching the light every time I moved, drawing attention. Like always, my hair was down, and I wore a pair of sexy as hell sky high Jimmy Choos. They were rose gold lamé with criss-cross straps. A delicate rose gold bracelet and matching ring, along with an emerald green clutch, finished the look.
It was fair to say I’d brought way too many clothes with me on this trip but now that I’d met Gray, I was glad for the choices.
My outfit was sexy but to me wearing trousers sent a message—I wasn’t looking to get laid tonight. This was just dinner.
When I opened my hotel door Gray’s expression suggested that message had not been received. He put a big hand on my waist and leaned in, and I braced for a kiss like the one at the coffeehouse. Instead he surprised me with a lip brush across my cheekbone and then he released me, stepping back out of my personal space.
“You look beautiful.”
I stared at him, tingling from head to toe from his gentlemanly kiss. “Thank you. You look great, too.”
And he did. He wore a dark green shirt with his suit trousers and I wondered if he’d subconsciously chosen green because I wore it a lot.
He held out a hand. “Shall we?”
I hesitated, knowing as soon as I took his hand, I wouldn’t want to let go.
Sensing my uncertainty, Gray reassured me, “Just dinner, Autumn.”
That was when I discovered something more dangerous than Gray’s ability to give me butterflies. He also made me feel safe.
Taking his hand, trying not to shiver at the way the rough skin of his palm felt against mine, I let go of the breath I was holding. I tried to relax as we strolled hand-in-hand toward the restaurant.
“If it was up to me I’d take you to dinner in town but I thought you’d feel more relaxed if we stayed somewhere familiar tonight.”
“I do, thank you.”
He smiled and then his gaze dropped to my shoes before returning to my face. He grinned. “Never dated a woman on my eye level before.”
“Well, I’m wearing five-inch heels.”
“I noticed. They’re sexy as fuck.”
Our eyes held for what felt like forever and he squeezed my hand. I blinked and jerked my gaze away, trying to catch my breath.
“So what height does that make you out of heels?” he suddenly asked.
“Five nine. What height are you?”
“Six three.”
“Tall,” I muttered, trying not to imagine that long, hard body of his covering me in bed …and epically failing.
His warm hand tightened in mine as if he could read my expression. “I promised myself I’d be a gentleman tonight and that’s going to be hard to do when you’ve got me thinking about how long your legs are and how amazing they’ll feel wrapped around me… so maybe we should stop talking about this.”
I had to curb nervous laughter because I had a feeling it wasn’t going to take much to lead either of our thoughts into the bedroom. “Sounds like a plan,” I choked out.
We reached the restaurant in no time (thank goodness) and the hostess, who was as familiar with Gray as everyone else at the lodge appeared to be, led us directly to a table by the massive picture window at the back of the room. The sun had already set but from our table we could see part of the valley where the town was lit up in the dark. It was beautiful.
We ordered our drinks and I dragged my gaze from the view to Gray to find him studying me thoughtfully.
I pressed a hand to my cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just hard to want to look anywhere but at you.”
The compliment caused a small bark of incredulous laughter. “I don’t know whether you’re feeding me lines or if you’re being genuine. Unbelievably, I think you’re being genuine.”
Gray scowled. “I already told you I’m not feeding you a line and I thought after our kiss today you understood where we’re at.”
“Our kiss?”
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t deny the chemistry between us, angel.”
“I’m not trying to.” I sighed and it sounded shaky. “I’m sorry. I’m… I’m not used to men complimenting me just because they want to and not because they’re hoping it will lead somewhere.”
Understanding crossed his expression. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Needing the conversation to turn to something I could deal with, I gestured toward the town. “So you grew up in Cunningham Falls?”
“Yeah. My family has lived there for generations.”
“Big family?”
“Pretty big. Immediate family it’s only my parents and my brother Noah. But we have cousins and aunts and uncles who have lived here for generations, too, so it’s never really felt like just the four of us.”
“Is Noah in construction?”
Gray grinned like I’d said something funny. “Not even close. My brother owns Spread Your Wings Sanctuary. A wild bird sanctuary. He’s like the bird whisperer.”
“Wow, that’s cool.” And it was. I’d never owned a pet because my uncle wouldn’t allow us to have one but I loved animals and immediately liked anyone who had an affinity with them. I’d often contemplated getting a dog but I wasn’t home a lot and I didn’t think it would be fair to leave a pet on his/her own for so long every day. “Are you two very different then?”
“Yes and no.” He shrugged. “Different personalities but same values. Hard not to grow up with the same values in the extended King family. We’re all close. Got a good family. I’m lucky.”
Gray was lucky. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to grow up in such a big, loving family. I know I was lucky to have Killian, but it would have been nice for us both to have that kind of support outside of each other. The wistfulness I felt must have shown in my eyes because Gray’s filled with questions. Guessing what they were likely to be and not ready to answer them, I continued to guide the conversation. “And Yvette?” I said, referring to the woman Whitney had mentioned earlier in the day.
He leaned forward, bracing his crossed arms on the table, his expression casual. I searched for pain or anger in his eyes but saw nothing but calm. “My ex-fiancée.”
Whoa. Okay. Fiancée. Why did that cause a painful twist in my chest?
“We broke up nearly a year ago. We’d been together five years. She proposed to me.” He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t like it. I know that probably makes me a macho man dick in your eyes but I didn’t want to be proposed to. It was up to me to do the proposing.”
I shrugged, not bothered by this in the least, because frankly, as a romantic, I’d want to be proposed to. “You’re a traditionalist.”
“Yeah, when it comes to that shit I am. I said yes because I loved her and I didn’t want to hurt her. But over the years I managed to somehow put her off anytime she broached the subject of wedding planning. Finally everything came to a head. She pushed for me to set a d
ate and I finally realized I loved her but the connection wasn’t there. We broke it off. I broke it off.”
Oh wow. I suddenly felt sorry for Yvette.
“I felt like shit about it, for not knowing my own mind, but looking back I know there was a part of me deep down that knew she wasn’t the one. I just couldn’t admit that to myself, or her, for a really long time.”
I tilted my head in contemplation because I was surprised by the information he’d just imparted. “You believe in ‘the one’?”
Gray swallowed, almost as if he was nervous. “I do now.”
The air around us grew still at what he’d just implied.
Holy …
“Gray,” I whispered, not knowing what to say.
I found I loved what he was implying but it scared the absolute bejesus out of me, too.
“Never felt about her the way I feel about you and I’ve only just met you,” he continued, holding my gaze in his.
“Are you ready to order?” The waiter suddenly appeared, giving me a chance to collect my thoughts.
Once he had our order, I turned back to my dinner date. “We should think about this before it goes any further.”
He shook his head. “We can do that later.”
Panic made the butterflies in my belly flutter up toward my heart, their wings kicking it into hyper speed. “No, we can’t because I live on the other side of a pretty big ocean and that’s not a small problem. We should discuss what that means before we go any further.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I want it so our hooks are so deep in each other it doesn’t matter what problems we face, we’ll do whatever we can to overcome them together.”
“This is insane. We just met!”
“Yeah, we did. And yeah, it’s crazy.” He leaned across the table again, his voice pitched low and sexy. “But tell me you don’t feel like you’ve known me forever. Tell me it’s not just about sex. You feel it, I know you do. This is more than just amazing sexual attraction. There’s a connection here, angel.”
“How can that be? How do you know?”
“I don’t know how I know. I just do. If people knew how this shit worked, someone would have written a formula for it by now so everybody got a piece of the good life.”
“Oh my God.” My fingers trembled as I reached up to push my hair off my face.
“We stumbled onto something special, Autumn. We would be fools to turn our backs on it when other folks aren’t so lucky.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” I continued to deny him.
“Then tell me. I told you about my family. Tell me about yours.”
The fact was, after hearing about his big family, I wasn’t so sure about telling him about mine. Although part of me was looking for an excuse to break the inexplicable bond between us, the other part of me was afraid that if I told him about my upbringing he might decide we were too different.
And how messed-up was that?
He’d turned my emotions into a war unto themselves.
“Autumn?”
I glanced out of the window toward the town he’d grown up in. “I’m from Glasgow. I have a big brother, Killian. He’s my half-brother, really—we had different dads—but that’s just a technicality. He’s my brother.”
“Had?” Gray picked up on the past tense immediately.
I looked back at him, and found his gaze curious. There was a small crease line between his brows that hinted at concern. “His dad is still alive but he wasn’t his dad. He’s Killian’s father and there’s a difference. He’s been in and out of prison most of Killian’s life. Mum met my dad when Killian was little and my dad adopted him, so he was really our dad. But they uh… when I was six and Killian was eleven we were on holiday with Mum and Dad and… our parents died in a helicopter accident.”
Suddenly Gray reached across the table and threaded his fingers through mine. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
I melted at the warmth in his expression. It was mixed with a sympathetic pain and I knew, deep down, that his emotion for me was genuine. It boggled my mind but it was true. Gray hurt when I hurt. How strange but beautiful was that?
“I’m okay. It was a long time ago. But it meant that Killian and I were raised by his biological father’s brother and James Byrne is not the nicest of men. He sued the events company, and their insurance company, and he won a lot of money for us. He’s very smart and has the golden touch when it comes to finances. He took that money and invested it for us in some high risk ventures that paid off. We each got our share when we turned eighteen. A lot of mine is still in investment and stock funds and it means I can live well. Hence the suite. But I’ll have to find a job sooner or later. It’s not the kind of money that will last a lifetime. And I want a job.
“My uncle didn’t think it was necessary for me to have one. He’s delusional enough to think that me not having a job proved to the rest of the world that he was wealthy enough for his niece to live like a socialite. When I was younger he ‘indulged me’—his words, not mine—and paid for me to continue my ballet lessons in the hope that any future success as a ballerina would give him social standing. But when I was thirteen I auditioned for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which is one of the world’s top five schools of performing arts and extremely competitive. I didn’t get in. My uncle refused to pay for any further ballet lessons if he couldn’t parade me out to all his friends as if my ballet achievements were owed all to him.”
“And is that all he cared about?” Gray squeezed my hand. “Money and what you could do for his reputation?”
I nodded. “Our uncle gave us nothing but material offerings. No affection. No family. Killian stepped in and became my parent and he was just a child himself. He loved and protected me with a fierceness that meant I had what I needed growing up. It wasn’t a mum and dad but he tried his damn best. I guess because I had Killian, my uncle’s lack of affection didn’t hurt as much. But Killian didn’t have that same paternal support and so he grew up trying to win it from our uncle. He even took a job at my uncle’s record label. I hated watching him trying to prove himself to a man who didn’t deserve the attempt.”
“Your brother still work for him?”
I shook my head and smiled. “He met someone. You may have heard of her actually. Skylar Finch?”
He frowned. “The name is familiar but I don’t know why.”
“She’s been all over the news lately. She used to be the frontwoman for the band Tellurian. Her parents were murdered. She fell off the face of the earth a few years ago and just showed up again recently.”
Gray nodded as recognition lit his eyes. “I do remember catching glimpses of that in the news.”
“Well, she was living in Glasgow. It’s a long story.” I shrugged. “But the result was that Killian fell in love with her. She’s changed him for the better. Now he’s starting up his own record company and our uncle is out of our lives for good. We don’t need his toxic personality around us anyway.”
In answer, Gray rubbed his thumb over the top of my hand and I fought a shiver. “First your uncle and then all those assholes you told me about. Fuck, Autumn, you deserve so much more than that.”
“What if that’s not true?” I whispered because the words were hard to say. “What if I’m not who you want me to be and this is just a giant mistake?”
“I get it. I get why you’re questioning this because it feels unreal that two people could connect like this so quickly. You ever ask why I’m not questioning it? It’s because I know that this kind of connection exists and it’s real. I know that because I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by love. I’m more open to it. I get it now why you’re not. Between those guys and everything you’ve lost, I get it in a way that I really wish I didn’t. Because I’ve known you only a few days and I would give anything to give you back your parents. That’s why you don’t want to believe this is true. Because good things rarely happen, right?”
&
nbsp; “That makes me sound ungrateful. I’ve lived a privileged life.”
“No. You have money. There’s a difference and you know it. You know it better than anyone.”
I gripped his hand tight, feeling tears burn my eyes. “I’d give it back in a heartbeat.”
“I know, angel,” he murmured, taking hold of my other hand.
Suddenly my chest felt constricted as a wave of feelings toward him crashed into me. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. I promise you there’s nothing to be scared of from me. This is the real fucking deal and I’m going to protect it with everything I have. Just say you’re with me.”
“I live in Glasgow,” I reiterated, hanging on by a thread.
“Forget that. Forget everything but you and me and right now. I don’t care if that’s reckless or stupid… I just… Just give yourself over to this with me and I honestly believe it will all work itself out. Will you do that? Will you just hold on with me?”
I stared into his face, a face that felt so strangely familiar to me now. My fears rode me but I knew as the warmth and excitement and thrill and peace exploded through me in opposing harmony that he was going to win over my fears.
I nodded, my hands tightening in his. “I’ll hold on.”
Chapter Five
The rest of our dinner conversation was balanced between heavy and light. I told him about Skylar being homeless in Glasgow, about helping her start a homeless shelter charity now that she was healthy and happy again. I spoke more about Killian and how overprotective he was (which didn’t even faze Gray). Gray talked about his parents and brother, and his cousins Josh and Zach and their families. We learned about each other’s food, music, movie likes and dislikes, and he made me laugh. A lot.
We moved to the bar after our meal and time flew. I was disappointed when I realized we had to say goodnight. However, Gray kept his word. In fact, he didn’t even kiss me goodnight. Well, not a real kiss… but what he did was almost better.
Hold On: A Play On/Big Sky Novella (Kristen Proby Crossover Collection Book 7) Page 5