by Fallon Hart
Realizing we wouldn’t be sharing a bed tonight, I felt tears burn in the back of my throat as he walked away. I knew it was partly just being overly-emotional because of my period, but I couldn’t hold in those tears as I took the elevator to the penthouse. I’d loved sharing a bed with Griff this past week and not just because of the sex.
I just liked knowing he was there.
He made me feel warm.
Maybe even safe.
He obliterated my loneliness.
Trying to pull myself together I talked myself out of my melancholy. At least I told myself I had and after showering the long day off me, I crawled into my clean, freshly laundered bed.
And then I laid there.
And laid there.
Sleep never coming despite my exhaustion.
Instead my brain kept whirring with the conversations Griff and I had shared these last few months. The lawyer had compiled a list of questions he thought we’d be asked at the interview and Griff and I were both memorizing our answers. I already knew some of it from our trivial conversations way back when I first moved into the penthouse. However, I realized, other than little tidbits like what he shared tonight about his grandmother, and other than knowing exactly what to do to make him come, what did I really know? I was learning about his nature and I think to a certain extent I understood him. But without knowing anything about his past, how I could really know anything about who he’d become?
At around two o’ clock in the morning I finally threw back the covers and got out of bed to get a glass of water. I shuffled into the kitchen in floral pajama shorts and white t-shirt that were girly more than they were sexy and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. When I turned to leave I jumped, startled at the sight of Griff.
“Jesus, you scared me,” I huffed.
“I was just going to bed.” His eyes darted down my body and back up again. “Nice PJ’s.”
I smirked. “Thanks.”
“Can’t sleep?”
I shook my head.
“Is it your period? Do you have cramps? Because I’m sure we can find a hot water bottle.”
His concern caused a flare of pleasurable pain in my chest. “I’m okay. Sometimes it just makes my brain hyperactive. I can’t stop thinking and that means I can’t get to sleep.”
Putting his hands in his suit pockets he leaned against the doorjamb. “Thinking about what?”
You. You. My sister. You. “Just… stuff.”
Instead of responding, Griff pushed off the jamb and held out his hand to me. “Come with me.”
Curious, I followed his lead.
To my surprise he led us through his side of the penthouse to huge double doors I knew led into his suite. “What…”
He opened one of the doors and pulled me inside. Despite the high ceilings and grandeur of the size of the room whoever had designed the interior had managed to make it cozy. The biggest fireplace in the entire club took up one wall of the room. A large flat screen TV was fitted above it. A sofa and two armchairs surrounded it. There were two sets of French doors that I knew led out onto balconies that sat over Commonwealth Avenue. Heavy, navy drapes hung from the windows, pooling luxuriously on the floor. A clutter of bookshelves, seating areas, and armoires brought the room in, giving the huge space much-needed coziness. There was a door near the bed that must have led to the bathroom.
The bed was masculine but stylish— a large chocolate leather sleigh bed. There were scatter cushions all over it, making it look inviting, but I couldn’t imagine Griff had anything to do with those. He just seemed too practical for scatter cushions.
When he started throwing the cushions carelessly onto the floor I guessed I was right. He pulled back the duvet and then started making work of his own clothes. “Get in.”
Confused, I could only stare at him.
He raised an eyebrow. “I assure you it’s perfectly comfortable.”
“But…” I frowned. “You know we can’t have sex, right?”
Griff shrugged off his jacket and threw on an armchair. “Do you think I’m incapable of functioning as a human being beyond the needs of my cock?”
I flushed. “Of course not.”
“Then get in the bloody bed, Scarlett.”
I glowered at his irritated tone and stomped over to the bed. “Only because you asked so nicely.”
To my continued annoyance he chuckled at my sarcasm.
What was going on?
Griff had never invited me into his room and now he was doing so but not to have sex?
I pulled the duvet up my body and leaned against the pillows, the opposite of relaxed.
My husband rolled his eyes as he shrugged into a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and got into the bed. “Stop acting like I’ve forced you in here.”
“I’m just confused, that’s all.”
“What’s there to be confused about? You can’t sleep. You’ve told me you can’t stop thinking about things. So we’re here. Talk. Get it out.”
Now I was really confused. “You? You want me to talk?”
He scowled at me. “You’re making me regret this.”
“What is this?”
“For fuck’s sakes, Scarlett, this is me being your fucking friend but if you’re not interested get out the bloody bed and go back to your own.”
There was a flush high on his cheeks and it was the only thing that stopped me from doing just that.
Instead I felt a twinge of something for him in my chest.
Griff Mandeville was trying to be my friend and it made him feel vulnerable. Elation moved through me but I didn’t let it show. Instead I turned toward his prickly majesty.
“No need to snap at me, you big jerk.”
He shot me a look. “Jerk?”
“I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Now, you’ve agreed to be my therapist for the evening then, yes?”
“Therapist? No. I said friend.”
“Friend.” I smiled at him and something tender flickered across his expression, making my breath catch. “I like the sound of that.”
And then he ruined it. “Don’t read too much into it.”
I flopped back on the pillows with a groan. “Oh, well, it was almost a moment.”
There was quiet from his side of the bed before his voice rumbled toward me. “I want to be your friend, Scarlett. I like you. I just don’t know how to do it without… confusing things for you.”
Understanding what he meant, I turned my head on the pillow to meet his gaze. “You are my friend. You’re one of the few real friends I have right now. I won’t confuse that for something more. I promise.”
He nodded, relaxing, and then he shifted onto his side. “So tell me why you can’t sleep? Sexually frustrated?”
I snickered at his teasing. “Maybe.” At his widening grin I huffed, “It’s your fault. I went six years without sex until you, buddy. You have a lot to answer for.”
“Fuck, six years. I can’t imagine.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. I have a trusty vibrator.”
“Let’s veer the conversation out of a zone where I get a hard on from imagining you with a vibrator.”
Chuckling I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Why don’t we talk about your sister?”
I tensed, the thought producing the knife-like pain of betrayal in my chest. “What’s there to talk about? She conned me. My own sister conned me.”
“Has she tried to contact you?”
“She’s emailed. But I… I’m not ready to get in touch with her. I don’t know if I ever will be. She was… she was all I had, Griff. I, mean, we were never really close but I clung to the idea of her after my parents died. They were everything to me. My best friends. Without them…”
“You must miss them terribly.”
“I miss them so much that I can’t think about how much I miss them – the pain is too crippling. I can’t explain the horror of finding my parents like that… trying to shake them awake and know
ing that who they were… they were gone. All that was left were cold bodies.” Tears slipped down my cheeks.
Griff reached over to catch them, wiping them away with his thumbs. “You were so young. It took a lot of strength to get through that, Scarlett.”
“Maybe… but the truth?”
He nodded.
“I’ve never told anyone this before.”
“Anything you tell me I will hold in the strictest of confidence.”
My heart pounded at the thought of saying the words out loud. But somehow I knew Griff wouldn’t judge me for them. He’d understand. “Eric was diagnosed before they died and I sometimes think… that his illness, his dying… well it saved my life. He gave me someone to focus on.”
Griff hesitated a second before prompting, “And when he died?”
“The only way to survive was to go on autopilot. To shut everyone out. I trailed after my sister but the truth is I shut her out, too.”
“Like you said, you did what you had to do to survive.”
I looked at him, all the pain I felt blazing in my eyes. “How could she do it? Knowing what I’d already lost? How can someone who is supposed to be your flesh and blood knowingly hurt you like that?”
Griff sucked in a breath and exhaled it shakily. “I don’t know. But I know how it feels and I’m more sorry than I can say that you feel that betrayal.”
Afraid to push but wanting to know more about him I asked tentatively, “Your father?”
His lips pressed together and he nodded before falling onto his back to stare at the ceiling.
I waited.
I felt like my heart might burst out of my chest and shatter if he didn’t confide in me.
And then, “My father was a very controlling man. Everything went through him. Every aspect of the running of the house, the estates, our daily schedule. Everything. He told my mother what to wear, what to eat, who to be friends with. My mother eventually couldn’t take it anymore. She divorced him, with great difficulty, but thankfully had her own money so she was able to flee home to Boston. She won custody of me and my father, well,… he continued to interfere in her life. When she met someone, he would blackmail, cajole, pay these men to disappear. She tried to get beyond him, to be happy, but the bastard couldn’t let her go.
“I used to wonder if he really loved or if he was just obsessed with her. Obsessed with controlling her. At her funeral the bastard,” Griff took a breath, “The bastard actually cried. Like a fucking baby. And I knew that whatever he felt for her he at least thought it was love. As for me, I adored my mother and part of me was relieved for her. That she was finally free of him.”
Tears slipped silently down my cheeks. There was no denying his mother’s pain had been his own. “Then you moved back to live with your father?”
“For a bit, yes, before he sent me off to Eton. I’d lived a rather nice life with my mother. My grandmother would visit us in Boston during the summer and despite my father’s interferences we had a good life here. But when I returned to England not even my grandmother could stop my father from turning his focus on me. It was me he wanted to control now that my mother was gone. I wasn’t allowed to play football—soccer—because it was too common. I had to be tutored in Latin, not Spanish, because all Manderville men had been tutored in Latin. If I made friends with boys he didn’t approve of I had to sever the connection.”
“Did you?”
“Did I fuck. And when my mother died my father started drinking so let’s just say he made his disapproval of my continual disobedience extremely clear.”
Anger flooded my gut. “In what way?”
He rolled his eyes to me. “What way do you think?”
“Did he… Did he hurt you?” I was appalled by the idea. I wanted to wrap my arms around him to protect him from the very thought.
“Every now and then. Until I turned sixteen, grabbed him by the throat, and told him if he ever laid a hand on me again I’d kill him. And that was the end of it. The end of my father being able to control me. Until the inheritance. It’s… the inheritance is my mother’s estate in Weston. It includes the house and grounds she grew up in. She often told me how much she loved that house. Her parents, like yours, died when she was young and somehow my father managed to slip an ancient piece of law into their fucking marriage agreement. Her parents estate was given to him as a dowry. He knew… he knew I’d do anything to make sure it didn’t end up in his brother’s hands, a man even more worthless than my father if you can believe it.”
Jesus Christ.
I remembered all those months ago Griff mentioned his father was controlling and that he’d deliberately put the codicil in the will because Griff told him he’d never marry. I didn’t understand then. Now I did. “What a bastard.”
Griff snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.”
I reached out and brushed the back of my fingers across his cheek. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
He grabbed hold of it and for a second I was sure he was going to push my hand away, refuse my comfort. But it was like he thought better of it and squeezed it instead. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
Relaxing, I snuggled closer to him in the bed.
“Thank you,” he said, the words sounding gruff with disuse.
“What for?”
He turned his head on the pillow to lock eyes with me. “For helping me snap off the chains of his control for the last time.”
I smiled softly. “What else are friends for?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Four weeks later
“Remember we have the Van De Beer luncheon on Saturday,” Griff said between bites of toast.
At the mention of Kiersten— his ex-girlfriend’s— family I swallowed a piece of croissant too fast and coughed.
Griff leaned over, his eyebrow raised in concern, as he patted my back. “You alright?”
I spluttered, reaching for my cup of tea in hopes the hot drink would force the piece down better. It did and when I could finally speak I made a face. “Since when do we have a Van De Beer luncheon to attend?”
“I didn’t tell you? I’m sure I told you.”
“You didn’t. I would have remembered.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well it’s James Van De Beer’s niece’s twenty-first birthday. They’re having a party at his home in Wellesley. We’ve been invited.”
“I see.” I didn’t really. Amelia said Kiersten had withdrawn her ‘campaign’ against me and although Griff and I hadn’t spoken about it, Amelia and I assumed it meant Griff had had that word with her father after all.
“We spoke,” Griff continued. “James and I. A few weeks ago. I assume since we’ve heard nothing more from Kiersten that he told her to back off. And he also invited us to his niece’s birthday party as an apology. An invitation to a Van De Beer event goes a long way to garnering approval from the rest of society.”
“I can’t believe this crap still goes on in this day and age. These society customs and rules are extremely outdated.”
“In some ways, you’re right. But men and women still do an awful lot of networking at these events. They still have a purpose. And gossip can affect business whether we like it or not.”
“Fine.” My stomach flipped at the idea of attending a party with Griff’s ex. “I take it Kiersten will be there.”
“She will.” His tone went tight. After months of living together, almost six weeks of which we’d spent extremely intimately, I knew what that meant. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Well I did.
The passion between us had not diminished in the slightest. If anything, the closer we grew as friends, the hotter the flame between us seemed to burn. When I’d woken up that very morning with my period, Griff had joked that maybe it was for the best since we’d been abusing each other’s equipment lately.
I’d laughed.
But I’d also been slightly concerned by how much it disappointed me that we wouldn’t be having sex for a
few days. My frustration and want for him had not waned in the least. In fact, since my last period and lack of access to my husband, my need it had gotten worse. It was actually ludicrous how much I craved him. My emotions, as they always were during my cycle, were dictated by my hormones. I was feeling more than a little apprehensive about meeting his ex-girlfriend.
The thought made me feel territorial and strangely weepy.
Damn period! Men just didn’t understand how it could make you feel so unlike yourself.
“Will there be any more of your ex-girlfriends at the party?” I asked, attempting to sound casual.
Thankfully being informed about each other’s relationship history had been part of the interview preparation for his father’s lawyers. So I did know the names of his ex-girlfriends and how long he’d been with them so I’d always know if I’d just been introduced to one.
“Hmm, let me think. I should know that since Mrs. Van De Beer includes me in all her event planning.”
I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm. “Your wit is astounding.”
“And you’re trying to push a subject I’d rather leave well enough alone.”
I narrowed my eyes as he read a newspaper while he ate. Our life together, outside of the intense physical relationship we shared, had grown quite comfortable and easy. I slept in his bed every night, even though all my stuff was still in my bedroom. We ate breakfast together, he went to work, I either job-hunted, wrote, or spent the afternoon with Amelia and her friends, Griff and I would have dinner together on the nights he could get away for an hour or so, and then in the early hours of the morning he’d wake me in the middle of the night for sex.
Not going to lie, I often sought him out during the day and early evening too for a quickie in his office.
Every weekend thus far we’d gone to some event or other, and we found that our intimacy made it extremely easy to keep up the pretense of a love match.
Not that I really felt like I was pretending anymore.
The interviews with his father’s lawyers had been extremely nerve-wracking but I got through them. In the end, Griff was granted his inheritance. I think it helped that Griff and I had been left in a conference room together for a while so, of course, he started feeling me up. One of the lawyers walked in when Griff’s hand was up my dress and he didn’t miss it. He seemed amused by it and clearly bought into the idea that we were truly newlyweds.