Why had Tara stayed with him instead of taking the easy way out? He’d never believed it was some stupidity like she’d loved him. It was because she hadn’t been done using him. She’d needed to stay with him as a means to stay at Kaniz for her fan-fucking-tastic and ever important career. If she’d divorced him, she could have no longer ridden on the association of being married to one of the top lawyers of the firm.
On her own record, she wouldn’t have been privy to the knowledge and privileges she’d gotten as the wife of a coveted lawyer of the firm. Her prestige at Kaniz was founded not only as the niece of one of the founders, but as the wife of an excellent lawyer. Without Grant, Tara would have been a mediocre lawyer with so-so cases.
He sat up straighter. Now, since she’d agreed to his request for a divorce, her motives were crystal clear. She no longer needed him for her career because she was taking her career to prosecution, jumping ship.
Next to him, Roxie scoffed and shook her head, snapping him out of his reverie. “Could it be any more ironic? She complains about Josh possibly cheating on her via a publicity stunt, while she’s sleeping with her ex-lover. No two-way street for them.”
“Which is why Wayne and Kylie’s relationship needs a thorough examination. He didn’t fess up to the cops about oral sex with Kylie the night of the party.”
“Kylie didn’t offer the information either.”
He smirked. “But there’s jack shit we can do about what someone doesn’t say.”
“Too true,” she said.
“What’s that look for?”
She blinked and adopted a frown. He’d been too close to her for too long to miss her subtle expressions. For months now he’d either been sitting next to her meeting after meeting, pacing and sitting in his office reviewing the case, dining across from each other over countless meals. Her features were burned on his conscience, day in and day out. Her moods were clues she never sought to mask.
When he’d told her about how Tara was a controlling spouse—which was only one slice of the pie of honesty—he’d witnessed her troubled expression. During and after the dinner, she’d showcased her signature slight frown, her uniform for concentration. But just then, when she’d quipped on the situation of someone not sharing information, he’d found cause to step back, vulnerable. She always was the curious cat, never too shy to ask questions. But she was inquiring about him, not the case.
She didn’t buckle under his scrutiny. “What happened after you found Tara with Stuart?”
Of course she wasn’t going to let him leave her with a cliffhanger. Naturally she’d want to know more of what he’d started to reveal. But he couldn’t let go. There was no way he could give her the truth—all of the truth. Some pains were too wicked to revisit, even in the safest of company.
“Well, it’s not exactly a mystery.” It was a hedge and a lie. She already knew he divorced Tara.
“You finally left her because of infidelity,” she guessed.
“Not exactly. I said I was going to. It was the last straw. I started the paperwork that night, arranging for a meeting the very next morning. But she took another test.”
“No!” Roxie shoved their stuff aside to sit facing him. “He knocked her up.”
A rough laugh escaped him. “Actually, no. It was mine.”
She shook her head. “How…”
“Stuart owned up. Obviously I knew they were fucking. I’d caught them red-handed. That time. And she told him I wanted a divorce. He found out about the baby, but it wasn’t his, he explained. When I said I was leaving her, baby or not, because how the hell did I know if it was mine, he came to my office with medical records. After treatment for a rare form of prostate cancer, he’d had a vasectomy. Couldn’t have been his. Didn’t apologize, but he wanted to clarify Tara’s baby wasn’t his headache.”
Roxie scooted closer and put her arm around his shoulders. He dropped his cheek to the crook of her elbow and continued. “So she had me cornered. Finally having our baby. Never mind I wanted nothing to do with her. Never mind I’d already started a financial plan for getting the fuck away from her and the firm. She was having my baby, the kid I’d always wanted. I couldn’t divorce her then. As much as I hated her, I could never leave my child.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you did divorce her… and clearly… she didn’t have…”
“Correct. I had to go through with it. I couldn’t be with her anymore.”
“And…the baby?”
He shook his head, hating the heat of tears building behind his closed eyes. No one. He’d not spoken to a single soul about what happened to the baby. And even with a dependable friend like Roxie, he still couldn’t.
Roxie climbed into his lap and hugged him. Accepting her comfort, he wrapped his arms around her and rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“She was stressed. About work. Her caseload was suffering because she was sacrificing her career to have my baby. Puking all the time. Blamed me for causing her depression by threatening divorce.”
In a flash, Roxie pulled back and grimaced. “Despicable bitch. She was your wife! She gave you a guilt trip to marry her because she’d wanted a baby. And she was the one who was sleep—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Defeated, he let his arms fall at his sides. “Anyway… No baby.”
There was no break of their locked gazes. And in hers, he gauged compassion.
“So yes, if you ask me if I’m considering sex, lust, and love the motives at the top of the list, yes. Most cases I work on are based on money. Money is an easy one. Sex comes second. I’ve been on the receiving end of the destruction someone can wield through sex and love. It can inspire the evilest individual to do the vilest of acts. Including murder. Between the triangle Kylie, Josh, Wayne, hell, even Richelle—”
“That’s four people. Triangles are three-sided.”
He gave her a faint smile. “Whatever geometric shape fits, between all their infidelities and lies, something isn’t going to go well. And that’s precisely what warrants our attention.”
“Got it.” She saluted without a smile. “Can I say one thing, though?”
He quirked a brow.
“If the circumstances ever allow it, I get first dibs on kicking Tara’s ass.”
His palm flipped up between them. “Quarter. Actually two. For the ‘bitch’ and ‘ass’.”
She tipped the corner of her lips in an almost smirk. “I’ll put them on your tab.” After she got off his lap and stood, she pointed her finger at him, sassy but even more matter-of-factly. “I mean it. No one messes with my…friends.”
Grant nodded once. Imagine if you knew the whole story, baby.
Sadness and his sordid past were shooed aside—to his relief—as Roxie went to change into comfortable clothes and he called Chris for a late-night marathon of research gathering.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was an undeterminable time when Roxie swallowed back a groan, fumbling out of the pull of sleep into consciousness. Another humming buzz poked at her ribcage and she felt the last drags of slumber fade away.
That phone. That goddamn phone.
It had to be morning, the alarm clock, she recognized. Eyes still closed, she reached to her side for the device, grateful she’d set it on vibrate so as not to wake Lucy. She’d learned early on that Grant either stayed up all night working and sent her messages, or he had a much earlier alarm clock and began his day with the sun rising, like a Bizarro World vampire.
Her hand squeezed between the pillows and she hit the disarm button. Balancing her weight on her opposite side, the pillow beneath her shifted. When had her bed gotten so hard? Blinking, she let the dim light expose her bedroom…
Her lids flew up, showing her the wide view of Grant’s hotel room. Not at home. Miami. She gaped as she registered her bedding in the form of him. The weight across her back wasn’t the blanket bulged up, it was his arm. The warm surface the entire length of her body was spread on was him. Flush to her boss, rest
ing in his arms.
How the hell…? She stared at Grant’s peaceful countenance, still sleeping. Last she’d checked, around one-thirty, he’d been parked on the other end of the couch, his computer on his lap, his feet on the coffee table. His gorgeous frame dressed down in a t-shirt and flannel pants. Eating pizza and working through the data Chris had emailed them, they’d shared the couch late into the night—as their workspace. She could have sworn she’d been on the other end of the sofa, perusing notes from Chris and browsing for more info on her laptop.
Grant shifted beneath her as she attempted to recollect how they’d lost their papers and ended up smashed together in an oh-so-good night’s sleep. His movement heightened the presence of his erection at her core.
Heat shot through her, from her middle to her head and toes, and even down to her fingertips. Pressed against him, she had zero discipline of her physical attraction to him.
She’d be damned if she’d admit he was right. It was nearly impossible to keep telling herself no. To deny she felt the unstoppable attraction and pull between them since their first kiss at Velocity. Of course she felt it too. She wasn’t dead—only half-assing an attempt of workplace propriety. But her defenses were waning. And here, in his arms, draped over his every inch, she was seduced. Even in his sleep he could prove that point. On a basic level, he responded to her, and she to him, no obstacles, no excuses.
No. Despite their friendship deepening, he was still her employer. She couldn’t follow that path again. Gazing at the relaxed face inches from hers, she smiled. Daring herself a touch, she traced her finger along his lips, feathering a delicate lazy line around his cheeks, his jaw, and his forehead.
The fact he’d shared his past with her hadn’t guided the profound change to lowering her guard around him. It wasn’t pity she was oozing with. No point there. But she was opening her heart to him, regardless if he knew it. Grant had hacked at the wall around her heart as he’d crumbled a few bricks around the castle protecting his own.
Blossoming fondness, growing respect, and embracing mutual companionship as friends still couldn’t reclassify how he ultimately mattered in her life. They could be friendly, but at the end of the night, or the beginning of the day, he was still the man she worked for to earn that bonus at the conclusion of the case.
Ignoring the lax heaviness in her limbs and the contentedness in her heart, she fidgeted to get off him. Before she lifted herself, she brushed one gentle kiss on his lips. A sweet steal he’d never know about.
To her right, his phone buzzed on the coffee table and she shot her arm out to silence it. His alarm, she guessed. Sure, he, they, needed to be on schedule—as usual—but Roxie didn’t want to face him, so close, so, well, face-to-face. How would she be able to defend her no-playing-around rules if she was sighing with lust and snuggling into his space?
With the careful jostling, she assumed she was scot-free and able to remove herself from his hold. But his arms tightened, those broad barrels of just-right musculature and dark hair trapping her back into the secure cocoon on his body.
Stuck. Held. Kept. She’d wake him if she broke away. But the longer she lay there, nuzzling her face next to his, she had a challenging time convincing herself she should flee. Gently, she dragged her hand from his chest where she’d felt the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat, and cupped his jaw. Still asleep, Grant turned his face even closer to hers, rubbing the faint stubble of his cheek against her skin.
Shoot me. Somebody smite me with lightning. I’m not strong enough.
Holding in a whine of need, she caressed his cheek once and leaned up and neared to kiss his lips. Resistance had left the building. So close to him, she had no ounce of fight to deny herself. Gravity pressed her down to him, her lips testing the softness of the set line of his mouth.
It was a tease. Too little to settle her racing heart, her tingling skin. Another dip lower to rub her lips to his.
The sigh she restrained slipped free, a rush of warm air at the whisper of his mouth. In a split second, his arms and hands pulled her down to him.
With a grunt, Grant awoke, responding to her stolen kiss. Immediately her lips opened, in surprise, in shock, in gratitude, who the hell knew, but the ferocity of her barely-there kisses went from nil to sixty. Growling, he tugged her closer, both their chests rising and falling as they slanted for the perfect fit.
Trapped against him, she slid her hands, one upward to clutch his hair and the other lower, to grab at the taut lines of his abs.
Without letting go, he flipped on his side, giving her more of the couch. His hands pried at the end of her t-shirt, slipping under to feel her skin. A gasp caught between their sealed lips as he searched higher and palmed her breast. Such a perfect fit, his rough skin cupping and caressing her. Arching closer, she gripped his hair, wanting more. All of him.
In a fluster of grabs and shoves, he broke the kiss and pulled her shirt off, sharing the heat of his mouth and tongue to her nipple. Both her hands threaded into his hair as she held him close, writhing from his tender ministrations.
When he bit down, a shock of greedy anticipation wet her panties. As if sensing her need, he dragged his hand from her ribcage down to her panties.
“Grant—”
He silenced her with a kiss, ripping his lips from her nipple and covering her mouth with his, his tongue demanding reentrance. Whether he was cutting off a potential protest or answering to her unspoken desires, she couldn’t tell. And once his fingers entered her, thoughts were moot.
Stroking and circling where she needed him, her orgasm built faster and faster, but still too torturously slow as if he were milking her for every last reserve. All she could do as she shattered was clutch at his hair and gasp for air.
Wickedly wonderful. She should have known he’d crash all her systems as soon as she gave him permission. Lying limp, she let her fingers release his hair, her body melting into a blissful puddle onto the couch. As he slipped his fingers from her, he slowed and deepened his kisses, catching her sighs as he shifted on the couch.
Too long. It had been way too long to go without. Before the single night of Lucy’s conception, Roxie hadn’t been pleasured in…years? Before vet school for sure. Maybe at the start of college? But her ancient one-night stands couldn’t compare to what Grant so tenderly and urgently did. She smoothed her hand along his side, heading for unresolved business.
“Hello? Hello?”
Tara?
Grant’s face flew away as he jerked up on his arms, his eyes squinting in something much like confusion and annoyance.
Roxie left her mouth open, struggling to compute where—
“Hello! How did you even get hired with us if you can’t answer your phone like—”
Grant slid his hand next to Roxie’s shoulder and snatched her phone. They’d somehow answered an incoming call. From his ex.
“Tara.” Grant’s tone was simple, but his voice was anything but. Sleep and likely the residue of arousal roughened it past the curt acknowledgement he had probably been going for. Not to mention the panting breaths.
Roxie squeezed one eye shut in a grimace and bit down on the inside of cheek.
Tara having the nerve to call Roxie so early in the morning hinted at one worry. But Grant answering her phone in his I-got-some growl? Not good.
“Yes, she’s here.” He cleared his throat, still keeping his gaze on Roxie’s as he leaned above her on the couch.
“You called to inquire about the location of her phone? She works with me. Of course we’re in close proximity, which means her phone would also be—” He broke his attention from Roxie as he slanted his brows at whatever Tara was shouting into the earpiece. Roxie could just barely make out the accusations.
As soon as she caught the line “sleeping with the help”, she reached up, took the phone, and hung up.
Blessed silence filled the hotel room. Roxie let the device drop to her side. Grant studied her. Solemn and too serious. Roxie refused to go
there. It was simple. Mistake with a capital M. She never should have let her guard down. Never should have given anyone, especially Tara, the ammunition to cover her name with mud—nor Grant’s—with an oops of a morning. Sleeping with the help. Yes, in a way, Grant had completed Act I. If Tara hadn’t interrupted…
Roxie forced a smile. “Good morning.”
At her chipper greeting, his frown deepened and he reared back. “No.”
“Not a good morning?” She sat up as he hastily retreated off the couch, holding her shirt over her torso. “I mean, it was for me.” Cue my blush, here, and here. “I, uh, I was going to—”
He stood, adjusting a sizable presence in his pants, wincing slightly. Shaking his head, he sat on the coffee table, facing her at her seated level.
“No, she’s wrong.” He ran both hands through his hair and groaned. “You’re not my help.”
Ah. Noble Grant. No surprise he’d want to buffer that pain. But she was. Very much so.
“Are you saying I can’t do my job now?” She shot her arms through the sleeves of her shirt and pivoted to face him. “You’re implying I don’t help you?” She knew damn well what Tara had meant. Twisting the words seemed a faint chance of avoiding the colossal issue.
“No! I mean yes. Yes, you help me. I’d be lost without you here. But you’re not my hired help.” Grant leaned forward and gripped her knees.
“Au contraire, I am employed by your firm to personally assist you with Ben’s case.” She lost her boldness and broke her glare. Technically, there is also a no fraternization clause I had signed, and just ten minutes ago…
She held up her hand. Roxie didn’t need this. Neither did he. Mistake claimed, and lesson definitely learned. “Listen. Sticks and stones, all right? I’m not going to get hung up on what she has to say about…anything between us. Come on? Like she has room to talk?”
Slipping from his warm touch, she stepped aside and away from him. He stood and followed.
“She has no right to criticize you. Or me. She has no right to any part of my life,” Grant said.
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