As I roughly removed the silk and tulle creation, and kicked it into a corner of my bedroom, I realized Gray had followed my directions without a word of challenge. For once. The mood between us was tense, and we were both exhausted, but I’d let him know earlier that he and I were having this conversation tonight. He wasn’t excused until I said so.
Maybe he was indulging me because he’d been so traumatized by my asthma attack/ambulance/hospital ordeal. Even though I was fine, and had responded to my rescue inhaler exactly as I was supposed to, Gray was not yet convinced. His experience tonight with me at the ER had really scared him.
When I emerged from my bedroom wearing yoga pants and my favorite pink sweater, Gray and Horatio’s bromance was in full swing. This from the cat who hissed at everyone, except for my grandmother. I wouldn’t care to lay odds on my cat being a beneficiary in my grandmother’s will, either.
I sat down opposite of them in my big fluffy chair, actually feeling comfortable for the first time in many hours.
“Don’t the two of you look cozy,” I offered as a greeting to break the ice. Everything felt awkward now, but I was determined to forge ahead and get my answers to some questions that had been bothering me for a while now.
Gray’s eyes flicked over me quickly and then refocused on Horatio. “He’s awesome,” he said, while repeatedly stroking down Horatio’s back from head to tail. “He would love it at Mount Laurel.”
“My grandmother got Horatio for me two years ago as a birthday present.”
“I remember you telling me he and Dr. Voldemort did not get along,” Gray said, while keeping his eyes focused on Horatio. “Smart cat.”
“I don’t think I have ever heard you refer to him by name, Gray.”
Silence infused with strains of purring cat was all I got by way of a response.
“Tim. His name is Dr. Timothy Pellton—”
“I know the cocksucker’s name—I just don’t want to speak it.”
I sighed. “Why do you hate him so much?”
“Why don’t you hate him enough?” he asked angrily.
“Are you afraid I would take him back? Is that why?” God, I would never take Tim back after what he did to me.
Again, with more of the silent treatment combined with ultra-focused cat petting.
“Gray?”
“Hmm?”
He finally looked up to meet me eye to eye. Gray was teetering on the edge of losing his self-control, and I sensed it wouldn’t take much to push him over.
I decided to give him a shove anyway.
“You’d better start talking, Grayson Lash, or you can get the hell out of my house.”
“Okay, you want honesty, you got it, baby,” he snapped. “Where do I fuckin’ start?”
“How about start with why you hate Tim so much?”
“He got you to fall in love with him and then agree to marry him.”
“Why do you care who I love or who I marry? It’s all so very stupid. You never wanted me until I was with him. That’s the honest-to-God-truth, Gray, and you know it. Please tell me why you want to marry me now and not before.”
“I have always cared about you, Pink. Always.”
“That is not what I am asking you. I know you care about me. Can’t you just be honest with me for two damn minutes?”
“You were always supposed to marry me,” he shouted back.
Horatio howled and took off like a streak of gray smoke, disappearing from Gray’s lap in a nanosecond. Most likely he was now hiding under my bed, and would stay there until he felt good and ready to come out. Horatio did what he wanted, when he wanted.
“But you never cared who I dated. You told me we could never be together right after your father died. You did not want me, Gray. It was not the other way around.”
“Well, I changed my mind, okay? I do want you. I want you to marry me, and be my wife, and live with me, and together we will make a wonderful life.”
“I’ve heard that part loud and clear, Grayson. What you won’t tell me is the reason why.”
“Well, I’d like to know why you keep running away from me. Why you left me with no explanation beyond a fuckin’ Dear John on hotel letterhead, after the night we shared two months ago. It must not have meant much to you. It did to me, though. That night we had together was something so right—”
“But I explained in my letter that I need some time. Why can’t you accept that I need time to put Tim behind me?”
“Because we don’t have any more motherfuckin’ time to spare!”
“What does that even mean?” I snarled.
“It means the difference of a billion-dollar fortune going to our son—or not.”
“I knew it. This has been about money from the very beginning. How disgusting.” I pretended outrage, but it was nothing I hadn’t already suspected. Gray was simply putting legs to the idea.
“Do you even grasp the concept of a billion-dollar legacy, Reese? Talk to your grandfather if you don’t believe me. I went to Harvard with his contracts lawyer. James Blakney in Boston can give you every detail. Theodore set this plan in motion with my father fifteen years ago. We get married before you turn twenty-five. And then we make some sons whose surname will legally change to Pinkarver-Lash. How can you even act surprised by this news?”
I felt my heart drop to the floor. My grandfather was going to try to control my life from beyond the grave. To manipulate me by influencing the destiny of my innocent children who hadn’t even been born yet.
“This is our game plan, devised by others long ago.” He gestured with his hand back and forth between us. “We are merely the players in the game. Did no one ever mention the rules to you, princess?” he asked bitterly.
No, they
