CHAPTER 1 #2
I flattened my shaking hands against my skirt, smoothing wrinkles that had set in like permanent creases. My cheeks burned with each heartbeat, a flush I couldn’t hide, but I lifted my chin and locked my shoulders back, marching into Grant’s building before I could stop myself.
I passed the security desk, and the guard’s eyes flicked up, then away.
No need to check my ID when my father’s face was on billboards and my fiancé’s name was etched on the side of the building.
I crossed to the elevator bank and jabbed my finger against the executive floor button, leaving a smudge on the polished brass.
The ride up was dizzying. Every surface in the elevator was a mirror, and three different women were reflected back at me.
There was the Senator’s daughter in her expensive suit and perfect posture purchased with years of correction.
Then the jilted fiancé, with anger burning behind her trembling chin and firmly pressed lips where she’d learned to swallow her voice.
And then there was her. The one with wide eyes and color high in her cheeks, the one who looked like my mother. I wanted to scream at her, beg her to run, to fight, to do anything.
I’d let them kill her so slowly I hadn’t even noticed she was dying.
The elevator groaned somewhere above me, the floor indicator ticking up, and I caught my mother’s eyes in my reflection.
Her dare and mischief flickered there, then disappeared beneath my father’s careful mask.
I touched my face, half-expecting to feel her sunlight warming my skin, but my fingers met only the sweat-damp foundation I’d applied that morning to cover my freckles.
My mother wouldn’t recognize me if she saw me now, and I hated the way my mind still drifted to Colt, desperately wondering if he’d be the one person who could still see through to whatever remained of me.
What the hell was wrong with me? I should have been devastated about Grant, not feeling this treacherous relief.
The elevator jerked to a stop. I closed my eyes for a single, shaky breath, then wiped away a stray tear before it could mar my mascara.Just one tear was all I allowed myself to shed for the girl I used to be, the girl who’d been taught her worth came from men who never really loved her.
A soft chime announced my arrival as the doors parted to reveal a wall of windows framing the sunset-washed skyline.
The remaining staff sat at their desks, sliding papers into briefcases and shutting down computers, their gazes carefully avoiding mine as I moved toward the frosted glass door that separated me from Grant’s office.
Without knocking, I shoved open the door, and they sprang away from each other. His assistant met my gaze while her fingers straightened her shirt. Mascara tracks stained her cheeks.
Grant ran his fingers over his tie and offered his practiced smile. “Blaire, baby. What are you doing here?”
His assistant turned away, busying herself with paperwork on his desk, but I caught the way her hands shook.
I almost felt sorry for her.
“I thought we were meeting for dinner?” Grant’s voice overlapped itself, the end of the sentence scraping against the beginning, like he was trying to race ahead of the silence I’d brought into the room. He took a step around her, positioning himself directly in front of me.
“Don’t act like you don’t know that I’ve seen the photos.” My voice was steady, but my hands trembled so hard I had to dig my nails into my palms to hold them still. “How long has this been going on?”
There was a twitch in his jaw, but he kept his mask perfectly in place. “Come on, don’t do this here.” He tried to close the space between us, palm open, but I jerked away so fast I nearly toppled a crystal award he’d won for service to his community off his bookshelf.
“Do not make a scene,” he hissed, jaw clenched tight, and eyes darting to the open door behind me.
The command landed like a slap, and my heartbeat thundered in my ears as that wild-hearted Blaire clawed her way out.
“Should I whisper about you fucking your assistant, Grant?” I didn’t recognize my own voice, how it carried across the room. “Would that be more convenient for you?”
His eyes darkened as his shoulders squared. “We should discuss this at home. Privately.”
He reached for my elbow, but I stepped back. “No.”
“Blaire.” He said my name like he was speaking to a trained dog, and I recoiled.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, and I heard the tremor in my voice, which only made me angrier, but the look on Grant’s face told me the words landed as I intended. “Nothing you say will change what you did.”
“Blaire,” he tried again, gentler now. “Let’s take some time to think about how we want to handle this, okay? I’ll call your father?—”
“Of course you will,” I cut in. “You’re such a fucking coward, Grant.”
He flinched. Not enough that anyone else would notice, but I’d spent four years learning the tells of Grant Chandler.
The tic in his jaw, the flicker behind his eyes when his composure slipped.
I recognized the look of a man cornered, and it thrilled and terrified me that I was the one who’d put him there.
“This is my office. People are watching,” he hissed as he angled his body like he was going to shut the door. “Let’s be smart about this.”
“Smart,” I repeated, and the laugh that escaped me was raw and humorless. “Where were your smarts when you were fucking her on your desk? Did you think no one would notice? Or did you think I wouldn’t care?”
“I never meant for you to find out like this,” he said calmly. “I was going to tell you. I— I needed the right time. You know how your father is. How important this is for all of us.”
I could hardly breathe as I thought of my father’s ambitions, my own perfectly curated life, and the unyielding gravity of “all of us.” It made me want to scream.
“My father.” The words clawed at my throat as my gaze fell to the ring on my finger, the weight of the diamond suddenly crushing every bone in my hand.
“Yes, your father, Blaire,” he said, drawing out each word as if I were too stupid to keep up. He leaned in, dropping the mask of concern for something infinitely colder. “Don’t act fucking daft. He’ll get a handle on this, and we’ll figure it out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out.” I shook my head.“I can’t do this.”
“Where the fuck else would you go?” He laughed, and his words hit hard, harder than I’d braced for. “You live in my condo, Blaire. You work for your father, whose campaign is funded by mine. The life you live is because of me, so don’t act like you’re better than this.”
I had grown used to Grant’s cruel words, but somehow, they still sliced through me like a blade.
He was right, wasn’t he? My clothes hung in his closet, my career existed at my father’s mercy, and even my engagement ring had been passed down through generations of Grant’s family.
But I had built this life too. I had sacrificed for it, shaped myself to fit in it.
The phone on his desk rang loudly, making me flinch. His assistant lunged for it, her voice a distant buzz until she thrust the receiver in my direction, her eyes wide with fear. “Ms. Monroe, it’s your father.”
My stomach dropped as I brushed past Grant, my fingers clumsy as they closed around the handset.
“Dad—”
“Come to my office. Now.” His tone was so measured and so infuriatingly calm that rage flooded me, making my teeth clench so hard my jaw ached.
“No.” The word ripped from my throat, and I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “You don’t get to ask me to swallow this. Not for you. Not for him.”
“Don’t be foolish, Blaire. Grant made a mistake. All men make mistakes.” My father’s voice slithered through the phone like poison. I locked eyes with Grant across the room, watching him watch me, and I felt like I was suffocating.
My fingers trembled against the ring, twisting it once, twice, before hesitating at the knuckle.
The diamond caught the light, beautiful and cold.
I yanked it off, wincing as it scraped my skin, then traced my finger over the pale indent left behind.
I squeezed the metal in my palm until it bit into my flesh, drawing comfort from the pain.
“Go to hell, dad.”
I hung up before I could hear my father’s response, and the phone clattered into the cradle.
Grant’s eyes darted between my face and the ring clenched in my fist. I thought he was about to plead, but instead, he said, “You’re being childish.”
I tried to move past him, but Grant moved faster. His hand shot out, catching my arm above the elbow. He held on like he thought he could will the moment backward, as if the world would reset if I stood still long enough.
The heat of his palm bled through my shirt, and I remembered every time he’d touched me gently for the camera, every time he’d squeezed my shoulder in public, always anchoring me to his side. I’d mistaken that pressure for security, but now it felt like a vise.
“You’re not leaving until we talk about this.” His voice dropped to a growl, low and ugly. He yanked me closer, pulling me off balance.
I twisted my arm, trying to pry him off, but his grip tightened, his thumb digging into the soft flesh inside my elbow.
“Grant,” his assistant whispered his name from behind me, but he didn’t acknowledge her.
“You’re hurting me,” I gasped, and this time, I wrenched free.
His face went slack with surprise, as if he couldn’t believe I’d dare resist him.
“Never put your hands on me again,” I said, my voice steadier than my heart, as the diamond’s edge bit into my palm.
Ten years ago, on a night that still woke me up sweating, I’d stood in the gravel driveway of my grandmother’s house and hurled Colt’s necklace at his chest because I couldn’t make him choose me.
But I couldn’t bring myself to hurl this ring at Grant, couldn’t bring myself to care enough. I opened my aching fist and let the ring fall to the ground, watching it bounce once before settling.
I thought he might grab for me again, but he just stared, mouth tight, as I stepped past him into the hall. I walked in a trance, the blood in my ears so loud I barely heard Grant call after me.
But his words chased me with a desperate, low chuckle. “You’ll be back.”
I forced myself to keep walking, and I didn’t stop until I was jabbing my finger against the elevator button, then again, harder.
I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I didn’t leave right now, if I let the old gravity pull me back toward the familiar controlling orbit of Grant, my father, and all the plans they’d fused around me like a glass cage.
The elevator doors finally slid open, and I stepped inside.
Four years of my life stood behind me. Security, status, a future.
I pressed my back against the wall and watched the doors close, avoiding looking at my reflection.
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and dialed my grandmother’s number.
She answered on the third ring, her voice calm and steady as always. “Hello.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out but a strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
“Blaire?” Panic edged her voice, crackling through the connection. “What’s wrong?”
“Can I come home?” The words tumbled out, raw and clumsy. I waited for the guilt, the flood of regret for throwing away everything I’d built, but all I felt was an overwhelming, dangerous relief that flooded through my chest like the first breath after nearly drowning.
“Always, baby.” No questions, no hesitation.
I pressed the button for the ground floor.
The elevator plunged downward, and with it came visions of Colt, the curve of his jaw, the calluses on his fingertips, the weight of judgment I’d find in his gaze.
My lungs seized at the thought. I was going back to the place I’d fled a decade ago, back to where Colt Calloway’s words had severed me from my roots, but now those same roots called me home.