Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
ONE MONTH LATER
Grayson
I began to question everything I’d done. I was in love with her and always knew it but couldn’t admit it. I couldn’t sleep. I was restless, and she knew something was wrong. I blamed work, but the truth was that I needed to come clean about everything and tell her that the baby she was carrying was mine.
I leaned against the bathroom doorway and stared at her as she was in the bathtub. Her hair was twisted up, and her belly stuck out above the water. She looked so damn beautiful, especially when she looked at me with her baby-blue eyes.
“Hey, you.” She smiled. “What are you doing?”
“Just admiring how beautiful you are.” I smiled.
“Can you admire me while you soap up my back?” a grin crossed her lips.
I rolled up my sleeves and knelt down next to the tub. She handed me the loofah, and I poured some body wash on it and began slowly washing her back.
“Thank you.” She smiled with a slight turn of her head.
“You’re welcome.”
“Can you help me out? If I stay in here any longer, I’llturn into a prune.”
I took hold of her hand and helped her out. Grabbing a towel, I wrapped it around her and embraced her.
“I love you, Harper,” I whispered in her ear for the first time.
She broke our embrace and stared at me. I think she was in shock.
“I love you too, Grayson,” she said as she placed her hand on my cheek.
I called Julius and asked him to come over for a guy’s night since Harper was out with her friends. I needed to talk to him about my plan.
“No Harper tonight?” he asked as I took the burgers off the grill.
“She’s out with her girlfriends.”
“Just think, in less than two months, I won’t be asking that anymore.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I love her, Julius, and I can’t let her go.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since I first met her, I guess. I was trying to make myself believe that I wasn’t. These past few months with her have been the best months of my life. I told her the other night that I loved her.”
“Shit, Grayson. So now what? Are you going to tell her the truth?”
“I have to.”
“Fuck! You can’t. Do you know what she’ll do to you? Do you understand that you will lose her and your kid forever? Not to mention if my family found out, I could lose my job.”
“She’ll be pissed. I know. But she’ll appreciate my honesty. She knows I truly love her.”
“It doesn’t matter, bro. SHIT!” He paced around the room.
“We lied to her about my job. You don’t think she’llretaliate by reporting me?”
“She won’t. I’ll tell her you wanted nothing to do with it, and I made you. I need to be with her, Julius, and I want to raise our child together.”
He pointed his shaking finger at me. “Have you forgotten that you signed away your parental rights? So even if she sues us both, you’ll lose! Goddamn it, Grayson. I knew I should never have gone along with this.”
“You did, and it’s too late. I just need to work up the courage to tell her.”
“Listen to me.” He grasped my shoulders. “You don’t need to tell her anything. Just keep on living your life with her. You know it’s your kid. So tell her you want to adopt her and give her your name. She’ll never have to know.”
“And how are you going to explain your job? What about Yasmin? What if she tells her?”
“She won’t. I’ll make sure of that. Shit. We have to come up with something.”
“No more lies, Julius. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live the rest of my life with this secret.”
“YES, YOU CAN! You’re fucking Grayson Rhodes. Your whole life revolves around secrets. Trust me. If you tell her, that’ll be the end of your relationship FOREVER!”