76. Now
SEVENTY-SIX
now
“Please,” Mr. Stryker says, lingering in my doorway and staring hard into my eyes. “Contact me if you need anything, Ella. I can’t adequately express how sorry I am for the pain my family has caused you. I would like to make up for it.”
I saw Grayson’s dad from afar at the gala. Now, up close, the wear of his illness is apparent in his sallow skin, baldness, and the deep grooves carving his features.
“Mr. Stryker,” I mumble, “It’s really?—”
“Entirely unacceptable,” he finishes, still as intimidating as ever. His thin white brow lifts in an arch that Grayson often mimics. “I’ve left an envelope of cash to get you started on refurnishing this room, but you will, of course , send me the bills for any additional items you require. And your therapy sessions, Ella. On that, I must insist.” Sadness touches his ocher eyes. “I know you have our home address.”
Oh Lord . My letter to Jacqueline. The one I sent after I gave up on ever speaking to Gray again, against all my better judgment—because I honestly couldn’t live with the thought of not apologizing to her.
Just thinking about the tear-stained apology brings another wave of sorrow. “I do,” I agree softly. “Thank you, sir. Will you please give Mrs. Stryker a hug for me? And assure her there’s nothing she could have done? I know how she worries.”
Brusque emotion fills his face and his voice. “I will, Ella. I promise you.”
He leaves. And—after muttering with Grayson in the kitchen for a few moments—Marco follows him out, looking pissed off. When I turn back to Gray, I instantly know why.
“You aren’t staying.”
The words burst out of me, but they are quiet. My utter shock echoes in the silence between us. Because, honestly, of all the horrors I imagined might befall me when I saw Daniel in my apartment, Grayson leaving me when it was all over never occurred to me.
Even his blood-stained T-shirt can’t detract from how beautiful he looks. Midday sun slants through the kitchen skylight, gilding his black hair, lighting the golden flecks in his green eyes. Filling all of the grief-stricken creases drawn across his features.
“I have to go,” he confirms. “I need to speak with the police, the attorneys, HR. I need to make sure Daniel pays for everything he did. It’s the only way for me even to begin to make amends for all of the ways I failed you.”
I automatically float toward him, but he takes a step back, maintaining his distance. “Gray,” I whisper, his name a mournful sigh. “None of this is your fault. ”
His jaw hardens. Loathing simmers in his eyes, but his voice sounds totally even. Despondent. “It’s all my fault. I didn’t press you for details on what happened before we met, even though I knew there was something you hadn’t told me. I was too cowardly to tell my father what I wanted to do before it was too late. And then, I allowed my desire for creative control of Stryker & Sons to cloud my judgment and encouraged my father to allow Ted and Daniel back into our company despite my misgivings. I didn’t even look into their backgrounds myself.”
His hands fist at his sides. “I thought the worst of you the day you disappeared, and I believed you’d really left by choice. I gave up our apartment because I was too weak to live there with the reminders of what might have been. I let my pride and my anger rule me to the point of deleting your information and throwing myself into fucking every random woman who wanted me.”
He mentioned the other women the night he showed up outside my building. And I saw him at the gala with that girl, Olivia. Now, after the night we shared, the thought of others stings like a hard slap to the face. I clutch my hands over my stomach, holding myself together as my breathing speeds.
Gray isn’t finished. Fervor brightens his turbulent eyes. “I treated you like shit over the last week—showing up drunk when I thought you didn’t want to see me, mocking your book, deleting it without even reading it, taking your bed and letting you sleep on the couch, showing up at your job without warning, inserting myself into your work.
“And—God—the way I acted Thursday night will haunt me until the day I die. I can’t believe I sent you off like that. I can’t believe I walked away. Even last night, when you swore you tried to contact me after you left, I didn’t really believe you. And I’ll never be able to undo any of it. Right now, I’m not sure how to live with myself.”
“Gray,” I start, desperate for him to understand, “I forgave you for all of this so long ago?—”
“Well, you shouldn’t have!” His voice whips between us, lashing me. “You shoul d never forgive any of us . My God, Ella, when I think of what we put you through. What I have put you through . Do you get that?”
“You didn’t do any of this!” I cry. “It was Daniel!”
“Even if that were true,” he shouts back, “ how could you ever be with me knowing what my own blood is capable of? How could you let me inside of you , knowing my cousin was the one who violated you? Doesn’t that disgust you?”
Dr. Laura once asked me the same question—albeit in a much kinder fashion. Truly, when she posed the notion to me, I realized I’d never even considered it. Even though such a reaction would be natural. What survivor would willingly choose a partner who was related to their attacker?
But I know Grayson , down to his soul. There isn’t even a tiny fraction of me that believes he has any sort of evil or viciousness inside of him. And I love him so completely that my feelings will never be deterred by whoever happens to share his genes.
Over the years, there was part of me that worried and wondered: If I ever found myself with Grayson again, and he ever found out the truth… would he reject me ?
As Daniel seems so fond of pointing out, he thoroughly ruined me. Physically, at first, then mentally and emotionally.
Now that Gray knows what I’ve been through, is he disgusted? By me?
I try to swallow the knot in my throat but only manage to send a fresh round of grief to my eyes. “No,” I whimper through tears. “Does it disgust you?”
“Of course it does!” he yells. “I have never been more repulsed than I am right now. By him, by myself, by my family. Christ. I’d die before I hurt you. But look what I’ve done! And I will only hurt you over and over again every time you have to look at me and remember what my family’s done to you!”
“Gray,” I sob, trying to move toward him again. “That isn’t true! I love you .”
His face twists into a mask of agony. “God, how ? How can you even say that, Ella? How do you not see how fucked up and twisted this shit is?”
“I see it,” I shriek, “But I still love you. I said ‘yours for always,’ and even in that horrible moment, I meant those words with everything I have in me. Knowing who Daniel is and what he’s done can’t make me stop loving you , Grayson. Nothing ever could .”
A sheen of tears covers his face as he absorbs what I said, his entire frame heaving while he fights to breathe. He moves all at once, stalking past me, moving too quickly for me to reach for him.
“Maybe it should, Ella,” he mutters, already to the door.
And then, he’s gone .