Chapter 8
Grace
“What are you doing here, Grace?”
“That is none of your fucking business.” And if this man doesn’t back up, I’m going to do something I might regret later.
Bryson advances on me, fury lighting his eyes as he closes the space between us. “Don’t make this ugly.”
I have no clue what he’s talking about, but I don’t appreciate his tone. Looking over my shoulder, I wonder if Dean is watching any of this. I hope not. “Lower your tone when you talk to me, Bryson. You have neither the right sized bank account nor balls to speak to me like that.”
Even if he did, I still wouldn’t put up with it.
Bryson Clyde-Smith is a piece of shit. His whole family is, and I have no idea why my parents are friends with them. Oh wait, yes, I do. Money. Connections. Clout. Favors.
“You’re far away from home.” Bryson tilts his fat head and smirks. “And I’m guessing you’re alone.”
“How about you act like your hairline and take a couple steps back, little man.”
He sours even more. When his gaze drags down my body, my grip tightens on the to go box in my hand, and my drink in the other .
“What the fuck are you up to, Grace? I know you’re not here for a little vacay. Your precious little princess ass would never suffer a night in a dump like this. Did Jackson put you up to it?”
I clench my jaw and don’t say a word.
What is he talking about? And why is he bringing my brother into this? What the fuck is going on here?
Bryson leans in and sneers. “Tell him it’s too late. This place is already mine .”
“No, it’s not. And it never will be.” I’m great at a lot of things, including faking it. I might not have a clue what’s going on here, but I’m certain Dean’s not doing all this work to the cabins for the benefit of this cocksucker. “Now get the fuck out of my face before I rearrange yours.”
I try to storm past him, but he grabs my arm. Hard. My heart slams into my throat as adrenaline surges. “Let go.”
“Make me.”
“Fuck you.”
He arches a bushy eyebrow. “Is that an invitation?”
Eww. My pussy literally shrivels and dries up. “You have until the count of three to get your hands off me, Bryson. One…” I slightly crush my drink, popping the plastic lid off, and toss it in his face.
“Fucking bitch !”
“Hey!” Dean storms out of the cabin. “Get your fucking hands off her!”
Oh shit .
Dean runs towards us, his fist primed to clock Bryson .
As much as I want to see him slug this motherfucker, I can’t allow it. “Dean, don’t!” I put myself between them.
“Move, Grace.” Dean’s tone is terrifying and dark.
“Don’t hit him.”
“He put his hands on you. He’ll be lucky if the only thing I do is hit him.”
Bryson laughs behind me. Letting go of my arm, he side steps around me. “Go ahead. Take a swing at me.”
Dean cocks his arm back.
“No!” I grab him, as if I can truly stop him from swinging his fist.
“Grace.” Dean gawks at me like I’m crazy and lowers his arm.
“He’ll call the cops if you hit him.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck. He’s trespassing and assaulting you.” Dean lunges to grab Bryson’s throat and I push him back.
Bryson makes it worse by laughing. I almost let Dean go, just to teach Bryson a lesson, but I can’t. I know his tricks and what he’ll do if Dean goes after him.
“Go ahead. Try something, you filthy inbreed.” Bryson stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Show Grace what a big man you are.”
I have no idea what I’ve stepped into, but it’s too late to back out now. I have to stop Dean from making this worse.
“Don’t.” I urge when he rips away from my hold. “Anything you do to him will lead to bad press, and that will help his bottom line. ”
Dean freezes. “His bottom line,” he repeats slowly. Cautiously. “You knew?”
All I know is that Bryson is a slimy businessman, Dean is his target, and I’ve just put myself in the middle of it. I need to find a way to smooth things over before this gets worse.
“Aw, what’s the matter?” Bryson goads. “Did you think she was here for the scenery and fine dining?”
The hurt on Dean’s face sends my stomach plummeting. Shit, shit, shit. “Don’t listen to him, Dean. He’s just baiting you.”
He won’t stop staring at me like I’ve hurt him. I almost cave and confess I have no idea what’s going on, but Nick steps in.
“You need to walk away now,” he warns, holding a sledgehammer.
“You don’t scare me.” But Bryson takes a step back, proving he’s a liar. “Go ahead. Take a swing at either one of us. You’ll be doing me a favor.” He fans his hands like he’s making a rainbow in the air. “I can see the headlines already. Business deal erupts when vacation rental owner uses a sledgehammer on guests. Or better yet…” He smirks like he’s got Dean by the balls. “Heiress Grace Finch is terrorized at Bear Creek Cabins. It’ll make national news, and I guarantee you no one will step foot here ever again. This property will finally take its last dying breath, and I’ll get it for pennies on the dollar.”
He's right.
“Bryson, leave.” Because if Nick doesn’t use that sledgehammer on him, I will.
“Keep staying pretty, Miss Finch. Your beauty is the only thing you have going for you because you certainly were not blessed with either of your brothers’ brains. None of you stand a chance against me and I will get this fucking property.”
My hands ball into fists. I’m so fucking mad I can’t think straight. But if I act on my anger and punch this shithead in the mouth, it’ll only hurt Dean in the long run, so I keep my cool.
“Just give up.” Bryson chuckles even with soda dripping off his face. “Nothing either of you can do will make this go in your favor. And if it’s a bidding war you want,” he says to me, “tell Jackson it’ll be a pleasure to watch him lose.”
My mouth dries up. Dean’s staring at me like I’m the devil herself. Fury makes me get close enough to Bryson that I can smell his aftershave. “Stay. The fuck. Away from here. And especially away from me .”
“We both know you’ll come begging one day, sweetheart. I’m looking forward to seeing you on your knees. Your mother will be so proud.”
I slap him so hard, my palm stings.
Bryson glowers at me, fury lighting his eyes as a bright, red handprint blooms on his cheek. “That was a mistake, Miss Finch.”
I jerk forward to attack him again.
Dean wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me away. Then he grabs the sledgehammer from Nick. “She told you to leave. If you don’t in the next three seconds, you’ll be crawling out of here with crushed legs.”
Bryson huffs a cold laugh, no doubt assuming Dean’s bluffing.
I don’t think he is.
“One…” Dean steps closer. “Two…” He swings the sledgehammer, missing Bryson’s thigh by a hair only because the asshole had enough sense to jump back.
“My lawyers will be in touch.” He quickly walks away, leaving us in a tension-filled space that I can’t breathe in. The asshole gets his car and winks at me.
Furious, I snatch the sledgehammer from Dean. It’s so heavy, I nearly drop it. Spinning in a circle, I lob the damn thing at Bryson’s car, missing it by a foot because he’s already in reverse.
“Ugh!” I run forward and pick it up again, only to miss by ten feet with my next throw. “Fuck you!” I scream at him.
My heart’s pounding erratically and I feel sick.
Nick speaks up. “Want me to make sure he stays gone?”
“Yeah.” Dean watches the car head back down the hill. He looks so mad. “Lock the gate, too.”
“On it.”
When Dean turns to face me again, his body language is all off. He’s not the same man I’ve been getting to know. He’s…
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” I shake off the sudden urge to cry. “This jacket is so fluffy, I barely felt his tiny, man-baby hand.”
“I want to see for myself.”
“I’m fine .”
“Grace.” His chastising tone makes me want to push back. But the hurt in his eyes stops me.
“Let’s go inside. It’s too cold out here for me to take my coat off.” Lies. I’m burning hot from anger and adrenaline, but I’ll take the excuse to have him inside where I feel more protected and safer. Bryson’s rattled me .
Dean silently follows me into my cabin and shuts the door.
I shrug out of my coat and pull my sweater sleeve up. “See? Nothing there.”
He carefully studies every inch of my arm to verify I’m okay, then his gaze locks onto me. “Who is Jackson?”
“My brother.”
“How do you know Bryson?”
“He’s in my social circle.”
Dean’s brow arches. “Your social circle. What does that mean to you?”
“It means he’s a cunt who thinks he can get whatever he wants. And my family is old friends with his, and I’m just all too lucky I didn’t get matched up with him because I’d be committing murder on my honeymoon.”
Dean takes a step back, his brow furrowed. “ Honeymoon ?”
Crap. That was too much to say at once.
“I’m being dramatic.” I wave it off like that could never be a possibility. When really, I know how close it is to my reality. Bryson’s married, but his younger brother isn’t. And honestly, marriage isn’t a sacred thing to most people I know. It’s paperwork.
“That wasn’t dramatic, Grace. That was specific. Are you engaged to him?”
“Hell no.” I shiver at the thought and pretend to gag.
“Then why did you just bring up marrying him?”
The possessiveness in his tone makes me swoon and cringe at the same time. “My family is just different from most. It’s one of the reasons I’m here.” Crossing my arms, I don’t want to give him the details of my sordid life, but I also hate that he looks so devastated. And honestly, I want to tell him personal things, which makes no sense, because we’re not close like that. I shouldn’t be airing family secrets to a stranger.
“Why did you really come up here?”
“I’m trying to cut myself off from almost everyone in my life. My mother, specifically. I’m from a very wealthy family.” Geez, I sound like a privileged, spoiled twit. You are a privileged spoiled twit, Grace . “Ugh. Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Not you. Me.” Great, now I sound like a lunatic. “I mean me in my head.”
That’s not helping .
“You came up here to escape your family.” Dean crosses his arms. “And what else?”
“That’s it.” I shrug, trying to look non-threatening. “I swear.”
“And you picked this place of all vacation rentals?”
“Yes. It was the only one not booked. And like I already told you, if I stayed at the finer resorts, someone would have recognized me. I don’t want to be around anyone I know.”
“Like Bryson.”
“I don’t want to be on the same planet as that fucker, let alone the same state.”
Dean doesn’t find my humor amusing. “So, he didn’t know you were here? He just happened to show up, and you knew each other from your ‘social circles’ and nothing else?”
“Correct.” I mirror his posture .
Dean’s dark brown eyes search mine. “Are you here to take it from me?”
I can’t believe he’d ask me that. “No.”
He swallows hard. “You sure about that, Grace? Sounds like your brother Jackson is in competition with that asshole. Are you helping your brother with that?”
No part of his body language is threatening. He seems hurt and cautious. Scared.
“I will never take this place from you, Dean.” If anything, I’ll do all that’s in my power to help him keep it, if that’s what he wants.
“Bryson seems convinced you’re working with your brother.”
“That’s because I lied.” Time to confess, I guess. “The minute Bryson saw me, he was pissed I was here. He accused me of working for my brother, who dabbles in realty, and I let him believe whatever he wanted by not confirming or denying it. The more I act like I know, the more power I have, so I faked it.”
Dean sucks in a sharp breath. His shoulders relax slightly. “If you don’t like him, why did you put yourself between us like that? He deserved an ass whooping for what he did. He put his fucking hands on you, Grace.”
“And that’s why I put myself between you two. I’m not about to let him drag you down to his level. Regardless of how sweet it is that you’d want to protect me, I won’t allow it.”
“Sweet has nothing to do with why I…” He exhales again and runs a hand down his face.
I swear he reminds me of my oldest brother Mason with how acutely protective he’s acting. Mason would never let anyone be mean to me growing up, or they’d risk his wrath, and I know he’s even more protective of his wife Leah. To think Dean’s being that way with me, when we’ve only just met, is… romantically unsettling.
“He would have let you beat him to a pulp. I’m sure he came with a plan to rile you up somehow and I was a clear and easy way to do it.” A lot of that is an assumption, but I know Bryson well enough to believe I’m right. “He fights dirty, Dean.”
“Tell me about it. I spent most of my savings fighting his lawyers once already.”
My breath hitches. I want to ask more questions. Pry. Dig deeper into Dean’s troubles to see if I can help, but something stops me. The urge to comfort him is stronger than the one to interrogate him.
We lock gazes and I hope he can see my genuine desire to understand and help him. “That’s why you’re doing renovations. You’re trying to save this place.”
His eyes soften with more pain. “It’s all I have.”
If he’s spent his savings fighting Bryson’s company once already, then Clyde-Smith Reality is just circling like vultures to take what they want when Dean finally gives up. It’s a waiting game, and they have all the time and money in the world.
Dean doesn’t.
I step closer to him. “I can help you.”
He backs away. “I don’t need your pity, Grace.”
“It’s not pity.” I make up the distance he puts between us until I’ve practically cornered him in the living room. “It’s revenge.”
He swallows hard and looks away from me. “I can handle this on my own. ”
No, he can’t. That’s his pride talking, and we both know it.
“Hey.” I cup his cheek and force him to look at me again. “Just because you can do it all by yourself, doesn’t mean you have to.”
Dean’s cell goes off and he pulls it out of his pocket, answering it. “Yeah?”
“He’s gone,” Nick says through the speaker. “Locked the gates and followed him all the way out of town.”
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem. Is Grace okay?”
He swallows hard, still staring at me when he says, “Yeah.”
“I can’t believe she lobbed a fucking sledgehammer at him, bro. That was unhinged. She’s definitely psycho.”
“You’re on speaker.”
Nick pauses for a few heartbeats, then says, “Hi Grace.”
“Hi Nick.”
“I like that you’re psycho.”
“Is that so?” I can’t help but smile. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Mostly because I never get to act on impulse, since I’ve always had to be on my best behavior, or my mother would make me suffer major consequences. Even as an adult.
“Dean needs someone like you in his corner, girl.”
I stare up at him, but he won’t look at me. I don’t think he likes that Nick said that. “I’m all his.”
“Good to know. Oh, and Grace?”
“Yes, Nick? ”
“Thanks again for lunch. That was really sweet of you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Dean, want me to come back tomorrow to finish up the bathroom?”
“No. I got it.”
“You sure? I don’t mind helping.”
“I’m good,” he says, staring at the hardwood floor.
After hanging up, Dean finally looks at me again. “I don’t want to lose this place,” he confesses, and the emotion he’s holding back rips me in two.
“You won’t.”
I’ll make sure of it.