CHAPTER ELEVEN
Grayson
“I don’t want to fucking do this,” I said to Holden and Easton as they walked into my office, a meeting I’d scheduled only seconds ago, when I’d stormed into the building and ordered them to follow me and to sit their asses down in the chairs in front of my desk. When they didn’t respond, when they did no more than just stare at me from their seats, I added, “I’m not kidding, you motherfuckers. I can’t do this with her.”
“You have to do this,” Holden said. He crossed his legs, lifting the bottom of his jeans and rubbing his bruised ankle like it was a goddamn cat.
I nodded toward his foot. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“I tripped over Belle’s stool. She was helping me make dinner and I didn’t see it. I went flying into the island and banged my ankle.”
For a dude who was so athletic, becoming a single dad had made him a goddamn disaster.
“Anyway,” I said, shaking my head, “you’re wrong—I don’t have to do this. I’m done. There has to be another way.”
He blew out a long breath and crossed his arms over his chest. “Laura says you need a new narrative, and we agree with her. You can’t be the inventor and promoter of the marriage arm and show the world you don’t believe in it. What we have to show them instead is that it not only works, but it gave you this epic love story.”
Oh, it was fucking epic, all right.
I couldn’t get Jovana’s sounds out of my head.
I couldn’t get her taste off my fingers.
I couldn’t get myself to forget the sight of her coming.
And the moment I’d gotten home, I’d used all three of those while I’d jerked myself off.
First in the shower.
When that wasn’t enough, when I couldn’t kill my fucking hard-on, I did another round while I lay in bed.
I would have thought the two orgasms were enough to knock me out for the night. But I continued to be restless for a few more hours until I gave up on sleep and went into my home office, where I worked until I arrived here just minutes ago.
What the hell is she doing to me?
And how can I get it to stop?
I dropped my hands onto my desk, the smack they made louder than I intended. “No.” I pounded them again on the hard surface. “Fuck no.” Every time I filled my lungs, the air burned on its way in.
“You can’t say no,” Easton said. “You don’t have a choice about this.”
“You realize how ridiculous that is, don’t you? What you’re asking of me—no, better yet, telling me to do. It’s not like you’re telling me to give a speech in front of a thousand people or take your grandmother to a goddamn doctor’s appointment or go out with your virgin cousin because she’s never been laid.” I felt the anger boil in my throat. “This is marriage. A legal commitment. A fucking binding contract that isn’t just going to go away. I’ll be dealing with the ramifications of this for the rest of my life.”
I wasn’t just talking financials and the payout, the bills that I would be covering for her.
None of that meant anything to me.
I was talking about a much larger picture, and these assholes knew that.
They knew where I came from.
They knew the damage that had been done when I was just a kid.
They knew how I felt about all this.
“And what you’re asking from me is bigger than probably either of you even realize.”
While they looked at each other, thinking about what the hell they were going to say that would make this even a small percent better, I got up from my desk and went to the back of my office, where I’d had a wet bar installed.
I grabbed a bottle of vodka from the shelf and poured a few fingers’ worth into a glass.
“It’s eight fifteen in the morning, Grayson.”
I turned toward Holden after I took my first sip. “I give zero fucks.”
“So, your plan is to stay in your office and get completely shit-faced? And ignore the”—Easton pulled out his phone, tapped the screen, and looked up at me—“four meetings we have today?”
I sat back at my desk and kicked my legs up, resting them on top of a stack of papers that needed attention but were going to get completely ignored. “Yes.”
“You’re special, you know that?” Easton snapped.
I took another long sip. “What if I had told you that you couldn’t date Drake?” I gripped one of the armrests, squeezing the cushion and fabric that wrapped around it, trying to hand off some of the rage I was feeling. “You know, when you came to us after the biggest scandal our company has ever experienced—and we’re still experiencing, for that matter—and you said you were in a relationship with our director. I could have given you an ultimatum. I could have said it’s either you or her, but you can’t both work here. Or, in order for her to stay, the two of you have to separate.”
“You’re not comparing apples to apples,” Easton said, in a tone far too relaxed for my liking.
“But it would put you in a situation you wouldn’t like. That would make you question—”
“I’m going to stop you before you go on a tirade,” Holden said. “You seem to have forgotten that you’re in this position because of the situation you put yourself in. If that Celebrity Alert hadn’t been released, then you could have continued having six-somes all over the world. But it happened and we’re dealing with the fallout.”
“No, I’m dealing with the fallout,” I roared.
“We’re equal partners with matching salaries. We’re losing memberships, revenue is down,” Easton said. “We’re very much in this together, Grayson.”
He looked at Holden, his brows raising. “I’m going to take a stab at something, and tell me if I’m wrong.”
“All right,” Holden replied to him.
“I have a hunch that this one’s all worked up because he’s feeling something for Jovana and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“Fuck you.” My feet dropped from the desk, and I drained the rest of my glass. “Don’t act like I’m not in the goddamn room. I can hear every word you’re saying and I don’t like any of them.”
“But am I right?” Easton challenged.
“No.” I got up and went back to the bar, bringing the bottle with me when I returned to my desk. I unscrewed the cap and said, “I’ve told you how this is all making me feel. I mean, fuck, look at me.” I held my newly filled glass in the air.
Easton glanced at Holden again just as Holden said, “I think you’re right.”
I set the glass on the desk, staring at my best friends. Aside from my father, they knew me better than anyone. I needed to know what they were seeing. “What would give you the impression that I felt anything for her?”
Confidence was building across Easton’s face. “Because I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why you wouldn’t be into her. She’s hardworking. Smart, bubbly, charming. She wouldn’t take your shit, and that’s exactly what you need.”
“She’s beautiful,” Holden added. “And she’s just your type—petite, dark hair, blue eyes. When you’re fishing, that’s always what you go for.”
“I can’t deny that she’s my type,” I told them. “You got that part right, at least.” I wrapped my fingers around the tumbler, not wanting it to be too far away. “But where you have it wrong is when you say she’s exactly what I need.” I glanced down toward the top of the glass, remembering how, back in the day, one of these had always been in my father’s hand. When vodka would be his dinner, sometimes his breakfast. When I would go into his room as a kid and find bottles of it on his nightstand. “I don’t need a woman in my life.”
“And I get why you say that,” Easton said, taking a quick glance at Holden. “We both do. But I still think that during the two dates you’ve been on with Jovana, you’ve had a good time. You’ve thought about her after you dropped her off. You’ve been surprisingly intrigued by the conversations you’ve had with her.” He paused. “Am I wrong?”
I was ashamed that they’d come to this conclusion. That I’d somehow, through all the growling and anger and refusal, shown that I had feelings for her.
I let out a long, deep, drawn-out exhale. “She’s interesting. I’ll give you that.”
“Hell, the girl is more than interesting. She’s magnetic. Belle and I have watched some of her videos. Even my daughter was blown away.” Holden ran his hand over the top of his hair, trying to tame his wild locks. “Jovana sure knows what she’s doing when it comes to those little dance endorsement things she does.”
I had to agree.
During the hours I’d lain in bed last night, unable to sleep, I’d looked up Jovana’s Instagram and TikTok accounts.
I didn’t go on Faceframe.
Fuck them.
We were currently in litigation with that company, and the moment we’d hired an attorney, I’d canceled my account.
But while I was on the other two, I checked out her posts. Some were just photos, like the one she’d released of my hand on her leg. That shot had collected more than eleven hundred comments.
It had been entertaining as hell to read them.
The questions.
Accusations.
Words of congrats.
But there was negative feedback, too, and that made me mad as hell. It took everything I had not to reply and tear into the commenters, giving them a piece of my mind.
How dare they speak to Jovana that way.
I didn’t just stop at that post. I checked out her others as well, where she was showing off brands and products—whether it be some type of makeup or lotion for her face, clothing, or accessories. Sometimes she was even in the kitchen cooking from a particular meal service or using a special sauce or a specific kind of meat or utensil.
She had built a name for herself, and I could easily see that she was in demand.
Her followers wanted to communicate with her; they wanted whatever amount of attention she was willing to give them. When they bought something she endorsed, they returned to her account and told her. Even the assholes who had smart remarks were watching, and they were jealous, and their snideness reflected that.
Jovana wasn’t just a face.
She was selling. She was making a difference.
And she fucking rocked at what she did.
Just like me when it came to my job.
“I would hope she knows what she’s doing,” I said to Holden. “It’s her job.” Every word bit my tongue as it came out.
I didn’t know why.
Or why I found it so difficult to talk about her when it was easy as fuck to think about her.
But I wouldn’t be thinking about her if I hadn’t fingered her last night.
If I hadn’t let my dick lead me instead of my goddamn brain.
I still didn’t have an answer to my proposition, if she could handle a year of fucking without developing any feelings.
If she could, then this was going to be a tolerable twelve months.
If she couldn’t, I’d have to go the whole year without touching her.
Without kissing her.
Without fucking her.
And I knew, without question, that I’d lose it.
That seeing her prance around my condo, smelling her in the air, making out with her in public, would be a tease that would send me right over the goddamn edge.
I brought the vodka up to my mouth and swallowed. Instead of a bite, there was a burn, and it continued as I drained the rest of the glass.
The room was quiet, all eyes were on me, and when I set the empty glass down, Easton leaned forward, his arms resting on the edge of my desk.
“Are you really going to tell me that you feel absolutely nothing for her?” he asked.
I mashed my lips together while images of last night filled my head again.
Or maybe they’d never left.
Shit, I didn’t know.
But what I did know was that one of the only things I could think about while I was on the couch in her living room was how fast I could get my hand up her dress. When I’d volunteered to put a good word in for her friend, I knew it would score me points in the nice category—a category where I needed all the help I could get. And while I walked around her bedroom, I found myself soaking in the details, learning things we hadn’t yet talked about, like her interest in reading romance, based on the books that were on her nightstand. How her closet, which had no door, was full of bright colors when her bedroom had only the hues of white and beige. How the pieces of art on her walls were photographs, printed in black and white, of different places around Boston. But they weren’t the ones you’d expect, like the Tobin Bridge or the Prudential Building or TD Garden. These were of tiny pockets around the city—the long strip of water in front of the Christian Science Plaza, the bridge across the pond at the Public Garden, the Paul Revere House nestled on Hanover Street within the North End.
What was ironic as hell was that I had similar photos in my home office, shots I’d taken with my phone and had framed. I was no photographer, but I enjoyed capturing a beautiful picture, and the ones I loved the most, I hung.
So, we both liked art.
Did that mean I felt something?
I was so disconnected from my feelings when it came to women, I didn’t think I’d be able to distinguish a single emotion even if it were pounding against my heart.
All I knew was that at the end of the twelve months, I was walking, and that being in a fake marriage was the last fucking thing in this world that I wanted.
I looked at my best friend and replied, “I’m angry that I’m in this situation. That’s what I feel right now.”
He looked at Holden. “Oh, he definitely feels something.”
“I’m getting pretty tired of you two acting like I’m not in this room.”
“There’s no acting involved,” Holden said, tugging at his wrinkled polo. “We’re just stating the obvious.”
“Obvious?” I laughed and reached for the bottle, adding more to my glass. “What’s obvious is that you two want me to get wifey’d up. That, for some reason, you refuse the idea of me being single for the rest of my life, like the status, for some reason, bothers you. That you want me to fall in love with this chick when she’s only twenty-two years old.”
“Now it’s her age that’s an issue?” Holden asked. “Or you’re just reaching?”
I glared at him and downed the double shot that I’d poured.
“If we keep this up, he’s going to be a wreck within an hour.” Easton reached across my desk and picked up my phone from the receiver, pressed a few buttons, and held it against his ear. “Hey, it’s Easton. I’m in Grayson’s office. Can you go grab him a bagel? No, make that a bagel sandwich with double the eggs and cheese, and get some hash browns for a side with a huge glass of orange juice and the largest coffee you can find. Thank you.” He hung up and then took the vodka off my desk. “Our assistant is running out to grab you food. Get it together. We have a long day ahead of us.”
As he took a step away, proving that he was taking the bottle with him, I said, “You do realize I have a full bar in my office, don’t you?”
Easton turned around just as Holden stood to join him, and Holden replied, “Do I have to father you, too, and bring you into my office to watch you all day and make sure you don’t get into any trouble? Or can you act like a grown-ass man and actually process what you’re feeling rather than bury those emotions under booze?”
“Get out. Both of you.”
“Eat your breakfast,” Holden countered. “We have a meeting in two hours. I better see you there.”
I lifted my middle finger.
It earned me two smiles, but I didn’t give one back.