Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
MATT
“This is the one,” I said, trying to hold back my grin. “She’ll love it.” I handed the ring back to Marcus, the one and only person I trusted to buy jewelry from.
“It’s a beautiful choice,” he said. “Classic. Timeless. And this diamond is flawless.”
“Good,” I said. “I’d expect nothing less for her.”
“I can have this ready in four weeks.”
“That’s perfect.”
He scribbled the details onto a piece of paper. “So how are you going to ask?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I joked.
He laughed. “That’s what a man without a plan says.”
I chuckled. “I’m thinking of chartering a yacht for the night. Take it out into the harbor. Dinner. Candles. Dancing. The whole thing. I’m still working it out.”
He smiled. “Sounds like she won’t be able to say no.”
“That’s the hope,” I said. “We’re headed to Switzerland this month, where I plan to spoil the absolute shit out of her.”
Marcus looked at me. “She’s a lucky woman, Matt.”
“Yeah.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “I guess she is. But not nearly as lucky as I am to have her.”
A car honks its horn, whiplashing me back to the present as I cross the street.
Zurich’s nothing like Zermatt. It’s the opposite in every way. Where Zermatt is a place for reprieve, a quiet carless mountain town, Zurich is every bit the big city New York is. Traffic. Honking. Businessmen and women hustling to and from work.
Only it’s cleaner, more structured, and classier.
And it’s one of my favorite cities in the world.
I had meetings this morning with some of the investment partners and developers for the resort in Zermatt. They went well. Everything is on schedule and moving along.
I’ve been in my head a lot since yesterday morning. After Jordan and I talked over breakfast, things settled back into our normal… ish.
It was stiff for a couple hours. Fake. The kind of fake that comes from tension you try to shove through instead of actually dealing with.
But after an hour in the car together, the air lightened.
Her mood lifted, and so did mine. And we were right back to listening to her shitty music and holding hands like nothing ever happened.
It’s one of the things I love about her. For all the armor she wears for the world, she’s never stopped letting me cut straight through the bullshit exterior.
Sure, she avoids it at first. Comes in hot. Fists up. Guns blazing. She’s rarely the one coming to me, saying, Come on, let’s talk about this.
But when I push, when I bring up the hard stuff and force her into that uncomfortable place of vulnerability, she lets me. And she never holds it against me later.
She’s always been forgiving and understanding. Sometimes too much, a strength and a weakness. Especially when it comes to her family.
That’s what has me all fucked up today. I’ve been buried in memories. Replaying the past. Trying to pinpoint where things went wrong, and what the hell I could have done differently.
The last time we came to Switzerland, I was the happiest I’d ever been. We were stronger than ever. I thought that was it—that we’d been through every kind of challenge together, that we’d weathered the storm.
That finally, after everything, time was going to allow us to just… be.
Fuck, was I wrong.
Our first big breakup was when we were seventeen.
Shit hit the fan with her dad. He’d just gone to prison, and everything got really ugly.
It was heavy. Jordan had always been close to him.
She idolized him growing up. He was one of the people she confided in, right up until she was about fifteen, when he started going down a dark path.
We’d been sitting in the cove at her pappoús’ place for what felt like hours. It was dark. Late. Quiet. She had cried in my arms until my shirt was damp. I didn’t say much, just listened. I held her, rubbed her back, wiped her tears, wishing I could trade places with her. Take it all away.
She kept talking about leaving. About how her mom had mentioned France.
She was in my lap, back against my chest, my arms wrapped around her.
I remember feeling so many things I didn’t quite understand.
Fear. Sadness. An ache so deep it hurt just thinking about her being gone.
I’d never loved anyone. Don’t even think I really knew what the word meant.
But this feeling I had—it felt like love.
I went still, arms tightening, pulling her closer. I took a shaky breath, muttered, “Christ,” then cupped her cheek and turned her face toward me.
“I love you, Jordan,” I said. “I love you so much. I’d do anything for you. I always will. Please… don’t go to France.”
She turned fully, eyes locked on mine. “I love you, too. I’m not going anywhere.”
Three weeks later, she left for France.
For eighteen fucking months.
And I was just young and stupid enough to think love could survive anything.
I couldn’t even tell you why we broke up the second time. Early twenties. College. Figuring life out. Partying.
She said she needed space, and I talked myself into that being the best idea ever.
That’s when I really started sleeping around. Taking advantage of the Grayson name, of who I was. Girls went in and out like a revolving door, Jordan included.
That was the first time we started sleeping together without actually being together. She acted like it was the greatest thing in the world. Like it didn’t matter who else I fucked, as long as she got her turn.
Looking back, I think that’s what messed with my head the most. The fact that she didn’t care.
By the third time, we were older. Smarter. Or at least we should’ve been. I was deep in work by then. Focused on getting out from under my father’s shadow. On building something of my own. On being better than him in every possible way.
I worked too much.
“I just need space,” she said again.
Same words. Different year. Only this time, I knew that wasn’t really it. Her dad had just gotten out of prison, and everything got heavy all over again. It was like something flipped overnight. One day she was ready to move in.
The next? Gone.
I cross the street, barely missing a stroller, my mind stuck years behind my body.
The fourth time hurt worse than the first two combined. Not because it was new—but because it wasn’t. You’d think I’d have gotten used to the sting of losing her. But nothing could have prepared me for that one.
Not after Switzerland.
Not after I bought a ring.
Not after I’d worked myself up to tell her I loved her again.
And then my father did what he did.
The tabloids followed, painting an ugly picture of both of us.
She stood by the elevator of my penthouse, crying. Shaken. Broken.
“I’m sorry, Matt. I love you… but I can’t do this anymore.”
“Babe—”
She pushed the button.
“Babe, don’t. Don’t do this. Please.”
She looked at me with a longing in her eyes, tears streaking her cheeks. Like she was waiting.
Waiting for me to say or do something.
The words sat there on my tongue. I love you. But I couldn’t fucking say them. Fear gripped my chest tight. Panic tore through me.
I froze.
I went completely and humiliatingly still.
And then I fucking cried.
The elevator doors slid open. She stepped inside, and I watched her leave, taking with her the only dream that ever mattered to me—the one that included us.
Somewhere between then and now, we learned how to be everything in-between.
Friends.
Lovers.
Strangers.
Almost.
We keep just enough of each other in our lives to never really move forward.
We just stay.
Here.
In this space of wanting more and not knowing how to get there.
I swing open the door to the hotel and walk through the lobby, anticipation rising when I think about my wife upstairs, waiting for me.
A smile curves my lips.
I guess the love survived.
We just didn’t.
Because here I am, almost twenty years later, still loving her like I did when I was seventeen—only deeper.
And with so much more to lose.