Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
I couldn’t breathe. He stared into my eyes for so long, I was fairly sure my lungs were going to explode.
He stepped away from me, then he went around his desk.
I closed my eyes. I heard a door click shut. Loss seeped into my chest. When I finally breathed in, it felt as if I’d replaced my lungs with shards of glass. Then his hand wrapped around mine.
My eyes flew open.
“Take me home, Grace.”
He was wearing his suit jacket again—still no tie—with an overcoat on, keys in hand.
Blake didn’t seem the type to hold hands, and yet this was the second time he’d kept me close this way. We rode down in silence. I peeked up at him, unsure what was going on in his busy brain.
I knew something was going on up there.
I could pretty much hear the gears whirling, but he didn’t say a word. Then again, neither did I.
When the doors opened, Violet stood. “Before lockdown, and no bloodshed.”
“You let her upstairs?” Blake asked.
“Yep.”
“Hmm.”
Vi gave him a cheeky grin. “Leaving for the night?”
Blake glanced down at me. “It appears so.”
“Well, all right. I’ll see you Monday.”
Blake nodded. “Yes, Monday.”
I swallowed hard. No pressure with the truth thing. Nope. None at all.
“Good night, Violet.” Blake headed for the door to the parking garage, lacing our fingers together. “Where’s your coat?”
“I sort of forgot it.”
He released my hand. Was it wrong that I wanted to snatch it back right away? That I craved that simple touch? Such a simple link seemed huge right then.
He sighed and shrugged out of his coat. My entire body was still numb from the barrage of emotions, but the moment he draped the heavy wool over my shoulders, I shuddered. It was warm from his body and smelled of him.
Relief seeped into the warming edges. After today, there was no going back. Either he’d understand, or he’d walk away.
He herded me forward with a hand at my lower back. I already missed his hand in the moment since he’d held mine. The dry, heated touch from a palm that was surprisingly rough in spots.
Another question to add to all the others about Blake Carson.
“My car is across the street.”
“It’ll be fine.”
I stopped in the middle of the parking garage. “It’ll get towed.”
“I’ll pay.”
I bristled. What if this entire thing went south? Then I’d have no car to fall back on. “You can follow me home.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
I turned to face him. “What if you don’t like what I have to say?”
“I guess we’re both going to take a chance then since you’re being so cryptic.” He took my hand and hauled me across to the garage.
He opened the passenger side and crowded into me. Before I could figure out if he was going to kiss me or…well, I wasn’t sure what else he’d have done, he boosted me into the SUV and buckled me in. Then he shut the door without a word.
He pulled out of the garage. “All right, where am I going?”
“Head into Marblehead.”
He glanced over at me. “The gallery?”
“No, but not far from it.”
The streets had cleared a little with the late hour. Blake’s company wasn’t exactly in the center of the entertainment district of Boston. We didn’t speak as he navigated the winding streets and roundabouts that created the dizzying infrastructure of the city. Once we hit the straightaway, he took my hand again.
He seemed to understand that I couldn’t really talk. The moment I opened my mouth, there would be such a rush of crazy information, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Not unless he made me stop.
Maybe not even then.
The exit for Salem and Marblehead came into view and we ended up on a long stretch of road with water on either side. I evened out as we left behind the industrial vibe and crossed over into the coastal town that had been my home for so long.
I murmured directions to him the closer we got to the gallery, passing it in favor of staying on Ocean Avenue. The closer we got to my grandmother’s house, the tenser he became.
“Where are we going, Grace?”
“Take a left here.”
His headlights washed over the front of the Cape-style house with the large strip of grass, and stone path to the porch. The pop of gravel under his tires seemed to echo in the quiet night. The hiss and roar of the tide infiltrated our silence.
“Why did you take me to my house?”
I stiffened. “It was my house first.”
He turned to me. Confusion creased the skin above his nose as his brows lowered. “What?”
“It seems you bought my grandmother’s house out from under me when it was in foreclosure.” I opened my door, took my purse, and slid out onto the driveway.
He stared at me through the window, then looked down at his lap.
I drew in a cold sea-scented breath, and I marched up the driveway. Instead of going to the front door, I bypassed it for the side of the house.
He turned off the Range Rover, and he followed me with a much quicker stride. I got to the side of the house where the maid’s quarters’ door was before he hooked his hand around my elbow to stop me.
“This isn’t your house.”
I turned to him. “Not technically. I was never on the paperwork to this house, but I was the executrix of the trust.”
His face was mostly in shadow, save for a single safety light throwing harsh white light across his cheekbones. “I bought it from the bank.”
“Because it went into foreclosure almost immediately. My grandmother had a reverse mortgage on it that I didn’t know about.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t even get through the reading of the Will before I was told the bank had taken the property, and you bought it.”
“That’s proprietary information through the bank.”
“This is a small town, Blake. Of course, everyone knew who bought Annabelle Stuart’s house. Lady’s Bay is one of the oldest areas in Marblehead.”
Something flashed across his face, but it was too dark. I didn’t know if it was surprise, or that he’d actually been trying to keep this secret. “Your name isn’t Stuart.”
“No, she’s my maternal grandmother.”
He paced away from me. “What does that have to do with me and why you’ve been lying to me for nearly a month?”
I dropped my purse on the walkway, and I chased after him. “I lost the most important—” I grabbed his arm until he faced me. “The only person in my life. I was at the Will reading, and I couldn’t get past the grief, or the idea that I was suddenly destitute.”
“So, you came looking for me?” His eyes were hot.
“Can we go inside?”
“I don’t know, can we?”
I tipped back my head. “May we?”
“This isn’t a grammar lesson, Grace. It’s my goddamn house.”
I dragged him back up the walkway and grabbed my purse. I could feel him fuming behind me as I searched for my keys. When I unlocked the door, I actually felt his seething breath gust in my hair.
I flipped on the lights as he climbed the three steps to my part of the house. “This is the maid’s quarters.”
“I know. Why are you in them? And why is there power? I haven’t turned it on yet.”
I pressed my lips together. The space felt even smaller with him inside. I swallowed hard, and I shrugged out of his coat. “I have a generator.”
“So, you’ve been squatting in my house?”
My shoulders stiffened. “I told you, my house.”
“No, I have the deed, Grace. It’s my house.”
I pushed my hair out of my face. “Technically.”
“We have very different definitions of that word.”
“I’m trying to explain how this whole mess happened. Would you just shut up for five seconds?”
He took a step closer to me, his chest heaving. “Were you trying to con me?”
“No! Not really.”
“Grace.”
“Stop growling. The day you were interviewing for a new assistant was the same day I found out the bank had sold the house before I even had the option to buy it on my own.”
He opened his mouth to interrupt, but I pointed my finger at him. He dipped his hands into his pockets instead. “Go on.”
“It was the same day I found out I lost everything. You have to understand, nothing made sense. I never paid attention to money. It was just always there.”
Blake’s jaw flexed.
“I know that sounds awful, but it’s the truth. My family has always had money. My parents, my grandmother, my great-grandparents. This house was one of the first houses built on Lady’s Bay. Yes, ignorance is a big factor in all of this, but I was completely unprepared to find out everything was being taken from me.”
“So, you came to me?”
“The plan was to talk to you.” He took a deep breath at the word plan . I walked toward him and placed my hands on his chest. “It wasn’t a con. I went there to try and make you understand why you should sell the house back to me.”
He frowned. “You have nothing.”
I winced. “I was crazy with grief, and I know it doesn’t make any sense. All I could think about was that my grandmother was gone, and you took the very last bit of her away from me.”
His face went blank. All emotion gone. “So, you thought you’d seduce me into giving you a house?”