Chapter 47
SASHA
“I could get used to this,” I say, rolling onto my back as Griffin sets a latte on the bedside table.
He grumbles. I can tell he’s trying not to look at me. He woke up this morning in our suite at the Rolling Hills with a hard-on to end all hard-ons. I know because it was pressed up against my back when I woke up—before him for once in my life.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” I whispered into his ear.
He’d mumbled something in his sleep and woke up enough to pull me closer and kiss the back of my head.
When I rolled onto my back I slipped my hand under the sheet, drawing my fingers over the thin cloth of his shorts.
He groaned, tilting his hips into me. Then his eyes blinked open.
Even in his half-asleep state, he managed to open his eyes enough to narrow them.
“Nice try, you harlot,” he mumbled before rolling away from me.
I huffed. He still hasn’t given up on his won’t give the D until we get the all-clear thing. It’s been three weeks, and my injuries are mostly healed.
On the outside.
I went back to sleep grumpy. But waking up now, I don’t know why I’m surprised he’s going to such lengths to take care of me.
He wouldn’t be my Griffin if he wasn’t. His insistence that I speak with a trauma therapist he seemed to have on speed dial and talk to every few days has kept me functional, even in a place where I’m able to consider the future.
I still wake up in a panic some days, but Griffin’s always there, reminding me that we’re still counting time in days since it happened.
But the no sex thing? I’ve about had it.
When I woke up for the second time this morning, I was ready to tell him how perfectly fine my head feels.
It does. But Griff was gone. He’d left a little note scrawled on the hotel notepad on the bedside table, letting me know he was getting coffees downstairs at the Rolling Hills’ gorgeous restaurant, L’Aubergine.
Thoughtful jerk.
But now is definitely the time. I take a sip of my coffee now, closing my eyes to enjoy the rush of caffeine and piping hot milk.
Then I set my phone down and mentally rub my hands together.
Griffin’s gotten up to check his phone, so he hasn’t yet noticed that I took my clothes off while he was gone.
“Ford’s offer went through,” he says, his back to me. Last week, Ford put an offer on a house in North Road, Ohio, sight unseen.
His partner’s wasted no time since they decided to start their business, even though it’s still up in the air whether Griffin will join him in Ohio. At least it is for Griff. I’ve told him that no matter what, I’m not standing in the way of his dreams.
“Pending conditions,” Griff adds.
“Pending what?” I’ve risen up onto my elbows. The sheet’s clinging for dear life to the very tips of my breasts.
I will Griffin to turn around.
“Conditions of sale,” he says over his shoulder. “The agent said—”
Then Griffin does a double take and he turns around, his words trailing off.
“I told you I’m ready,” I say, rising up a little higher, daring the sheet to slip. “I think you are, too.”
He closes his eyes. “Lord, give me strength to control… Actually, never mind. I’m going to do some work.”
Eyes still closed, he heads out of the bedroom, his hands out in front of him. He disappears into the suite’s second bedroom, which he’s set up as a little office.
Seriously?
I scowl. I’m learning how to do that from the best. “Fine!” I call out, getting out of bed. I head to the bathroom with my latte and nothing else, but of course he can’t see me.
I step into the shower, thinking of all the times Griffin’s joined me. I bite my lip, soaping my ass for a good ten minutes, my eyes on the bathroom door.
But eventually I have to acknowledge he’s standing firm.
Once he gets into that room, working on things related to his business, he’s nearly impossible to distract. I really shouldn’t be such a brat. This business is everything to him, next to me.
I have to give him my answer soon. But Griffin won’t leave Quince Valley so long as Chester is still here. Neither will I.
We’ve visited Chester every day since the night he saved my life. His doctors didn’t want us to see him at first, but Chester—and Griffin—put up such a stink, they quickly gave up.
The good news is he went home last week.
Just as I knew would happen, Griffin pulled out all the stops.
He hired round-the-clock nursing staff for his friend, as well as an additional care aide.
Plus a housekeeper who comes every day—an efficient and flamboyant man called Lucas, who texts us with all the updates when we’re not there in person.
Yesterday we were there at the same time as the doctor. He told us in a hushed voice on the front porch that Chester could have a few weeks left—or he could go any day.
Most nights I can handle it. But last night I couldn’t stop the tears from coming, and when Griffin held me close while I soaked his shirt, I felt him breaking apart a little, too.
I told Griffin what Chester told me that night on his back porch when everything went so terribly wrong—at least, the part about Joseph not really being his grandfather.
But I didn’t tell him Chester’s personal story—it’s not mine to tell.
Likewise, I’m withholding my theories on who Joseph is, too, until I know more.
I know Lucas is helping Chester organize Joseph’s things. I’ve caught glimpses into that back room; there are boxes everywhere. When I’ve asked Chester if I can help, he keeps saying not yet.
I don’t want to remind either of us that the yet can’t be pushed off forever.
But yesterday, while the nurse helped Chester with his soup, I’d grabbed Lucas by the collar and asked him what was going on in that back room. Lucas had finally relented and told me Chester’s spending all his waking hours going through Joseph’s belongings.
“It’s mostly diaries,” Lucas said. “He’s been reading each one cover to cover. Then he gets me to code them by year and put them in these special boxes.” Lucas shook his head. “For a guy who likes straw hats, he’s hella particular.”
After that conversation, I caught Chester crooking his finger at me from his chair in the living room.
“Hey,” I said, coming up beside him and crouching down.
“Wanna help me sneak outside?” he asked.
“Chester, it’s freezing out there.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Sasha?”
Griff was chatting with Lucas in the kitchen, and the nurse was on the phone in Chester’s room. We were all alone.
I bit my lip, then bent down and gently looped his arm around my shoulder. I guided him out the back door and sat him in his favorite of the three rocking chairs. He weighed next to nothing. Then I snuck back inside and gathered all the blankets and tucked them around him.
I sat in the seat next to him. It occurred to me later that I probably should have worried about being triggered by being in the same position as I had been that night.
But I wasn’t. Chester looked out on his chickens, who were puttering around, pecking at the ground like our whole world wasn’t going to come crashing down sometime in the near future.
“You’ll take care of my girls, won’t you?” Chester asked me.
My chest tightened so hard it hurt. “Of course,” I said.
“Actually, do you remember Vivian? She said her sister won’t stop talking about chickens.
” Vivian tore me a new one a few days before at her place.
I’d gone in to resign my position at Bijou.
I thought she’d put up a stink, but to my surprise, she’d not only just said “okay,” but asked if I wanted to come over for tea.
It was really nice. Except for her snapping, “I guess I’m going to have to get chickens now. ”
“You must have painted a pretty picture about the chicken life that time they drove you home.”
Chester chuckles. “I was a real pain in the ass that day, wasn’t I?”
“No comment.” I smile. But I follow his gaze to his girls. “I think Vivian would be happy to give these beautiful ladies a fine home in her backyard.”
“That sounds good to me, honey,” Chester said.
I step out of the shower now, toweling off in front of the mirror.
The bruising on my body from that night is completely gone, though I know it’ll take a lot longer to heal from the emotional trauma.
I’m also not looking forward to the day when I have to decide whether I’ll testify against the man named Brick—and relive not just that night, but the one back in New York, with Vincent Creelman.
But none of that needs to be decided right now. Right now, I’ve got about an hour before I’m meeting Glo for coffee, and Chester after that.
I should try to seduce Griffin again. But as much as I miss him, my heart isn’t in it.
And as I pull on my clothes—clothes Vivian brought me the day I got home from the hospital (they’re last season cast-offs, she told me, though one look told me they were all current)—I get the strangest tingling sensation before Griffin’s phone rings in the other room.
I hear a few words, then Griffin’s next to me, phone still in hand, gathering me to his chest.
“He’s gone, Angel,” he says.
We hold each other like that for a long time.