Chapter 10
Grant
The Offer
I’d never seen someone sleep as hard as Sophia did against me.
I could feel her muscles deflate, the tension in her shoulders relax as she melted into my hold.
I knew I should probably get up and clean myself up a bit, bring her a warm towel to clean her up, too, but I couldn’t convince myself it was worth it to leave her alone.
I’d had one night stands before. Many. But this, somehow, felt different. And I really liked whatever this was.
Sophia’s phone buzzed for the third time on the floor. I hadn’t seen her check it once the whole time we’d been drinking and shooting earlier, so it was odd seeing it come to life so late at night.
I grunted at the fourth buzz and shuffled Sophia slightly in my hold right as the fifth buzz sounded. I scooped it up and shuffled her again, using her face to unlock the device.
The number that had been blowing her up wasn’t one saved in her phone. In fact, when I checked what numbers she did have from the same area code, I found only one—“Daddy Warbucks.” Assuming that was her actual dad, that knocked him from the list, as well as Lyra and some other named “Manager.”
That was all she’d saved. No one else had names associated, even though there were a few repeat numbers on her call log.
I finally opened the text back up and read through, and what I saw made my stomach churn—
Unknown: We need to talk.
Unknown: I don’t like being ignored all day.
I scrolled up immediately, noticing dozens of texts from the same person, all saying they needed to talk, discuss something, questioning where she was, and why she wasn’t answering them.
I scrolled back down.
Unknown: Remember your promise. You keep yours and I’ll keep mine.
The last two messages were videos, and I hovered my thumb over one that was a recording of another device playing a video.
I pushed the volume button all the way down before opening.
The video was blurry at first, but as it settled and stilled, it showed a hand holding a phone, the camera positioned right above the screen while a video played on that device.
As it became clearer what it was I was watching, my eyes slid to Sophia.
I exited that video and played the next one.
Rage consumed me to no end as I watched a similar scenario, only the young blonde in the video had tears streaming down her face from beneath a blindfold, the word “no,” coming from her lips more than once as her naked body was flogged by a man in a balaclava, his pants around his ankles as he—
Fuck no.
I deleted the entire text, knowing if Sophia woke up to that, I’d never get my answer.
She’d be gone like dust to the wind and I’d have no way to figure out what the fuck was happening.
First, it was the bruises on her wrist, then it was the way she looked ready to kill with a gun in her hands—a purpose behind every bullet she released from the chamber.
Now, it appeared like she was being blackmailed and had a lot more beneath the surface than I would have ever thought.
My thoughts came back to the present as a soft voice funneled in. “Grant?” Sophia whispered, like all the strength I knew she had inside her was withering away. “What did you see?”
She could probably guess what I’d seen. Or at least something akin to it. But tellin’ her would only make her do what I feared she’d do the last time I kept quiet—run.
“Why are you agreeing to marry Walton?”
Her brows drew together. “What?”
“Peach, answer me.”
She worried down on her lip, then reached for the soda.
I lunged for it first and held it captive until I could get my answer.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I don’t have a choice.
That’s what an arranged marriage is. Since you’ve been stalking me, you know all that, don’t you? ”
“Fight it. We both know he’s bad news for you.”
She cocked her head, that adorable little confused face of hers working something out that I couldn’t decipher. “And how do you suppose I ‘fight,’ exactly?”
I shrugged. “I can think of several ways to not have to go through with it.”
Her lips rolled in, contemplating. “My life is more complicated than what you might think. I can’t just decide to not marry Walton. I’ve been…I’ve been expected to marry him since we were in diapers. He’s all I’ve known.”
“Then let me show you what someone else would be like.” I removed my hat and dragged a steady hand through my hair.
“How would that change my mind? Or my parent’s minds, for that matter?”
“Remember how I said you have a choice?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Well, darlin’, that choice is all you. No one can force you to do what you don’t want to do. There is always a way around it.”
“Says the guy who is holding me hostage.”
“I’m not—” I started cracking my knuckles individually beneath the table, then rolled my shoulders back.
“Look, as much as you don’t want to believe it, I won’t hurt you.
I did what I did because you refuse to do it for yourself.
So, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna keep you with me for a week—”
“A week?!” she whisper-shouted.
I rocked my head back and forth, calculating. I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t know the exact date and time of her wedding. “Make it two.”
“And what the hell am I supposed to tell my fiancé? You know, the guy waiting for me back in Texas?”
“Is he waiting for you, though? I think we both know he has plenty of things entertaining his every whim. You can spare two weeks.”
“We have a wedding to plan.”
“A wedding that ain’t happenin’,” I replied.
“It should still appear like it is.”
My lips curled at the edges. “As long as you can picture it not happenin’, I think we’re off to a good start.”
Her bright blue eyes narrowed as she took another bite of her food, eyeing me down like she was considering my crazy ass plan.
I knew it was nuts, but if I could raise my sister into the take-no-shit kind of woman she became, then two weeks with Sophia should be long enough to make her see there were other ways to live your life.
One that didn’t make you someone else’s bitch.
“What happens when the two weeks are over and I still want to go back?”
I shrugged, though my hands balled into fists on my lap. “Then that’s your decision.”
“Hypothetically, if I agreed to this, then why should I have you be the one to show me, Grant? Why should I trust you?”
“Probably shouldn’t.” I leaned forward, pushing my finger on the edge of her empty paper plate, making it wobble up and down.
“But if you give me a chance, I can prove to you why marrying Walton is a mistake. One you won’t ever come back from.
” The memory of that video flashed in my mind, making me see red.
I blinked until that was gone, focusing on the slight sway in the trees and the lights glowing just right, illuminating Sophia’s golden hair.
Suddenly, I had the urge to draw how the light played off the sheen, flyaways dancing around her pink cheeks, highlighting the soft curves of her face.
“That isn’t very convincing, cowboy.”
“Okay then.” A chuckle escaped, and I swiped my tongue over my bottom lip as I leaned back.
“How ’bout this one—what do you have to lose?
” She was silent as she looked around the wooded opening, where friends gathered and laughed, and families played with their rowdy kids, all while shoveling tacos into their mouths.
“Do you want to wake up ten years down the road from now, knowing you made the choice everyone else wanted you to make, or wishin’ you’d been brave enough to see what else was out there? ”
“So, what you’re sayin’ is, you want me to date you while I’m engaged to Walton without him knowing so you can show me another side of life I could lead?”
I lifted a single shoulder. “I’m not sayin’ you have to do anythin’ with me you don’t wanna do, but whatever you do in the next two weeks should be your choice. Whatever you wanna do, you do.”
“What if I decide to go to Beijing?”
“Got my passport.”
“Go skydiving?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
“Rob a bank?”
“I’ve got a lot of room in the bed of my truck for your haul, but I don’t think you need any more money.”
Her nails drummed on the table as she contemplated my proposition. “What’s in it for you?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“People I know don’t do things like this for nothing.”
That’s because the people you know are shit, darlin’. “And what kind of thing is this?”
“It’s very…selfless. If your reasoning really is what you claim it is and not some twisted scheme to get me into your bed.
” She folded her arms across the table, resting her chin on a forearm, her attention on me and only me.
“Why didn’t you just ask me to do all this instead of slipping the Ativan meant for Walton into my water? ”
“I knew you’d say no.”
Her shoulders shook with laughter. “So you thought drugging me would put me in a better mindset to accept thinking about leaving my fiancé?”
“C’mon, darlin’. Is he really that important to you, or is it the idea that it’s what you’re supposed to do that has you so fixated on seein’ it out?”
She straightened in her seat, squaring back her shoulders, looking every bit the Sophia Pierson she was in those pictures I’d saved on my phone. Well, most of them. “What if I love Walton?”
Every muscle in my jaw went rigid. “You don’t.”
“And how would you know that?”
I pointed at her ring finger. “You hid your ring.”
She rubbed the spot the ring should’ve been, then as fast as she’d done before, her face twisted like her mood. “I fucking knew it.” She pushed away from the table, snatching up her plate while glowering at me. “You got what you wanted, then?”
My brows dipped. “What?”
“My ring, Grant.” She spat my name like it held venom. “I hope close to a million dollars is enough for your psychotic delusions of fucking me, or…whatever the fuck this was, to go away.”
I’d been called a psycho before, but…delusions?
That would insinuate it was only me who was interested when she was the one who initiated it the first time.
I was just the one who wasn’t opposed to the idea if she wanted me again.
And again. I rubbed my bottom lip with my thumb until it clicked.
By the time I realized she was sayin’ I’d taken her to steal her engagement ring and not her, she was already on the path back to my truck.
I stood calmly, trying not to draw attention to either of us as I chucked my trash and closed the distance.
With only a few strides left until I could reach out for her and tell her that wasn’t my plan at all, that I didn’t want the fuckin’ ridiculous ring from Walton Buchanon the whatever-the-fuck number, she took off.
Only, she was still wearing those red-backed, overpriced shoes, and runnin’ in those things—well, the tumble to the ground before I even had to give chase was inevitable. I grinned as I approached slowly.
“Just take it.” She fisted a handful of leaves and dirt and threw it in my direction. “I don’t want it.”
“I know you don’t.” I kneeled down and pulled a few leaves from her hair. “The question is, do you know that?”
“Do you think you’re fucking Yoda or something?”
“Cute.” I grabbed Sophia’s hands and helped her up.
When she tried and failed to run away again, I strode up to where she’d fallen this time and stuck my hands in my pockets.
“Look, Peach. I know you think once you get married you can just live a boring, unfulfilled life. Maybe pop out the next heir for all the money you two have combined. But somethin’ tells me that ain’t what you want. ”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” I smirked, rocking my body back and forth by the heels and toes of my boots. She stood slowly, swiping the debris from her clothes. “Tell you what. You agree and I’ll make sure you feel safe while you think on it some more.”
“You drugged me.”
“And I doubt it was the first time that happened to you. Yet somethin’ also tells me you kind of liked that part, too. Being forced to lose control.”
Sophia’s cheeks heated just like when I warned I’d tie her up. It was a lucky guess, but it seemed like I’d been right. Her silence, and the way her chest rose and fell as she looked up at me, confirmed it. I guess it takes one to know one.
And then I remembered the fucking video of her being used in a way that didn’t seem consensual and my blood boiled.
“How will you—” Her voice came out breathy until she cleared it and took a step back. “How will you do that? Make sure I feel…”
“Safe,” I finished. Maybe those delusions she spoke of were somewhat true, because I answered with the first thing that popped in my head, knowing damn well it would put my life at risk. “I’ll give you the gun I keep in my center console.”
A deep groove formed between her brows. “You know I could shoot you the moment you give it to me, right?”
“Well, darlin’.” I closed the distance between us and cupped her chin between my thumb and forefinger, lifting her gaze to meet mine. “That’ll be your choice to make.”