Chapter 34
Grey
It’s a beautiful day to get back what’s mine.
Even more beautiful day to watch the looks on the faces of the four men whose lives are about to get very uncomfortable.
I snap my folder shut and lean back in my seat. “Final offer, gentlemen.”
Vince clamps his unhinged jaw shut while his white skin goes a mottled purple. “Are you fucking for real? This is the most asinine, childish shit you’ve ever pulled.”
“Ah, yes. I’m asinine . That’s so much worse than being manipulative and attempting to put a man in a corner if he wants to continue his work in peace.
What was your finder’s fee on this deal, by the way?
Hope it was enough to pay for the lawyers you’ll need when their original backers find out this was an inside job. ”
The three other men at the table stiffen.
“They’re out, by the way.” I peer at them over my glass of kombucha. Raspberry mint. Rather delicious. “We had a fascinating brunch yesterday morning. Them. Me. My attorney. Their attorneys. I can honestly say I never knew civil litigation had so many complex layers to it.”
We’re on the deck of one of my favorite San Diego steakhouses, overlooking the marina while I lay out the terms of their surrender to me.
And yes, I mean surrender .
The cost of them replacing me after I left the research world will far outweigh the cost of them selling their company to me at a loss.
Especially now that the venture capitalists funding the start-up that Vince was supposedly a silent partner for have decided they no longer have interest in working with people who would fuck over their only researcher.
And once I own the company, I own my research again.
Once I own the research again, I can finish it.
While I’m building a new lab where I won’t have a business partner but will have a life.
I haven’t slept since I left Snaggletooth Creek. I’ve eaten, but only when I’ve gotten lightheaded and realized what was wrong. I’ve asked questions. I’ve gossiped. I’ve dug and dug and dug for what I needed, and I found it.
Proof that owning my research but not owning me if I refuse to do more research puts this company in a pickle.
“Offer expires at midnight,” I tell them. “I’d take this one if I were you. The next one will have at least one less zero attached. Enjoy dinner. It’s on me.”
I start to rise as a commotion breaks out behind me. “Ex cuse me, do you know who I am?” a startlingly familiar voice says.
I whip my head around.
“No, madam, I have no idea who you are,” the ma?tre d’ replies.
Sabrina Sullivan, the goddess who has haunted my every ten-minute nap in the past three days, lifts her nose high while her massive dog gives a joyful bark. “Good. That means you won’t be able to tell them who just brought her dog in here. I love being a nobody.”
“ Ma’am ,” the ma?tre d’ snaps as Sabrina strolls past him.
Am I hallucinating?
Is this what not sleeping and getting proper justice will do to a man?
Or is Sabrina marching past the ma?tre d’ stand, spotting me and turning into an avenging angel of gossip and destruction while her eyes narrow and flames shoot out of her ears?
Is she wearing an Avengers suit?
I blink.
No, that was definitely a fantasy-based hallucination. But the sundress and the strappy high-heeled sandals and the way her curly red hair is blowing in the wind is sending me straight to my happy place.
She’s here .
“Ma’am, you need to stop,” the ma?tre d’ repeats.
But I’ve been spotted by a very large brown-and-white Saint Bernard, who woofs joyfully and lunges toward me.
People at the few occupied other tables turn. One woman scoots out of the way.
“ Ma’am . I am calling the police if you don’t?—”
I finally find my voice. “She’s with me.”
“Oooh, you wish I was with you,” Sabrina retorts as Jitter reaches me.
“What in the hell do you think you’re—stop recording this right now, because if you think I won’t toss that phone over that balcony and then dig up every secret every person on this earth has ever known about you and use it against you to haunt you for the rest of your days, you are dead wrong.
I’ve done the viral thing once and I am not doing it again . ”
She scans the deck.
Every single person at the seven occupied tables puts their phones away.
I smile.
Can’t help it.
“And you can put that away too,” she orders, pointing to my face. “If you think smiling is getting you out of trouble, you, too, have a long life of regrets ahead of you.”
I need to stop smiling.
I do.
She should be mad at me. I didn’t call her.
I didn’t have her number, but I didn’t ask Zen for it either until they sent it to me, and I think I got so tied up in what I was looking for that I might have forgotten to check if she texted me back.
“I’m sorry,” I say while Jitter pushes against me, tail wagging so hard he nearly knocks over a chair at the closest table.
He’s such a good boy. My favorite good boy.
“You don’t look sorry,” Sabrina says.
Yep. I’m still smiling. “You’re here.”
“ What are you doing here ?”
I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “Destroying their lives.”
“Oh my god, Grey.” She sucks in a deep breath.
I know that breath.
It’s the breath of java give me patience .
“That’s Vince,” I tell her. “My former friend and partner. And the fucklebuckets he sold my research to.”
She leans around me and peers at them. “Oh, sweetheart, do not test me,” she says. “Give. Me. The. Phone.”
Swear I hear Vince gulp.
She twitches her fingers.
He tries to put the phone away.
“Jitter, fetch the phone,” she says.
“Very funny, Ms. Nobody,” Vince says.
“Give her the phone before he rescinds the offer, you idiot,” one of his companions in dastardly deeds says.
“He can’t?—”
“Jitter, fetch ,” Sabrina repeats, pointing at Vince.
Jitter woofs.
The ma?tre d’ gives me the glare of all glares.
I grin at him too.
“Definitely feel that offer dropping,” I muse with a pointed look at Vince. “Give her the phone. Unlocked. So she can delete the video.”
“Grey—” he starts.
“I know about your child support issue,” Sabrina says to him.
Fuck, I love her.
My heart swells and my eyes prickle with the sudden realization, but it’s true.
I do.
I don’t need to go back to Snaggletooth Creek and see if this goes anywhere .
It’s already gone somewhere for me.
I love this woman.
I love her confidence.
I love her heart.
I love the code that she lives and gossips by.
I love that Vince is visibly trembling as he hands his phone to her so she can delete the video he was taking of us.
She makes quick work of what she needs to do while Jitter pushes against me, panting happily and wagging his tail with enough force to classify it as a weapon of restaurant destruction while I happily rub his thick fur all over his wiggly overgrown puppy body.
“If I were the type of person to throw electronics in the ocean, this would be gone right now. You’re lucky I’m not stabbing it with a steak knife.
Respect people’s privacy, asshole .” Sabrina points to the table and circles her finger around it.
“I don’t know what else was going on here, but whatever he apparently just offered you, take it . Trust me on this.”
“Sir,” the ma?tre d’ says to me, “I need the dog to leave.”
“Duchess?” I murmur.
Like hell they’re getting her real name.
“Don’t even try to get on my good side with that smile right now,” she replies pertly. She nods to the ma?tre d’. “Thank you for your understanding. Jitter, come. Grey, you too. Now .”
I’m smiling again while I follow her out of the restaurant and onto the street. “You’re here.”
“ You left me .”
“I was coming back.”
“ You didn’t tell me that .”
“I got tied up in research and straightening my cape.”
Am I stepping as close to her as Jitter will let me, settling my hands on her hips and still smiling like I’ve forgotten how to frown?
Yes. Yes, I am.
But then she blinks and her eyes take on a sheen that suggests tears, and I can’t smile anymore. “Sabrina, I’m not laughing at you. I’m so damn glad to see you, and I can’t?—”
She clutches my arms. “I kept telling myself you didn’t ghost me to get back at me for Hawaii, that I knew better, but I just didn’t know .
And I miss you and I’m not supposed to miss you.
I have a heart of iron when it comes to men but you gave Mimi the café .
That’s what my grandpa did for my grandma when they got married.
He built the café for my grandma because she was so sad that the man she loved had knocked her up and dumped her and she knew Grandpa didn’t love her.
She kept telling him she knew she was a burden.
But even with his own heart breaking, he didn’t want her to think she was a burden, ever.
So he did the only thing he could to make her happy.
Do you have any idea how impossible it is to not think you’re every bit the man that my grandpa was when you do the same things he did?
When you build something to make someone else happy no matter the cost to you? ”
I clear my throat and blink a few times. “I didn’t build it.”
“But you saved it and you gave it to her and then you fucking ignored me and I have a damn title to the building in my name now, and how fucking dare you ? Do you know what I have to do now? I have to change it. I have to change it and call it Bee & Nugget and install your beehives in the windows and put your massive, gaudy fiberglass bee on the outside of the building and sell kombucha so that it can be ours instead of mine or yours .”
She sniffles.
Jitter whines and sways between pushing against my legs and pushing against her legs.
“If you’ll come home,” she adds in a whisper. “If you’ll please come home and do this with me.”
Home .
I lean down to wrap my arms around her, squishing Jitter between us so he doesn’t have to choose, and bury my face in those glorious curls, breathing in all of her.
The subtle coffee scent. The light, clean shampoo.
The lemons. “I want to be home with you. But I wanted to be whole . Not living for revenge. Not doubting my worth.”
“I missed you so much more than I’m supposed to ever miss anyone.”
“I was coming home for Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?”
“Random Acts of Kindness Day. It seemed a better holiday than that fake heart holiday to spend with my Duchess.”
“Stop making me cry,” she whispers.
“I’ll kiss all the tears until I make you laugh again.”
“I’m not supposed to love you but I can’t seem to help myself.”
My heart swells so hard and fast that I should be going lightheaded.
But instead, all I feel is warmth.
Warmth and peace and acceptance and belonging and love .
“I am supposed to love you,” I whisper back. “That’s what life’s been trying to teach me. And I’m ready now. I’m ready to spend the rest of my life loving you.”
“And answering my phone calls ,” she says on a laugh and a sniffle.
I kiss her ear. Her cheek. Her nose. “I will always answer your phone calls.”
“No, you won’t, and that’s okay.” Her sparkle is back. “But most of the time. Most of the time, when you’re not hip deep in concentrating on something amazing, you’ll answer my calls.”
“Highly likely.” I brush the tears off her cheeks with my thumb. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m so glad you’re coming home.”
Home .
I am.
I’m going home. With the woman I love and her dog and her community, to my grandma and my nibling-slash-best friend and the place where it’s so easy to feel like I belong.
“Bee & Nugget?” I say.
“Zen’s already ordering the sign. Do not test me .”
I smile and pull her in for a kiss, well aware that there are people watching us again, probably recording us for posting somewhere on the giant web of the internet, knowing that it won’t go viral because who cares about two people kissing?
Nothing scandalous here.
“I love you, Sabrina Sullivan. You’ll always be the duchess of my heart.”
“I love you more, Grey Cartwright. And I can’t wait to get you a superhero cape for your next era.”