Chapter 17 #2
“I’ve been neglecting my family for weeks. I promised Mom I’d have dinner with them tonight. I must’ve forgotten to tell you.” This new lie slipped out as effortlessly as the others.
Grayson nodded slowly. “You know what? You raise a good point.”
She frowned. “I was raising a point?”
“We’ve basically been hibernating, spending all our free time alone.” His mouth curved in that charming grin of his that never failed to make her melt. “Not that I’m complaining. But you’re right. It’s time we come out of hiding, start acting like a normal couple.”
That word felt like a knife.
Normal.
Yeah. That word had never fit on her.
“We aren’t acting like a normal couple?” she asked. Given her inexperience with serious relationships, she didn’t have a clue what normal looked like.
She and Jake had been shy teenagers in their senior year, trying out that first-love concept.
In truth, their handful of dates were based more on the need for Homecoming than feelings.
And it hadn’t survived the night of that dance.
He’d pulled down a private lane in an apple orchard and parked.
Foolishly, she’d let him convince her to get into the back seat, where they’d be more comfortable.
Jake had been her first kiss, but like the boy himself, it had been awkward as hell. Then he tried to slip his hands under her dress, and she’d burst out of the back seat of that car like it was on fire. Despite him calling her name over and over, she ran the entire way home. Two miles. In heels.
The next day, he dumped her, claiming she was crazy.
Then he’d proceeded to spread that opinion to the rest of the boys in their class, along with the word “prude,” essentially rendering her date-less right up through high school graduation.
Not that she’d intended to date anyone else again after that failed attempt.
Her determination to steer clear of guys remained strong until her junior year of college.
Charlie had lasted longer than Jake, patient and satisfied with simply kissing her—and nothing else—for all of five months.
Then, one night, he tried to take things further, and she pulled away when it got too heated.
Charlie didn’t stop, demanding more. When he pushed her to her back and crawled on top of her, blind panic and desperation took over, leaving him with a bloody lip and black eye as she lashed out in sheer terror. Once again, the same prudish virgin label made the rounds and stuck.
After those two failed attempts, she decided the best relationship was no relationship.
Until Grayson made her want more.
Grayson continued to explain. “We’re always hidden away here. Even the few times you’ve come to the winery, we’ve tucked ourselves into an out-of-the-way corner on the patio. Hell, there’s a good chance half the town still thinks you’re single, and I can’t have that.”
If he’d said those same words last night, she would have floated to bed on a freaking cloud. Now, however, they simply made her feel heavy and tired and sad.
“At some point, I’d like to join you for dinner with your parents, so you can introduce me as your boyfriend. And on Sunday, I want you to come to dinner with my family.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“I mean…I don’t want to intrude.”
Grayson had invited her to Sunday dinner every week, but she’d refused because the idea of sitting down to dinner with the entire Storm family intimidated the hell out of her and triggered her claustrophobia in a big way.
There were just…so many of them. They were a very nice family, always kind to her.
But there was a difference between being neighborly and being the girlfriend.
She worried they wouldn’t approve of her for Grayson.
“Intrude? My mom has asked me every single Sunday since the Harvest Dance why I haven’t invited you to join us. If I show up this week without you again, she’ll probably disown me.”
Despite everything, a tiny smile tugged at her lips.
“There you go. There’s that pretty smile,” he said, drawing his thumb over her lower lip. “Tell you what. I’ll bow out of tonight with good grace and let you enjoy the evening with your family alone, if you agree to go with me to Sunday dinner.”
“With good grace?”
He crossed his arms, his eyes twinkling with pure mischief. “If you refuse again, I’m going to pitch a fit like a toddler in a toy store when his mom says no,” he joked.
She couldn’t help herself. She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m tempted to say no just so I can see what that tantrum looks like.”
He didn’t share her humor. Instead, he hit her with something so sincerely sweet, she felt herself melting again, despite all the shit rumbling inside her. “Please, Wren.”
She wanted to say no.
She needed to say no.
But when Grayson hit her with that please…
“I’ll think about coming Sunday,” she said, refusing to add one more lie to her tally. “But tonight, I really need to—”
“Spend time with your family. I totally get it. Just so long as you’re there, sitting beside me on Sunday. Gonna need your promise on that, little bird. It’s the only way I can make the ultimate sacrifice and give you up for one whole night.” He held up his finger. “Just one night.”
The teasing note in his voice was almost her undoing. Because there was no denying he believed there was a future for them.
She didn’t share that belief. And not just because she was messed up and losing hope of ever being able to have sex with a man.
Grayson hadn’t mentioned his family’s legend to her. Not once. Which made her even more certain the world hadn’t shaken for him the same way it had for his brothers.
She wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, because she wouldn’t let herself dwell on it too hard. Every time she spent more than a few minutes considering it, she started to fear that Grayson had given up on waiting for the lightning strike and was just settling for her.
“Grayson,” she started.
“Promise me, Wren.”
She sighed. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re coming on Sunday,” he stressed.
She could, should, keep arguing, but she needed him gone, needed space to breathe and think.
Oh, who the hell was she fooling? She was going to fall apart.
“Fine.”
His face lit up and guilt twisted in her gut. “Say the words ‘I promise.’”
“I promise.” She was batting a thousand on lies this morning, so why stop now?
He leaned down and kissed her forehead, the tenderness behind the gesture almost breaking her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She didn’t have it in her to pick another fight, so she merely nodded.
Then she watched in silence as he headed for the living room, which was where they’d both left most of their clothing.
The moment he was dressed, he left, and the apartment felt enormous.
Empty.
She walked out to the living room, locked the door, then slid to the floor. The first sob escaped before she could stop it. She curled into herself, a tiny ball on the floor, as she tried not to remember, tried not to see it all again.
Uncle John’s shadowed face an inch from hers, the bourbon on his breath, the way he’d put his hand over her mouth when she whimpered.
Not all monsters looked like monsters. Some looked like family.
At some point, she managed to stop crying, managed to drag herself from the floor and to the shower. She even managed to put on makeup to cover the evidence of her tears.
The rest of the day passed in a blur as she went to work, going through the motions, while banishing every single dark thought to the recesses of her mind.
It was a skill she’d developed when she was a teenager, though it wasn’t something she had needed to do in recent months.
Sophie told her the only way to walk through the pain was in a straight line.
She told her shortcuts and cutting the corners didn’t work.
Today, she didn’t just cut corners. She gave that pain a berth so wide, she was practically in a different state.
For eight hours at work, she was a blank slate.
Then she went home and kept the page clean—empty—right until she managed to fall into a restless sleep.
Grayson Storm was far more tenacious than anyone she’d ever met, which meant that, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t shake the man.
She’d managed to put him off for a couple of nights, once with the lie about dinner with her parents and then the second night, by claiming she had a killer migraine and needed medicine, silence, and a dark room. Even then, he’d offered to take care of her, but she managed to hold him off.
The next night, she got a reprieve when Grayson had to drive to Pennsylvania with his dad to pick up some new equipment for the winery. They hadn’t gotten back until late, thanks to a flat tire.
For three nights, she thought she’d gotten what she wanted.
Distance from him.
She’d hated every single second.
So when he called her first thing this morning to remind her about her promise to come to dinner with his family that night, she hadn’t put up a fight like she should have.
Instead, she agreed when he said he’d pick her up at five-thirty because, in truth, she missed him.
“I could have driven myself,” she said, as they pulled up in front of his parents’ farmhouse, which also functioned as a B&B.
Grayson gave her a charming grin, without repeating what he’d said the first time she’d said the same thing, when he’d arrived at her apartment.
According to him, he wasn’t taking any chances of her changing her mind.
Come hell or high water, he was spending time with her tonight.
Then, he’d kissed her like he’d been off to war for years rather than the three days they’d been apart.
Of course, she’d returned that kiss just as heartily, because she’d missed him too.
The Storms were a large family, and almost all of them still lived on the farm. Grayson had already explained that while they worked together and saw each other daily, his mother still insisted that every Sunday, they gather for a meal.