Chapter 5
“Because, once again, you’d just reminded me how much you couldn’t stand the thought of ending up with me.”
“Someone new. Someone who wasn’t you.”
“What’s the point of sitting at home, alone, when you’re not gonna be there, and you’ve made it known from the day I met you that you can’t stand the thought of us together?”
Hours later, I was thinking of nothing but those words.
Not surprisingly, I hadn’t heard from Gray.
Surprisingly, I had heard from Briggs.
But when he’d demanded we meet in the tiny, adorable town of Huntley—where he now lived with Lainey and his niece, Kaia—I hadn’t expected the traitor to force me over to Lainey’s family’s pick-your-own farm.
Not that I had anything against their farm.
It always looked incredible when it was all decked out for people to come pick blueberries or pumpkins, depending on the season.
And even more so now, with how it was currently set up for a pre-Easter festival, of sorts.
I just had a massive issue with crowds, and an even bigger issue with a certain sister of Lainey’s, who, as a surprise to literally no one, just so happened to be there.
Wren.
I glanced down at Kaia when she tugged on my pants, wanting me to lift her, then glared at the woman forcing the most annoying pout in the world.
Okay, so maybe I was a little hard on Wren, but I really couldn’t stand her.
“I just never see you without Hudson,” she went on, looking around again as if Gray might suddenly appear in the sea of pastel-colored families. “I thought he would be here when I saw you.”
“There’s a first for everything,” I said as I finally bent down and scooped up Kaia when the almost two-year-old gave another tug. I hated kids, but Kaia belonged to Briggs, which meant she belonged to all of us. Besides, she gave me an excuse to walk away from Wren.
“I’ll tell him you were looking for him though,” I added as I took a step toward Briggs.
“Oh, I’ll just have him come over,” Wren said with a shrug as she reached for her phone, already walking away from me as she did.
Every part of me faltered at her sure tone—from my heart to my steps. I wanted to ask where exactly she intended to have Gray meet her. There, at the farm, or at her apartment?
At the same time, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think of them together, when that’s all I’d done for months now.
Turning to where Briggs was holding a basket filled with plastic eggs and little prizes, I blinked back the absurd tears pricking at my eyes and tried to keep the irritation and devastation from my tone when I asked, “Why’d we have to come here?”
“Lainey’s been promising Kaia we’d come,” he said on a sigh that let me know he was just as desperate to leave. Before I could remind him that Lainey wasn’t here, he added, “But she hasn’t been feeling great.”
A hum sounded in my throat as I made a sweep of the people walking around the large, open space—too many people. “Let me rephrase, why’d I have to come here?” I asked as Kaia laid her head on my chest, causing me to still.
“You know why,” Briggs muttered as he cut an expectant look my way before his stare dropped to Kaia. “Think she’s done. Let’s head out.”
Swallowing back a sigh, I hitched Kaia higher up on my hip and started following Briggs down the long path back to the cars. My lips parted half a dozen times to tell him I did, in fact, know why he’d called the meeting—even if I didn’t know why he’d forced me to Pearson Farms for it.
I just wasn’t prepared for this conversation.
Throughout watching Kaia gather Easter eggs in her basket and toddle around the rest of the activities the farm had set up, I’d had a feeling Briggs had been waiting for me to start the discussion.
But I’d already done that with Gray, and it hadn’t ended well.
So, what little I had said to Briggs, had been about his niece and the hoard of people.
“How’d it go?” Briggs finally asked, his tone markedly different than seconds before. Pointed. Impatient.
And wholly unexpected, since I knew with absolute certainty he was asking about Gray, when I’d expected this meeting to be about my embarrassing display the night before.
I considered feigning ignorance since his question was so vague and I really didn’t want to discuss the disaster with Gray, but I knew it would only add to his frustration.
“Not well,” I finally admitted. When Briggs just grunted, I explained, “We fought. He stormed out. I also don’t appreciate your part in helping him get inside my condo.”
Briggs’ expression didn’t shift from the permanent glower as he spared me a glance. “You wouldn’t have let him in otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t have let any of you in.”
“I’m not gonna apologize, Monroe.”
I nodded, already knowing that.
After walking a while longer in silence, he asked, “Do you still wanna work for me?”
Air punched from my lungs at yet another question I hadn’t expected. Only this one had fear clinging to my spine as that same worry from last night crept into my veins.
Don’t rip this away from me.
“You know I do,” I whispered.
“Then I need you to explain what’s going on.” His tone let me know there was no room for discussion, but I wasn’t sure where to begin.
The day I’d first met all of them? When I’d first realized I was in love with Hudson Gray? Or maybe when I’d realized he truly didn’t know how to keep himself from women? Or should I begin with Aruba?
I mentally crossed the last one off the list.
There was no point telling anyone about what’d happened in Aruba when I was about to undo it. After all, who would willingly ask for other people to witness the most humiliating moment of their lives?
A drunken marriage to the man I loved, who had probably only agreed because I was the closest woman available . . .
A night I couldn’t remember, where I’d given the only man I’d ever wanted to marry my virginity, only for him to turn around and sleep with someone else a few hours later . . .
That was peak humiliation.
“Because, once again, you’d just reminded me how much you couldn’t stand the thought of ending up with me.”
I forced Gray’s words from my mind, still so sure they’d been nothing more than a line. I was fairly certain Hudson Gray had been born knowing what to say to make women fall at his feet.
“Monroe,” Briggs prompted irritably, only then making me realize I still hadn’t answered.
“It’s just gotten hard,” I admitted.
He shot a glance my way but didn’t ask, just waited.
“Working with him,” I added, the words wrapped in shame I wasn’t sure I’d ever shown around him or any of the guys.
“Gray,” Briggs said in confirmation. When I didn’t respond, he added, “Y’all have always worked best together. The guy thinks of y’all as your own, separate team within ours.”
My head bobbed as more than eleven years of memories flashed through my mind like a dizzying slideshow.
Missions where it’d always been him at my back.
Driving Briggs crazy because we hadn’t been able stop fighting, both physically and verbally.
Fights that had always ended in an uncontrollable laughter that only Gray had been able to pull from me.
Somehow finding me just after I’d finished my small moments of weakness when we’d lost Blondie, Barbie, and Tic, and pouring all his strength into me, without judgment.
A year of feeling lost because he and the rest of the guys had already retired and moved on without me.
Then finally being back with them—with him—in Texas.
Standing side-by-side on each detail, and feeling unsettled whenever I’d been paired with anyone else because they hadn’t been Gray .
. . because they hadn’t driven me crazy.
Because, as Briggs said, Gray and I were a team.
And Gray breaking an ambassador’s jaw who’d thought it was okay to get handsy with me, even though I’d already been about to swing on the guy, because he’d been no different from all the others.
Throughout all those, the one memory that continuously popped up was from one of the many covert missions we’d executed overseas—the night we’d lost Tic.
No extra eyes on the compound. No anything.
We’d walked into a trap instead and had immediately found ourselves under fire, throwing the covert part out the window.
But one second, we’d been moving in on the building our target was in, sure we’d finished clearing the outside.
The next, Thatch’s hissed curse had sounded through our comms, bursts of gunfire had filled the night air, and I’d been tackled to the ground as I’d turned toward the sound.
Just as I’d started fighting off the person on top of me, I’d realized who it was.
Roguish smile and dimples still making an appearance, even through the pain that had been lining his face.
“Anyone gets to shoot you, Princess, it’s me,” Gray had wheezed, as if he hadn’t just broken all protocol. As if we’d had time for his teasing. As if multiple bullets hadn’t pierced his vest, and another hadn’t ripped through his shoulder.
If I hadn’t been so terrified by the fact that he hadn’t immediately gotten back into fight, the way he normally would’ve, and been so focused on doing the same myself, I probably would’ve punched him for nearly taking himself from me.
“I know,” I finally said, acknowledging Briggs’ statement about Gray and me. “But some things change.”
Briggs didn’t offer any of his thoughts as we finished the walk to the cars. But once he had the basket in his front passenger seat, and Kaia buckled into her car seat, he turned on me with a sigh.
“Gonna be straight with you because I know you appreciate that,” he began, keeping one hand on the top of the open door, his back to a mumbling Kaia.
“The rest of us have been waiting for something to happen between you and Gray because it’s always been obvious to us that something should.
At the same time, I’ve been worried for this. ”