Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Ariana
Stephen was staring at me from across the dining table while I rearranged my schedule on the calendar app—the personal one. The one that mapped out everything I had been quietly building against the Mercers.
Stephen knew that.
He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, watching, a crease forming between his eyebrows. I kept my eyes on my laptop and pretended not to notice, but after a while, the silence started to press in, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I shut the lid with a sigh. “What?”
He shook his head slowly. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just wanted to look at you.”
“It’s creeping me out,” I said.
His lips curled slightly. “I know.”
“Stop looking.” I pointed to the living room. “Maybe sit there.”
He shook his head again. “I like sitting here. Across from you.”
“Stephen,” I sighed.
“Ariana.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“You,” he said simply.
“What about me?”
“You’re gorgeous,” he said. Then, after a beat, “And kind of hot when you’re all serious like that.”
“Thank you,” I replied curtly, crossing my arms as I looked at him with suspicion.
“What?” He chuckled. “You’re beautiful.”
He paused, his eyes tracing the lines of my face.
“And I keep wondering… when can you be mine?”
“Stephen.”
“Ari.”
“Seriously.”
He exhaled, his voice soft. “I’ve told you this so many times. I want you. I want us.”
“I can’t, Stephen. Not right now.”
“Does that mean… maybe someday?”
I met his gaze. I knew I had to choose my words carefully. “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “Just… not now.”
“Because of this whole take-down-the-Mercers thing?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back, frustrated. “You know I’m with you, Ari. You don’t have to choose. We can do both.”
He paused, then added, his voice low and rough, “We’ve been all over each other every time we’re alone. So what are you waiting for?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. But even without a word, Stephen knew.
“Fuck, Ari,” he ground out. “He’s not worth it. He tore your life apart. And even if you find a way to forgive him, you’ll never forget what he did to you.”
Still, I said nothing.
He leaned across the table—shirtless, muscles tense, fists clenched like he was holding something back.
“He betrayed your trust. He hurt you. Humiliated you. And I get it, it’s not easy to ignore what your heart remembers. But try, Ari. Try with me. I’ve been waiting.”
His fists slowly opened. He leaned in further, reached out, and gently pried my hands from where they rested, folding them into his.
“I can wait,” he said softly. “But I want you to try. Be with me, so you can slowly fall in love with me.”
It wasn’t the first time he had said it. And like every time before, I hadn’t answered him.
I wished I could make myself love him. I wished it were Stephen—God, I wanted it to be him. He was steady and kind, and he deserved someone who could give him everything.
But it was still Grayson.
Even though he didn’t deserve it.
The past crashed into me all at once, wave after wave, and I clung to every memory—good and bad—as they pulled me under. There were too many to hold.
As always, the bad ones won.
They came sharp and relentless, burning trails down my face, burning through everything. Every part of me ached with it. And I wasn’t numb. I felt every single bit of it.
I was nothing but a twisted knot of pain, anger, and heartbreak, drifting through an endless storm of emotions for over three years, and I still haven’t reached the calm.
I didn’t know how to be anything else. And I didn’t know if I was even capable of loving someone the way I had loved Grayson, if that kind of love was something you could find twice, or if it only ever came once and left a shape nothing else could fill.
So how could I be with Stephen?
It wouldn’t be fair. Not to him.
“Ari,” he tried again, waiting for me to say something.
But my mind was still spinning, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.
Why couldn’t I love Stephen?
He cared about me deeply. He was kind, funny, and incredibly smart. And he was gorgeous. Truly stunning. Tall and lean, with just enough muscle to make any woman stare.
He had money. A lot of it. Though it never really mattered to me.
And the sex? It was hot. I enjoyed it. Sometimes, I even craved it.
But the truth was, my desire had already been shaped by someone else. And there was nothing I could do to change it. No matter how passionate it was, our sex had never given me the same satisfaction.
Because it was sex. Heat and hunger, nothing more. It wasn’t making love.
Not the way it had been with Grayson.
Why couldn’t I let go of a man who hid behind grand declarations of love while his actions told a different, uglier truth? Why couldn’t I give my heart to someone who actually cherished me, who took care of me, who had waited with more patience than I deserved for me to return what he freely gave?
I was furious with myself.
If I could go back, I would change everything. I would never have let myself fall for Grayson Mercer. Not like that. Not so completely. Not so foolishly.
The liar. The betrayer. The man who broke it all.
“What are you thinking, Ari?” His voice cut through the fog in my head, and suddenly my vision cleared as I looked at him.
God, Stephen. Why do you keep asking me this?
“I can’t answer you right now.” I’d said it so many times, it almost felt rehearsed. “There’s just so much I need to take care of first.”
The look of disappointment on his face broke me, but I couldn’t lie to him.
And I fully realized that he might not wait forever. Someone like him could have anyone he wanted.
“Ari,” he exhaled. “Sometimes I feel like it’s impossible to break through the wall you keep building around your heart.
He’s always going to be there, isn’t he?
As love and as hate. But either way, he has you chained.
And the truth is, you’re the one refusing to let go. Because you haven’t even tried.”
He rose slowly from his seat.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he said. “And I’ll head back to the city today.”
I looked up at him, unsure what to say.
He held my gaze for a moment, then turned and walked toward the bathroom with that resigned look on his face. I watched him disappear inside and heard the door click shut.
I sat there, turning it over in my mind.
I knew what I was. Selfish. I couldn’t let go of Stephen either—kept him close, kept him tethered to me, even knowing I could never give him all of me. Even knowing he deserved more than the parts I had left to offer.
A moment passed, then I stood. And I followed him.
He was already in the shower, standing under the stream of hot water, naked, the heat curling around him as the water ran down the lines of his body.
He turned when I stepped in, watching in silence as I slowly undressed. His eyes never left mine as I slipped in behind him and wrapped my arms around him, pressing close.
I knew what I was doing. I was using him.
And I knew he wouldn’t stop me.
His body tensed beneath my touch—just for a moment—and then he turned to face me, looking down as I looked up at him.
We didn’t speak.
He leaned down and kissed me, his arms wrapping around me, lifting me off the floor.
We had sex under the shower, the water running hot around us.
And still, that’s all it was. It had never been anything more, and standing there in his arms, I knew it never would be.
It was never going to be making love.
Grayson was standing in front of Belrose when Stephen dropped me off for our ten o’clock meeting.
I felt his eyes on me through the car window before I even looked up. Grayson, watching.
And Stephen must have felt it too, because he leaned over and kissed me—long and deliberate, drawn out just long enough to make a point as if he wanted Grayson to see it. As if he wanted him to know.
Even though there was nothing to claim.
It surprised me. I had never seen that kind of insecurity in Stephen before. When I said goodbye, he couldn’t let go of my hand as I reached for the door.
Gently, I stepped out and closed it behind me.
His driver pulled away almost instantly, but I had a feeling that if Stephen had been driving himself, he would’ve stayed there longer. Maybe just to watch. Perhaps to ensure I was truly okay. Or maybe because he didn’t want to leave.
“Grayson,” I said with a small nod.
He was already looking at me, tension etched across his face.
As if what he had just seen hurt him. But why should it?
He now had Lila, the woman he claimed to love—the one who loved him back.
“Ari,” he said, voice low and tight.
“Shall we?” I asked.
“Yes.” He nodded slowly. “We’ll take my car.”
“Okay.”
I followed him to the side of Belrose’s building, where the parking garage was reserved for family and staff.
We walked in silence, side by side.
I noticed that he looked tired. His shoulders were slumped forward, and there was something unkempt about him. His shirt was wrinkled, as if it hadn’t been properly ironed, and he’d let his beard grow out when he usually kept it neatly trimmed.
He looked like a man carrying the weight of the world, and it was wearing him down.
And before I even realized it, the words slipped out of my mouth.
“Are you alright?”
I didn’t know why I asked. Instinct, maybe. But it had already done its damage—exposed the truth I kept trying to bury. That I still cared. That no matter how many times I told myself I wouldn’t, I did.
Even he seemed surprised. His head turned toward me, eyes full of questions he didn’t ask.
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” he said.
I didn’t respond. It felt safer that way, safer to keep my mouth shut and not let him see anything more than I intended to.
Silence settled between us again, stretching all the way until we got into his car.
That’s when I noticed. It was the same car he had three years ago, before I left.