Chapter 17
I hung up and stood there in my home office for a second just holding the phone.
He said he was on his way.
Just like that. No question, no negotiation, just I’m on my way and then nothing. Like I hadn’t just told him that this couldn’t go anywhere. Like I hadn’t called him specifically to shut this down before it became something I couldn’t manage.
And now he knew where I lived and was apparently in a car headed in my direction.
I set the phone face down on my desk and pressed both hands flat against the wood and took a long, deep breath.
Then I fixed my face, because Brendon was in the kitchen and I had been in this office long enough that he was probably already wondering what I was doing.
I couldn’t walk out there looking like what I was, which was a woman who had just gotten off the phone with a man who had her turned inside out and terrified her at the same time.
The same man that had just tuned me every way but loose last night.
I walked into the dining room and Brendon had already set the table. Tonight we were having a late dinner. Both of our days ran long, but he still insisted on cooking for me. And here it was, after 11:00 pm, and he had just finished.
Candles, the good plates, everything laid out like he had been planning this all day.
The food was already plated and it smelled incredible.
Steak with gravy, rice, mixed vegetables, honey butter crescent rolls sitting in a basket in the center of the table.
This man had come home from a full day, handled more of his workload, cooked all of this, and set the table like we were at a restaurant.
He looked up when I walked in and smiled.
“There you are. Go wash your hands, it’s getting cold.”
I went to the bathroom, ran the water over my hands, and stood there looking at myself in the mirror for exactly three seconds before I turned the water off and went back out.
He pulled my chair out before I even got to the table.
Pushed it in behind me after I sat down, then kissed the top of my head like it was the most natural thing in the world, because for him it was.
That was just Brendon. Consistent. Present.
The kind of man who made you feel like the most important thing in the room without having to announce it.
I picked up my fork and told myself to just be here. Just sit here and eat dinner with your man and be normal.
“The venue called back today,” he said, cutting into his steak. “They have a Saturday available in September. I told them I needed to confirm with you first but honestly baby, I think we should lock it in. Then get the invites sent out.”
“September is beautiful,” I said. “The weather should be good.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He pointed his fork at me. “And my mother finally agreed on the color scheme so that battle is over. She was acting like it was her wedding and starting to stress me out.”
I laughed and it came out more natural than I expected. “How did you manage that?”
“I let her think it was her idea.” He shrugged. “You pick your battles.”
We ate and talked and he told me about the new realtors he had brought on, two of them fresh out of school and hungry, one older woman who had been in the industry for fifteen years and brought her own book of business with her.
He was excited about it in the quiet way he got excited about things, not loud, just engaged, his eyes alive when he talked about building something.
He mentioned a city council meeting he was sitting in on next week, a development project he had been asked to consult on that could turn into something significant.
“I just can’t wait for you to be my wife,” he said at one point, just dropped it into the middle of everything else like it was simple. “I know I say it a lot but I mean it every time.”
I looked at him across the table.
“I know you do,” I said.
My phone vibrated against my thigh.
I shifted slightly and silenced it without looking down. Kept my eyes on Brendon and kept the conversation moving. Then it vibrated again. Then again. Steady and persistent like whoever was calling had no intention of stopping. I knew damn well Griz wasn’t really doing this shit.
Brendon glanced toward where the sound was coming from. “You can answer it.”
“It’s fine.”
It vibrated again.
“Ivy.” He gave me a look. “Answer the phone.”
I picked it up and looked at the screen. Unknown number. I knew in my heart that it was the same number I had called from private not even thirty minutes ago. I did not understand how he had my number. I had blocked the callback the second I hung up on him, or I thought I had.
I answered and turned the volume all the way down before I brought it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Come outside.” Griz’s voice was low and completely unbothered. “Or I’m coming in.”
I kept my face completely still. Brendon was watching me from across the table.
“Hey,” I said, like I was talking to a girlfriend. “No, it’s fine I’m just having a late dinner.”
“I’m parked down the street,” Griz said.
“You got five minutes.”
“Mmhm, yeah that’s fine,” I said.
“Four minutes fifty seconds.”
Brendon went back to his food but kept a loose eye on me the way he did when he was trying to give me privacy without fully stepping back.
I sat there at that table with Griz counting down in my ear and my fiancé two feet across from me and finished my dinner.
I was not about to jump up and run outside like a teenager.
I needed to at least let Brendon finish his plate.
The second he stood up and started stacking dishes to take to the kitchen I told him how amazing everything at dinner was, then I excused myself to the bathroom. Sat on the edge of the tub for a moment and pressed my hands between my knees and thought.
I came back out and stood in the kitchen doorway watching Brendon run the water at the sink, his back to me, humming something low under his breath while he rinsed plates.
And then my body just picked something. I don’t even know if my brain was fully involved. But I had to lie quickly.
“Baby I just started my period,” I said. “Out of nowhere.”
He turned around immediately, concern already on his face. “You okay?”
“Yeah it just caught me off guard. I need to run to CVS since they are still open and grab some things. And I think we’re almost out of dog food.”
“I’ll go to the store baby. Just go grab your heating pad and lay down.” he said, already reaching to turn the water off.
“No.” I said it a little too fast and softened it. “No, I want to go. I need some air anyway. I’ll be back in a little while.”
He looked at me for a second and I held his eyes steady.
“Okay,” he said. “Text me if you need anything else. I really don’t like you leaving home this late, but if you insist.”
I grabbed my keys before he finished the sentence.
—
I saw his car the second I turned out of my neighborhood.
He was parked on the side of the road like he lived there, like he had been there a hundred times before, completely still and dark.
I drove past his car slow and he pulled out and followed me without any signal between us, like we had already agreed on where we were going.
I drove a few blocks to the neighborhood park and pulled in. Cut my lights. He pulled in right behind me.
I got out of my car and walked to his passenger door and got in.
But, before I could say a single word his hand came around my throat.
Not hard, not violent, just firm. His fingers wrapped around my neck and he squeezed just enough that I felt it everywhere and he leaned over until his mouth was at my ear.
“What the fuck took you so long,” he said quietly. “What were you doing in there with that nigga?”
I turned my head slightly. “You mean my fiancé?”
His hand tightened just a fraction.
“Shut all that shit up,” he said. “That won’t be the case for long.”
I don’t know what was wrong with me. I don’t know what kind of sense I had lost between my front door and this car. But something about the way he said it, the certainty behind it, the way he held my throat like he had every right to— I liked this rough, thug ass shit.
I reached for him.
And he let me. Leaned his seat back and let me handle my business and I did it without thinking about where we were or who might walk by or what any of it meant.
I pulled his dick out his pants and went to work.
I wasn’t the bitch to even give head but being in Griz presence just brought another side out of me.
I went from giving him head, to riding him in the front seat of the car like I had lost my damn mind. I wasn’t thinking about the risk of what we were doing.
Ten minutes in a dark parking lot, blocks from the house I shared with the man I was supposed to marry in September and I was not thinking about a single one of those things.
When we were done fucking the shit outta each other, I don’t know what I was expecting.
But I was not expecting what he said next.
“Alright, Ivy. Get out!” He barked while I was fixing my clothes in the passenger seat now.
Just like that. Get out.
I pulled back and looked at him. “What?”
His eyes told me he wasn’t playing. No anger in them, just that flat certainty that I was starting to understand was just how he communicated when he had already made a decision.
One thing I wasn’t going to do, is beg him to change his mind or ask for an answer.
I had a life to get back to you anyway. I just know now, this dude was bipolar.
I reached for the door handle.
“You have a limited amount of time,” he said while my hand was on the handle. “To tell him it’s over. That you don’t want to be with him anymore.”
I turned back around. “Griz I can’t just—”
“If you want him to keep breathing,” he said, “then it’s exactly what you’ll do.”
I searched his face for something that told me he was exaggerating.
I didn’t find it.
I got out of the car.
Stood in the parking lot for a second after his door closed and watched his taillights as he pulled away like he had somewhere to be and this had all been a quick stop on the way there. My heart was in my throat and something else was happening in my body that I was not going to examine right now.
I drove to CVS.
Walked the aisles and put things in my basket that I didn’t need. Grabbed dog food. Grabbed a few other things to make the trip look like what I said it was and stood in the checkout line staring at the display rack in front of me without seeing any of it.
He had just told me that Brendon’s safety depended on what I decided to do next.
And the most disturbing part was that I believed him.
Not because he seemed unstable or out of control, but because he seemed like exactly the opposite.
Calm. Certain. Like this was already settled in his mind and he was just waiting on me to catch up.
I came home and went straight to the bathroom and turned the shower on hot.
Stood under it and let the water run and finally let myself feel everything I had been holding back since I got in his car.
The adrenaline started to come down and underneath it was something more complicated.
Because nobody had ever made me feel the way I felt in that car.
Not once in three years with Brendon, not with the two men I’d had before him.
Griz looked at me like I was something he had already decided on and was just handling the logistics around it.
Now, something in me that had been asleep for years had woken all the way up behind it.
But Brendon was inside this house right now, getting ready for bed with the woman he thought was his innocent fiancée, planning a September wedding and he had done nothing wrong.
He was a good man. He was my good man. And I was standing in his shower trying to wash off another man for the second time in less than two days.
I pressed my hand flat against the tile and stood there.
I didn’t know what my next move was.
What I knew was that Griz wasn’t bluffing. I had grown up around enough dangerous men to know the difference between a threat and a promise.
And what he had said in that car was a promise. I didn’t want him to kill this innocent man because of me. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?