37. Grace
Grace
I’m halfway through a fistful of popcorn when I step into my room and stop cold. Maddox is there, and my heart surges, wanting to break free and go to him.
Traitor organ.
Relief flashes first—bright and stupid—before the rest of me catches up. His dark hair is a mess, like he’s dragged his hands through it too many times, and his face is stripped completely bare, no walls, and I see the hurt and shock and something broken and bleeding.
Then I notice where he’s standing, in front of my desk. My open laptop.
No. No. No.
The butter and salt turn to acid in my mouth, clawing up the back of my throat, and I swallow hard to keep it down.
“You want to tell me what this is?” His voice is flat.
“It isn’t what you think.” The words tumble out, thin and useless.
A short, empty laugh leaves him. “You wrote it, didn’t you?”
“That isn’t—”
“Don’t.” His jaw locks. “Don’t rewrite the truth, Grace. I read it. All of it.”
His hand drops to the edge of the desk, fingers splaying wide across the surface, gripping it. He pulls in a breath as if to steady himself but shudders anyway. And something about his unbalance undoes me a little—we’re both hurting—even as I stand here trying to hold my ground.
I step toward him, needing to get through to him this time. He doesn’t move, but there’s no longer anything open about him; every line of his body is drawn tight and closed off.
My hands tremble when I set the paper bowl on the console. “I was angry and hurt. You didn’t trust me. You shut me out, and I needed somewhere to put all of it.” I hold his gaze. “So, I wrote it. I wrote the version I couldn’t say to your face.”
“You decided to blow up my life instead.”
“That isn’t what I did.” My voice fractures down the middle. “I wrote another version—one that doesn’t mention your retirement, not in this context. That’s the one I’m giving my editor. That has always been the one I’m giving my editor.”
He shakes his head once, slow and final, landing heavier than any argument he could make. “You expect me to believe that.”
“I need you to.” I close the distance between us, the air thick enough to press against my skin. “I need you to believe me the way I believed you, the way I have been believing you, even when you gave me every reason not to.”
The silence that follows is heavy and unforgiving, pressing into my ribs until breathing feels like something I have to consciously choose.
Then his gaze lands on me, really looking at me, in that way he did in the beginning before things got complicated between us. “Tell me what you want.”
The words land like a slap and a memory at once—his voice warm and low, the first time he touched me when we were both bare to each other, literally and figuratively.
Tell me what you want.
Now it’s a fucking negotiation tactic. My eyes sting, and I turn away before he can see how deep he’s hit. Before he can see my hand curl into the hem of his sweatshirt, knuckles going white as I drag in a breath that refuses to settle.
“You don’t get to use that.” The words scratch at my throat.
His brow furrows, and then understanding moves across his face. “Grace—”
“No.” Heat spreads through my chest, sharp and fast. “You said that when you had me. When I trusted you and you hadn’t given me any reason not to.”
He threads his fingers through his already tousled hair. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair.” The word is more a taste than a sound, bitter and biting on my tongue. “You told me to relax. You said you were there. You made me believe I could count on you, and the one thing—the one thing—you couldn’t bring yourself to do was trust me back.”
He freezes, and when he speaks his voice is quiet, colored all the way through with something a lot like regret. “I’m here now.”
I hold his gaze even though it fucking hurts to do so. “Then why does it feel like you already left?”
He doesn’t answer, only holds my gaze as the silence stretches between us, wide and airless.
Something in his face loosens, not enough to soften or to save our undoing, but it’s there. A flicker. An admission he won’t let himself voice out loud.
Hope and dread tangle together in my chest, and I can’t separate them fast enough.
Then his gaze drifts past me to the desk, to the laptop still glowing on the screen. “You still wrote it. Whatever your reasons, you still put it on the page.”
My pulse kicks hard. “Maddox—”
“That’s the betrayal.” A hard glint moves through his eyes. “Not me failing to trust you. You doing exactly what I was afraid you’d do.”
Crossing the room, I pull the printed pages from beneath the notepad on the desk. The paper crackles in my grip as I turn back to face him.
“Ignore the markups.” I thrust them toward his chest. “That is not the version I’m sending.” I gesture sharply to the laptop, its glow accusatory now, harsh and exposed in the dim room. “This one is.”
He doesn’t take the pages, barely looks at them, before his gaze cuts to the screen then back to me. “That doesn’t prove anything.” His words land hard—not only disbelief, something closer to dismissal. “For all I know, you wrote this before Erica said anything to you.”
Something in me snaps clean through. I can’t keep up with all the punches he’s throwing, as if none of our time together bore understanding and trust.
I slap the article against his chest—once, sharp, paper against bone—and as if by reflex, his hand flattens over the pages and holds them there.
“You know what.” My voice shakes now, the anger burning all the way through. “I may be a lot of things, Maddox, but I’m not a liar. I have never lied to you.”
Neither of us moves for a long moment.
Finally, he lets the pages drift from his fingers onto the floor. Whatever fight is left in him drains all at once, leaving something hollow in its place. His features are void of any emotion, and he walks away without another word.
I stand in the space he left behind, staring at the door as a cold emptiness overwhelms me. My anger bleeds from me fast, leaving nothing behind it—no tears, no pain, just a hole so wide it swallows everything else whole.
My knees buckle, and I slide down the side of the desk until I’m on the floor. The carpet is cold beneath me even through my clothes, and I don’t know how long I sit there staring at the article curled near my knee.
Eventually, the numbness shifts—not into tears, not into doubt, but into something harder and more certain than either. I get to my feet with the realization that there’s nothing left to wait for and nothing left to hope for.
I cross to the closet, pull out my suitcase, and fling it open across the bed. I throw things in without folding or care. Then at the desk, I sit in front of my laptop and open my email.
Toby, I’m uploading everything to the drive now. All the articles, all the art. The assignment is done. Grace
I hit send before I can think about it and upload the files one by one, watching each progress bar crawl to completion like a door pulling shut. When the last one finishes, I go to a travel site.
There is nothing available out of Helena today. I could go to the airport on standby, but tomorrow morning, there’s a flight routing through Denver that gets me where I’m going by evening. I book it before I can talk myself out of it.
Then I call Buffy.
She picks up on the third ring, voice warm and immediate. “Grace?”
“I’m on speaker.” I shut the laptop and slip it into my carry-on. “I booked a flight.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It will be.” I keep my voice even, steady, something I’m practicing in real time. “I can’t get out tonight. I’ll be there tomorrow with a layover in Denver, but I’ll make dinner.”
Her happiness comes through the line, warm and spilling over. “You’re coming to New York?” Then she tempers, just slightly. “What happened?”
“The assignment’s finished.” I try to infuse joy into my voice even with my chest cracked wide open. “Christmas is a little over a week away, and I want to spend it with my favorite people. That’s all.”
“Grace—”
“I’m okay. I promise.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t sound convinced, but she lets me have it. “Then I’ll make something good for dinner. Your favorite, unless you want to go out.”
Something faint and fleeting moves across my face, maybe a smile. “It doesn’t matter to me, Buf. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The call ends, and the room feels smaller than it did before. I zip the suitcase, take one last look around, and shut the door behind me.
On my way down the stairs, I call Meri, get her voicemail, and leave a message. She deserves one. I like her, and I would’ve liked more time with her. I make a mental note to try her again later, knowing I probably won’t. I won’t go near the Hartley house again.
Tonight, I’ll find a hotel near the airport and leave before morning has the chance to change my mind.