Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Miranda
I glare down at my breakfast.
Jerk.
Of all the stupid things that Grayson Wolfe has done, this one really takes the cake.
“Miranda.” Ethan tugs at my sleeve. “Why’re you angry at your eggs?”
I glance toward him, forcing my hand to loosen around the fork. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something.”
Ethan blinks and then looks in the direction of the kitchen. “Why is Dad eating in the kitchen?”
“He’s being punished,” I say darkly.
Grayson looks up as if he’s heard what I’ve said, which should be impossible. He grimaces when I scowl at him and immediately looks down at his plate. He’s so good at playing the forlorn puppy he must’ve had acting classes.
Of all the things to forget, he forgets our exchange in the kitchen last night?!
“Did Daddy do something bad?” Ethan grins, clearly happy that he’s not the one in the time-out, as he calls it.
“Yes.” I glower in Grayson’s direction, and he just stabs his eggs.
“I can apologize,” he suddenly calls out, and I snap.
“Don’t talk to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ethan just snickers. “I didn’t know Daddy could get a time-out. He really shouldn’t be naughty.”
I adjust my position and bite back a groan at the soreness between my legs. He went at it for hours, and then when he woke up, he acted so shocked to see us naked. The man even had the audacity to ask if I took advantage of him.
Like I could make him do anything!
That jerk tormented me the whole night and to have the nerve to act as if—
“We’re going to have a sleepover this entire week, kid,” I tell Ethan. “I’ll pull a mattress into your room.”
His eyes light up in excitement just as Grayson storms out from the kitchen, waving his fork.
“Now hold on a minute. I just—”
“Get out, Grayson.”
He opens his mouth and then retreats, sulking. “I was just asking. Don’t know why you’re so mad at me. I was drunk.”
If Ethan wasn’t here, I’d take off my shoe and throw it at his head.
The front door opens, and Linda walks into the dining room with a bottle. “Grayson, I found this outside. Did you finish all this in one go? You know this is really potent.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she immediately hides the bottle behind her. “Where’s Grayson?”
“In the kitchen.”
Grayson just sighs heavily from the other room, and I pretend not to hear.
“Daddy’s being punished for being naughty,” Ethan announces gleefully.
Linda just shakes her head, and as she walks past me, I hear her laugh quietly. “I’m sure he was.”
She heads straight to the kitchen before I can ask her what she means.
I hear her speaking to Grayson in the kitchen, but no matter how much I strain my ears, I can’t hear what they’re saying. Ethan realizes what I’m trying to do and kicks his legs under the table as he says, “She’s asking him why he’s in the doghouse. What’s a doghouse, Miranda?”
I tuck my tongue in my cheek. “It’s a figure of speech. Don’t worry about it.”
Ethan shrugs and then tilts his head toward the kitchen and whispers, “Now Daddy is saying you get mad all the time for no reason—”
“What?” I slam my fork down, and the people in the other room go silent. “He said what?”
After a moment, Grayson’s voice floats over. “Ethan, come here.”
Ethan makes a face. “Uh-oh. I’m in trouble.”
He slides off his seat, and I frown. “What’s wrong?”
Ethan gives me a guilty look. “I’m not supposed to eavesdrop.”
As I watch him shuffle into the kitchen with a meek “Yes, Daddy,” it occurs to me that he was able to overhear the conversation from another room while I could barely make anything out. My heart races, and I recall what Grayson asked that day on the patio.
Does that change anything?
Whatever Grayson is, whatever Ethan is, it doesn’t change the fact that they are both so important to me.
I should no longer be surprised by these small revelations.
Have I wondered? Many times. But whatever the truth is, if it was something he could tell me, he would have.
I’m not the kind to go digging for secrets.
But then what does this mean? Was his ex-wife like them as well? What about me and him? Is that even possible?
I look down at my cold eggs and feel a stab of pain.
Last night, Grayson looked so vulnerable, so lost, that I wanted to hide him in my arms. I always thought he was throwing money at me because he thought that’s what I wanted.
But it turns out he thinks it’s the only way to keep someone by his side.
And that broke my heart. For someone so confident and cocky, for him to think that nobody could want him for anything aside from his money…
I don’t know when I started falling for him.
I can’t name a place or a time, but I know that when he asked me to leave him and Ethan, my heart broke.
I’ve never had anyone protect me the way he does, not to mention piss me off the way he can.
He makes me want to strangle him and kiss him in the same breath.
That’s why this fake engagement was so easy, why I didn’t resist as much as I would have months ago. Even if it was only for a short time, I wanted to live out this dream. And then for him to ask me not to leave in that drunken stupor, asking me what I wanted in exchange, it made me want to weep.
But he doesn’t remember any of it.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip.
I don’t know what to do about that, or if I should tell him why we slept together.
I don’t have the strength to tell him what I told him last night.
What if he was just drunk? What if he didn’t really mean it?
But then where does that leave us? A part of me is hurt that he forgot. Another part of me is relieved.
I sigh heavily, taking a bite of my cold eggs. Either way, getting into bed with Grayson Wolfe has altered our relationship, and now I need a way to navigate it while making sure I don’t get hurt in the process.
I drop my fork, my appetite gone. Why are my thoughts so tangled?
I keep jumping from one thought process to another, anxiety eating at me.
So far, Grayson has quite obediently accepted my scolding and anger.
But I know this man, and he’s cunning. He knows exactly how to wear me down, and he’s going to have questions about how we ended up in bed last night.
“Why me?” I groan.
Burying my head in my hands, I wish the ground would just swallow me whole today so I don’t have to face the consequences of my reckless actions from last night.
The universe does show me the occasional kindness.
As I sit on a bench three days later, I thank every deity out there for making Coach Ramirez drag Grayson away for grueling practice sessions for their “friendly” match on Saturday.
The poor man is so exhausted by the time he gets home that he just collapses in bed face down and is out of the house by first light.
He and I haven’t managed to have any conversation, much less an interrogation.
Three days have passed like this, and I let myself relax as I watch the game.
The padded bench sits behind the players’ area, a half wall of plexiglass between us and the rink.
Ethan is glued to my hip in a puffy coat two sizes too big for him.
I have never been to a hockey game from this side of the glass.
The cameras started the moment we walked in.
Six in the tunnel, four at the family entrance before Grayson’s publicist whisked me past a press line with one hand at my back like she’d been doing it her whole life.
Now they’re aimed at me from the press box, from the boards, from the row above us where two photographers are pretending to take pictures of the rink while taking pictures of me.
I tuck Ethan’s face against my coat without thinking.
“Easy, mama bear. We’ve got a strict no-faces rule on the kids at family games. Family entrance only, no press inside the rope.”
Brody drops onto the bench next to me. He’s the big one that Grayson once described as a refrigerator with feelings. After two months of practices, he and I have an arrangement: I tell him his protein intake will kill him before he’s thirty, and he tells me I’m a buzzkill.
“I’m just paranoid,” I mutter, dropping my hand from Ethan’s face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Must be plenty considering you chose Grayson to go out with.” He smirks, flexing his arms. “I mean, you passed up on this.”
“It keeps me up at night,” I drawl, and he grins.
As I adjust Ethan’s sleeves, Brody chuckles. “No wonder Coach approved of your relationship. You’re so protective of the kid. You almost seem like one of us.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means by that because the phrasing snags on something, but a body hits the boards in front of us with a crack. Brody is already growling low in his throat, every line of him gone tight.
Grayson is on the ice on his back.
My stomach drops through the bench.
The opposing player skates away with both hands lifted in mock apology while a referee glides toward the spot, hand on his whistle, taking his time about it.
Grayson is up before the ref reaches him, shaking his head once like he’s clearing static.
Then he turns, picks his line, and skates back toward the player who hit him.
I’m on my feet, tense.
What happens next takes maybe four seconds.
Grayson reaches the player, drops his shoulder at the last instant, and drives him into the boards so hard the plexiglass shudders.
The player goes down. He stays down. Grayson glides past with his stick loose in his hand, lifts one gloved finger at the ref to show exactly what he thinks of that earlier call, then turns the finger on the player still grunting at his feet.
The player swears at him in a string of words I can’t catch.
Grayson grins. Then he flips him off.
A laugh cracks out of me before I can swallow it.
Brody is wheezing beside me. “Yeah, he’s fine.”
I sit back down. My knees are jelly. Ethan is patting my arm like I’m the one who needs comforting.
“Daddy’s okay,” he tells me solemnly. “He doesn’t break.”