Chapter 22 #2
We wrap up dinner and head to our next location.
My stylist will not be pleased when he finds out I let somebody aside from him dress me, but I couldn’t give two shits about that.
Standing in a men’s boutique, I stay still as Miranda holds up two dark blue button-downs in front of me with the seriousness of a woman defusing a bomb.
“This one.” She thrusts the left one at me. “The other has weird stitching at the collar. You’ll hate it after one wear.”
I take it. I’m trying not to smile. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s your call,” I murmur.
“Grayson, I’m trying to do this in under an hour. Please stop pretending you have opinions.”
By the time we leave, there is a charcoal sweater that Miranda picked because she said it would look good on me, two dark blue shirts that she said would look good on me, a black button-up shirt with a matching pair of slacks because “black really suits you,” a pair of jeans she said would fit my thighs better than the brand I usually wear, and three things for Ethan that she insisted weren’t necessary while picking them out anyway: a tiny denim jacket, a pair of sneakers in his size with little wolves embroidered on the side because she said he’d lose his mind, and a stuffed dog smaller than ChuChu that she said could be ChuChu’s friend.
My wolf has been a low, contented hum the entire time.
She chose every single thing on my body for the next week. Every time I reach into the closet, I’ll be reaching for something she put her hands on.
Miranda may not know it, but this is how mates groom each other, and my wolf is on cloud nine.
We head back to the car. The sun is getting lower in the sky, and Coach is going to drop Ethan back by sunset. As I drive, Miranda seems to be lost in thought.
“What’s wrong?”
She glances at me. “Nothing. Seeing Vivian was a surprise. I didn’t think she had such a low opinion of me. She said the whole hospital thought that.”
“Does it upset you?” I don’t know why I asked that. Of course she’s upset.
“No.”
Her denial surprises me. “Really?”
She gives me a small smile. “The people who know me best know the truth. And honestly, I knew there would be backlash from our engagement. Vivian was jealous. But I do wonder how long this will follow me.”
Before I can ask what she means, her phone pings, and she checks it. Her brows furrow.
“Everything okay?”
“Hm.” She taps something. “Just a response from one of the hospitals I applied to. They’ve moved me to the second round.”
The world tilts a half degree.
“You’re applying for jobs?”
“Well, I need to make money, don’t I?” She doesn’t look up. “You can’t survive in this world if you don’t work.”
I reach over and turn her phone face down on her thigh.
She looks up, startled.
“Why do you need to work when you’ve got me?”
Her eyes narrow. “I work for myself.”
“That’s fine.” I keep my voice even. “But don’t do it because you need money. Don’t ever do it because you need money.”
She turns to fully face me in the seat. “Grayson, if you know one thing about me, it’s that I don’t like to be dependent on anyone. Not even you.”
I pull off the highway.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to show you something.”
I park where the path forks. Getting out, I come around to her side and open the door before she’s reached for the handle. She lets me help her out.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far.”
The trail is the one I run on most mornings: pine needles soft underfoot, sun coming in slants through the canopy. She walks beside me without questions, glancing up every so often, and I know she’s trying to read me. I keep my mouth shut.
At the second ridge, I stop and turn her by the shoulders to face the clearing.
The lake opens below us, smaller than the one I threw her into, ringed by tall pines. The water is still. A few late birds are working their way along the far bank.
She breathes out softly. “It’s beautiful.”
“All of it is mine.” My voice has gone low. “The trail, both lakes, that ridge over there, the mountain past it. The pack let me buy it five years ago. I own this land, Miranda.”
She is very quiet beside me.
“When you have me, you don’t have to worry about money. You won’t ever need to apply to another hospital because you can’t pay rent. None of that exists for you anymore.”
She turns her head slowly, and her eyes are shining at the edges in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Grayson.” Her voice is careful. “The arrangement between us is temporary. We both agreed.”
“Stop it.”
She freezes.
I take her arms in my hands gently. “Miranda, I’ve told you over and over again how I feel. You keep ignoring it as if it will make my feelings for you fade away.”
Her lips part.
“You know I love you.”
Her breath catches.
“I wouldn’t have gone this far for anybody if I didn’t love them. I wouldn’t let anybody near my son if I didn’t trust them completely. So believe me when I say it.” My jaw works. “I don’t want you to leave. Whatever you need, I can provide. I just want you to stay with me and Ethan.”
She steps back. Her hand comes up to her mouth.
“Grayson. We’re from different worlds. Quite literally.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It—”
“I’ll find a way to make it work.” My voice has gone hoarse. “I always do.”
She shakes her head. She’s looking past my shoulder now, at the water, anywhere except at me. Her arms wrap around herself.
The silence stretches.
“Why?” I demand finally. My voice scrapes. “Why are you rejecting me?”
“It’s not—”
“There has to be a reason.” My fingers tighten. “There has to be a reason you think I’m not good enough for you.”
“I don’t think you’re not good enough for me!”
It comes out of her loud, almost shouted, and a bird lifts off a nearby branch. She presses her lips together. Her eyes are wet.
“Then what?”
“It’s not the worlds, Grayson!” She throws her hands up. The bandage pulls, and she winces and keeps going anyway. “It’s our social statuses! That’s what it is!”
I stare at her.
“I don’t want to be with you until I can stand next to you on an equal footing.
” Her voice is wrecked. “And that can never happen. I have nothing to my name. My bank account is in double digits. I don’t even have a home, Grayson.
There is too much disparity between us. I will always be the woman you took in.
The nurse you saved. The one you had to pay off.
I will never be your partner. I will be your project! ”
I close the distance between us and kiss her.
She makes a small, surprised sound against my mouth, and I take the second to pull her into me by the back of her head. I kiss her until the rigidity goes out of her shoulders. I kiss her until she grips the front of my jacket and twists.
I pull back just enough to speak.
“Your home is where Ethan and I are.” My forehead presses against hers. “We want to be your home. I don’t care if you have two cents to your name or two million. I just want you. Both of us do.”
“Grayson—”
“I can give you everything.” I cup her face in both hands carefully. “I might have money and a name and all of this, but every bit of it is meaningless if I don’t have you. None of it is worth a goddamn thing without you.”
A tear slides down her cheek, and I catch it with my thumb. I kiss the wet track it left. I kiss the other side, where another one is forming.
“I can be anything you want.” My voice is shaking now, and I don’t care. “If you’re not satisfied with what I am, tell me. I’ll change. I’ll learn. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Grayson, please—”
“Just don’t ask me to give you up.”
She makes a small, broken sound.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have a home.” My thumb traces her cheekbone.
“If you don’t like this house, we’ll get a new one.
Anywhere you want. You can decorate it any way you want, tear down walls, paint everything pink, I don’t care.
Ethan and I just want to be wherever you are.
You want to stand on equal footing, fine.
I won’t stop you from working. I won’t stand in your way.
Do what you have to, but don’t put money between us.
Don’t put status between us. My love does not see any of that. ”
Her knees give.
I catch her on the way down, and she lets me ease her to the pine needles, her hand fisted in my shirt, her face pressing into my chest.
“I’m willing to beg,” I tell her quietly into her hair. “If that’s what it takes, I will beg.”
“Why?” Her voice is muffled and wrecked against my shirt. “Why me? You could have anyone.”
“Because you are so easy to love, Miranda.” My throat is closing up. “Even when you’re mad at me. Even when you’re being snarky. Even when you’re standing in a parking lot threatening to break my ribs. I love every side of you. Even the parts of you that you hate.”
She lifts her face to look at me. Her eyes are red. Her cheeks are wet. She has never been more beautiful.
I take her face in both hands.
“If you give me a chance,” I murmur, “I will make you so confident in my love that you will never doubt me again. Not once. Not ever.”
She stares up at me. Her lips part.
“Grayson.”
“Say yes.” My voice is barely a whisper. “I’m asking. Please. Say yes.”
For a long second, she doesn’t move.
Then she whispers, “Yes.”
I take her mouth before the word has fully left it.