Chapter 36
GRIFFIN
For a few seconds after Tiana leaves, I don’t move.
I stay in the shed with the heat pressing in around me, surrounded by pool floats, garden tools, and the echo of everything she just said.
I don’t want to be second place to someone who isn’t here anymore.
The words hit me again, and I close my eyes, dragging a hand over my face.
Tiana’s not wrong. That’s the part that makes it worse.
Not about Lila being first place or second place or whatever impossible ranking grief forces people into. Lila isn’t a competition. She was my wife, the mother of my son, and a woman I loved so deeply that losing her cracked something permanent inside me. But she’s my past.
But Tiana is right about one thing: I’ve made her feel like she’s living in the shadow of a ghost.
I’ve wanted her, touched her, let her in, and then punished her for making me feel alive again.
I force myself out of the shed. The second I step outside, the sunlight hits hard enough to make me blink, and my gaze immediately searches for her against my better judgment.
Tiana is across the yard now, standing near the snack table with a bright smile plastered on her face as she hands a towel to one of the kids.
She is terrifyingly good at looking fine when she isn’t.
A knot tightens in my chest.
“Griff.”
I turn at the sound of Worth’s voice.
He’s standing near the side of the house, one hand tucked into the pocket of his swim trunks, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. His gaze flicks from me to Tiana, then back again, and whatever he sees on my face makes his expression shift.
Worth has always had an annoying talent for knowing when something is wrong without needing the full story.
Unfortunately, this time he has no idea how much of the story he’s missing.
The words leave me before I even reach him. “I fucked up.”
Worth nods toward the side gate. “Let’s walk.”
We move away from the noise of the party, past the pool equipment and around the side of the house. I brace one hand against the fence and stare at the ground, trying to figure out how to condense weeks of bad decisions into something that doesn’t make me sound like the biggest asshole alive.
Worth waits me out. He can be impatient about almost everything else, but when it matters, he knows how to be quiet.
I swallow hard. “Tiana saw me with Alyssa in the kitchen.”
His eyebrows lift. “Alyssa as in Jordan’s mom?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“It looked bad.” I drag a hand through my hair. “Alyssa cornered me inside, and I was trying to get her off me without causing a scene in the middle of my kid’s birthday party. Tiana walked in at the exact wrong second. And then she called me out for everything.”
Worth’s expression morphs into confusion. “Everything meaning what?”
I let out a rough laugh.
Right.
He doesn’t know. Nobody knows.
I’ve been walking around carrying all of this like it’s some private punishment I deserve, while Tiana has been carrying her own side of it alone.
I rub a hand over my mouth and look toward the backyard again, where she’s still pretending to be perfectly fine.
I exhale slowly, already hating every word I’m about to say, before I tell Worth everything that has happened.
Worth doesn’t react at first, which somehow makes me feel more exposed. Then he says, very calmly, “You had sex with Tiana.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Wow. That’s huge, brother.”
“I fucking know.”
Worth is aware that I haven’t even entertained the thought of being with another woman since Lila passed, so this is as surprising to him as it was to me.
“I told myself I was doing the right thing by avoiding her,” I continue, even though the words taste like bullshit now. “She’s young. She works for me. She lives in my house. Sylas loves her. I thought if I put some distance between us, we could go back to normal.”
Worth gives me a look that makes me want to punch him, because he’s already right.
“That worked out well?”
“No.”
I pace a few steps, needing somewhere for the pressure in my chest to go.
“So your nanny, huh,” Worth says.
I flinch. “Don’t.”
“I’m not saying it to be cruel. I’m saying it because that’s the situation, and pretending it isn’t complicated is probably part of how you ended up here.”
My jaw tightens, but I don’t argue—there’s nothing to argue with.
“I panicked,” I admit. “The guilt hit me hard. Lila, the promise I made, all of it. I don’t regret Tiana, but I wasn’t ready for what came after. And now she’s upset.”
“Of course she’s upset, Griff. I’m surprised she hasn’t cut off your balls yet.”
My jaw flexes. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“I know you didn’t.” Worth leans back against the side of the house, arms crossed over his chest. “But intent doesn’t matter much when the impact is still brutal.”
I press the heel of my palm against my eye until sparks flash behind my lids. “She said she doesn’t want to be second place to someone who isn’t here anymore.”
The words sound even worse out loud.
Worth shifts beside me. “Is there anything else?”
My stomach twists. I glance toward the backyard, then drag both hands over my face. “We’ve been talking through my burner Instagram account.”
Worth blinks. “Are you serious?”
I nod, solemn. “It started randomly. I commented on one of her videos. She had a crooked shelf, and I—”
“You commented on her shelf?”
“That is not the point.”
“It feels extremely on brand, but continue.”
I shoot him a look, but he just smirks.
“She messaged me,” I say. “Or I messaged her. I don’t even remember exactly how it started. But we started talking.”
“Does she know it’s you now?”
“No.”
“Griffin.”
I look away, throat tight. “She talks to him differently,” I say, hating myself with every word. “With that version of me, she’s open, funny, and unfiltered. She tells him things she won’t tell me.”
“And you let it keep going.”
I nod once. “There was… sexting.”
A short, brutal admission.
Worth stares at me. Then laughs, a full belly laugh. “Do you understand how bad that is?”
“Yes.”
The shame hits hard enough that I have to look away.
“She trusted that account,” I say quietly. “She trusted me, and I let her think I was someone else because it was easier than being honest.”
Worth studies me for a long moment, then exhales through his nose and looks toward the backyard. “Okay. You fucked up badly, and you’re going to have to deal with that. But first, I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me honestly.”
I already know I’m not going to like this.
“What?”
“Are you in love with her?”
The question slams into me so hard I physically step back.
“That’s not—”
“Griffin. Don’t do the thing where you talk in circles until the question disappears.”
My jaw locks.
Worth doesn’t back down.
“Are you in love with Tiana?”
I look toward the yard again. Toward her.
She’s crouched near one of the kids now, tying a loose shoelace while wearing a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She planned this party down to the last detail, made sure Sylas had the exact birthday he wanted, and I repaid her by making her feel like a convenience I couldn’t afford to lose.
My throat tightens.
“She’s made the house feel alive again.”
Worth says nothing.
I hate how easily the rest starts coming after that.
“It’s been years since the house felt like anything other than a place I manage.
Schedules, routines, homework, dinners, bedtime.
Everything organized—because if I keep it organized, maybe nothing else will fall apart.
” My voice roughens. “Then Tiana moved in, and suddenly there’s music in the kitchen.
There’s laughter. Sylas is happier. I’m happier. ”
The admission feels like betrayal and relief at the same time.
“She drives me fucking insane,” I say, my voice low.
“She talks too much. She argues with me about everything. She teases me just to see if she can get a reaction. She’s stubborn, reckless, too young, too impulsive, too damn bright for a man who’s spent years convincing himself he belongs in the dark. ”
My chest aches.
“And yes, I’ve fallen in love with her.”
The second the words leave my mouth, everything inside me goes still.
I said it.
I actually said it.
“I love her,” I repeat, like maybe saying it again will make it less terrifying.
It doesn’t.
It makes it worse.
I press my palms to my eyes. “Fuck. She wants nothing to do with me now.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I drop my hands. “You didn’t see her face, Worth. Tiana’s done. And she should be. I made her feel like a mistake.”
Worth’s mouth flattens. “Then fix it.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “What?”
“You say that like it’s simple.”
“It’s not simple. It’s just the only option that matters.”
I shake my head, pacing again. “I can’t just walk up to her and say, ‘sorry I treated you like shit after sleeping with you because I’m in love with you, and terrified that loving you means betraying my dead wife.
Oh, also I’ve been secretly talking to you through a burner account like an emotionally stunted stalker’. ”
“I’d definitely workshop the wording.”
Despite myself, a laugh breaks out of me. It’s rough and miserable, but it’s real.
Worth’s mouth twitches. “Look,” he says, pushing away from the wall. “You don’t need the perfect speech right now, but you do need to stop hiding behind Sylas, Lila, and every other reason that makes you feel justified in pushing her away.”
The laugh dies in my throat.
“Tiana deserves better than that,” he adds. “And so do you.”
I nod slowly, even though the words carve through me.
Worth claps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Lila loved you.”
My chest tightens.
“And I know enough to say this: I don’t think she would want you to live the rest of your life as a punishment.”
My eyes burn. I look away fast, jaw working.
Worth doesn’t push further.
The backyard noise swells for a moment as someone opens the gate, and I catch another glimpse of Tiana moving between the kids with forced cheer on her face.
I did that.
I put that look there.
“I don’t know how to fix it,” I admit.
Worth follows my gaze.
“Start by telling her the truth.”
“She won’t believe me.”
“Then tell her again. And if she still doesn’t, then you spend as long as it takes showing her you mean every word.”