Chapter 41 #2
It cannot be Griffin.
The idea is so absurd that for one desperate second, I almost laugh.
Griffin Hayes, grieving widower, billionaire architect, emotional flight risk, and professional eye-contact avoider, did not use a burner Instagram account to talk to me. To get close to me.
It’s crazy. Except my mind has already started spiraling.
He called me Trouble.
I look at him, and for a fraction of a second I am absolutely certain my heart has stopped as all the pieces begin to slide into place.
Built. To. Last.
Of course it was a construction pun, but I’d never thought past that first, obvious joke.
It was just a handle —one of millions, an anonymous stranger who happened to be both weirdly insightful and equally obsessed with tidiness and user error.
The same way I’d never thought twice about why his advice was always so specific, or why he never once let a question about home repairs go unanswered.
The same dry wit. The same exacting way of noticing invisible things.
And now, as I stare at his face in the rooftop glow, it’s as if every conversation I ever had with @built2last is projected onto the back of my eyelids, every private joke and confession, every moment I thought I was being seen by someone safe and far away, only to realize I had been under a microscope the whole time.
New horrible possibilities start to shake loose from the inside.
My thoughts go back to that afternoon at Willow’s when Mya brought him by.
The second our eyes met, he’d had that visceral reaction, bolting from the café as if being near me caused him physical pain.
Then there was the morning at his house when he made me a coffee, getting the ratio exactly how I liked it without even having to ask.
The teasing that felt so much like the sparring I did with @built2last when I couldn’t sleep.
I’d never for a moment considered it could be Griffin Hayes, the man standing two feet from me now, looking like he’s ready to take a bullet in the stomach.
I suck in a breath, but it catches halfway down, as if my lungs have filled with cement. I take a half step back without meaning to, and his hand lifts before he stops himself.
“Tiana,” he pleads.
The world sways beneath my heels. “You…”
Griffin tries to close the distance with words. “Tiana, I—” But the sentence dies when my face shows him exactly how I feel.
I’m staring at a man who just detonated the last safe perimeter of my life.
Oh my god.
I want to scream, but I just squeeze the clutch in my hand until the edges bite into my palm.
No.
No no no.
He watched me fall apart. I told him things I wouldn’t tell my therapist, then turned around and spent days pretending to be invisible in his house. All the while, he was right there, knowing everything, saying nothing, and hoarding my secrets.
I take another step back, and Griffin’s hand comes up again, as if he wants to reach for me but knows he shouldn’t. Instead, he balls it into a fist and drops it by his side.
I look at his face, searching for denial.
“Griffin,” I say, and it sounds like I’m begging for air.
His eyes darken with pain. “Tiana, I can explain.”
I go cold everywhere. All I can hear is the rush of blood in my ears. My mouth opens, but the questions get caught behind my teeth.
I want to ask him why. I want to ask if I ever had a single thought he didn’t already own. I want to ask if it was all a game, or if he ever meant a single thing he said, or if I am actually this gullible, this easy to manipulate, this easy to—
No. Griffin doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to be my rescuer and my betrayal in the same breath.
I take a step back.
“Tiana,” he whispers.
I lift one hand before he can come closer. “Don’t.”
Neither of us speaks. The music keeps moving around us, too loud and cheerful, while the skyline glitters behind him as if this is supposed to be some cinematic moment I’ll look back on someday with a hand over my heart.
Except my heart is too busy trying to claw its way out of my chest.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” I ask.
Griffin goes very still.
I laugh, but it comes out broken. “Oh my God.”
“Tiana, please let me explain.”
The words hit like a slap.
So it’s true. The online stranger who talked me through my panic in a bathroom, who knew exactly what to say when I felt stupid over Willow’s, who made me laugh when Griffin wouldn’t even look at me across his own kitchen, was Griffin.
It was him the whole time.
My vision blurs at the edges, but I blink hard —I refuse to cry in front of him right now.
“You let me talk to you,” I whisper. “You let me tell you things. We sexted, Griffin. I sent you nudes.” The end comes out as a whisper-yell because the more I say out loud, the angrier I become.
His throat works. “I know.”
“I was embarrassed. I was vulnerable. I was scared tonight, and I reached for @built2last because I thought he was the one person who didn’t come with all this.” I gesture between us, my hand trembling despite how hard I try to keep it steady. “And it was you.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“That is becoming a really useless sentence, Griffin. I told you things I didn’t feel like I could say to your face because you made it impossible,” I continue, my voice shaking now.
“Do you understand that? You made yourself unreachable in real life, then let me reach for you somewhere else, like that wasn’t cruel. ”
“I know,” he says roughly. “I know what I did.”
“No, you don’t.” I shake my head, stepping back again.
“Because if you knew, you wouldn’t have kept doing it.
” I swallow around the ache in my throat.
“Thanks again for caring enough to show up tonight, but I don’t know if I can forgive this.
” My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate that too. “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”
“Tiana, please,” he says, taking one step forward.
I move back. “Don’t follow me. I mean it, Griffin.” I pull in a breath that barely makes it past my ribs. “I don’t want to see you right now.”
His mouth parts, but no words come.
I turn around before he can change that. Behind me, I hear him say my name.
He says it again, lower this time, his voice cracking, and something inside me nearly splits open. But I don’t stop.
I walk away before my heart can betray me worse than he already has.