Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
VIOLET
My four days without Griffin had been glorious. Ten out of ten, would recommend.
No dirty mugs in the sink. No one leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor. No smirking face across the breakfast table, judging my coffee-to-milk ratio.
Of course, the man had to ruin it by coming home.
With so many gifts.
I glanced over my shoulder as I stirred the pasta and swallowed a groan. I’d tidied the living room this morning. I’d put away all of Hazel’s things, cleared the coffee table, actually vacuumed. Griffin had been home two hours and ruined it.
I counted three new additions to the living room. A plush lion, its mane dyed racing red. A teething ring that looked suspiciously like a steering wheel. And a onesie with “Future Champion” printed across the chest in bold letters.
Griffin sat cross-legged on the floor, Hazel propped against his thighs, holding up the onesie like he’d just won the Italian Grand Prix all over again.
“This one’s my favorite.”
She blinked slowly, her gaze unfocused and drifting.
“She’s five weeks old,” I said from the kitchen. “She can’t even see you properly.”
“She smiled at the lion.”
“She has gas.”
“Agree to disagree.” He turned back to Hazel, his voice dropping to that soft murmur. “You smiled, didn’t you? I saw it.”
She answered him with a strangled cry.
Hazel’s face crumpled, going blotchy and red. The cry turned into a wail.
“Alright, alright. Come on, kid. Give me a break here. I just got home.” Griffin scooped her up and settled her against his chest. His hand cradled her head with the kind of care I wouldn’t have expected from him a week ago.
He stood, pacing slowly, one hand rubbing circles on her back.
That low murmur lodged under my ribs and wouldn’t shift. He spoke to his daughter like she was the most precious thing in the world.
My throat tightened.
Damn it.
No. I refused to let this get to me. Refused to let him get to me. Everything about Griffin annoyed me. The smirk. The sarcasm. The way he left mugs in the sink like I was his personal housekeeping service.
But this? Watching him be a good father? It undid something in me I couldn’t afford to lose.
I gripped the wooden spoon tighter and focused on the pasta, willing my body to stop betraying me.
“She needs changing.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his tone confused.
“The cry. It’s different when she’s uncomfortable versus hungry.”
“They sound the same.”
“They don’t.” I turned off the burner. “You’ve just been gone for four days. You’ll pick it up again.”
“Right.” His footsteps retreated toward the stairs. “We’ll be back.”
“Changing supplies are on the dresser.”
“I know where they are, Princess.”
I drained the pasta and tried not to think about how domestic this had all become. Griffin upstairs changing his daughter. Me downstairs cooking dinner. Like we were some kind of functional unit instead of two people trapped in an arrangement neither of us wanted.
When he came back down fifteen minutes later, Hazel was wearing the “Future Champion” onesie. He looked unreasonably proud of himself.
“Really?” I gestured at it as he settled her in the bouncer.
“What? She likes it.”
“She can’t see it.”
“I can see it. That’s what matters.” He dropped into his chair, eyeing the pasta. “Smells good.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not. You’re annoyingly competent at everything.” He picked up his fork. “It’s irritating.”
“Sorry my basic life skills offend you.”
“They don’t offend me. They’re just excessive.” He gestured at the plate. “This is too much effort for a Monday night.”
“It’s pasta, Griffin. I boiled water.”
“You made sauce from scratch.”
“It takes ten minutes.”
“Most people would open a jar.”
“Most people have standards.”
He snorted. “There it is.”
“What?”
“That judgmental thing you do. Where you imply everyone else is doing life wrong.” He took another bite. “With that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The ‘I’m better than you’ look.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You absolutely have a look.”
Arguing with Griffin Michaels was like arguing with a brick wall. A smug, irritating brick wall that somehow managed to eat my cooking while insulting me at the same time.
Yet I couldn’t stop.
“If I have a look, it’s because I’m stuck living with someone who thinks rinsing a plate counts as cleaning.”
“It does count.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“We’re not agreeing on anything.”
He smirked. “And yet here we are. Eating dinner together like a functional couple.”
“We’re not a couple.”
“I know. That’s what makes it funny.”
I stood, grabbed my plate, and headed for the kitchen before I could say something I’d regret. Or throw the pasta at his head. Both options had merit.
The house had settled into a hush by the time I made my way back downstairs, the kind of quiet that only came when Hazel was well and truly out for the night.
I’d lingered over her basket longer than necessary, watching the slow rise and fall of her tiny chest, waiting for that last little twitch of her fingers that meant she’d given in to sleep completely.
I stepped into the kitchen and stopped short.
The dishes were gone.
Or rather, they were done.
The counters were wiped clean, the pots stacked neatly on the drying rack. Griffin stood by the sink with a glass of wine in his hand, looking far too pleased with himself.
“You cleaned.”
He smirked. “Observant.”
“You don’t do dishes.”
“I’ve done them at least twice in my life.” He took a sip of wine, watching me. “Three, if you count tonight.”
I waited for the punchline. There had to be a punchline. But no, he genuinely counted three times as an achievement.
My gaze dropped to the glass and my brows rose.
He gestured toward the wine rack with his glass. “I cleaned. You get the wine.”
I moved to the drying rack, inspecting his handiwork. Everything looked fine until I spotted my favorite non-stick pan with visible scratches across the surface.
“Griffin!”
“What?” he asked from the living room.
I grabbed the pan and stalked after him. He was sprawled on the sofa, ankles crossed, wine glass balanced on his knee.
I held up the pan. “What did you use on this?”
He glanced at it. “The scrubby thing.”
“Steel wool?”
“Is that what it’s called?”
My jaw dropped. “This pan is non-stick. You—” I pressed my fingers to my temple. “You can’t use steel wool on non-stick. It ruins the coating.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“It’s common sense!”
“It’s a pan, Princess. I didn’t think it had rules.”
“You ruined an ￡80 pan and that’s all you can say?”
His eyes widened. “Who the hell pays that much for a pan?”
“I do!” I threw my hands up. “And now it’s ruined because you decided to play house.”
He held up his hands. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is—” I stopped and exhaled hard. “You know what? Never mind.”
I turned on my heel and went back to the kitchen, grabbed a wine glass, and poured myself a generous serving.
When I returned to the living room, Griffin was still smirking at me.
“Feel better?”
“No.”
“You will. That’s a good vintage.”
I dropped onto the sofa, as far from him as possible, and took a long sip. The wine was good. Annoyingly good.
For a moment, we sat there in the soft glow of the living room lamps, sipping wine, settling into a comfortable quiet. Griffin drummed his fingers against his knee, studying me. Something about his expression made my skin prickle.
He was relaxed.
The careful mask he wore for the press and his teammates had vanished completely.
“You’re in a good mood,” I said carefully. “For someone who just committed cookware murder.”
He stretched his arms over his head with a satisfied groan. “I had a good laugh earlier.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s suspicious.”
He smirked. “Oh, it’s a good one. Just heard from Sebastian Ritter that Sorel Racing’s new investor is already turning the place upside down. Apparently, she’s a hands-on kind of woman, and she’s got everyone at Sorel scrambling. Including Callaghan.”
That was almost good enough to make me believe in karma.
Jesse Callaghan was Griffin’s biggest rival.
They’d come up through the junior ranks together, two raw talents clawing their way to the top, both pegged as future world champions. But where Griffin was the golden boy, charismatic, reckless, impossible to pin down, Callaghan was the opposite. Ruthless in a way that left no room for mistakes.
Griffin never talked about what happened between them, but the fallout had been public enough.
A brutal on-track battle that ended with one of them in the gravel and the other on the podium.
A war of words in the press. A steady unraveling of whatever they’d once been.
Now, they barely acknowledged each other except to exchange barbs.
I bit my lip. “Let me guess, Callaghan’s not taking it well?”
“He’s supposedly livid.” Griffin grinned, wicked satisfaction lighting his eyes.
“Ritter says she’s showing up everywhere—team meetings, engineering debriefs, even the lunchroom.
She cornered him after a strategy briefing and started quizzing him about car durability and whether Sorel should try copying Aedris’s aero package. Apparently, she’s full of opinions.”
I snorted. “He must be loving that.”
“Living the dream,” Griffin said, all mock sympathy. “Word is she made everyone sit through a lecture on hybrid engines over lunch. The best part? She invested so much she now officially owns part of the team.”
I shook my head. “You’re enjoying this because your biggest rival is getting upstaged by a well-intentioned, completely relentless investor?”
“Correct.”
“That’s petty.”
“Absolutely.”
I rolled my eyes, taking another sip of wine.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Just sat there, drinking wine, existing in the same space without immediate conflict.
I cleared my throat, grasping for something to break the moment. “Is this some sort of post-race ritual?”