Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
I enter the bedroom and stare at the massive space, and the bed where I have slept so many times with this man wrapped around me. I miss sleeping like that, with him. I don’t know how long I stand there imagining those moments with him holding me, but he doesn’t come back. Time ticks by and Grayson still doesn’t come back to the bedroom.
It’s been too long and I hurry down the hallway and start hunting for him. I enter the living room and find the pizza box on the island in the kitchen, but he isn’t there. My gaze lifts to the patio, and I know then that he’s back outside, but he’s chosen to exit through a location that divides us this time. I don’t let that dissuade me. I cross the room and exit to find him, just as he was on the other patio, his back to me, leaning on the railing.
“I don’t want this to be goodbye, Grayson. I don’t know how to make sure it’s not goodbye. There’s so much bad now. I’m afraid there’s too much bad. Are we just here to find that out?”
He inhales and pushes off the railing, turning to look at me, his hands on his hips. “I am angry, Mia. Because being with you, feeling how good it is, makes me wonder if you ever felt what I feel.”
“It wouldn’t feel this good if I didn’t. You know I did.”
“Then how can you believe that Ri could set me up with the DA and not set me up that night?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. “Eric called. He has a source he’s been working for a while now. He’s been nickel and diming us with information about Ri, who we knew was up to something. Eric offered him an excessively large sum of cash and he delivered in a big way and fast.”
“What does that mean?”
“He says that this plan to take me down has been two years in the making, before my father died, and right after we got together. The reason I believe him is that he named names, people working inside my operation and working for Ri. Two of those people were identified as problems and are already gone.”
My stomach knots. “She was one of them, right?”
“Yes, Mia. She was one of them.”
It’s then that I know that Grayson didn’t betray me, but instead, I’ve betrayed him and us.
Chapter fifteen
Grayson
The past, a year ago
“She won’t answer her phone,” I say, standing at the window of Eric’s office, the sun dipping beneath the skyline.
He steps to my side. “You yanked her off her case, Grayson,” he says. “You didn’t warn her. You didn’t even talk to her first.”
“I’m quite aware of what I did, and you know why. The lead counsel on the case was fired because the feds are breathing down our throats over this case and apparently for good reason.”
“I get it. We had a lead counsel playing dirty with a dirty client. You didn’t want Mia anywhere near that shit, but you should have warned her.”
“If I’d have warned her, she’d have looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and told me why she should stay on the case.”
“Because she’s got a perfect, clean record that represents us well. There’s logic there.” I open my mouth to lay into him and he holds up his hands. “But it’s a danger to Mia. I get it. She’d still be dealing with a mobster, defending a mobster. She’d still end up with that reputation of aligning herself with that man.”
“Not to mention my father and his damn rule. You lose your first lead case, you’re out. And we’re going to lose this case.”
“The future mother of his grandchildren? Surely not.”
“You’ve known my father since we were both at Harvard. You know his mentality, so yes, even Mia, who he loves, hell, more so because he loves her. He calls it tough love. And let’s face it. If she was made an exception, that would ruin her here at the firm. She’d be my woman and nothing more, and that’s not what she is or what she wants. It’s not what I want for her.”
“You gave the case to Becky. She hates Becky. They’re rivals.”
“I handed that decision to Mitch. He’s the lead partner over the associates. I didn’t take that decision from him, nor did I make it for him, but yes, I approved his choice. Becky is cutthroat and disposable. Mia is not.”
“A choice that’s not in your favor with Mia.”
He’s right. I don’t want him to be, but he is. I scrub my jaw, glancing at my watch, and tick off the four hours since Mia left the office furious. It’s seven now and so far the doorman hasn’t seen her at the apartment, which means she has to be at her best friend Courtney’s house or her father’s place. “I need to find her, but I have a conference call with the Lugo Corporation in fifteen minutes.”