“What did you expect me to say, Yale?” he put his phone in his pocket and gave me a bored look. “Your best friend has worked for my family for years,” he slurred, and I continued to watch him. Grant pushed off the wall and headed to the kitchen. I followed behind him, waiting for him to spill all his secrets because drunk minds always spoke sober thoughts.
“How did it start?” I asked.
Grant looked over his shoulder at me, smiled, then went into the pantry. He came back with a bottle of Tequila that he opened and took to the head. I sat at the island and watched him. I’d seen him drink before, so it wasn’t a new sight, but I was still a little surprised that he wasn’t thinking twice about his decision. He set the bottle on the counter, then leaned across it to be in my face. “You know how pretty you are?” he asked, then tapped my nose. “The first time I saw you, in college, I knew you were going to be my wife.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised, and Grant nodded. I didn’t know where this conversation was going, but I was going to let him spill his guts. “The day we met, I was in the courtyard, talking to Consonance. I wasn’t doing anything special.”
“That’s not when I saw you,” he denied, shaking his head. “I saw you a few days before that. You were in the library, and someone called your name.” He nodded and smiled. “That’s when I decided you would be mine.”
I sat back in my seat, crossed my arms, and tried to remember the time he was talking about. I came up empty. Grant wasn’t a man who commanded an audience when he entered a room.There were plenty of times that I forgot he was even around because his energy was muted.
“So you decided I was going to be your wife?” I asked to keep the conversation going, and he nodded. “Why?”
“It was that or let them have you,” he replied.
“Let who have me?” The only reason Grant didn’t realize what he said to me had me on edge was that he was drunk.
“My boss,” he answered with a shrug.
“You mean Quincy?” I questioned him, and he shook his head. “Quincy isn’t your boss?”
“Nah,” he laughed. “I got another side business.” Grant slowly shook his head. “Back then, it wasn’t much, but I was making money.”
“How?” I couldn’t help but ask. The Kilmores had their hands in drugs and cars, but this was the first time I was hearing about Grant being involved in anything else. He always said that the cars and drugs were beneath him, so whatever this other business was had to be something serious.
“I recruited women,” he smiled brightly as if he was proud of his declaration. “I’d hang out in the library, find the nerdy girls and work my magic.”
“Your magic?” Thoughts of our college days replayed in my mind.
“Everybody likes the nerd, Yale,” he nonchalantly replied. “Nobody ever looks at me to be more than just the science guy. Hell, that’s all you see me as, even now.” He wasn’t lying. I never saw Grant as more than just the quiet person in his family. His brothers were the bad ones, and he just allowed them to be. Now I was seeing and hearing differently, and the kicker was that it was coming from the source, not from what other people told me. “I’m the one who blends in and gets lost in the chaos, which works for me. It’s how I got close to Amethyst.”
“Am, works for you, you’re not close to him,” I corrected him.
“But you are,” he pointed at me, then drank some more of his Tequila. “You can get him to do whatever you want. Which means he’s under my control.”
“That’s not how this works,” I replied, shaking my head.
“But it is,” he nodded. “From the moment he saw you at the library, he’s been under your spell. Which is the reason you weren’t handed off to the others.”
“Because of my friendship with Amethyst?”
“Because niggas like him piss me off,” he said, shaking his head. He drank more of the Tequila, and I sat there waiting. Grant’s layers were starting to unfold, and I was learning that the man I was married to was not the man I thought I knew. “They want what they can’t have and touch what doesn’t belong to them.”
“What?” I was completely confused and had no idea what he was talking about.
“The plan was to kill him,” Grant confessed. “But then I saw how he looked at you, and I realized that the long game was a better situation.” I lifted my brow in surprise at his confession. “It was just business.” He laughed. “My boss didn’t even care how it was done as long as it was, but I talked him into watching that nigga suffer instead. It’s something about watching your enemy’s downfall that makes all the other shit worth it. And I decided to do that with you.” Grant stood, then picked up the bottle and drank from it, leaving only a small amount left. “I got the woman he wanted. Married her.” Grant swayed on his feet, as if dancing, and held up the bottle. “I proposed to you with him in the audience.”
“Grant, Amethyst wasn’t there,” I laughed and shook my head.
“He was,” he nodded. “Standing to the side with his brothers behind him, looking like a lost fucking puppy because I got the girl he wanted. He was so locked in on you that he didn’t realize that his enemies surrounded him.” He smiled brightly thenlaughed. “I got the fucking girl he wanted!” He slapped his chest, then drank from the bottle again. “All the other shit I was doing didn’t matter because I got him. He will always be less than me!”
“Wow,” I slowly said and shook my head. “I was just a prize for your ego, huh?”
“Yes,” he answered with a singular nod, then pointed at me. “You. Yale Forrester are the one thing that I will always have over Amethyst. That cocky bastard can say he’s won at everything but at having you. That is solely my claim.” He set the bottle on the counter and gave me a smile that made goosebumps rise on my skin. “You’re going to have my baby next, and I know that’ll kill him.”
“So, you only want to have a baby with me because you think it’ll break Amethyst?”
“I know it will,” he laughed. “He’s so fucking cocky, him and his punk ass brothers, but I’m not worried about them either. It’s already a plan to bring down their entire family. By the end of the year, the Stones will be pebbles.”
