He fucking winks at me.
My jaw is clenched hard enough my molars could crack, my fingers curling into my palms. The pain squeezing my chest is making it hard to breathe. She is familiar with him, her tone and anger say she’s not surprised to see him at all.
He moves his gaze back to her, humor in his eyes. “You got him to fall for you. Good job. Now, did you get him to sign?” He punctuates the question after each word.
Elly jerks her head in my direction but I can’t look at her, my heart is beating so hard in my chest and the ache burns behind my sternum. She lays her hand on my arm but themuscles pull taunt beneath her touch. “Gray, he’s trying to get under your skin.”
I look down at her. “But is it true?”
Her eyes volley between mine and her face has turned red. When she swallows instead of answering me, I know all I need to know.
“Please, Elly, don’t insult everyone in the room.” He looks at me, all humor gone from his eyes, the handkerchief still pressed to his nose and mouth. “Elly and I have been together since she was in college.”
Something pierces my heart, and I squash the urge to rub my chest with my fist. Looking past the hurt, I let the anger take over. Have I been falling for a fucking snake in the grass?
Have I been falling for her? The pain in my chest confirms I’ve fallen for the person I thought she was. But that’s the crux of it, I let myself get close to someone I don’t know, and I know better.
My eyes jerk to her, guilt and embarrassment flashes in the amber brown depths of her eyes and tells me all I need to know and I take a step away from her. She starts shaking her head rapidly. “No.” Then she holds her hand up like she wants to pause the whole situation. “Yes. We were together when I was a stupid girl in college, but…”
“Oh, come, come, Elly.” He laughs and I look back at him. “Did she give you the ‘ol daddy was mean to me spiel? Told you about how she doesn’t like this side of the business?” He chuckles and looks between us.
I take another step away from her.
“No.” Elly interjects, but he cuts her off.
“Actually, Elly is our best acquisition piece, she runs circles around me with her beautiful smile and cute little ass.” He cocks his brow as he smiles at her. “She hits people right in the feels.”
Turning on my heel, I’m done listening to this. I feel like afucking fool. As I’m walking to the door, her hand grabs my arm and I turn on her. The look on my face must match how I am feeling inside because she lets go of me and takes a step back.
“Gray, please.” Her voice is small, and it makes the burn in my chest even worse. “We broke up over a year ago. There is no-thing between me and Harris.” She draws out the word nothing.
The fear in her eyes turns to sadness as she looks at me. “Please, Gray.”
The air in this room is so heavy it’s hard to breathe. I can’t stay in here any longer. With one last look over her face, I say, “I fucking knew better.” And turn to leave the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ELLY
MY HEARTsplits in two as I watch him walk out the door.
Seeing the hurt, betrayal, and anger swirling in the green and brown depths of his eyes feels like a dagger through the heart as the air whooshes out of my lungs. “No.” The word is a whisper, but I hear a huff from Harris behind me.
“Really, Elly?” His voice is nasally, and I turn on him.
When I walked into the room and saw him standing over my files and laptop on the little bar between the kitchenette and the living room, I nearly panicked. Not only is he in my room, going through my things, but Gray is on his way up here. I don’t know how he will react to Harris being in my room.
He turned to me with his smug smile and welcomed me home as he sat back on the bar stool and linked his fingers like he belongs here.
“What are you doing in my room?” I was seething at the invasion of privacy. I glanced behind him and saw my laptop open next to his. “How did you get into my computer?”
He looked me up and down like he could see through my clothes. “Well, while you were taking your little vacation, someone had to do the work.” He scoffed. “All I had to do was call IT and they let me in.”
I quickly closed the distance between us and started putting my files back into their folders and shut the top of my laptop, maybe with a little more force than necessary. “Get out.”
His chuckle is like coarse sandpaper on my nerves. “You couldn’t resist, could you? You had to look them up and learn about the family.” He leans back as I stacked the folders on my laptop and pick it up. “I knew you would fail, I just didn’t think it would be before you even got here.”
My anger hit its tipping point, and I took a step back before I slapped him, making my hand sting. His head turned to the side a little before his evil black eyes turned back toward me, and then he grabbed my jaw as he pushed me up against the wall.
