Grady shrugged. “I’m sure he was on his best behavior.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “That’s an understatement. He was sweet, charming, and spent money on little gifts for me. I thought it was nice how he paid for everything while we were dating. He seemed indifferent to my trust fund. I’m ashamed to say I really bought into his act. A few months after the wedding, I discovered I was pregnant.” She fell silent, lost in memories of the past. She’d been so excited to learn about her pregnancy.
“What happened?” Grady asked softly. He kept his voice low, the way she did, so Lucy couldn’t overhear.
“Nelson seemed happy about the baby, but it didn’t take long for our relationship to unravel. He started drinking more, buying expensive Scotch. He also spent more time with his old frat buddies, like Bobby Morton. But it wasn’t until I overheard him talking to someone about how he was planning to invest a quarter of a million dollars into some new enterprise that things got nasty. I discovered Nelson was in debt after our marriage. He claimed it was investments that had gone south. So when I heard him making that deal, I knew he didn’t have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He’d planned to use my money, which of course he believed he had every right to do.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her tone.
“Whoa, not without talking to you, he didn’t,” Grady said with a frown. “That’s not how marriage is supposed to work. Big financial decisions like that should be made together, with both parties in agreement to the plan.”
“Exactly what I said to him. He just shrugged and said the money was a drop in the bucket compared to what I’m worth, and besides, what’s mine is his now. He claimed he could do whatever he wanted.” She grimaced and looked away. “That’s when I knew it was all a lie. That the only reason he’d married me was to get access to my money. It wasn’t about me and certainly not about our baby.”
Grady slipped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her into a hug. “I’m sorry you had to find out the hard way.”
She leaned against him for a moment, inhaling his masculine scent. “Yeah, well, better late than never, right?”
“Right.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “And you got a great kid out of the deal.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Lifting her head, she gazed up at him, touched by his comments. “Yes, I did. And for that, I have no regrets.”
For a long moment, their gazes locked and held. She found it suddenly difficult to breathe, her senses so focused on Grady. She wished she’d married someone like him—strong, sweet, and not looking for financial security in any way.
Unless, of course, she was reading him wrong, too, the way she’d initially believed Nelson’s seemingly good intentions.
“I, um, think we need to keep digging into those who knew your ex and his buddy, Bobby Morton,” Grady said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Okay.” She looked away, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red hot as they felt. “Although I’m not sure why Nelson would start coming after Lucy now.”
Grady frowned. “The timing is interesting. Can you think of any reason why Nelson would be focused on you at this time? Maybe the heart ball that’s coming up to benefit St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital?”
She shook her head. “I became a spokesperson for the charity after Lucy was born and had to undergo open heart surgery as a result of a birth defect. Nelson and I were separated by then. I made sure to issue the financial separation first, so he couldn’t continue to go through my money.”
“The jerk,” Grady muttered.
She privately agreed. “Our divorce was final just two weeks before his arrest. I wondered if he’d been out drowning his sorrows over our breakup, not that I think he missed anything but the cash flow.”
“So this isn’t some sort of anniversary?” Grady pressed.
“Nope.” She tried to think back to their brief marriage. “I wish I could tell you more. I blocked most of those memories away, refusing to dwell too much on the mistakes I made in the past.”
“Smart thinking,” he murmured. “I’m surprised he didn’t drag the divorce on longer, though.”
“My father made Nelson sign a prenup.” The fact that Nelson had argued long and hard about the need to sign a legal document prior to their marriage should have been a red flag. Unfortunately, she had waved it off as his way of asking her to trust him. Too bad, the joke was on her, because she couldn’t trust Nelson as far as she could throw him across the room. “I sued for full custody of Lucy, and he didn’t even argue about it or put up a fight, which frankly surprised me. The best way for him to get access to my money was to sue for joint child support.” She sighed. “Of course, his going to jail didn’t hurt. The judge granted me sole custody without blinking an eye.”
“His loss, Lauren.” Grady’s compassionate expression was so intensely kind and sweet that it was all she could do not to kiss him. Then, as if he’d read her thoughts, Grady leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.
“Mom, my show is over,” Lucy called. Lauren sprang back from Grady so fast she nearly tipped her chair over.
“Coming.” Her voice sounded low and hoarse, as if she’d been screaming at one of Lucy’s soccer games. Flustered, feeling certain her longing to kiss Grady had been telegraphed on her features, she jumped to her feet, clutching the blanket close as she hurried into the living room to find another show for Lucy to watch.
But the brief kiss she and Grady shared left a tingling sensation on her lips as if she’d touched a live wire. Something that had never happened with Nelson.
More proof that she’d married the wrong man. Now, she just needed to remind herself that Grady was here because she’d hired him through Grayson’s Guardians to protect Lucy.
Not because he cared for her on a personal level.
7
Grady watched Lauren head into the living room to help Lucy find another show to watch. Then he turned to stare blindly at the computer screen. His heart raced as if he’d run a marathon from their brief but electric kiss. Had he imagined the sizzling connection between them, or had Lauren felt it too? He wasn’t even sure who had initiated the kiss. All he knew for sure was that he would have loved nothing more than to kiss her again.
