Not that I’d checked before finally going to sleep early this morning; I’d fully expected him to have slipped out once I’d made it to my room becauseleavingwas such a Gray move. At least, that’s what I’d always heard in stories. But when I’d stumbled out of my room to start my coffeemaker, I’d found him asleep at my kitchen table.
I wasn’t sure if I was more surprised that Briggs had helped Gray find a way into my condo, or that Gray was still there, hunched over, with his head on his folded arms as if I didn’t have a couch. As if he didn’t have a bed in his own apartment.
I didn’t bother keeping silent as I moved through the space, since the sounds and smells of the coffeemaker would wake him anyway. Some childish part of me wanted to obnoxiously slam the cabinets and drawers, but I was too exhausted to. Not from the little sleep, just from the constant war I’d been under these past months—needing the man I could hear stirring, all while my heart couldn’t stand being anywhere near him.
And with a shuddering breath, I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.
Maybe it was that I could tell Gray was at a point where he wouldn’t stop until he got answers. Or maybe it was that I’d already bared my soul in the form of a painting last night. Either way, I was tapping out.
Grabbing a second mug, I waited for the coffee to finish brewing before pouring one for each of us, aware that Gray had woken at some point and was now silently standing behind me. Once I had a healthy dose of sweet cream in mine and a splash of milk in his, I turned, sure I was ready to face him.
But the sight of him there, looking unfairly handsome with his rumpled clothes and hair all a mess—reminding me of Aruba all over again—assured me I was not, in fact, ready to face him.
My stare dropped to the floor before I remembered that I wasn’t raised by a drill instructor and four older brothers to shyaway now. Drawing back my shoulders, I forced myself to meet his guarded green eyes and held out the mug with his coffee.
“This mean I can stay?” he asked, his voice a rough rasp that had wings unfurling in my stomach.
I forced myself to ignore those.
“Long enough for a conversation,” I answered.
My words had been soft and controlled, but from the defeated look on his face before he glanced away, he heard the defensiveness in them.
With a stiff nod, he asked, “Where?”
I always drank my morning coffee in the armchair in my living room. It was huge, plush, screamed comfort, and begged for me to stay there forever. Which meant, the living room wasn’t the place for this conversation.
Without verbally responding, I slipped past him and headed back to the kitchen nook.
Once we were both seated at the table, I spoke before he could. “I’ll take care of the marriage.”
Shock and hurt stole across Gray’s features before he could mask them.
“I would apologize for keeping you from your normal...”—I searched for an appropriate word while doing everything to maintain an unaffected façade—“activities, but we both know it hasn’t changed anything.”
“Wait, what?” The question left him on a choked-sounding cough.
“And I’ll keep things professional at Shadow, so neither of us loses our jobs,” I finished with a little nod. “Good talk.”
The second I pushed from the table, he was right there with me, standing and leaning across the table toward me, his stunned and furious expression inches from my own. “If you think that’s aconversation, you’re mistaken,” he ground out.“And you know me far too well to think I’d ever be okay leaving things like that.”
“I covered?—”
“My turn, Princess,” he claimed.
He studied me a few seconds longer before sitting, his bright eyes narrowed on me as he waited for me to do the same.
Reluctantly, I did.
“Let’s start with what you said about my ‘activities,’” he began, his expression shifting into one of disbelief. “Monroe...what?”
I tried so hard to keep my voice unaffected—bored even. But when I spoke, the devastation, betrayal, and humiliation I’d been suffocating under the past months wrapped around each word. “Don’t play innocent now, Gray. I’ve known from the day I met you that you weren’t.”
His head shifted back as if my words had wounded him, when I knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. After all, I’d been witness to the trail of women he’d left pining after him.
He stared at me in stunned disbelief before asking, “And you think I’ve been with someone since Aruba?”
I snorted at his singular use of the word. “I know?—”
