All Griffin wants is to be taken seriously, but everyone treats him like he’s a joke or some guy stuck in a perpetual state of arrested development. A man-child. The same word my brother used to describe every man I’ve ever dated, apparently.
“You know what? I want to leave. Griffin, can you take me home?”
Isla’s face blanches. She reaches across the table to grab my hand, but I can’t even look her in the eye. “Mira, please don’t go. I’m sorry. Give me a chance to talk to your brother and educate him on what a colossal ass he is.”
“Hey!” Maddox rears back like his fiancée slapped him. “I did nothing wrong. I was just trying to set my sister up with a good guy for once.”
Reaching beneath the dining room table, I find Griffin’s hand and give it a pleading squeeze. “Please, can we go?”
My husband doesn’t meet my eyes when he nods. He doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he stands silently and grabs my coat and purse for me while Maddox splutters and stammers about how he doesn’t understand what just happened and how everyone is blowing things out of proportion.
When we’re at the door, I turn to Maddox, my blood somehow simultaneously molten with rage and icing over with fear that my slow reaction time to everything that happened will cost me Griffin. “You know what, Maddy? I expected better from you. When did you turn into such a judgmental asshat? Yeah, maybe the guys I dated before sucked, but that doesn’t give you the right to judge me. All it takes is getting it right once. And seeing as though some of your teammates are both free spirits and the most loyal, best men you could ask to watch your back, I’d think you’d realize that beingseriousdoesn’t have to look like wearing a suit to the office and helping me with a career I didn’task for help with. TellRhettto lose my number. And butt the fuck out of my love life.”
My brother’s face slackens as I blast him with the full force of my growing anger and panic. I’d stay and continue to rip him a new asshole, but my husband is stepping into the elevator, his hazel eyes pinned on the floor and shoulders slumped. My heart races when Griffin doesn’t look up at me or hold the door. The metal slides shut, hiding my husband from my view as it descends to the ground floor, taking my heart with it.
Maddox reaches for my wrist, trying to apologize and get me to talk to him, but I pull away, racing for the elevators.
He has no idea how much damage he’s just done.
And how much I did by not finally coming clean.
thirty-four
MIRA
I keep fucking up.Every time Griffin and I make progress, every time I start to feel like I know what I want or what I need to do, shit hits the fan. There’s no one to blame but myself. I should have claimed Griffin the other week at the bar. Should have told my brother to shove his meddling up his ass because I’ve already found the man who’s right for me. But I’m a fucking coward, and for some reason, I’ve been so worried about what my big brother might think, I haven’t stopped to consider what it’s making my husband think.
And fuck.Fuck. Because as much as I love my brother, I love Griffin more.
I love Griffin more.
Waiting for the elevator to open, my chest is a yawning chasm of viscous, dark fear. Because I love Griffin Wright, and I let him walk away. Somehow, in the months of living together, in the months of being married, the man has worked his way into my heart and made himself at home there.
He’s my best friend, my confidant, my fiercest supporter. He’s the first one to tell me he believes in me, the first oneto upend his life to help me. When no one else has ever really fought for me, he has. Even from that first terrifying morning when we woke up naked, hungover, and married. My first instinct was to run, and his was to hold on to me and fight for this.
Finally,finally, the elevator doors open and I step inside, smash my finger on the button for the ground floor, and mutter, “Hurry up, hurry up,” under my breath until it comes to a stop and the doors open again. Griffin isn’t there waiting for me. My heart pounds, and my mouth goes dry. What if he left me here? No, he wouldn’t do that.
I’m practically running as I push through the doors into the parking garage. Everything in me screams to get to him. I need to tell him how I feel. To show him. And most importantly, I need to apologize again for hurting him by staying silent. The doubts have been my own, and if I’m honest with myself, they have everything to do with me and my own insecurities, and almost nothing to do with Griffin himself. But I know he won’t see it that way. I can’t let him drive away without making it clear how I feel about him.
A huge, relieved breath gusts out of me when I find Griffin’s SUV still parked where we left it. It’s not running, but he’s sitting in the driver’s seat, white-knuckle gripping the steering wheel with this heartbreaking, faraway look on his face. A look that I put there.
Fuck.
“Griffin,” I whisper when I climb in the passenger seat and close the door.
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me. Hell, he barely even blinks.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Maddox took me by surprise with that whole thing. I’d been lost in my head thinking about us… About telling him about us, and then he started spouting allof that bullshit, and my brain short-circuited. I couldn’t think straight. If I’d been able to, I would have told Maddy to fuck off sooner. Would have told him that he was out of line.”
“You would have told him you’re mine?”
I hate how flat the words are when they leave his lips. He doesn’t look my way, and nothing about his tone says he believes a word I’m saying. Fair enough, I guess. I haven’t really given him a reason to believe me, have I? Which is why I need him to look at me when I say what I’m about to say. Reaching up, I gently coax Griffin to look at me by cupping his face.
“Yes. I would have told him you’re mine. That’s what I was thinking about when he couldn’t get my attention. Because I’ve realized that I’m tired of hiding this. You are everything I didn’t know I needed, babe. You’re my best friend, the most supportive partner I’ve ever had, and you make me laugh harder than anyone else. You have such a huge heart, and you’re so fiercely loyal, and you never hesitate to protect the people you consider your own.”
My thumbs brush along his cheekbones, making his dark-blond eyelashes flutter and his breath catch. I lean in and press a gentle kiss to one eyelid and then the other.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you consider me yours, but I’m tired of fighting this. If you want me to, I’ll march right back up to Maddy’s apartment and tell him we’re married and that if he can’t accept it, he can go fuck himself.” That earns a watery chuckle from Griffin, so I grin, press another kiss to the tip of his nose, and continue. “But I’ve been thinking that it might be fun to plan some big announcement where we can get all the important people in our lives together and tell them at the same time.”
