For her, it was a huge admission. A painful secret she’d hidden from herself, in the deepest, most broken parts of her heart.
She must have been quiet for a while, letting it sink in, because eventually she realized that Griffin had moved his hand again to take hers, intertwining their fingers on top of the table.
He said, “I fuckinghatehim.”
This time, she did laugh. A little release, a sip of bubbles popping deliciously inside her.
She shrugged and said, “I guess I hate him a little, too.”
At that, Griffin looked a bit like a gold-winged horse himself, which was maybe fair enough, but also, she didn’t want it to be too simple.
She was glad to have said all this, glad to have admitted it.
But the truth was, she knew that hating Jamie, even a little, was because she had loved him. Because she had not wanted, ultimately, for him to live his life without something he had started to want so badly. Not acknowledging that felt strangely like taking away something from herself. A strength she had that no one truly seemed to understand.
Giving in to him—having a kid with him, even though she didn’t want to be a parent—thatwould have been weakness.
Saying no was strength.
“Him wanting kids—that’s okay,” she said. “I don’t dislike kids; I don’t dislike anyone else who wants them. I think he would be a good dad.”
Griffin snorted. “Except he’s aliar,” he said, and it was such a petty-sounding thing to say that she laughed again.
“I don’t think he lied. I think he changed his mind.” She shrugged. “Who wouldn’t want to be amicable about that?”
“Me,” Griffin said flatly. But his mouth quirked on one side, and for a minute, they sat together—holding hands across the table, Griffin having given up his post at the gates of hell for the time being, and Layla feeling lighter than she had in almost two years.
Eventually, though, she realized something—that the light had changed on the buildings around them, that the café crowd had thinned dramatically, that the rhythm of pedestrian traffic had changed. She sat up straighter in her chair, pulling her hand away from Griffin’s. She reached for her phone in her purse, then blew out a breath when she saw the time. In less than three hours, the open house was starting.
The wedding well and truly on.
A different reality rushed back in. The spa this morning, that conversation with Emily. Everything Layla had learned—a house fire, how he got hurt, a friend who died—and how all of it was theactualrisk to this wedding.
Thatis what she’dreallycome to this café to talk to Griffin about.
The secrets Michael was keeping from Emily.
She felt a pang of loss for how drastically she was about to change the tone.
“So, this morning, when I was with Emily,” she began, and she could see how his gaze immediately turned wary. Not quite like it was that first time he’d confronted her about this—something you said—but wary nonetheless.
“She’s still having doubts. About Michael. And I don’t think—”
“Layla,” he interrupted, and thewayhe said her name.
Low, like a plea, like sometime last night in the dark, with their skin pressed together, with his mouth close to hers.
“Y—yeah?” she managed.
“I know it matters. And you can tell me. But after everything you just said—I want a little more time where it’s not you worrying about this fucking family for once. I want you to leave Emily and Michael to themselves for a minute.”
She blinked at him, relieved and surprised, and also pulsing with arousal at how he’d said her name.
But it was the relief and surprise that were overwhelming her.
Relief because Griffin was right—at the moment, after everything she’d admitted about her and Jamie, after saying out loud that he wasn’t her family anymore—there was a new weight to what Emily was or wasn’t to her, a new weight to what had driven her to come all this way, and she wasn’t ready to think about it yet.
Surprise because in all the time she’d known Griffin, she’d known that Michael—Michael’s happiness, Michael gettingmarried—was never far from his mind.
