“I need to find a way to track his phone.” Anthym stalked off.
“We need to tell Grayson that she’s going unhinged,” McKenna said to me in a low voice.
“I can’t tell him that,” I whispered.
I checked my phone. There was no word from Grayson. I hoped he was okay. I wished he had let me go with him.
He should be back soon though, and I wanted to be there with a hot meal waiting for him.
“If Anthym, asks,” I told McKenna, “I went to go try to catch the mystery woman.”
The penthouse wasdark when I arrived.
That was weird. Grayson wasn’t back yet. Maybe he stayed with his dad for a few hours?
I walked into the kitchen and flicked on the lights then shrieked when I saw Grayson sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, bottle of scotch in front of him.
“You’re back,” I said, voice a little squeaky. I smoothed my skirt down. “So how did it go?”
“How did it go?” Grayson forced out the words. His green eyes met mine.
“Are you fucking kidding me? It was a fucking disaster.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. I can’t believe I didn’t see that you were manipulating me earlier. So fuck me, right?”
“I wasn’t manipulating you. I was helping you.” I was reeling, off-balance. Why was he mad atme?
“No, you weren’t.” He jumped off the stool. “That’s giving you too much credit. You’re just oblivious. You didn’t think abouthow any of this was going to affect me, affect my family. God, my mother’s going to kill me when she finds out I went to see him and how ecstatic he was that I was there.”
“He was happy?” I said in horror.
“Yes, Lexi,” Grayson said snidely. “You really brightened someone’s day. Hell you brightened someone’s whole fucking year. My father was over the moon. And though he didn’t say it, I’m sure he’s very grateful to you for sending me to him so he could gloat about how his son is a billionaire.”
I shrank in myself.
“That must have been awful,” I said in a small voice. “I’m sorry that it went poorly. But at least you went, right? At least now you know and you have closure.”
“Don’t do that,” he spat stepping around the kitchen island. “Don’t fucking try to find silver linings and look on the bright side. There is no bright side. I fucked up by believing your nonsense—actually no, I fucked up believing that you believed your nonsense.”
He spread his hands. “Because the truth is, Lexi, that you are full of shit. The stickers, the notes, the random compliments—it’s all bullshit. It’s all performative. You don’t care. You don’t care about the woman walking her dog or the guy picking up trash or your neighbors or me. All you care about is pretending to be a good person.”
“Of course I care,” I choked out. “No one’s perfect, but you have to put positivity out in the world. It helps make the world a better place.”
“Ah,” he said holding a hand up, “except that you’re not helping anyone; you don’t really care about anyone. You just want to be able to pat yourself on the back and tell yourself that you’re better than the rest of us unenlightened sons-of-bitches walking around under a storm cloud. News flash, Lexi, no one likes your compliments. No one likes your positive notes. AndI can see through that charade, see the selfish, self-absorbed person you really are.”
“I’m sorry that the meeting with your dad didn’t have a positive outcome,” I said, blinking away the tears. “I think that you’ve had a bad day and we should try again tomorrow once you’ve had a chance to process.”
“And there it is,” he said turning away from me, throwing up his hands, “the smug superiority.”
“I’m trying to give you the space to feel your feelings. This is cathartic. This is good for you.”
He turned back to me. “You’re pulling my strings for your own amusement. I am sick of having you in my life, fucking things up.”
“Fuck you,” I screamed at him, furious. “I didn’t fuck anything up. I was helping. I did this to help you, and it is helping.”
“Stop trying to take the moral high ground. You don’t have the moral high ground. The only reason you pushed me to visit my father, to see my brothers, is to make yourself feel better,” he shouted. “You didn’t care about me, you didn’t care about my family, you don’t care that you just made things so much fucking worse than they already were, because you get to congratulate yourself for doing something good.” He made air quotes. “You’re just going to skip along singing songs and telling yourself the world is fine when it’s not. You’re just a child. You don’t know anything, don’t know what I’ve been through, and can’t understand. All you care about is fairy tales, but guess what? Most people are bad people. The world is a horrible place, and this?” He pulled a crumpled note of positive affirmation out of his pocket. “Is bullshit; it’s worthless.”
“I did this because I love you, because I want you to be happy.” I was crying now, ugly tears with snot.
“No, you don’t,” Grayson sneered. “God, I fucking hate you.” His fists were clenched. “You’re so self-righteous and self-absorbed.”
