“If I’d tried, Max would have dragged me back down. My family had made him my permanent minder and he stayed glued to me, keeping me alive until I was able to accept the light shining a path out of the darkness,” I say as I lift Grace’s hand and press a kiss to her fingertips.
“Just resting your lips?” she asks, playful words skittering over her nervousness. She knows what I’m about to say.
“You were the light, Grace. You brought out a version of me I didn’t know still existed,” I whisper. “I’m not saying all my problems were solved overnight, far from it. Some persist to this day,” I admit, thinking of my non-existent relationship with my sister. “When I parked outside your house, I wanted to knock on your door and take a chance, but if I was going to introduce myself to you properly, I needed to know who I was. I needed answers and that’s where Ash Griffin came in.”
“How could he give you answers when no one else could?”
“The Griffins made their fortune out of taking things apart and rebuilding them into something better. Ash especially.”
It’s an oversimplification of what amounts to Ash Griffin’s genius and misses out the shadier part of their dealings, but it’s no less true.
“After the accident, Rory had the wreckage placed intostorage, along with every scrap of evidence from the police investigation. The only piece of the puzzle missing was me. And as limited as my memory was, I was still the vital piece Ash needed.”
I rest my chin on top of her head. “It was only after meeting you that I agreed to return to Scotland and it took a while before we could all get back there. Ash and his brothers had been dealing with a crisis of their own, but finally this spring, Ash made it happen.”
It had been awe-inspiring to watch him work. He took the Range Rover apart and scrutinized each and every piece of physical and electronic evidence. He examined photos and casts of tire tracks, and he made me go through every fragment of my memory, over and over again.
“It wasn’t looking good,” I admit, “and I could see my future slipping through my fingers.” I could see Grace slipping through my fingers. “But the day before Ash was due to leave, he found the tiniest tuft of hair beneath a layer of mud on a wheel arch. Fox hair.”
“You hit a fox?”
I huff out a bitter laugh. “Clipped its tail more like. If I had hit it, the evidence would have been clear from the start. Or better still, I wouldn’t have gone off the road at all,” I reply. “But that little tuft of fur triggered a memory I’d discounted, a flash of coppery red. I thought I was recalling Meri, but no. I’d swerved to avoid a damn fox.” I heave out a sigh. “It was just a freak accident.”
Grace rubs her cheek against my chest. “Why do you make it sound like that’s a bad thing?”
“Because even though I’ve stop beating myself up over it, it won’t make Meri feel any better.”
Grace raises herself up so we’re eye to eye. “You haven’t told her?”
“I know my sister. She needs to blame someone or something and a fox isn’t enough,” I reply. “I’ll tell her when the time’s right, so please don’t say anything to her, however tempted you might be to leap to my defense.”
Grace rolls her lips. “We don’t exactly move in the same circles.”
Tugging my hand from her grasp, I cup Grace’s jaw. “You will,” I say with absolute certainty. “I thought I made myself clear last night. When we get through this temporary blip, you’re in my fucking life forever, Grace. Make no mistake about that.”
Her eyes are glassy as she meets my hard stare with a frown. “I’m still not sure I forgive you for making this far more complicated than it needed to be. There must have been an opportunity before Katarina arrived on the scene for you to pay me another visit instead of laying your elaborate trap to get me here.”
“What can I say? I’m a sucker for romance. I didn’t want to spoil our serendipity moment.”
For that I receive a glare. Yeah, I fucked that up anyways.
I’m still pissed that our first meeting didn’t end the way I’d pictured with Grace on my desk, ankles on my shoulders while I… I blow out a breath and cut the scene before she notices my cock hardening beneath her.
I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “When you came to my hotel room, I saw a woman who felt empowered to do whatever the hell she wanted.” Grace swipes her tongue over her lips, leaving them glistening – much like my cock would be if I freed it from my pants. “If I’d simply turned up at your door and things had turned out how I hoped they would…”
“Which was?” Grace fights a smile as she wriggles her ass against my crotch. She can feel me.
I close my eyes and try to hold onto my self-restraint. “If we’d begun a long-distance relationship, at some point you would have had to choose between the life you had in Philadelphia and the one I could offer here.” My arms cord from the effort of trying to keep her still. “You loved your house and got on well with your boss, and I didn’t want to pull you away from that unless you wanted the move for yourself first.”
“So you left breadcrumbs to see if I’d follow you all the way to Chicago,” she surmises.
I fight a smile. “My plan was perfect. It was just the timing I fucked up.”
Her gaze drops to my mouth. “You’re sounding very sure of yourself.”
“You didn’t correct me when I said you were in my life forever, Angel,” I point out. My eyes narrow. “And that kiss was notmeh.”
The corners of her mouth tugs, but she fights the smile. I roll my hips and she groans.
