Page 61 of Grant’s Heat

He reached out and cupped my shoulders with his warm, comforting palms, but I immediately shrugged out of his grip. “Friends, Grant. If you can’t respect that, I’m going to turn right around and go back out the door. I can’t keep doing this with you. I need your friendship right now. I value it more than you’ll ever know. But if that line is too blurry for you, then I will have to go without.”

He jerked his hands away from me and held them up between us in surrender. “All right. All right,” he said, keeping his blue gaze pinned to mine. “For now. We can do this your way. For now.”

“Do you mind if I get some water?” I asked, looking over my shoulder as I meandered into the kitchen. Even though this was one of the swankier zip codes Grant owned property in, the condo itself wasn’t over the top. A modest two-bedroom place like this in this neighborhood probably sold for one and a half million dollars. There was no yard, and there was at least one shared wall with the unit next door. Grant was one of the lucky residents who scored an attached garage.

“Sit down. I’ll get it for you. What kind of host would I be?”

“I don’t mind making myself at home,” I said but plopped down on the denim sectional. “I thought you were going to renovate this place?” I asked, looking around the room. The decor and the flooring were in desperate need of modernization.

He rubbed the back of his neck, one of the telltale signs of stress in my friend’s body-language dictionary. “Yeah.” He heaved a sigh and handed me a bottle of water, already having opened it. He sat down beside me, even though the entire sofa was available, and angled his tall frame toward me, resting his long arm across the back of the cushions. “I just haven’t had the time to get out here with my general contractor. I could just have the interior designer I work with handle everything, but the last project she did?” He waited for my nod that I was still paying attention, and I couldn’t fault him. I was really drifting off during conversations lately.

“I think I met her in Naples one day when I stopped by and you weren’t home? The stunning Greek woman?” The pang of jealousy I felt that afternoon was back with the same bitter vengeance that it possessed that afternoon.

Shit. He’s not yours, girlfriend.

“That’s the one. Amaya.”

“That doesn’t sound Greek, though.”

“She once told me her ancestors were rulers in the Incan Empire, in what is now Chile.”

“Well, she’s beautiful. Have you slept with her?”

“Do you really want to talk about that?”

“No. I guess I don’t. But anyway, what did she do on the last project? It seems like you’re hesitant to use her now.”

“She went fucking nuts with my black card. I mean, cray-zee.”

I barked out a loud laugh hearing Mr. Businessman Twombley use such teenage-girl slang. It made my heart ache and my eyes fill with unwelcomed tears. God, I was such an emotional basket case.

Immediately, Grant scooted right up against me and gathered me into his arms. And honestly, I was done fighting him off. If I wasn’t strong enough to make it through ten hours without him, what made me think I could live without him in my life, physically and emotionally supporting me? Who was I trying to kid?

“Baby, what’s wrong? Why do you have tears?”

“I missed you. I know that’s so stupid.” I buried my nose in the crook of his neck and inhaled. The immediate calming sensation from his scent covered my mind and body like an invisible veil.

“I don’t think that’s stupid. At all. It feels good to be missed. I miss you when we’re not together, too. That’s the main reason I wanted to see you tonight. I mean, would I like to be inside you again? Hell yes. Do we have some things to talk about? Unfortunately, yes. But just being in the same room with you, Rio? It calms my nerves. Knowing that you’re doing okay, that you’re safe and happy? That’s become one of the most important things to me.”

The look on his face was so earnest and honest, if I hadn’t already been sitting down, it would’ve knocked me off my feet. It wasn’t an expression I’d seen before on his handsome features, and he looked positively vulnerable. Grant Twombley wasn’t a man who laid himself bare for other people and, I had a feeling, rarely—if ever—for a woman.

“But really? What made you get so emotional? Because you missed me?”

“That, yes. But—I don’t know how to explain it so it makes sense.” I knocked on the side of my head with my knuckles. “You know how messed up it is here.”

He pulled my balled fist down from my skull and held it in his hand. “Stop saying things like that. You’ve been through a tough time, Blaze. Anyone would be off their game.”

The tears came again, uninvited. “That’s what I’m talking about. That, right there.”

Grant tilted his head like a handsome, confused little puppy, so I explained further.

“You see all of me. You see everything. You see all my parts—the good, the bad, the light, and the dark. Yet, here you sit. Your heart is so brave and beautiful, Grant. You’re an amazing man.”

I had to embrace him after saying all of that because looking into his fathomless eyes was just too intense. He absorbed my words while I was saying them, and I knew he really heard them. Whatever he did with them from there? Well, that was up to him. But I gave him my truth, and that was all I could do. I wasn’t in love with Grant. But I knew I loved him, and I could very quickly, and naturally, fall in love with him when my heart was whole again.

I would never ask him to wait around for me, put his life on a shelf while I picked up the pieces of mine and reassembled them and figured out if there was a space available for him to fit. Those were questions only he could answer. Those were his truths, and I wouldn’t ask him for them, because frankly, I wasn’t ready to hear them.

Grant pushed my short wild hair back from my face while he stared at me. He soothed me with his long fingers, steady movements, and sure touch. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Rio Katrina.”