I’ve been keeping things from her, I’ll admit that. But this thing, I rush to explain. “The Reapers surprised me. And we’re going to take me on a four-day ride out to California for my bachelor party. I wanted to make sure you had a car for getting O2 to school and back—I invited you over here so you could pick out one of the vehicles I keep in the basement garage. That’s all.”
I hug her tight and assure her, “That’s the only reason I invited you over here, I swear. You need to believe me on that. This isn’t a game, and I’m not trying to hurt you.”
She lets out a shaky breath. Then she says, “Okay, I believe you.”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath too until it comes out in a relieved whoosh. Still, I hold on to her.
“If I let you go, you promise not to run?"
She doesn’t answer right away, but after a few tense seconds, she nods.
I loosen my hold tentatively and brace to grab on to her again if she tries anything with those nails.
But she lets me turn her around in my arms without incident.
She’s no longer screaming and swinging at me, but the cowed look on her face is almost worse.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Hurt your face.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my face,” I answer. There’s a jackhammer pile driving my heart.
This obviously has something to do with New Year’s Eve. And we agreed to call the past the past—to just wipe it clean so that we can move into the future together. But I have to go back on that agreement.
“Talk to me, Red. Explain to me what just happened here. Tell me your side of what happened on New Year’s Eve.”
CHAPTER 38
BERNICE
I’m safe. I’m safe, I think. But my stomach is still roiling from seeing Rowdy—for the first time since that New Year’s Eve.
And here’s Griff…asking me for explanations. But it’s time for me to start demanding answers of my own.
“Why did you lie to me?” I ask him. “Why did you let me keep believing we had to get married for you to become CEO of AudioNation?”
He stills. Then asks, “Is that why you ran away?”
“Answer the question!” I demand, too frustrated to be even remotely calm.
“Red, it’s complicated.” He rubs his face wearily.
“No, you do not get to act like this is too much right now.” I jab my finger at the ground. “You’re not the one who was just triggered to hell and back.”
He blinks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. Rage courses through me, refusing to be checked.
“What triggered you?” he asks. “Just tell me.”
“Why. Did. You. Lie?” I scream back. “You just tell me why you won’t stop lying to me about everything?”
“Because I fucking love you!” he roars without warning.
He spreads his arms, and his voice echoes in the empty stairwell as he tells me, “I’ve loved you since the moment we kissed in that bar—no matter how much I tried to deny it. And there hasn’t been a minute since that moment when I knew how to handle this love I didn’t expect to feel without fucking it up.”
I falter, my rage giving way to shock. “You love me?”
“Yeah…” He lowers his arms. “That’s what I realized that New Year’s Eve morning when you walked back in the house, and it felt like my heart was ripping out of my chest. I love you. I love you with my whole soul. And I don’t even mess around with God like that.”
He loves me? With his whole soul? I shake my head, both wanting and refusing to believe. “But how? Why?”
He’s wearing his Reaper vest, but his expression goes weak.
“The reasons keep on changing,” he admits. “At first, it was just because you came home with me for me—not because I’m G-Latham. Then it was because it was easy for me to be around you. I just wanted to be around you, even if we weren’t having sex….”
He tilts his head with a wry wince. “Not going to lie, that was a first for me. I just…I just couldn’t get enough of you. You were this drug in my system. You fucked me up.”
His expression pains, then softens. “But you also made me think about the future—a future on the other side of partying and getting laid all the time because I’m famous. By New Year’s Eve morning, I just knew…I wanted to be with you forever. My plan was to tell you—tell you who I really was as soon as you got to my place. That’s why I agreed to work for my dad at AudioNation after the European leg of my tour. If you wanted to travel the world, I wanted to travel the world. If you wanted kids after that, I wanted kids. I was prepared to give you the world. That ring on your hand was sitting in my dresser drawer for almost six years before I found you again.”