One Love

5

Hudson

A knock on my office door interrupted my stream of thought, and I glared at my computer and shouted, “Go away!” Then immediately lost myself in my work again.

An idea had come to me a couple of weeks before, and I’d been engrossed in the project ever since. It was also how I distracted myself from brooding about the fact that things with Gracie had been tense the past few weeks. She’d decided to take a few summer courses, hoping it would help her decide what she wanted to study. I knew it would keep her busy, and I had started a few online courses toward my PhD, but I hadn’t expected to see quite so little of her. Even worse, when we were together, things sometimes seemed...off. I couldn’t quite place how, though, and hadn’t ruled out the idea that I was imagining it. However unlikely that possibility was.

Right after Gracie’s birthday, she and I moved in with London in her parents' Manhattan brownstone. I came clean with Gracie about my education shortly after. While she’d been really fucking mad at me for a few hours, she eventually let me make it up to her with my mouth and cock over and over until she’d forgotten all about what I was apologizing for.

I’d finally been able to tell her about working for her dad as well, although the nature of my projects was still classified. The very, very nice nest egg I’d built us had soothed some of the sting out of that secret. However, only a handful of others knew about my position and projects. My focus remained on building a life with Gracie, and I didn’t want headhunters and whoever the fuck else buzzing around me like annoying bees. And if anyone made Gracie feel like she was keeping me from greater things, I would end them. Because nothing, nothing was more important to me than her and our future family.

I thought we’d left all the omission and deception behind us, but now it felt like she was the one keeping secrets.

The door opened, and I growled at the intruder in warning.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re working on?” Jonah asked as he dropped onto an empty chair beside me, completely disregarding my clearly anti-social mood.

I gave him the side-eye before returning my attention to my computer screen. If he had been anyone else, I would have bitten their head off for asking me about a project before I was ready to share. I hated rolling out half-baked ideas. I always insisted they be fleshed out to a certain point before bringing them to my team.

However, Jonah didn’t hover, which told me this visit was about something else. I found a stopping place and made a couple of notes, then sat back in my chair and turned it to face him. “Cut the bullshit. What’s up?”

“Do you use that kind of language with Grace?” His tone vibrated with annoyance, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

He clearly had a bone to pick with me about something, and while I was in a shitty mood, I decided not to push his buttons. “Seeing as how you are the only other person in the world who loves Gracie almost as much as I do, I’ll refrain from my usual snark about the things I say to my girl in private.” Much. I decided not to push his buttons much.

Jonah’s lips pinched for a beat before he grunted, “What you say to and around my Grace is between the both of you until you make her cry, Hudson.”

I scrambled to my feet in shock and shouted, “What the fuck? Gracie cried? Who made her cry? I’m going to kill them!”

My boss sighed and leaned back, crossing his arms over his bulky chest as he studied me. “It wasn’t you?”

“Fuck no!” I practically dismissed him from my mind as I shut down my computer and began to gather my things. Although, most of my belongings were left at the front of the building before the first security checkpoint. Not even standard headphones were allowed to be taken in and out of a building like this since theoretically, they could be fashioned into a recording device.

“Seems odd that she would cry over the sight of a wedding dress if you weren’t the cause of it,” he mused. That brought me to a halt before spinning around to face him.

“A wedding dress?”

Jonah nodded in confirmation and added, “Penny said they walked by a bridal store on 5th Avenue and she pointed at a dress she thought Grace would like. But Grace burst into tears instead.”

I didn’t wait around for more information. With a careless wave, I was out the door and on my way home.

When I arrived, I sprinted up to the third floor and burst into our suite. “Gracie? Baby?”