Page 29 of Beautiful Betrayal

“It was more than that. I get that you were next in line, but we pulled the lead counsel because he was in bed with the mob. That’s how we ended up defending a dirty mobster we thought wasn’t dirty. You didn’t see all of the facts and when I did, I pulled a favor with the judge. I asked to have the opportunity to pull you. He made me do it on the spot. It was then or never and I didn’t want you on the feds’ or the mob’s radar. The end. That wasn’t happening. I love you too damn much for that.”

“You should have told me you were making the call. I don’t know a woman who would be upset that her man was trying toprotect her. I just don’t get why you didn’t talk to me. That isn’t us. Not the us I knew.”

“I had to make a snap decision and I know you, Mia. You would’ve said you could take the heat off with the feds.”

“I could have. I’m squeaky clean. I would have if it protected you and the firm.”

“That’s what I mean. You would have tried to protect me. I would have pulled you, and the fact that I ignored your pleas would have made it worse.”

“No. It would not have because I wouldn’t have felt betrayed. Just pissed.” I step to him again and press my hand to his chest. “Don’t do that to me again because we will need a weekend and a rubber room for the war that will ensue.”

“If I ever have to make a snap decision to protect you, Mia, I’ll make it and I’d expect you to do the same in reverse.” He shackles my arm and pulls me to him. “Like you came here to protect me. That’s what we do. We protect each other. That’s what you would have tried to do.”

I reach up and brush my fingers over his jaw. “Yes. We protect each other, but next time, you don’t get to go around me.”

“You’re right, but just know this, baby. When I look into your eyes and you ask for something, it’s hard as hell to deny you.” The buzzer on the oven goes off.

“Even pizza? Because I’m really hungry.”

He cups my face, and he’s not focused on pizza. “If you hold back, if you get ready for me to leave you, then you’ve already left me again. Or just never came back. All in, Mia, or all out.”

“All in,” I say, despite the fact that I am unreasonably afraid of being hurt. He didn’t betray me. I betrayed him. I hurt him. I need to be vulnerable. I owe him that. And I have to trust him not to hurt me, the way I should have trusted him a year ago.

“How about that pizza?” Grayson asks, kissing me. “It’s been far too long since we shared one together.”

“Pizza with you sounds like everything.”

Tension eases from his body, and the hard lines of his handsome face soften. He’s back. He’s here with me and relief washes over me. I need him. I need him in ways I tried to deny and failed every time.

He walks to the oven and pulls out the pizza and I turn to watch him return. He sets it on the island counter. “How’s your dad?” he asks, flipping open the lid.

My eyes go wide. “Going out of town this weekend and I don’t have my phone. What if he calls?” I dart away toward the bedroom and hunt down my purse and my phone. Once I’ve located it, I check my missed calls and go cold. Ri has called not once but three times.

I glance at my text messages and there’s one there from him as well:Mia. We should talk. Immediately. Call me.

Chapter twenty

Mia

I’ve barely read the message from Ri when Grayson appears in the closet doorway. “Is everything okay?”

I don’t even consider anything but honesty with Grayson.. “I have missed calls from Ri.” I offer him my phone. “And a text message.”

He steps forward and takes it, glancing at the message. “Fuck Ri. Let’s go eat our pizza.” He grabs me and starts to walk with my phone still in his hand.

I catch his arm and dig my heels in. “Wait.”

“You are not working for him if that’s what you’re about to say,” he says, rotating to face me. “You don’t need him, his job, or his money. You have me.”

“I know that, but until we hear more from your team about whatever he’s up to, I think we need to hear what he has to say. Just let me do some information-grabbing.”

“I’ve had about all of you with Ri that I care to handle, Mia.”

His voice vibrates with anger, the kind of anger I deserve considering I left him over a lie that wasn’t his. The kind of anger that tells me he’s affected by my leaving,we’reaffected,no matter how much we both just want to go back to the old, untainted us.

“I can’t take back what I did,” I say, “but I can make it work for you and us. I’m protecting you, and as you said, that’s what we do. We protect each other. It’s a call. That’s all, and you already know he’s up to trouble. Let me find out what I can with you right here with me.”

His lashes lower, his expression all hard lines and angles, seconds ticking by before he looks at me and says, “Make the call. Get it over with.” He looks down at my phone and I swear there is this moment when he realizes he’s holding it captive as if he didn’t even know he’d done it. And that’s not Grayson.

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