Page 44 of Beautiful Betrayal

“We’d only been seeing each other for six weeks and he had me confessing love before I even told you. And he showed up at the apartment that night and told you I said I loved you.”

“And then I told you that I loved you.” He winks like his father had that day in the coffee shop, so like him it’s scary.

“How did he have a heart attack?” I ask. “He was so fit.”

“He had a heart defect they said he probably had his entire life.”

“Did you get checked?”

“It’s not an inherited condition.”

“Still, can you please just get checked?”

He takes my hand and kisses it. “I’m fine.”

His cellphone rings, forcing me to bank this topic for now as Eric’s number flashes across his dash. Grayson releases me and punches the Bluetooth button. “We’re three minutes away,” Grayson answers.

“I’m in your lobby,” he says. “Just a heads up that Adam has two men with him, one of whom is Blake Walker, one of the three Walkers who owns Walker Security. He’s also considered one of the best hackers in the world, and I mean that quite literally. He’s already been digging around.”

“And?” I prod quickly.

“That’s all I know,” Eric says. “I was just given this information.”

“We’ll see you in a few,” Grayson says and disconnects as we approach the gorgeous glass high-rise that is our destination. “If this Blake Walker can’t prove I’m being set up, I don’t know who can,” he says, pulling us into the parking garage and it’s not long until we’re parked in his private space. “There has to be a trail he can follow.” He opens his door to get out and I forget about Blake. Right now, I’m about to be home for the first time in a year and some part of me just needs to know that’s what it still feels like—home. I want to know that we still feel like us when we walk in the door.

I don’t wait for Grayson to help me out of the car. I get out and he meets me on my side. “Have you changed anything at the apartment?”

“Everything is as you left it, waiting for you to return.” He strokes my hair out of my eyes, his touch sending a shiver down my spine. “Just like I was.”

“I really do wish that we were doing this alone.”

“We’ll be alone soon. We’ll be in our bed again soon.” And with that promise, he laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine, and folds our elbows, aligning our hips and setting us in motion. That silly question of this feeling like home fades. Home is Grayson, not the apartment, and if this is what being flawed feels like, flawed feels pretty damn perfect.

Chapter twenty-nine

Mia

Eric, Davis, Adam, and two men he introduces as Blake and Asher, wait for us at the elevator on our floor. Blake and Asher are casual in jeans and Walker Security T-shirts, and they both have long hair tied at the nape, only Blake has dark hair and no obvious ink while Asher has blond hair and double tattooed sleeves.

“Let’s head inside,” Grayson says, motioning toward the apartment and my stomach flutters with the realization that this is it. The moment where Grayson and I come full circle.

He leads me forward and when we reach the door, he pulls me in front of him and surprises me by pressing a key into my hand. I look down to find my old pink keychain. It’s my key. Emotion and heat overwhelm me to such a degree that my hand trembles as I lift it. Grayson must notice, as he covers my hand with his and helps me open the door.

Together.

We open it together.

As it should be, I think.

I step into the foyer, which is a square room with dark wood floors and ivory walls and an ivory low-to-the-ground table in the center with a couple dozen teardrop lights dangling above it. Grayson steps to my side and his arm slides around my shoulders. He ignores the rest of the crowd and walks me forward under an archway and into the stunning living room, which is a wide open space that seems to sit on the ocean during the day and at night, as is the present case, a sea of stars and city lights.

To my right is a grand piano, which Grayson has played since he was a child, while the center of the room is set with distinction by a cream-colored rug. The two couches facing each other are a deep, gorgeous blue that we’d picked together only a few months after I’d moved in. He’d wanted the house to be ours. He’d wanted me to feel this was my place, not just his. I’d just wanted him, but he’d been right. Making choices together had made me feel like this was our place and it still does.

Grayson steps behind me, his hands on my shoulders, his lips near my ear. “I have not fucked you on those couches in far too long.”

I smile and my cheeks are downright flushed, I am certain, as Eric and the masses join us. Eric and Grayson share a look and without words, they decide on the dining room table, directly to our right, for our meeting which accommodates twelve and offers plenty of room. We all sit down at the long ivory table, more teardrop lights above it and us. Grayson sits in the center of me and Eric on one side, with Davis by Eric. While Blake, Asher, and Adam sit across from us.

“I’m going to hand the update over to Blake,” Adam says. “Not only is he the boss, he and Asher are badass hackers, but first, Mia, is there anything our agents need to know? What is your morning routine?”

---