Page 107 of Return To You

I tack on my jeans strewn on the floor from last night, among some other mess I’ll have to address later. “Stay here, I’ll make coffee.”

I come back with our two cups, mine black, hers with a heart-attack level of sugar and cream—that’s the only way she can tolerate house coffee. She’s dozing off, and my weight on the bed wakes her.

She snuggles her soft body comfortably against me and takes a few sips in silence.

“How was your day?” I ask her once I assess her brain fog must have lifted. Grace needs a little time in the morning, and just because we made love after Damian woke her up rather brutally today doesn’t mean she doesn’t need some time with her thoughts first thing in the morning.

“Ugh, you don’t wanna know,” she sighs, leaning her head against my shoulder in a dramatic fashion.

“I actually do.”

“Guess who came to visit the spa that they made an offer on?”

Shit, so it’s true. “Amy,” I drop.

She jumps and nearly spills her coffee as she cranes her neck to look at me. “You knew?”

“Mom heard a rumor. We were hoping she heard wrong.”

Her gaze softens. “Did you talk to Lynn?” The change of topic catches me off guard. But that’s Grace right there, more concerned about others than herself.

Balancing her coffee in one hand, she sits cross-legged to face me. “You did, right? What did she say?”

I take a strand of her hair in my free hand. “Like you said. It was never what she meant. Dad said some things too that were… I guess, that shed a light on stuff.” I smile at Grace, my heart swelling with gratitude. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Grace. And to think you’ve been in my life from the beginning, it’s… pretty fucking awesome.”

She smiles big at me. “Agreed.”

“What are you going to do about Amy?”

She lifts her shoulders. “It was fifty-fifty until last week. If Richardson—that’s the landlord— was going to sell to an investor, I’d have a good chance of keeping it. I always pay on time. and I’m an easy tenant. I haven’t even bitched about the broken deck yet. But Amy is buying it to live there, so that means I have to move.”

“No leads on other possible locations?”

“Still looking. But it’ll be hard to find something as nice. And when I think of all the time and money I put into decorating it just right, it’s… heartbreaking. But you know what… I had a talk with Kiara yesterday, and she made me realize… sometimes we have to start from scratch and it ends up being for the best.”

I pull her face to mine and lean my forehead on hers. “I just… fuck I just wish I could do something.”

“I know you do. But don’t worry about it, it’ll take care of itself.”

I’m about to destroy that argument, but it’s useless. I know what she means. There’s no point ruining our last hours together. We can talk about that on the phone, later.

She finishes her coffee, sets the cup on the nightstand, then comes to cuddle against me.

Then out of the blue she says, “Tell me about Germany.”

Ah, fuck.

thirty-three

Grace

Ihave so much to catch up on, when it comes to Ethan’s life. I used to know everything about him, and now it’s like there’s this whole void, this universe that his life has become that I know nothing about.

He doesn’t want to, or can’t tell me about his job. Fine. But I want to know everything else. “Tell me about Germany.”

He sighs and arranges himself on the bed so he’s holding me tight. “What do you wanna know?”

“How long were you there for?”

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