Page 77 of Dark Horse

I raise my brow. This wasn’t what I expected him to say. It’s throwing me completely off guard, and I’m too tongue-tied to even think of what to say in response now.

“I realized I wasn’t seeing you as a friend. But I couldn’t reconcile what I thought I was seeing you as with who I am. I don’t fall for women. And I’m not saying that as some sort of hardass who thinks he’s above it. I’m saying that as someone who just… isn’t wired that way. I look at Ramsey, and I wish I could have it, but I don’t see how I get from where I am to anywhere else.

“But I couldn’t just let you go either. The idea of you with some other guy suddenly had me in fucking knots. Hearing you talk to those other men like that? The way I saw you with Hayden.”

“So why not just tell me that?”

“I promised Jesse I’d keep you safe. That I wouldn’t let anything happen to you—including me and the Horsemen. Whatever it took, you were gonna know what it was like to be happy and have the things that made you happy. You weren’t gonna have to worry like Jesse did or put yourself in danger.” Grant’s eyes go glassy, and his teeth saw their way over his lower lip like he’s trying to focus. “If he hadn’t been so fucking proud I would have just given him the money. So when you needed it, I didn’t want history to repeat itself. I didn’t want you to be too proud to let me help you and let someone else take a bite out of you while you were exposed. I figured it was better ifit was me.”

“But then I liked it—you liked it,” I think out loud.

He nods. His eyes go distant even as he stares at the bar.

“He’d kill me if he was here. I’d be the last man on earth he’d want touching you. Looking at you like I have been. The things I’ve said to you? If he heard them, if he can hear them now. He’s turning in his grave, wishing he could put me down next to him.”

“He wouldn’t touch a single hair on your head because I wouldn’t let him. I have a protective side, too, you know. I worry about you. I worry that you’ll keep doing what you’re doing, and you will end up next to him. I can’t lose you. You’re the closest thing I have left to family. The one person who I know has my back no matter how much I fuck up.”

“The girls have your back.”

“They do. I know that. But they don’t just love me. They like me… I’m one of their favorite people. If Hazel had to go to a deserted island and could only take one person, she might struggle to pick me or Ramsey, you know? She’d pick him because she’s madly in love with him, and he’s her person. But she’d have to think about it because I’m her other person.” I laugh through some of the tears falling down my cheeks. “You can’t stand me. Everything I say and do irritates you, and you still show up. That’s a different kind of love.”

“You don’t irritate me; you just test my limits sometimes. As long as it’s in my power, I will always be here. Always have your back. I promise.” He gives me a soft smile, one that goes all the way to his eyes, and that little hint of vulnerability on his part melts away any hardness I have left where he’s concerned.

“I know you will.” I’m fighting the rest of my tears back as hard as I can so I can say the next part without falling apart because I need to hear him say it so I can move on. “But you need to be honest with me about why you don’t want to take things further with me. You’ve got to tell me so I can stopimagining this thing between us ends in something other than heartache. The more time we spend talking and playing this game, the more I think I can climb over all those walls you have up, and I need you to shatter the illusion for me while I can still take it.”

THIRTY-ONE

GRANT

My heart isabout to fracture in my goddamn chest, listening to her pour hers out on the floor in front of me. Knowing I don’t have a single fucking good answer to any of the questions she’s asking. Knowing I don’t even have the guts to push her away like I should. Because we’re both in the deep end now.

“I won’t take things further with you because I’m still working through my own feelings and my own guilt about it. I know he’s not here. I know you’re a grown ass woman who can make her own decisions, but I also know how I’d feel about someone like me getting anywhere near my sister. I know how Jesse would feel about me getting near you. It feels like I’d be breaking my promise to him.”

“He’s not here.I am. I get to say who does and doesn’t getnear me. I don’t need my brother’s permission, and neither do you. I know you loved him, and I know you want to honor his memory, but this isn’t that. He knew then like he would now that you’re a good man. He wouldn’t have been friends with you otherwise. He made some mistakes, but he had a good compass when it came to the people he loved. And he wanted the people he loved happy.”

“But that leads me to the next part, which is…” I take a deep breath, looking up to the ceiling for a moment and then back at the bar. “There’s a lot you don’t know. A lot of things that happened last year, things that have been escalating again since my parents’ deaths. It’s why Hudson and Charlotte have been here, why I’ve been traveling back and forth to Cincinnati. We’re on the edge of getting more information, the kind I’m hoping lets me know what my future looks like. How grim it might be. Because regardless of how Jesse would feel”—I swallow hard, and my eyes rise to meet hers—“I would never forgive myself if I let something happen to you. If something happened to you because of me, the way it did with him. I couldn’t live with myself.”

“You can’t control everything, Grant. It’s not possible. You can’t stop every bad thing in the world by force of will. Bad things will happen. To me. To everyone you care about. As long as you’re there for them… that’s what matters. You keep pushing people away because you can’t control them. That breeds resentment.”

“This is more than just me wanting control. This is about the danger I pose to anyone who touches me. All this stuff with the cops. All the stuff going on with Hudson. My uncle being back in town… I already have a target on my back, and I’m worried it’s getting bigger by the day. If they find out that you’re… If they know how much I care about you, what I’d do to protect you—they’ll use that against both of us, and you’ll be theone who suffers for it. It’d rip me to fucking shreds. I wouldn’t be thinking straight, and I can’t protect you or my family or all the people who depend on me if I can’t think straight.”

“But what is life if you can’t enjoy it? What is life if you don’t have someone who loves you? Protects you? Sleeps next to you at night and knows you inside and out? What kind of life is that for you, Grant?”

“It’s the life I agreed to. It’s the life I signed up for years ago when I promised my father I’d keep this family safe. It’s the only way Ramsey and Aspen and Fallon and fuck, hopefully someday Levi, get to have the lives they want.”

“So that’s it then. There’s no other option?” She sounds resigned, and as much as I want her to respect it, I feel as hopeless as she does when she says it out loud.

“If this project that Hudson and I have going goes well, there’s a chance I might be able to change some things for the better. It’ll take time, but I’m hoping that someday I’ll get to a point where I don’t live in fucking terror of you or my family getting hurt. But right now, I don’t know the basics yet, and I can’t move forward without it. Once the wedding’s over, I should be able to put my attention back on the problem.”

“I see. So what about our arrangement then? From the outside, from someone who wants to hurt you or me, how is it functionally different from something more?”

“Because we’ve kept it a secret. Not a very good one, given how my brother and everyone keep seeing through it. So it needs to have an expiration date. Fuck. It should have never happened in the first place. It’s why when I thought you might have feelings for Hayden, part of me—a very small bitter part of me—was relieved. I thought maybe you could get away from here. Move somewhere else where you’d still have Hazel in your life and have someone who could keep you safe. One ofmy brothers still knowing you’re all right. I could have found a way to be at peace with that.”

“I don’t want Hayden. I don’t want anyone else but you. Do you want someone else?”

“No. No one compares to you, Hellfire. Not a single solitary soul on this earth, or under it, comes close.”

“Okay…” There are tears in her eyes, but she nods her agreement. “Then we end it tonight. Until you know more and we can know if there’s a future or not. Then we can both think clearly again.”

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