Page 71 of (Un)Rivaled

“None of that Mrs. Anders nonsense,” my mother tsked. “You know better, Devyn. I’ll always just be Marta to you.” Devyn nodded but let my mom continue. “Although I’m not pleased with you either. How long have you been in town?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked to me for help. I just leaned back, chuckling like she did when it was me. “A couple of weeks.”

“Weeks?” My mother gasped. “And you haven’t come down to see us?”

“Oh,” Devyn said. “I meant to. We’ve just, uh, been busy?—”

“I don’t want to know how you and my son have been keeping busy, but I expect to see you. Are you free tonight?”

“Yup,” Devyn said, glancing to me for confirmation. When I nodded, she continued, “We’ll be there.”

As she wrapped up the call with my mother, she passed the phone back to me with a glare. I held my hands up. “Don’t look at me, Ace. She was bound to find out eventually.”

Devyn twisted her fingers together. “Are you upset she knowsabout us?”

I reached out and pulled her hand into mine. “Not for a second. I’m so proud to call you mine, Devyn.”

She smiled brightly back at me. “I am too.” But a shadow passed over her face, dimming her smile. “I think we should keep the whole marriage thing to ourselves, though.”

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. My parents would be devastated if they found out we were married, accidentally or not. They would want to give us a real wedding, and I knew Devyn well enough to know she wasn’t ready for that. But her words from earlier in the week stuck out to me. She wanted the traditional wedding, wanted a real engagement that wasn’t lost to our drunken memories. More than anything, I wanted to give her those things.

As Devyn slid back to her spot on the rug and resumed her reading, a plan started to form in my mind, hopeful I could give my wife exactly what she wanted.

THIRTY-EIGHT

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this full.” I groaned as I leaned back against the counter, my stomach delightfully stuffed.

Marta smiled at me as she passed me another dish to dry, “You know where to come next time you need a home-cooked meal, Devyn. No more of this staying away, you hear me?”

I tucked my head, hating it had taken me so long to return home. While I’d split my time growing up between my family’s hotel and our penthouse on the Upper East Side, this house was what built me. It was filled with so many memories, ones I had tucked into a little box when Gray and I fell apart. But now that things were finally going well between us, I’d started rifling through them, letting the joyous moments of my childhood shine bright.

“So,” Marta said as she turned off the water and dried her hands. “How long do we have you here?”

“Oh…” I tucked my head, hating to admit I didn’t have a definitive answer. Ever since my conversation with Gray at my dad’s office, my head had been spinning. While I’d come back to this town with an end date in mind, I had no desire tohead back to the city now. Maybe this was exactly where I was meant to be all along. My dad’s office had been sitting there all this time, waiting for someone to take over his practice. Why couldn’t it be me? There weren’t any legal practices in town, and most people had to drive almost an hour away to get quality advice. Even if it entailed more low-key cases than I was used to, I would be giving back to the community I loved.

Not to mention, I’d get to stay with the man I loved.

I glanced across the kitchen toward the living room, where Gray and his dad were talking. Seeing them together warmed my heart. While my own family life had never been ideal, Gray worshipped the ground his parents walked on, and they did the same for him. It was the kind of love I wanted for my future kids, the kind I wanted my family to be built upon.

The one I wanted with Gray.

That whisper of hope tucked in the back of my mind. I wasn’t ready to speak it aloud, too afraid that the moment I did, everything would come crashing down around me. We’d managed to move forward despite the pain of the past, but I was still nervous things wouldn’t always feel this way. Sure, Gray thought he liked the girl I used to be, but could he deal with the woman I’d become? Would he be able to handle me when I went back to work, often losing myself in cases and forgetting to focus on the rest of the world?

And then there was his father’s declining health. Even though Curt was in good spirits tonight, the gaps in his memory were hard to ignore, no matter how much everyone at the table tried. There was no slowing down time, no stopping the clock now that his mind had started deteriorating.

It was selfish of me to want so much of Gray’s time when he was needed here. I already knew he was livinghere before I came into town, needing to be close to help his mother. But now, he was only spending a couple hours a day with them, choosing to spend his nights at home with me. Would he eventually start to resent me for it? Was I impeding on his dwindling time with his dad?

God, I hated that I’d missed so much time with Curt over the years. He was practically my second father, taking on more of the role after my dad passed away. He taught me how to drive and threatened my first boyfriend to treat me right. Not to mention, he shaped Gray into the man I fell in love with.

Maybe there was some sort of hope, a clinical trial or something along those lines. Even though my mother and I weren’t close, she owed me a lifetime of favors. I was her liaison between her and Calla for months while they were estranged. The least she could do was make a call to some of her friends on various hospital boards.

“I always thought you two would find your way back to each other,” Marta said as she moved to my side. “Even when he was too young to realize it, my boy’s been in love with you. Glad he finally got the courage to tell you.”

“Oh—” I spluttered, turning away from her. “We haven’t— we’renot…”

Her words caused my heart to plummet to the depths of my stomach. I wanted to be honest about how I felt, but I hadn’t told Gray yet. Of course, I loved him. I’d loved him before I even knew what the word meant. I thought Gray loved me too—I was almost sure of it. But after a lifetime of never knowing where I stood, not having the explicit words gave me pause. I’d gotten ahead of myself before, and it all blew up in my face. Even though I understood Gray’s reasons for leaving, it didn’t take away from the bitter sting of his absence. When we fell apart five years ago, I wasdevastated, and it had taken me all this time to open my heart again.

And that was before I got to feel Gray moving inside me, before I knew his touch ignited every fiber of my being, before I got to hear him call me his wife or ever got to know what it was like to fall asleep in his arms.

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