Page 81 of In Love With Mr. Wrong

I lean against the stone balcony outside the twelfth-floor lounge and let myself breathe. That’s when I see him. Grayson. Alone. Sitting at the corner of the rooftop garden we’d had built for client meetups, though we haven’t used it in weeks. His elbows rest on his knees, head bowed, the posture of someone trying not to collapse under something heavy. I walk to him slowly, heels echoing across the pavers. He doesn’t look up.

“I didn’t know,” he says quietly. “About him. About any of it. She never told me.”

“I know.”

“I keep thinking maybe if I’d asked more questions... if I’d pushed harder...”

I sit beside him and take his hand, threading our fingers together. “Then what? You’d have gotten the truth sooner and still been blamed for a lie you didn’t tell?”

He looks at me then, really looks, and in his eyes, I see the man I love, the man who’s carried the weight of legacies and empires and now a baby girl with my stubborn streak.

“You didn’t choose your name,” I whisper. “But you chose me. You chose this life. And that makes you more of a King than any man who’s ever passed down a last name.”

His throat moves with a hard swallow. “What if I don’t know how to fight this?”

“You don’t have to fight it alone.”

***

We’re back at the penthouse when everything finally unravels. The moment the door closes behind us, something shifts. Grayson doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. He just watches me like I’m the only solid thing left in a world that won’t stop spinning.

“You still think you’re not worthy of this?” I ask, walking toward him, my voice softer now.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he steps forward, cupping my face in both hands, his mouth capturing mine in a kiss that says everything he can’t. It’s deep, demanding, raw. His touch is fire. His body, a storm. His hands trail down my sides, slipping beneath my blouse, pushing it over my head. His lips are everywhere, my throat, my collarbone, the sensitive skin just above the lace of my bra.

“You said I didn’t choose my name,” he murmurs, voice rough. “But I chose you. Over and over again.”

He lifts me in one fluid motion. I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the bedroom, shedding clothes with each step. When he lays me down, his eyes trace over every inch of me, hungry, reverent.

He kisses my belly first. Then everything else. I gasp when his tongue finds me, wet and aching. My fingers twist in his hair, thighs trembling. He licks, sucks my pussy and drives me to the edge and back, until I cry out his name. When he finally slides his dick inside me, it’s with a groan that rumbles through his chest. We move together like fire meeting air, furious, breathless, inevitable.

“Mine,” he growls into my ear.

“Always,” I gasp.

When we fall apart together, it’s with hands clutching, bodies shaking, hearts wide open. We don’t need blood to define us. We have this.

44

GRAYSON

The morning is quiet, the kind of heavy quiet that hums beneath the surface like a fuse waiting to burn. I stand at the floor-to-ceiling window of our penthouse, the city below me cloaked in gray-blue haze. The early hour casts everything in muted tones, glass, steel, sky. For a moment, Manhattan doesn’t feel like a battlefield. It feels like a secret.

My coffee cools in my hand, untouched. I’ve been holding it for ten minutes, maybe more. My reflection stares back at me in the glass, bare-chested, jaw shadowed, a man with the weight of a name he never asked for and a war he didn’t start. The man the world will be talking about today.

Behind me, I hear the rustle of sheets. Margot shifts in bed, her bare shoulder catching the light. She’s half-wrapped in the duvet, one hand curled over her bump, hair spilling like ink across the pillows. Even in sleep, she looks steady. Grounded. A woman who could tame storms without raising her voice.

She murmurs something unintelligible, then sighs, settling again. I set the coffee down.

I cross the room and press a kiss to her temple, slow and reverent, and whisper, “I’ve got this.”

She doesn’t wake, but her fingers twitch slightly, like she heard me.

***

Perfectly Matched HQis different in the early hours. The lobby lights are dimmed to a soft golden glow. The scent of citrus cleaner still lingers in the air from the overnight crew. Even the elevators move slower, as if the building itself is bracing.

Olivia is already in the boardroom when I arrive. She’s dressed in deep navy, tailored to kill, her heels clicking as she paces in front of the massive display wall, flipping through live social feeds and pulse metrics.

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