Page 63 of Resting Grump Face
“I have my reasons.”
“Abandonment issues, is what the author suggests.”
“Sienna…”
Him uttering my name is like a punch to my gut. Not from Ryker, but one that I’d like to give myself. I suddenly feel terrible about pressing this issue when he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. I feel bad about pushing and making him uncomfortable.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “We don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t mean to cross the line. Sometimes it’s just hard to know when to stop.”
Ryker bites his lips and gives me an appreciative nod. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s probably hard for you to tell because you’re so clumsy you fall on your head all the time. Must have left some lasting damage.”
I don’t even reply properly. Instead, I just grin like an idiot and then try to hide it. It’s a good feeling to talk to someone who is as much of a dumbass as you are. A really good feeling. “You should be careful,” I say eventually. “People who go so far as to maintain an entire journal dedicated to examining you and your entire life might eventually go even further than this.”
Ryker nods and changes the topic for a moment, but a little later, after taking the last bite of his dinner, for whatever reason, brings it back up on his own again.
“It’s because of my ex. Miranda, I think I mentioned her briefly. She’s the one?—”
“You did the Litterati with.”
“Right.” He clears his throat. “She was my first relationship, and my only actual relationship, I guess. We met in college, started dating, planned our lives together, the whole bit. I was going to let Bruce take over the company alone. So while he started working with our dad, I started my own firm with Mira. It was just the two of us. I would take the lead on our pro-bono cases and help out with the cases that actually made money, which she would focus on. We were associated with a couple of big firms that I had connections to through my dad. They would throw us some high-profile cases here and there so we wouldn’t run a deficit. I didn’t really like taking advantage of my family name, but truthfully, in the end, I didn’t care because it allowed me to defend people who actually needed defending, instead ofworking for some shitty conglomerate.” Ryker takes a breath and readjusts the empty glass in front of him.
That’s already more information than my research into Miranda had yielded the other day.
“Everything went fine for a couple years, more than fine. Work was a lot, but worthwhile. Mira and I were doing great, I thought. We even got engaged. She proposed to me. She was also amazing at her job. Never lost a case. So, naturally, our partners got interest in her, and, I guess, she got interested in them too. Or rather, in one of them…” He stops for a second and downs the last drops in his already depleted glass.
“She cheated on you?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“That bitch,” I gasp.
Ryker laughs quietly with a slightly tortured expression. “She started working alongside this other lawyer. Ambitious, driven, willing to sell his own grandmother if it meant winning a case for whatever company he was representing. I opened doors for her, but he was everything she had always wanted me to be. And when she saw I wasn’t that… I would never be that…”
I nod sympathetically and reach across the table to take Ryker’s hand into my own. For a moment, we touch and I can feel the warmth flow from him to me and back. Then he pulls away.
“It wasn’t even so much the physical act of cheating with another man that bothered me. I mean, yes, that made me angry, very angry, but what really hurt was what she told me when we broke up. She admitted that she had never really cared about me. Our entire relationship was ultimately for her to get ahead in her career. She wasn’t actually interested in me or working pro-bono cases with me; she was interested in my connections, in my father’s connections. And when she saw a chance to take the next step, she did. She used me until she didn’t need me anymore.The guy she was cheating with, his firm hired her as a partner right away. Needless to say, the engagement was called off. I moved out of our apartment, and that’s how I ended up running Grayson Holdings.”
“Which you hate.” I nod, slowly realizing how the puzzle pieces that make up Ryker Grayson get rearranged into a more coherent picture.
“I don’t hate it.”
“I’m sorry all of that happened to you, but I think you do. I actually know, because of your condition.”
Ryker looks at me with questioning eyes and matching brows.
“The Resting-Grump-Face.”
He laughs and orders us another drink. “I don’t have a Resting-Grump-Face.”
“Right now you don’t. It’s a 9-5 condition. Well, more like 9-9 for you. Come tomorrow morning, you probably will again.”
“I doubt that,” he says and allows his eyes to bore deep into mine. “Maybe my condition is caused by your annoying ass?”
The server delivers another beer. I take a little sip and answer, “I considered that, but from all the information I gathered, you already had it before we met. Plus, you’re with me right now and?—”
Ryker purposely pulls his eyebrows into one line, pushes his face down, which causes him to have a double chin, and, to really sell it, he growls audibly.
I laugh and can feel a somewhat familiar warmth spread through my belly. It’s the same one that haunts me whenever he smiles, or laughs, or does something silly likes this.
