Page 61 of Dating the Rebel
But he hadn’t realized how angry she was until she’d lashed out at him. And then he’d gotten defensive and angry himself. But seeing her like this, so obviously hurt, his anger drained away to shame.
“I’m not taking it away,” he assured her. “All I want to do is help, and you wouldn’t let me join the service—”
“You still want to join?” she asked, her voice raw with the betrayal she must have been feeling.
And he finally realized fully what a fool he’d been. He’d been sleeping with her and telling her that he was only doing it so she would let him date other women. He dragged his hand through his hair and over his face. “No. I never really wanted to join.”
“Then what was all the auditioning about?” she asked. “Just to have sex with me?”
He’d had some dangerous missions before, and this reminded him very much of the one where he’d had to navigate through a field of land mines. He didn’t want to make one misstep, because it could cost him so much. It could cost him everything.
Then he remembered her one request of him: honesty. “I wanted to make you so crazy about me that you would do whatever I wanted you to do,” he admitted. “And I wanted you to leave Blair and Teo alone. That was the reason I sought you out in the first place.”
“And in the second?” she asked.
He groaned. “God, it’s easier to lie than to be honest,” he admitted. Because honesty was so dangerous. “I don’t want to say you and the sex were in second place. But...”
“It’s true,” she said.
“It started out with me just protecting Blair,” he said. “But then I wanted you, and once I had you, I wanted you more and more.” Like now, he ached for her. But he didn’t dare touch her. She was too angry and too hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt her any more. “I wanted you so much that I forgot what my original mission was...”
It had all gotten so muddled for him, like now. He was struggling to explain himself to her, struggling to explain what she’d come to mean to him: everything. But the wrong words kept coming out.
“To destroy me?” she asked. “Is that why you’re taking over my company?”
“No, Miranda. I want to help you. Your sisters said you won’t let them take out a loan on their own, so I figured the only way I could put money into the business is if I owned part of it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need you to rescue me, Grant. I need you to respect me. I figured out a way to make the business what I want it to be about.”
“Fun,” he said.
Her eyes widened; she must have been surprised that he remembered. “And love,” she said. “Money can’t buy love. It’s just there or it isn’t.”
Did she have any for him? Or only distrust?
“I want dating to be about getting to know each other, having adventures—”
“Like us,” Grant said. “We got to know each other. We had fun.” More fun and excitement than he’d ever experienced. “We could figure out some way to incorporate my and Blair’s business, Private Flights, with Liaisons International—arrange dates in exotic locations.”
“We could,” she agreed—much to his surprise. But then she added, “If I could trust you. But all you’ve done is lie and play games with me. And I have no idea if what you’re telling me now is the truth or if you’re up to something else.”
He sucked in a breath, but he couldn’t come up with a valid argument to what she’d said. He hadn’t been honest with her. Then.
“I’m being honest now,” he vowed.
And she shrugged. “I have no way of knowing.”
“Miranda...” He came around the desk and reached out to her now.
But she held him back, her hands out—her arms stiff—as if she didn’t want him anywhere close to her. “I can’t have a partner I can’t trust, in business or in life...”
He understood what she’d meant about money not being able to buy love. No matter how much money he put into her business, she was never going to love him...because she was never going to trust him.
Over the years he’d had some missions go bad, but he’d always been able to adapt—to come up with a new plan—so that he had survived. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure what to do. Except to give her what she wanted.
Honesty.
“I know I screwed up,” he said. “Badly...and I know you’re probably not going to believe me. But it’s the truth...” Grant trailed off, struggling to find the words he’d never said to another woman. They were in his heart, so he pulled them from there and told her, “I love you.”
