Page 46 of Now and Forever
Golden's phone vibrated against the table; it was no doubt Gaige. Unwilling to let anything interrupt the moment, she ignored it. Grayson’s eyes flicked to the phone, his jaw tightening slightly, but he said nothing.
Having finished their meal some time ago they were both sitting on the couch listening to the crackle of the fires on either side of the room and the noisy howl of the wind outside as they talked.
"Where do you see music in your life in the future?" Grayson asked, his focus never straying from her.
Golden felt herself flush. Setting down her half-empty wine glass on the coffee table, she looked up at the blank TV and thought about his question. "To be honest I'm not sure. Right now, nothing professional. Maybe just more lounge singing or maybe a few theater classes at the college, to scratch the itch of wanting to sing. Maybe that will change in the future but who knows," she said with a shrug.
Grayson nodded understandingly just as her phone, which was sitting on the cushion next to her, vibrated once then twice with two rapid messages. They both stared at the screen light up.
His eyes flicked to hers, his expression darkening. A deafening silence crashed over them spilling to the rest of the room anddespite the two crackling fires in the room the temperature seemed to drop as if the blizzard had found its way inside.
The couch creaked as he sat back, his keen eyes looking from her phone to her. "Who keeps texting you?" His voice was deceptively soft. "All day I've watched you smiling and looking at your phone."
Golden opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Her mind spun as she thought of her very damning text conversation with Gaige.
A line appeared between Grayson's brows and his lips thinned in restrained anger.
Faster than she could comprehend, Grayson reached for her phone, snatching it up. "Then let me see," he growled.
Panicked, Golden tried to reach for her phone. "No wait. Stop. Grayson, don’t!" she cried. She couldn't let him see what she texted. She would die if he did.
But Grayson wasn't listening to her. Standing up, he walked over to the window as he swiped to unlock her phone.
Raw menace etched onto his face as he turned his back to her reaching hands. "I swear to God if it's the Serrano kid, I will murder him in front of you," he mumbled as his thumb swiped up on her screen.
Panic clawed at her chest, wrapping its invisible hands around her throat, making it hard to breathe. With every swipe of his thumb and furrow of his brow her mind spiraled, envisioning the look of judgment on his face when he ultimately found her texts to his son. The room was beginning to close in around her, the walls pressing in closer as the wave of humiliation threatened to swallow her whole.
"Oh God," she whispered and turned to run toward the living room door but a strong arm caught her around her waist lifting her practically off the ground.
"Your father kissed me on the plane. I don’t know what to do. I'm losing my mind," Grayson read the text from behind her. She could hear the menacing smile in his voice.
Golden nearly cried. She covered her face with her hands. This couldn't be happening.
"Please don't," she begged, her voice tight with unshed tears.
Grayson's arm only tightened, keeping her secured against him as he read. "And Gaige responded saying, Thank fucking Christ, it's about time. What do you mean what should you do? You've been obsessed with him for over six years. Kiss him back or get naked, you pick. Just do something."
Her heart hammered against her chest. Golden pressed a hand to it. "I think I'm having a heart attack."
Tossing her phone onto the couch, Grayson grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her around, and backed her into the wall. Beside them the window radiated with a bite of chill, only a fraction of the cold outside in the howling blizzard.
"Is it true?" Grayson rasped; his voice heavy with emotion. "Are you obsessed with me?"
Golden refused to look up at him. She couldn’t bear to see his laughing face or worse, a look of pitying disgust. Keeping her eyes downcast, she bit the inside of her lip to force back the tears that threatened to spill. She wanted to run away from this moment so bad. She wanted to lock herself up in one of the rooms and find some way back to the airport in the morning.As if reading her mind, Grayson's large hands flexed on her shoulders keeping her firmly in his grasp.
Angry and embarrassed she tried to twist away from him. "Don't do this," she hissed at him. Pulling away from him, she glared at him with burning eyes. "You have to have known I had a crush on you. Don't make fun of me for it."
Grayson's eyes went wide and he took a step toward her. Golden tried to maintain the distance she had won from him but he kept her corralled between the table and the wall—absolutely cornered.
"Make fun of you?" he whispered. Reaching out to her, he placed his hands on her shoulders again and gently pulled her to him until there was less than a foot between them. "Golden, I swear to God, I'm just trying to understand you so I don’t cross the line any further than I did earlier on the plane. You're right, two years ago I knew exactly how you felt about me. And I knew exactly how I felt about you. Do you know what it did to me to watch you mature for four years practically under my roof? To instinctively know by the third year, you were the one I had been waiting for my whole life? A child, for God's sake?! It was fate dealing me another cruel hand. I had no choice but to just sit by and watch. Watch you as you became the glorious, devastatingly beautiful woman standing in front of me now. I had to show you my unwavering support as you flounced around Gaige's friends, fell asleep on my couch, and then left me to move across the country and start a new life," he said through gritted teeth. "And you say I'm making fun of you. Are you serious? How about you finally put me out of my misery."
"H-How am I making you miserable?" she stuttered, beyond floored by his words.
His hands dropped away from her but he didn’t give her a chance to mourn the loss as he loomed over her, ticking off a finger at each damning accusation. "Let's see, allowing Carter Serrano to carry you home when you could've simply called me. Being the smartest and most beautiful woman in the entire room but still relegating me to the role of your friend's dad. Or," he paused, planting one hand on the wall beside her ear and the other on the other side. "How about forcing me to hire a man to keep an eye on you for two years straight while reporting to me the events of your life as well as your first boyfriend."
Golden gasped. Hired a man? In New York? She thought back to her time in New York and subsequently, the guy she briefly dated. Did Grayson really know about Tye?
A knowing look passed in Grayson's eyes and her stomach dropped. He did know about him.
