Page 55 of New Girl in Town
But that didn’t mean what I now saw depended on him alone, either. It was mine and mine alone, and the knowledge of it was precious to me.
“But I’m so good at overthinking,” I told her, stretching my arms over my head and rising from my seat.
“Come on, enough serious talk. Let’s watch trashy television.”
She followed me into the living room and shot me a wink. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I hummed in agreement and flung myself down onto the couch, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders while she settled in and turned up the volume of the morning news program we had on. Everything was normal with us snuggled up like that on a Saturday morning, coffees in hand—
And that was when I heard it: Grant’s voice filled the room, and I found myself staring at him in high definition on Melinda’s television.
“Holy shit! Is that Grant?!” Melinda gaped.
“It is,” I breathed, rubbing at my eyes as if I could somehow clear up what I saw.
“So, you’ve been away for a while now...where is it you’ve been hiding? Out in the middle of a forest, right?” The news anchor laughed and gave Grant a playful swat on the arm.
“I guess you could say that.” Grant chuckled and leaned back in his chair, the suit he wore stretched across his shoulders when he crossed his arms. “Specifically, I’ve been in Colorado.” He reached forward to take a sip from the coffee cup in front of him. My eyes zeroed in on the cup’s logo for one of the nation’s top morning shows. Melinda turned up the television until all that I could hear and see was Grant on television.
MyGrant was giving an interview on a national syndicated morning news program.
“Um, why is Grant onHello America?” Melinda jabbed a finger at the screen.
A laugh bubbled up in my throat. “Don’t look at me. I feel like I’m on the moon right now,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face as I continued to watch the interview with rapt attention.
“Colorado! I guess that’s why you have such a great beard, huh?”
Grant laughed and ran a hand through his close-cropped beard. “This is actually pretty weak considering what the state of Colorado has to offer, but thank you.”
With a toss of her hair, the news anchor waved off Grant’s words and turned to look at the camera with a sunny smile. “If you’re just joining us, then you’re in for a treat. This morning we have Grant Kristoff Bradford, the wayward son of multi-billionaire banking mogul William Bradford.”
“Aurora...he’s a Bradford,” Melinda hissed.
“A what?”
“Hello? The man practically owns Wall Street. Grant is a Bradford, woman—”
I shook my head at her. “That’s not his name. I mean, that’s not his last name...” My voice trailed off, and then I said, “That’s not the name he gave me.”
“How the hell did I not put it together?” Melinda shook her head with a dazed expression on her face. “I should have figured it out, as long as he’s lived in this town. I know everyone, for godsake.”
“Really? And what about me? I only dated him,” I said, feeling like I had stepped into an alternate universe where one day your boyfriend wore flannel and ate take-out Thai on the floor of your apartment with you, and the next he co-hosted a nationally syndicated morning show. I’d fallen in love with yet another man I didn’t know, and I felt sick to my stomach about it.
“If he’s a Bradford then where the hell did he come up with St. John?” I asked, starting to pace around the apartment. “Did he just make that name up?” My voice was shrill now, climbing higher with my mounting anxiety. I’d trusted Grant, had fallen for him to the point of thinking I was in love with him, but he’d been hiding a massive part of himself from me. No, not hiding; he’d been lying to me.
My heart squeezed and I swallowed hard, trying to regain a sense of control, but it was no use. I felt sick to my stomach over the lie, over the thought of him having an entire life I knew nothing about.
Melinda’s eyes cut to me, registering the panic on my face. “It’s not your fault.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, eyes still glued to the screen. “I should have known. This was too good to be true. Of course he was lying to me.”
The host waved her cards as she spoke to him. “So, Grant, what has brought you back to New York City? Spill all the details.”
“Well, as you know we had a merger recently, and it seemed like the time to visit my family. Besides, I can only go so long without the city.”
The anchor raised a perfect eyebrow. “You went nearly five years. What exactly is it that’s kept you in Colorado?”
He shrugged, and the gesture was so like what I saw on a daily basis that I almost forgot my shock. Almost.
