Page 59 of New Girl in Town
Chapter Eleven
It was just after eight p.m. when I’d finished doing the dishes and putting the kettle on. After the excitement of discovering that my boyfriend was an affluent heir, the day had shaped up to be a quiet one. The chirping of the computer signaled an incoming video call, and I shut off the kettle on my way to my computer.
Who was video calling me on a Saturday?
I kept in contact with my family back home, and the few friends I’d managed to keep despite Dylan’s controlling behavior. But most of them had families of their own and wouldn’t be calling me out of the blue on a Saturday night. I moused over the video call box and saw that it was Grant, or at least a user with his profile photo. Seeing as I didn’t think the paparazzi would be concerned much with fooling Grant’s maybe-girlfriend, I deduced it was him.
Wringing my hands, I sank down into the chair in front of the screen and took a deep breath. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I knew I had to say something, so I accepted the call.
Grant’s face appeared on my computer screen, and I wished I’d thought through answering the call. Panic coursed through me, but I lifted my chin and forced it down. This was Grant, not a stranger. I could talk to Grant, or at least I thought so. I swallowed harder looking at him because now with miles between us his familiar blue eyes seemeddifferent.
Was he really the same man I had fallen for? He was the same man who had kept his true identity a secret from me. He’d never acted like the man in the expensive suit and perfect hair I had seen on the television just that morning. My Grant was salt of the earth...but looking back on it all, had that down-to-earth man ever been real?
“Sweetheart.”
Grant’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts and grounded me in the here and now.
“Hey.” I nodded at him, drew my legs up onto the chair, and wrapped my arms around them. I stared at Grant from just over my knees, and when I didn’t say anything more he frowned at me.
“I can barely see your face, Aurora.”
I didn’t stifle my sigh, but I did lift my chin above my knees to look at him. “Better?” I asked, but my tone wasn’t friendly. It was wary, and I could tell from the pinched look on Grant’s face that he heard it.
“What’s going on?”
“You tell me.”
“If something is wrong, and I can tell something is, Aurora, you have to talk to me. I’m not a mind reader.” Grant crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair he sat in. He looked good, his soft grey shirt stretched over his chest when he moved back to look at me. His hair looked wet, as if he had just gotten out of the shower, and I licked my lips, trying not to think of him naked in the shower. As put out as I was with him, I was only human, and the tantalizing thought of his naked body set my pulse racing.
I cleared my throat and did my best not to dwell on memories of us in my shower just that week. I was supposed to be mad at him, not swooning.
I tightened my grip on my legs and shot him a brittle smile. “Not a mind reader, but you sure do make one hell of a morning show host.”
He closed his eyes with a small sigh and leaned his head back against the chair. “You saw that, huh?”
I snorted. “Sweetheart,” I said in a mimic of his deep baritone, and sat up taller, letting my legs slide off the chair with a thud. “Of course I saw it, Grant. You were on the number one morning show in the nation, how could I have not seen it?”
“Look, I know this...is a bit of a shock, but you have to let me explain why I didn’t tell you.” He opened his eyes and leaned toward the screen with such an earnest look that for a moment I forgot why I was so upset with him.
But that moment shattered and I caught a glimpse of the luxurious furnishings behind him—a spacious penthouse window that showed the New York skyline all lit up like the fourth of July from the lights below—and it came rushing back with a vengeance.
“A shock?” I glared at him. “Don’t you think that’s putting it mildly?”
“Aurora, this really isn’t that big of a deal. I’m still me.” Grant raised his hands and looked at me again in that earnest way, but I was having none of it.
“No, Grant. You really aren’t the same guy. The guy that I knew,myGrant,doesn’t wear fancy suits, doesn’t go on national television, didn’t grow up in one of America’s wealthiest families, and he sure as hell wasn’t a damn Bradford!” My fingers curled tight on the chair armrests and my breath came short by the time I finished speaking.
“Sweetheart...look, I know you’re upset about this, but y—” he started, but I interrupted him.
“Upset? Oh, I’m beyond upset, Grant. I don’t evenknow who you are,” I cried, my voice echoing in my empty apartment.
He ran his hands through his hair with a muffled curse. “Give me a chance to explain things to you!”
“Explain things? Don’t you think you could have,” I said, tossing up my hands, “oh, I don’t know! Used all the time we had together to do that?”
“I might have, if I wasn’t constantly working against your hangups about us being together.”
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
