Page 117 of Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Excuse me, Bristol.” A low whisper comes from beside me. So much for quiet.

I lift one corner of the mask to peer at Meryl in the seat beside me.

“Sorry.” She nudges her glasses up the bridge of her nose with an index finger. “I had a few questions.”

Of course you do.

“Yes?” I draw on my dwindling reservoir of patience to respond with some civility. The girl has been our freaking shadow, and I’m regretting bringing her with us to Dubai, but I don’t see where we had much choice. The price you pay for publicity.

“When do I get my sit-down with Grip and Qwest together?”

“It will be the middle of the night when we arrive in Dubai,” I reply. “So we’ll go to sleep, acclimate our bodies some. I thought you guys could do the interview over brunch tomorrow?”

“Oh, that works.” Meryl jots something down in the notebook I’ve never seen her without. “And the desert shoot with Grip? Can that still happen?”

“Yes. I just need to confirm details with my liaison there. I think it can happen tomorrow afternoon, if your photographer will be ready?”

“Yeah, should be fine.” Meryl looks down the aisle to where the photographer she brought along snores faintly. “I think he wants to keep it simple.”

“Simple we can do.” I lower the sleep mask and cross my fingers that she’ll leave me alone.

“I’ve never flown on a private jet,” she says. “Hmmm.” I refuse to encourage her.

“I guess you have, huh? I mean, you’re dating Charles Parker, so of course you’ve been on a private jet. We saw the pictures.”

“Hmmm.”

My monosyllable won’t give this little newshound anything she doesn’t already have. Parker said he would “take care of ” the media’s impression that we’re dating. He needs to deal with it soon.

I’ve never been sure I believed in God.

My family wasn’t religious in the least. In a clan of prodigies and pianists, a concert hall was our cathedral. But here in a vast desert of Dubai, I’m positive that only the deft hand of a higher power could have crafted beauty like this. Not the rolling landscape of sand and sun, but the right angle of jaw lightly dusted with shadow, the bold slant of cheekbones, the heavy sweep of brow and lashes, the lavish spread of soft lips and white teeth.

“Grip, could you turn a little to your left for me?” the photographer asks from behind his rapidly clicking camera. “That’s it, and just prop your foot up?”

Grip bends his knee, setting his foot against the quad bike he’s leaning on. Wide rips in his dark wash jeans flash the sculpture of muscles in his thighs. The slashes in his Straight Outta Compton T-shirt give glimpses of the bronzed skin wrapped around his ridged torso. Even in the hour we’ve been out here on the glorious Red Dune, the sun has bronzed him, heated the rich, caramel-colored skin to a deeper hue. “We almost done?” Grip asks for maybe the tenth time. “It’s hot as hell out here.”

“Sorry.” Meryl scrunches her expression into an apology. “Paul, how close are we to getting what we need?”

“Just a little bit longer,” Paul says distractedly, still snapping photos. “I want to get a few more before the light changes.”

“If by light you mean that sun beating down on my head for the last hour,” Grip says, a grin tipping one side of his mouth. “I’m ready for it to change.”

“Sorry.” I say. “Almost there.”

His eyes flick to me briefly, sliding over my arms and shoulders in the tank top I’ve tucked into my black jeans. He hasn’t looked at me, has barely spoken to me since we landed in Dubai. As much as I’ve pushed him away, avoided him, I miss looking into his eyes and seeing the things we don’t say to each other, but feel, even though I’ve never voiced those feelings to him, and probably never will. One day I’ll look into his eyes and they’ll be void of whatever he felt for me before. It’ll be gone because I killed it. Maybe it’s already dead.

“And we’re done.” Paul lowers his camera and squints up into the bright sun overhead. “Just in time.”

Grip relaxes against the ATV, running big hands over his head. His hair has grown just a little since he cut out the locs. Still not long enough to pull.

Right. Must stop thinking of someone else’s man in terms of pulling his hair when he comes inside me since . . . he never will.

“Any chance I could take this thing out?” Grip asks the guide who brought us out here, patting the huge ATV.

“To-to ride, yes?” the man asks in his stilted English, his expression uncertain.

“Yeah.” Grip’s smile is all persuasion. “Come on. I’ll sign a waiver or whatever anyone else would do.”

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