Page 156 of Captivated By Danger

He didn’t say anything else until he’d pulled in front of the hotel.

“Grey, I’m—”

I held my hand up. My heart pounded in my chest as it had been doing since our fight. Forcing me to speak up for myself is what he’d been doing since the day I stepped in his presence, so it literally felt that someone was slowly carving my heart out thinking about what I was about to say.

“I think that we should end our contract early.”

He looked at me. “I’m sorry for what I said, Grey, and that baby is not mine.”

I shrugged my shoulder. “You don’t know that, but I don’t care about that anymore. Diesel, I realized after my disaster of marriage and this disaster of a contract that I like kind men. I don’t like mean men like you. Yes, you’re arrogant and I knew that going into this, but your level of arrogance is astounding, and I suppose you can be arrogant because you are smart and you are good at everything you do. I don’t even know if I thought I could change you. I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I was blinded by sex. Maybe I was blinded by the gifts. Maybe I was blinded by thoughts of the man I know you can be. You come home, kiss me on the forehead, watch TV with me, have dinner with me, and was even working on learning how to take a joke and joke yourself. I saw that and focused on that, but just like you’re focused on your future, I have to focus on mine. It doesn’t include another man that’s going to beat me down with his words. You didn’t mean to say that about my daughter, in the way that you did, but you did and it really hurt my feelings. You and I can’t have a future together because hurt people, hurt people. You’re hurt. I don’t know why and it’s not my job to figure out. Goodnight, Diesel.”

Even though I said that I wasn’t going to wait for a response, I waited for a few seconds to see if he would say something… anything, but he didn’t. I got out the car, trying to hold my sobs in. Shit. Standing up for yourself felt good but hurt at the same damn time. It was hard not to turn and look at his car because if he waved me back, I’d go. Once I was inside the building, I heard the car pull off. On the elevator is where I let all my sobs go.

SIXTEEN

DIESEL

One Week Later…

Waking up, I sleepily reached for my phone just to see if Greysen had finally returned my texts and calls. I hadn’t seen her since the night I dropped her off at the hotel. I thought that she would have come home when it was time for Elle to check out of the hotel. It wasn’t until I got a notification that more nights were added to the reservation with a different credit card. Those nights ran out yesterday and I still hadn’t seen her. Even if she tried to sneak in here, I would have heard her because I hadn’t been getting much sleep and I’d been working from home all this week. I’d apologized over the text, left her voicemails, apologizing again, and she hadn’t returned either. I knew she and Elle were probably cracking up at my pleas for her to call me. Every time I say I’d just give her time to contact me, I end up contacting her again. She really had me fucked up.

Getting out of bed, I went to use the bathroom. I started the shower to let it get hot while I brushed my teeth. Even though I was a little fucked up about Greysen, I hadn’t got to the point where I couldn’t wash my ass. I didn’t think I’d get there, but I also didn’t think I’d be fucked up after she got out the car. Shit, I pulled off feeling weird as shit. That night, I went to sleep thinking that I would wake up and not be fucked up about it, but that wasn’t the case. I woke up—with a swollen fucking mouth and a bruised jaw, might I add—thinking how I could have worded that conversation differently. That’s why I stayed home from work, so we could have a different conversation. I been home all week waiting.

After I showered and got dressed, I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat. Grey’s roses were still on the table, dying. I told my housekeeper not to bother them, hoping that Grey would come back and get them, but she hadn’t so far, and my housekeeper was going to be pissed that she had to pick them up. I’d never felt compelled to buy anyone flowers, not even my sisters or mother. They didn’t like them. Metri didn’t like them because she said it reminded her of her hospital room, Denim was just a hard ass, and my mother was more of a jewelry woman.

Just looking at those flowers took me back to that evening on my yacht. That whole day was beautiful, from sunup to sundown. The photoshoot was perfect, and it took everything in me to stay professional, and then that incredible fucking sex we had on my yacht. If anybody would be pregnant, it would be her. She had me dropping loads of cum that I didn’t think I could. I’d called Elle to get some advice on how to make that day better for her and she just told me to do something thoughtful, and that it was too easy for me to buy her gifts. That’s how I came up with the photoshoot and ending the day on my yacht. I should have followed my first mind and spent the night out there and I wouldn’t be going through what I was going through now.

“Good morning,” Chef Nita approached me with my shot.

I took it and threw it back and handed it back to her.

She looked me up and down. “You’re going to work today?”

“No, I have an appointment.”

“She hit you that hard?”

I stared at her until she laughed.

“How are you though? Have you heard from her? Is she okay?”

“Is who okay?” Dymon rounded the corner, shaking out of his coat.

He looked at me and then at the table full of flowers with a shocked look on his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed a reason to come see my brother.”

“Yes. When I just spent a week with you.”

He waved me off and then hugged Chef Nita.

“Would you like a plate?”

“Sure.”

I watched Dymon dramatically push the roses out of the way.

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