Page 73 of Loved By The Bad Boy

“I’ll call them and apologize,” I tell him. He grunts in approval, and a half-smile takes over my lips. We will win this case. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

The call ends, and I dial Mom’s number. She doesn’t answer. Dad too. The door opens before I can redial their numbers. I rush into Ben’s arms because I badly need a hug from my boyfriend.

Breaking away from the hug, Ben plants a kiss on my nose. “Are you okay?” I’m not, but my head bobs up and down in a mechanical mod. Ben catches that, and he murmurs, “You’re lying.”

“Maybe. I’m just tired.” And scared of losing the love of my parents. “Where have you been?”

“Downstairs missing you.”

I laugh. “I was missing you too.”

Ben sweeps me off the floor and lowers me to the bed. I raise my hands for him to take off my shirt, then do the same for him. We grin at each other. I lie down first. He crawls in behind me and holds me close in reassurance. His body warmth seeps into me, and a content sigh ripples through me.

This is why I need to be with him. He calms me.

My parents might consider our dedication to each other unhealthy, but that’s how we operate.

“I’m nervous,” Ben whispers, tugging the cover over our waists. Silence follows his words. I roll away from him to inspect his face. His eyes are closed, one hand clasped behind his head. I prop my head on the same pillow he’s using, and his hand snakes around my waist. “What if it never makes it to court? What if the judge finds her not guilty? There is no evidence except my word.”

“Anything can happen.”

“Yeah?” he asks. I nod, though his eyes are still closed. “She came to the house. She wanted to talk.”

This is news to me, and I can’t tell how that affects him since he keeps his eyes closed. I kiss his closed eyelids, and they flutter open. Blue eyes crease at the corners as his lips form a tiny smile.

“When?” I whisper.

“I told her to fuck off. Not in those exact words, but she got the message.”

“How did it feel?”

His emotions coat his words. “Scary. I think I’m over it, but all it takes is a mention of her name.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, hugging him. He strokes my back, more for his sake than mine.

“I’m sorry for dragging you through this mess.”

“It’s not a mess,” I whisper against his neck. “I want to be here.”

“About the vogue challenge, I’m sorry you lost. It’s their loss, not yours.”

A rambling Ben is new to me. I slide my fingers into his hair and kiss his nose. He relaxes, and I move the massage to his shoulders. I don’t care about the results. Doing that helped to boost my self-confidence. I still have the pictures on my Instagram page. I tell him that, hoping to make him feel better, and he lights up like I bought him a store full of art materials for his sketches.

“It would have looked good on your portfolio. You looked like a model in them.”

I blush. “You are the one who looked like a model.”

But the thought of being on the runway grows more appealing. Mom has proposed it a few times. At first, she would joke about me wearing some of her collections. Olivia helped once. It was another thing they bonded over. She might have been a face for Mom’s line if we had never fought.

“Have you ever considered modeling? I think you’ll do great at it, Gracie.”

Laughter locks in my chest. A bigger part of me can’t fully connect to the conversation. It feels like Ben is using this conversation to avoid the topic of Tessa. He takes my silence as a cue to drop the subject. I tuck my leg between his, pressing my chest into his to share his body warmth.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready enough to face her.” His hand slips into my shorts, and he cups my ass. If this is a distraction, I promise it’s working. “But you’re here with me, so that’s okay.”

Everything will be okay as long as we have each other.

---