Grayson's Vow (6)

“Okay, good, Virgil. Come back tomorrow morning to fill out the paperwork, and bring your ID. Nine a.m., okay?”

Virgil still hadn’t stopped nodding. “I’ll be here, sir, even earlier. I’ll be here at seven.”

“Nine is fine, Virgil, and you can call me Grayson.”

“Yes, sir, Grayson, sir. Nine a.m. Okay.”

Virgil turned his large, clumsy body, grinned and waved at Charlotte, then darted out of the kitchen, presumably before I could change my mind. I stood, silently watching out the window as Virgil left the house and started a lumbering run up my driveway, toward the decorative steel gates at the beginning of the property. I swore under my breath for the hundredth time that day and gave Charlotte another icy glare. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to sabotage me from the inside out.”

“Ah, but you do know better, my boy. I only ever root for your success.”

Of course I knew it. I snorted anyway, for effect.

Charlotte grinned and started humming as she worked at the sink.

I turned without another word and headed for the shower. I didn’t do it often, but tonight, I was going to drink myself into a stupor.



* * *



Morning sunshine streamed through the windows, bathing the foyer in golden light as I descended the stairs, way too early seeing as I’d only returned home a couple hours before. I flinched, shielding my eyes against the too-bright glare. My head was pounding. No less than I deserved. But the alcohol had drowned out my problems for a night and so it’d been worth it. I’d been working from sunup until sundown most days, and it still wasn’t enough. And after yesterday at the bank… Well, I’d deserved a night of drunken oblivion. A man could only take so much.

“Gray, dear, there’s someone here to see you. Good morning.” Charlotte smiled at me as I reached the bottom of the stairs. “Oh.” She frowned. “You look just like something the cat dragged in, don’t you?”

I ignored her last remark. “Who is it now?” First thing in the morning? What exactly couldn’t wait until a decent hour? It was barely past sunrise. And I felt like hell. “I suppose it’s someone else wanting a job? Someone with no limbs perhaps?”

Charlotte only smiled. “I don’t think she wants a job, but I didn’t ask what her business was about. And she has all the appropriate limbs. She’s waiting in your office.”

“She?”

“Yes, a young woman. She said her name is Kira. Very pretty.” Charlotte winked. Okay, well, maybe this wasn’t the worst way to start the day. Unless it was someone I’d slept with…and likely wouldn’t remember.

I downed a couple Tylenol, grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and walked to the large office at the front of the house that had once belonged to my father.

A young woman in a loose, cream-colored dress, in some sort of silky material, belted at the waist, stood with her back to me, perusing the large bookshelf against the wall opposite the doorway. I cleared my throat and she whirled around, the book in her hands falling to the floor as she brought her hands to her chest. Her eyes widened, and then she stooped to pick up the book, laughing tightly. “Sorry, you startled me.” She stood, moving suddenly toward me. “Sorry, um, sorry. Grayson Hawthorn, right?” She placed the book on the edge of my desk and held her hand out. She was barely average height, slender, with hair a deep, rich auburn pulled back severely into some sort of knot at the nape of her neck.

Not my type, but Charlotte was right: she was pretty. I tended toward tall, elegant blonds. One tall, elegant blond in particular, actually. But I shut that painful thought down immediately. No use going there. It was only when the girl named Kira got close that I really noticed her eyes—large and framed with thick lashes, brows the same rich shade as her hair arching delicately above them. But it was the color of her eyes that stunned me. The greenest I’d ever seen. They were luminous, like twin emeralds. I got the sudden feeling those eyes saw things other eyes didn’t. Bewitching. Magnetic. I felt like I couldn’t take a deep breath.

I stepped back slightly and narrowed my gaze but took her hand in mine. It was warm and small in my own. The warmth seemed to travel up my arm and through my ribcage. I frowned and removed my hand from hers. “And you are?” I hadn’t intended on the hostility in my tone.

“Kira,” she said simply, as if that explained anything at all. Okay. Kira closed those stunning eyes of hers, and I felt a momentary twinge of disappointment. She shook her head slightly before she looked back at me. “I’m sorry, do you mind if we sit down?” What did this girl want? She didn’t look familiar.

I inclined my head toward the chair in front of the massive mahogany desk. I rounded the piece of furniture, set my coffee cup down, and took a seat in the leather chair facing her. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked. “I could call Charlotte.”

“No, thank you.” She shook her head. “She already offered.” A lock slipped out of her pulled-back hair, and she made a small, annoyed frown as she attempted to smooth it back again.

I waited. My head pounded, and I massaged my temple absently. Her gaze followed my hand, and I wanted to squint against it.

She took a deep breath, straightening her spine and then crossing her legs. As her chair was positioned away from my desk, my eyes could easily wander down her shapely calves to her slim ankles that ended in a pair of blue, heeled sandals. The purse, which had been on her shoulder and now rested in her lap, had beads on it in the same shade as her shoes. I didn’t know fashion, but I knew expensive when I saw it. My coldhearted stepmother had been the epitome of coiffed decadence.