Grayson's Vow (64)
But…now that the damage was done, was there really any reason not to enjoy him while I could? At least we’d gone into this honestly. It wasn’t going to be a surprise when things ended. Perhaps I’d leave Grayson with my heart slightly bruised. But wasn’t a slightly bruised heart worth the electricity we created together? I shivered just remembering the way he’d touched me the night before, the way he’d seemed to know my body so well.
“Cold?” he asked, putting his hand in front of the vent to test the temperature of the air.
“Maybe a little,” I said, trying to explain why I’d shivered.
The ride went quickly, with us chatting mostly about mundane topics. I knew for myself I’d had enough heavy with what had happened at my father’s house and then telling Grayson my painful story at the hotel.
“Oh,” I said when we were about half an hour into the drive, “I forgot to mention your party has a theme.”
“My party…” he repeated. “What’s the theme?”
“Well, I thought about the first thing I said about your house when you took me on a tour.”
He glanced over at me, obviously thinking. “That it was the lair of a dragon?”
“No, I said that about the maze.”
His lip quirked. “Ah, right. You’ll have to remind me what you said about the house.”
“I said it looked like a fairy-tale castle.”
“Okay…”
I laughed. “The theme will be a fairy-tale masquerade,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Perfect, right? And the date is two weeks away. I circled it on the calendar in the kitchen and in your office.”
“Two weeks? Will anyone even show up with such short notice?”
“They’ll be even more likely to show up. Planning it with such little notice sends the message we don’t care whether they’re there or not. They’ll be intrigued. The whole town will come.” Hopefully.
Grayson chuckled. “Okay. I’ll save Party Psychology 101 to you.”
“Plus, I have limited time to make my mark on your life,” I reminded him.
“Oh, you’ve made your mark, Kira.”
I chuckled softly. “I mean a positive mark. Something lasting,” I mused, thinking about all the ways I hoped my plans for the party would benefit him for the long term.
He glanced at me for several beats and then looked back to the road. A small smile played on his lips, but he didn’t comment.
When we arrived back in Napa, it was just after noon. Grayson took our bags out of his truck and started for the house. “I’m going to put these in the foyer. Why don’t you come down to the winemaking facility with me and see what you’ve invested in?” He shot a charming smile over his shoulder, squinting into the sunshine, and my stomach flipped. God, he was gorgeous.
“Okay.” I was looking forward to seeing the winemaking facility. I’d lived here for weeks now and had never been invited inside that mysterious building where Grayson seemed to work constantly. I was eager to find out what was inside.
He was back outside a minute later, telling me it appeared Charlotte and Walter were out and they must have taken Sugar Pie with them. I accompanied him down the hill, past the lush-smelling rose bushes and small white flowers that were both sweet and woody. The scents mingled, and I inhaled a deep breath, sighing. “It smells so good right here.”
“Roses and hawthorn flowers,” he said, but his expression had turned grim. Why? “My stepmother planted them years ago when she was pregnant with Shane. Charlotte told her the rose symbolizes balance—the flower is the beauty and the contrasting thorns are a reminder that love can be painful. The hawthorn flowers are obviously for our name. They’re the last things she ever planted on the property.”
“Oh, why?” I asked, thinking about the rose pin Charlotte had let me borrow on my wedding day.
“Because she was planting the day my mother—the woman my father cheated on her with—showed up to drop me on their doorstep. She never ceased telling me that the fragrance of these flowers reminded her of the worst day of her life: the day she’d discovered she’d been betrayed and that every time she looked at me she’d be reminded of that fact.”
My heart froze and then thrummed painfully in my chest. “Oh,” I breathed, taking his hand and squeezing it as we walked. “That’s… I’m so sorry. How cruel.” His father had thrown his puppy in the pool, and his stepmother said things like that to him? It was a wonder he still wanted to live here at all.
I thought back on the small hints he’d dropped about his family. You must favor your mother, I’d said. Yes, to everyone’s dismay, he’d answered. Oh, Grayson. Now I understood his bitterness and also his…deep loneliness.
“She actually tried to have them ripped out several times, but they just wouldn’t go away. Kind of like me, she’d said.” He smiled as if what he’d said was the least bit humorous, as if he were unaffected by the cruelty of those remembered words. It must have wounded him deep inside his heart though. It was impossible that it hadn’t.
I squeezed his hand again and moved closer as we walked, offering the comfort of my presence if he wanted it. The thought of the beautiful man walking next to me being unwanted and unloved by anyone made my heart ache. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel honored. He was such a private person and usually so reserved. And yet he’d shared a secret pain with me.