Call it whatever you want, but even a nice resort and great sex right before drifting off to sleep couldn’t keep me asleep through the entire night. This incredible hotel suite and the handsome man I was excited to be reunited with should have made me kick my habit of not sleeping well unless I was in my own bed—or Alex’s bed. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
I went to curl around him, seeing that it was still dark outside our balcony windows, but when I moved closer, I found a drenched spot instead of him.
“What the hell?” I questioned quietly, shifting to turn on the light and check the time. “It’s two in the morning. Why is he in the shower?”
As soon as I asked the question, I heard the shower shut off. I eyed the soaked sheets where he’d been sleeping, and I was confused as hell.
Did the poor guy have a fever or a nightmare? I had to wonder because the room wasn’t hot, the doors to our balcony suite were open to let in the crisp ocean air, and yet unless Alex had gone for a swim and taken a quick nap while soaking wet, I had no other conclusions as to what’d happened.
“Hey, dimples,” he said, the natural scratch to his voice was lower, and his face appeared as if he’d been given the worst news of his life.
“Hey.” I got out of bed and walked to where he had a towel neatly wrapped around his waist. “Are we meeting at the job site six hours earlier than I was told?”
He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “No,” he stated with a heavy sigh.
I took his hand and grabbed a hotel robe from the closet. “Tell me what happened.”
There was no getting around the fact that this man was disturbed about something, and I had a weird feeling it had to do with reuniting with his sister. I walked with him to the other room in our suite—a room that I thought was utterly unnecessary until now.
Before I could pull him to sit on the bed, he took me into his arms and pulled me into his chest. Instead of Alex’s usual way resting his chin on the top of my head, he leaned his forehead on my shoulder.
“Baby,” I softly said, “talk to me. What happened? Did you have a nightmare or something?”
I was completely lost. I’d never seen this man show any weakness, and now, here I was, holding him—something I never imagined myself doing with the outwardly and inwardly strong man I knew. This was a completely broken version of Alex, and it was so heart-rending that it brought tears to my eyes to hold him.
“I want to say it’s nothing,” he pulled back and rose, and his mouth twitched in humor, “but I’m not the pathological liar in this relationship.”
I eyed him and gave him a nudge. “I thought we were past the days of you catching me lying about finances.”
“I know, but you did it so flawlessly.” He climbed onto the bed, reclined against the fifty-seven or so pillows on it, and held his arm out to invite me to lay next to him. “I can’t explain why I woke up sweating like I did, but it seems I had a night terror.”
“Were you or are you concerned about your sister?” I peered up from where I leaned against his shoulder and saw him staring blankly at the wall opposite our bed. “You didn’t seem particularly thrilled at first when you joined us at lunch. I mean, everyone was screwing off with their jokes, but you seemed distant. Jim seemed to see it too.”
“I suppose it’s all coming back because I saw Jane again. I have no clue,” he said as I sat up to face him.
“All I know of your past is that it was shitty, and your grandfather adopted you. I never pried, but I’m not stupid either. Something had to have happened for your grandfather to move away from your parents, and your reaction to seeing your sister makes me think that maybe there are some things you haven’t processed entirely. I don’t know.”
He chewed on his frowning and tight lips, and it was almost as if I could see a certain darkness wash over his expression. It was as if he were seeing right through me and staring at something else.
“Alex, baby,” I said, him blinking a few times and looking at me again. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh of disgust or that there was something I didn’t understand. “I know that, yes.”
“What happened to give you night terrors?”
His hand rubbed along where my leg was exposed. “My father was a horrible man,” he finally said. “He hated me with every fiber of his being. He was a physically abusive drunk, and…” he stopped himself and closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry. Did he beat you?”
“As often as he could,” Alex sighed. “And in every way he could manage. Mentally and physically.”
“Oh, my God.” A million thoughts were flooding my brain, and I couldn’t form any of them into a sentence that could’ve been construed as an appropriate response.
“My grandfather took me out of my abusive home on the night I’d had enough. I was a troubled teen at that point anyway. I may have been an all-star freshman quarterback, but I was stealing booze from my drunk dad’s liquor cabinet and getting wasted just to numb the abuse.”
“When did he start doing this to you? Was he abusive to your sister?”
“Just me,” he answered flatly. “If I was gone, he’d drag around my mom. I came home from a game one night—sober, for once—and found the old man slapping around my mom, and I just snapped. I pulled my dad off of her, and I beat the shit out of him. My mom had to throw herself on me to get me to stop. I wanted to kill him, and I almost had my chance.” The look on his face was distant as if he were reliving that night, and I could almost feel the hatred for his father bubbling inside him as he told me the story. He shook his head, and part of me felt like the defenses he’d laid down to start sharing with me were quickly put back in place. “Ultimately, my grandfather did the one thing my mother wouldn’t—protect me.”
I felt my heart racing, and perhaps it was because I’d heard many stories of horrific abuse, and it never failed to hurt my heart. I could imagine him as a helpless child, being beaten by the person that he should’ve been able to trust most, and it crushed me.
Alex reached up and smiled when a tear slipped out of my eye. “Don’t you dare cry over that, Bree. It’s in the past. I’ll move past this like I always fucking do. I’ve managed to attract a lot of success in my life, and my grandfather did everything in his power to make sure I would survive my traumatic past.”
“Still,” I said, “I can’t imagine how you could move on without therapy. Why didn’t anyone call the cops on that bastard?”
“What seems like an easy solution is not so easy to the people living with an abuser. We were all terrified of him.” He was right. I had no idea what it must’ve been like, and part of me was beginning to think it was much worse than he was letting on. “My youngest sister finally called our grandfather, and that was only because that night, it was obvious that one of us was going to die. My mother’s father offered to take her and all of us children—to get us all out of there and into safety—but she chose my dad instead. I guess she thought that she could help him. I have no idea why she stayed, but she insisted that I was the problem and that he wouldn’t hurt any of them. So long as I left, they’d all be safe.”
“What the living fuck?” I said, not knowing if that was what Alex needed to hear or not. I wasn’t a mother, but the thought of a mother saying that to her child—letting him feel that he was the one to blame—made me feel instant rage and disbelief.
“That’s why Jane hates her. Maybe it’s too forgiving of me, but I just think my mom was in a position that she wasn’t emotionally capable of handling. I think it was the only way she knew to survive.”
“Emotionally capable? Fuck me. She made it seem like you were the problem. I don’t even know what to say to that.” My gut reaction was to tell him what I really thought of his spineless, wretched mother, but I also didn’t want to shut him down either, not when he barely started to open up. “Alex, she chose an abusive alcoholic, who hated his son for God knows why, over you. What kind of parent does that?”
“One who’s terrified he’ll find her?” Alex shrugged. “Jane left for the military soon after I went off with Grandfather Grayson. My grandfather insisted I keep the Grayson name clean and do right by it.”
“Fucking bullshit,” I added, getting pissed at that man too. There were a lot of things in life I was ambivalent about, but victim-blaming and shaming were not one of them. How dare these people pile all of this on the child? What the fuck was wrong with them?
Alex smirked. “Jane would love you if she and I could get past the fact that all we ever talk about—no matter what is going on in our lives—is our fucked-up family.” He exhaled. “My grandfather was set on sobering me up and teaching me a better way to cope and overcome a painful life and being stronger because of it. And I did that. He was a strict, no-nonsense man for sure, but he was at every one of my games, and he made sure I did what I needed to attend Oxford, and he insisted that I go into therapy.” He shrugged. “I guess therapy has a shelf life because these dreams make me wake up feeling like I’m in a horror show are back with a vengeance. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”
“If it keeps up, at least you can talk to Elena. Having a best friend who’s married to a therapist can be lovely.”
He relaxed some with a lazy smile. “If it keeps up, I’ll be sure to make an appointment with Dr. Elena Brooks, ride a horse or two, and get back on my feet again.”
“Does Jim know about this?”
“Jim knows that my father was an abusive alcoholic, and my grandfather saved me from that bastard, just as his father saved him from his drug addict mother.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “And is he okay? Jesus Christ.”
“In the end, Jim’s story played out nicely,” he grinned. “He’s happily married with two beautiful daughters.”
“And your story? How does Alex’s story end?”
He grinned at me. “He learns to love hard and become fearless in doing so.” He pulled me to lay on his body. “You say I saved you. Well, that was merely in business.” His hands ran over my back. “Because of you, I’ve learned how to do what my family said I was never capable of doing.”
“And that is?”
“Loving. I’m in love with a beautiful woman. That’s my happy ending, baby,” he grinned. “And one I never believed I deserved until recently.”
“You probably felt that way because your dad impressed that in your brain a long time ago.”
“Possibly. Either way, now you know the dark secret of Alexander Logan Grayson.”
I chuckled. “You seem a little lighter now that you talked some of it out.”
He touched my nose. “I can promise you this right here and now that you’re the woman for me, and since I gave you more information than even Jim knows, you have to marry me now.”
I laughed. “Nice try, buddy,” I smiled. “You think I’m going—”
“I’m serious.” His eyes widened as if he’d seen the light, and the heavens opened up with some revelation. He sat up and framed my face with his hands. “I know that I’m decided on loving you and only you until I die. I know that I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and I know I never will. If you don’t feel it, then please tell me.”
“Well, it happened quickly, but I’ve never felt this way either,” I answered him truthfully.
“If I fuck it up, I’ll personally record some humiliating tape you can play on our wedding day,” he chuckled.
“If we keep forgetting a damn condom, we might end up with a baby, and then what?”
He smiled. “I’m in love with you. When the time is right for you, I will secure your hand in marriage. You’re having that big ass wedding, and I’m inviting those bitchy aunts of yours to sit next to Max so they can all see you finally marry a man who loves your sexy little ass more than anything in the world.”
“A big wedding, huh?”
“I’m turning Ash’s best friends loose and rolling out the damn red carpet for my bride,” he grinned. “You’re going to get the wedding you deserve—a day where everyone honors the bride and adores her dimples and beauty just as I do.”
“I never pinned you as a man who’d want a huge wedding.”
“I never pinned myself as a man who’d want to get married.” He laughed.
“You’re serious. Really serious?”
“I’ll lock it in with a ring if I have to. After you meet Clay and Joe when they dress you up for the award ceremony, you’ll understand why I’ll likely be their favorite as everyone else took the easy routes on the small wedding venues.”
I straddled him, and this time I held his beautiful face in my hands. “You know I’ll marry you, my handsome stud,” she said with a funny expression. “Let’s give us some more time, though.”
“I can claim you with a ring, though, right?”
“Shit,” I said, recalling when I saw Sammy’s engagement ring. “There’s no way I can get engaged right after Sammy. Sorry, buddy. Now you definitely have to wait.”
“Why?” He looked at me, questioning me with a smile. “Is it an old wives’ tale that two best friends will curse the other if they’re both engaged at the same time?”
I twisted my lips in thought that only made Alex laugh. “There’s no rush. I’m not going anywhere, so let’s wait. We do great at the fake fiancé stuff anyway.”
“You never cease to amaze me; you know that?”
“How? I just turned you down, and now you have the I’m gonna tear you up look on your face.”
Just as I suspected, I was quickly pinned beneath Alex. “Because every chick I’ve ever been with, especially my last girlfriend, would’ve never turned me down. They would’ve jumped at the chance to make my money theirs, and they’d be shattered if I insisted on a prenup.”
“Well, all I’m concerned about is the prenup stuff.” I giggled in response to him moving in between my legs. “I’ve got to pay off my debt somehow.”
“I already offered to do that, but you won’t allow it. So, nice lie.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Anything else before I do the one thing that has you screaming the word yes?”
“No,” I traced my fingers over his lips. “I’m ready to become your yes girl.”
After Alex and I shared a glorious round, wrapped and tangled in unimaginable ways, I had to wonder if he was just coming off of having frazzled nerves from his night terrors or if he genuinely wanted to marry me. Either way, we needed time. There was no doubt in my mind about that, but it was also fun to talk about these things with him and know that we were both on the same page.
