Maria Lopez? Who was that?
And why did she call herself ‘his savior’?
The wisdom strewn throughout the letter told me the two of them were close. No one gave anyone like Grayson MacDonald that kind of guidance without having some sort of special, intricate relationship. But finding all of this and coming to grips with what he had hid from me reinforced the idea of him leaving. If he’d planned on staying, why wouldn’t he have told me all these things about himself? Why wouldn’t he have opened up more so we could get to know each other? I placed the letter back in the box as tears lined my eyes.
He really was going to leave me in his dust.
I liked Grayson. A lot. And not just after what I had discovered. Even before that, when I was screaming in his bed and he had me pinned beneath him, there was a comfort in his eyes I couldn’t ignore. An allure to him that drew me to his person. But this only confirmed his plan to leave. No man would attach himself to a woman if he didn’t want to tell her about this side of his life. A man only opened up to a woman he wanted to keep around.
Even Andy opened up to me before he asked me to move with him. It didn’t do us much good, but it was the act of opening up that mattered.
And Grayson wasn’t opening up.
I couldn’t get the tone of the letter out of my head. As I sat at the kitchen table and munched on the few chips that hadn’t fallen onto the floor, I wondered who Maria was. What was Grayson’s relationship to her? She obviously knew where he was. She was probably the one who shipped him the wines. But did she know about me? Was Grayson talking to her about me? Or was it something else?
Just another thing he was hiding so he could have some fling with a small-town girl?
The idea made me sick to my stomach. One specific line kept rolling through my mind from the note. Her comment on making more meaningful connections with people around him. Did Maria want that with him? Maybe she was a woman back wherever home was for him. Maybe she was back there trying to find ways to reach out to him in Illinois and remind him of herself. Like a long-lost lover not quite wanting to let go of something she still loved. I imagined an exotic woman, with black hair and hazel eyes and tan skin, standing on a balcony overlooking the vineyard and waiting for him to get home.
Long lines. Thin features. Curves where it all counted.
If he had something like that waiting for him at home, no wonder Grayson wouldn’t stay with me.
I finished off the chips before tossing the bag into the trash can. There was really only one way to settle the questions running through my mind, and that was confronting him with them. I wanted to know why he’d been so secretive about that wine. I wanted to know who Maria was. I wanted to know who I was to him and what his plan was once the week was finished. I needed to know. I deserved to know, given all that we had been through. I wiped at the few tears that threatened to spill over, chastising myself for not being stronger.
What did I expect anyway? For him to take me with him?
A lot of good that did me the first fucking time.
I walked back into my
room and began putting all of my things into my bag. I didn’t know why, but I felt compelled to do it. My stuff was strewn all over the room I had chosen for myself, and it looked like a damn pig sty. But it didn’t feel right to put it in the empty dresser drawers Anton had in the room. This wasn’t my home. As much as I wanted it to be, it wasn’t. As much as I felt comfortable in it, it wasn’t. I shoved my things into my bag until all that was left was a pair of yoga pants, a shirt, and my phone connected to its charger.
I needed another shower. For some reason, I felt gross all over again.
My speech ran through my head as I washed down my body. I wrapped a towel around me and stared into the mirror, rehearsing it even more. I didn’t want to anger Grayson. That wasn’t the point of all this. But I did want the truth. I did want answers as to what the plan was when the week came to a close. Was he leaving? Staying longer? What was I to him? Did I mean anything to him like he did to me?
I dried myself off and tossed the towel into a hamper before I pulled on my fresh clothes.
I looked over at the clock and saw it was almost three in the afternoon. The house was cleaned. The truths had been uncovered. My things were packed and my room didn’t look like a damn mess. All there was to do was sit and wait for him to get back. I didn’t like that. I enjoyed sitting and waiting for him the night he went out drinking, but I didn’t like it now. It felt tainted somehow. Tainted with an anxiousness I couldn’t shake.
I went and made myself a mug of hot cocoa, trying my best to execute it the way Anton used to do.
The way Grayson did.
It didn’t come out quite right, but it was good enough. I plucked the letter from the box and sat down at the kitchen table, my eyes watching the microwave as the minutes ticked by. I wasn’t focused enough to read a book, but I didn’t have the energy to bide my time until he got back.
So I sat, sipped my subpar cocoa, and waited.
Chapter 27
Grayson
I walked out of the accountant’s office after having a very long talk with him. I finally felt like I had Anton’s estate settled, but not without some long conversations. Apparently, the accountant had felt he could take it upon himself to divvy up the funds to charities how he saw fit with his own personal guidelines and ethics. So I got my personal lawyer on the phone to let him know exactly what would happen to him and what I would drain him of if he didn’t follow Anton’s wishes to the letter.
It shut his ass up quickly, and I sat there while he processed the donations as they were laid out in Anton’s will.
I came out of the accountant’s office with my head held high and a settled soul. It still hurt that he was gone, but knowing his estate had been settled with relatively no hiccups made me feel better. I couldn’t wait to get home and talk with Michelle about it. I couldn’t wait to get home and spend my evening basking in her presence.