Damn. What is she doing to me?
I could spend every weekend like this. Gracie curled lazily around me, spending our time together exploring New York City, or simply watching TV. Just having her next to me. I’ve always been a workaholic, and I’m learning to love and appreciate these simple, carefree moments with her.
Gracie dozes off and I send a text message to the concierge to make a dinner reservation for us. Less than five minutes later, he confirms our reservation for eight-thirty at La Mesa de Abuela, the newest and most chic Mexican restaurant in Manhattan.
With plenty of time left to get ready, I enjoy the quiet comfort of having Gracie snuggled up next to me. Watching her sleep stirs something inside me. Something possessive and needy, something I don’t want to let go of. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a one-night stand would turn into me falling for this woman resting in my lap. But then I remember, she only guaranteed me one week. I have seven days to convince her that she needs me as much as I need her.
“Please tell me this is not a fancy restaurant,” Gracie hollers through the closed bathroom door where she’s getting ready.
“Not fancy!” I respond, stepping into a pair of blue jeans. Gracie steps out of the bathroom in a pair of skin tight skinny jeans that are cut off just above her ankle and a lacy black top with a high neck. Perfect for where we’re going.
“Ugh,” she says with discomfort, tugging at the high neckline of the shirt.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her as she slides her arms into a black leather jacket before stepping into a pair of heels.
Fuck. Me…
“Twenty dollars,” she says, unplugging her cell phone from the charging cord where it was charging on the nightstand.
“Twenty dollars?” I repeat, shaking out of my thoughts.
She smirks. “Yep. Twenty dollars. This entire outfit cost twenty dollars.” Her eyes fall to her feet. “Except for the shoes. Jamie gifted these to me. Some designer that she loves. She claims to have bought them for herself, and they didn’t fit. But her feet are two sizes bigger than mine, so it was no accident. Then she had the nerve to lie to me and tell me she couldn’t return them,” she says, sliding her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. “But everything else was twenty dollars. Thrift store shopping at its best.”
“I’m impressed,” I tell her sincerely. I spend more than twenty dollars on a damn pair of socks, and that’s not something I should be proud of.
“Me too.” She laughs. “Growing up poor used to be so embarrassing. Now thrift store shopping is the chic thing to do. Like being poor is trendy.” She rolls her eyes.
“You’re not poor.” I don’t know why I tell her that, but I do.
She snorts in response. If I have anything to say about her life, she’ll never struggle for another dollar, but I can’t tell her that. I have seven days to make her mine, and then she won’t have a choice.
“Ah, I beg to differ.” She props a hand on her hip and purses her lips.
“Let’s talk about this over dinner.” I reach out and grab her hand, pulling it into mine. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late, and I’m starving.”
“You’re not starving; you don’t know starving,” she mumbles under her breath, and sadly, she’s right. That was a bad analogy.
“Drew.” Gracie hisses my name as the hostess directs us to our table. “This place is gorgeous!” Gracie is right. This restaurant is hip and trendy and full of rustic Mexican décor with a modern flair. It’s casual but swanky. “And I freaking love Mexican food,” she says as I pull out her chair for her to take a seat.
Our waitress recommends margaritas and table-side guacamole, and we decide to share an order of steak fajitas.
She takes a long sip of her margarita before setting it down. “Tell me about you,” she says, picking up a tortilla chip and taking a small bite off one of the corners.
“What do you want know?” I ask, hoping she doesn’t ask about my family. That is territory I don’t like to cover.
“Everything.” She shrugs. “Tell me about your family.” I inwardly cringe when she says that, but she continues. “What were you like in high school? Where did you go to college? Have you ever been married?” She smirks and raises her eyebrows.
I let out a laugh and shake my head. “No, Gracie. I’ve never been married.”
“I’m shocked.” She feigns surprise and places her hand over her heart. “You seem like such a catch. I’m just surprised someone hasn’t snatched you up yet.”
“A catch?” I laugh again.
“Well, you know what I mean.” She takes another sip of her margarita. “You’re successful, you own a company, and you’re clearly not hurting in the looks department.” She winks at me and I can’t help but smile at her as she continues. “Okay, you’ve never been married…I get that, you’re still young. When was your last relationship?”
I take a sharp breath and call our server over. “Shot of tequila. Don Julio, please.”
Gracie laughs and sits back in her chair, rubbing her hands together. “If you need a shot, I can only imagine this is going to be a really good story.”
I wince. “Not sure ‘good’ is the word I’d use to describe it, but it was interesting.” I sit up a little straighter and take a deep breath before starting. “I dated a girl named Melissa all through college. We met when we were freshman at Berkley and hit it off immediately. She was getting a degree in political science and wanted to go to law school, and I knew I’d be taking over my father’s advertising business, so I majored in business with an emphasis in advertising.”
I pause, taking a moment to remember, something I rarely let myself do. “We got engaged our senior year of college. We were that couple all our friends envied, seemingly perfect by all outward appearances. We both had our futures all planned out and we were fully supportive of each other, but still very independent. I used to think that’s why our relationship was so easy.”
I stop when our server delivers the shot of tequila, only I don’t shoot the tequila; I sip it. Don Julio is an experience. It’s smooth and the burn is minimal as it slides across my tongue and settles in my throat before I swallow it, allowing the slow burn to warm me.
“But it wasn’t easy,” I continue, deep-seated anger finding its way to the surface. “Somewhere along the way, she fell for someone else, and by fall, I mean fell into his bed while we were in the middle of planning our wedding…that someone else being my brother.” Reliving this memory burns worse than the damn tequila.
Grace audibly gasps and her eyes bulge. “Your brother?”
My throat tightens as I remember finding Melissa and my brother fucking in my bed when I returned home early from a business trip where my father was introducing me to peers and partners in the advertising industry. I nod my head, wincing again. “And after all that, it didn’t even last between them. Six months later, they were done, but it drove a huge wedge between me and my brother and we’ve never fully recovered from it.”