Finally, I did answer him. “I do,” I said, looking past my magnificent Tree and out toward the horizon. We had stayed up so late at that point, the sun would soon rise to meet us head-on as we cruised home toward California. It would be glorious, and I’d probably be a little sadder.
My next thought already stacked more sadness on top of that anticipation. I had to face the question Grant wasn’t asking. Perhaps the most important question of all.
Was I really ready to tackle Project Fix Rio when we got home? Was I willing to break out, open up, and fully trust people besides him with all the filthy treasures in my uncertain mind?
Looking at the hopeful expression on the devoted man’s face left me with the only answer there really was. There really could be.
It was either get my shit together or lose Grant completely.
Chapter Eleven
Grant
As Rio pulled free from me to move across the deck and slump into a chair of her own with a quiet sigh, I acknowledged the similar plummet of my heart in my chest.
Her mental health snaps, no matter the magnitude, had a way of bringing us closer together while driving us further apart. This one hadn’t been the worst, not by any means, but witnessing the woman I loved, tearing at her own flesh in a fit of madness… Shit. It gutted me on a level I couldn’t fathom—especially when I had to yell at her to stop.
I was having trouble forgetting it, even several minutes later. The moment had been different from her vapor lock at the restaurant in Honolulu or even when she’d called me in gauzy, drug-influenced confusion from New Horizons. My mind cartwheeled, wondering how far she would have gotten tonight with those self-inflicted welts had I not been able to yank her back to reality.
While I’d never have that definitive answer, I could vow one thing with certainty. No way in hell would I abandon her now. Not after learning, with glaring clarity, the degree to which she needed me. A degree I didn’t even know existed.
Having a woman as complex as Rio in my life was a challenge. But she was also the most exciting, most welcomed breath of fresh air I’d ever had in my life. So if that meant with the unpredictability and complexity of her vibrant personality came a few challenges, then we’d just have to face those together. As strange as it sounded, part of her enthralling magic was her confounding madness. Without one, the other wouldn’t exist. As she once so eloquently told me, I saw her everything—all her parts. For that same reason, I loved her, too. All I hoped was that eventually, when she reassembled the puzzle pieces of her life that were currently so broken, there would be an open space left shaped like me.
Of course, she didn’t always make it easy. Frankly, she could be downright infuriating. Like in quiet but confusing moments just like this.
“So what else did Sebastian say?”
Okay, scratch confusing. I moved straight on to perplexed, hoping she wasn’t trying to toss aside the strangeness of five minutes ago with the oddest of subject changes. But damn it, why else would she bring up Bas, of all people?
Fuck.
We were doing so well too. She was really listening to me—or so I’d thought. She seemed to be actually absorbing everything I said, including the praise she found so hard to accept unless we were burning up the bedsheets. If that were only the case now. I yearned to groan aloud from frustration. We only had a couple nights left under the ocean’s starry sky before we would be back in LA. I wanted to be naked with my firestorm as much as possible until then.
“Why the hell are you asking that now?” I answered her in a dangerously low but thoroughly unintentional register. But hell, did I thank myself for it. At once, her demeanor shifted. She rubbed her thighs together by subtle inches, and her eyes grew glassed with arousal.
“I don’t understand,” she muttered. “Why wouldn’t I ask it?”
“Because you don’t actually care about Sebastian Shark, and you know it,” I challenged.
“Says you and what jury?”
“Says me, period. And my bullshit meter is pegged in the red zone with all the crap you’re dishing out, woman.” I made sure to lock eyes with her for the next part. “So, tell me what’s really going on in that beautiful mind of yours, or I’ll make sure you can’t sit down for a week—and it won’t be from a spanking.”
Yeah, distracting her with sex was a dirty tactic, but I didn’t want to have a minute more of heavy conversation tonight. I was seriously done with it—even without the reminder from my groin, growing stiffer as I watched her there in the moonlight.
And then stiffer still, as Rio claimed restorative gulps of oxygen. Dear God, she was the most alluring female I’d ever known—especially as she kept processing my threat while focusing her brown sugar stare on me.
“This isn’t bullshit, Grant. I’m serious.”
I frowned. “About discussing Sebastian?”
“About discussing what you’ve given up with him—for me.” She blinked, and the glass in her stare turned into a more troubling sheen. “I don’t want to watch you continue to destroy a lifelong friendship like you’ve been doing. Please…how can I help make this right? Just because I loathe the man doesn’t mean—”
“Blaze.” I stood so abruptly, she startled. Visually, she followed my short journey until I stood before where she was huddled on the chair. She gave a little yelp when I scooped her up and dropped down on the luxurious cushion myself and arranged her little body on my lap.
“Okay,” I finally asked when she was tucked beneath my chin. “What’s all this really all about?”
Her sigh, though practically ponderous, spread some welcome warmth across my chest. “It’s about…setting things right.”
“And now I’m really lost.”
“Setting things right.” She emphasized that by jabbing a finger directly over my heart. “When we get back, I want to do what I should’ve done right after the accident. I’m going to go and tell Shark what happened. Exactly how that fire at the Edge’s job site got started. If he wants to press charges, then that’s his prerogative. I wasn’t strong enough to do it then, but I think I can deal with the consequences now.”
I pulled back a little, studying her for a long time. Finally, I decided it might be best to humor her. Maybe if she got the idea completely off her chest, she’d let it go.
“Can I ask what’s changed? I mean, why now? Elijah went through a lot of trouble to clean and cover up the mess at the site that night. Not to mention, he and I have been lying to Sebastian ever since. So, to just go to Bas now…” And suddenly, I wasn’t indulging her anymore. Once I brought up Elijah, I realized that I couldn’t. This was much bigger than just some tension between Bas and me. “Shit,” I muttered. “I don’t know, baby. This could really cause more harm than good.”
“What is the right thing to do, then?” Deep concern twisted her beautiful face. “What will make all of this better? I’m terrified I’m going to lose you, Grant. If that were to happen?” Rio sucked air between her teeth in a gasp that sounded painful. “I…I would be completely devastated. And I won’t survive that state of mind again. I’d go back to the way I was right after the accident. Those first few days, I was a shell of myself, Grant. I can’t do that again. I just can’t.”