“Impossible,” I croak.
He squeezes me a little tighter. “Then I’m not going anywhere. We have time. You haveme, okay? You won’t lose me.”
I exhale in a swift whoosh, wondering how it’s possible for one person to understand me so completely. “I’d leave it all behind for you.”
His breath puffs out. “I know. But I don’t need you to.”
God.
“I love you,” I tell him, needing to say the words. “I love you madly. I know you know that, but I do, Gray. No matter what happens, no matter what they say, don’t doubt that for a second. We were made for this. To be together. I’m sure of it.”
Grayson turns his face, his lips pressing to the side of my head. “I have never in my life doubted you. I’m not about to start now.”
Chapter 23
Grayson
“My phone won’t stop blowing up,” Camilla says in lieu of a greeting. “Everyone wants to know if I’m aware my ex is apparently off the market. And with aman, no less. As if I’d somehow missed the news.”
“Cam,” I say, my tone weary in a way that has nothing to do with the early morning hour.
“I’m not going to talk,” she snaps. “I’m not out to hurt you, Grayson. But a little heads-up would have been nice.”
“You’re right,” I reply, closing the bathroom door behind me so I don’t wake Ezra. “I should have texted the moment I saw the article. I just…wasn’t thinking about any of it.”
She lets out a gust of air. “People want to know if I ever suspected. That you and he…Ifyou and he were together all this time. Do you know what that’s like? To be asked to my face if my husband was unfaithful?”
“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“What would I even say? If I could say anything to anyone other than my own mother, what would I tell them? That ofcourse you loved him all this time? You always loved him more than me.”
I close my eyes, resting my forehead against the wall. My heart thumps dully, the conversation one we’ve had so many times over the past couple years. It never seems to end. The apologies. The explanations. “Camilla… I love him as a friend.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t need you to.”
There’s a long beat of silence. “Is that how you loved me? As a friend?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“But not the same as him.”
No.
I don’t speak it aloud, but she knows it to be true. No one has ever been like Ezra.
“Be honest with me,” she says, voice cracking. “You’re sleeping with him?”
“No,” I say evenly. There’s a shuffle on the other side of the wall. Ezra moving. I don’t open my eyes. “We’ve never even kissed, Camilla.”
“I don’t understand it,” she says, frustration thick in her tone.
“I know.”
“Fuck, Grayson. Why couldn’t you have just been normal?”
My grunt is involuntary, and Camilla immediately starts to backtrack.
