Chapter 18
~GRAYSON~
Chase Holt was a bigger asshole than I had ever given him credit for
I sat on the covered terrace of the villa with a glass of water I hadn’t touched, replaying Blair’s words from
the car.
Six years. She had supported him. Cared about him. And the bastard had married someone else without even the basic decency of a conversation.
She had found out through a press release and articles. Through photos. The same way the rest of the world had.
I could not fucking believe it.
I had spent days treating her like someone I needed to get rid of. Even accusing her of using this marriage to spy on me in order to help Chase. Looking for motives that made her the problem instead of another person caught in the same mess I was in.
I felt like an ass.
dragged a hand down my face and finally picked up the glass.
That was when I looked toward the pool.
Blair was there.
She had changed into a red bikini that should have been illegal. The color was beautiful against her skin, the top left far too much of her back and stomach exposed, the bottoms barely covering anything.
And those fucking breasts…they looked like they wanted to jump out of her bikini top.
Her hair was still slightly damp from a shower, falling over one shoulder as she tipped her head back and engthened the line of her body.
nearly choked on the water.
‘Fuck.”
The word came out under my breath as I set the glass down harder than necessary.
My body reacted before my brain could catch up, my cock hardening so quickly it pissed me off. I shifted in the chair, jaw tight, and tried to look anywhere else.
failed.
She bent forward next, reaching for her ankles, the red fabric stretching over the curve of her ass.
There was nothing performative about it. She wasn’t putting on a show, She didn’t even know I was watching yet. That somehow made it worse.
My attraction had no excuse of deliberate provocation to hide behind. It was just her.
Existing. In a red bikini. On a private island I was stuck on with her for the next four days.
I cursed again, quieter.
I didn’t understand it. I didn’t want to understand it. From the beginning I had told myself she was
temporary. A debt payment. Someone I needed to keep at a distance until the arrangement could end. I had a history with Lily. A future I had already planned.
Wanting Blair-physically, sharply, with a pull that kept catching me off guard, was a problem I had no interest in having.
And yet.
The night she had walked out of the bathroom naked, I had been hard enough to be in fucking pain when I
Chapter 18
couldn’t have her. The kiss at the altar had gotten under my skin in ways I still hadn’t fully shaken. Even her constant public performances designed to irritate me, had started feeling less like pure annoyance and more like a dangerous kind of attention I was beginning to crave.
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Now she was stretching by the pool in tiny red fabric, and my body was making its interest disgustingly
clear.
I forced myself to look away, staring at the ocean until the urge to keep watching dulled to something more manageable.
It didn’t disappear. It just sat there, low and insistent, reminding me that pretending I was unaffected was getting harder the longer I was around her.
When I glanced back, she had finished stretching and was settling onto one of the lounge chairs, reaching for a bottle of sunscreen.
She still hadn’t looked in my direction. I watched her pour lotion into her hands and start working it over her arms, then her shoulders, then lower across her stomach, and had to bite the inside of my cheek.
This honeymoon was going to kill me.
Not because of the press. Not because of the forced photos. Because of her. Because every time I thought I had a handle on the situation, Blair Monroe did something, or simply existed in a certain way, and my carefully maintained distance took another hit.
I stood up before I could do something stupid, like walk down there.
The villa was too quiet when I stepped inside. I went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, closed it again without taking anything, and braced both hands against the counter. My reflection in the dark window over the sink looked tense and unhappy with himself.
Chase had thrown away someone who had actually shown up for him.
I had spent the better part of a week trying to make that same woman hate me on purpose.
And now I was hard in the middle of the afternoon because she had put on a bikini and stretched. Totally unaware that I was looking.
I exhaled hard through my nose and pushed off the counter.
I needed a cold shower.
A long one.
And a reminder of every reason this marriage was supposed to stay exactly what it was, an arrangement,
nothing more.
The problem was that the reasons were getting quieter every time I looked at her.
“Fuck.” I growled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
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Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.