Chapter 49
~GRAYSON~
I had it bad.
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The realization sat in the car with us the entire drive home. Blair was quiet in the passenger seat, the flush in her cheeks doing nothing to help the state of my head.
I kept seeing Chase standing too close to her. Kept feeling the exact second my body decided the only acceptable outcome was his blood on my hand. Luckily, he’d stepped away before I attacked.
I didn’t think about Lily the way I used to.
That was the part that unsettled me most. For years she had been the fixed point-childhood, future, the line through every decision. Now days could pass where Blair occupied more space tharr Lily ever had in a
week.
The sound of her voice. The taste of her I still hadn’t managed to scrub out of my memory. She had turned me into a madman for her without even trying to, and I still couldn’t fully explain how someone I had never planned to want had rearranged the inside of my life so thoroughly.
Chase wanting her back only made the whole thing more complicated.
He was married. He had stood in front of cameras with Sophie and still had the nerve to corner Blair outside a charity event like the past six years entitled him to another hearing.
He had treated her like an option, discarded her in public, and only rediscovered her value once her last name became impossible to ignore. The man made me sick. He was a bigger asshole than I had initially given him credit for, and that bar had already been high.
When we got through the front door, Blair slipped off her heels and started toward the stairs.
“Wait,” I said.
She turned, one hand on the banister.
‘What did he want?”
Her expression softened. “Tonight?”
‘Tonight. And the diner.” I stepped closer, still wound too tight from the sight of him. “I’m done guessing through photos and gossip sites. What did Chase need to say to my wife badly enough to keep showing up?”
Blair looked shocked at first. Then she studied me for a moment and exhaled. “At the diner he wanted confirmation. He’d spoken to someone in the organization and found out my family had influence in his hiring and the captaincy. He wanted me to say it out loud. That it was me. That the help came through me.”
My jaw tightened. “And you told him.”
“I told him the truth. Then I left.”
“And tonight?”
“More of the same.” She leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms loosely folded. “He wanted five minutes. Wanted to know how I was doing. Wanted to ‘talk about me.”
“He’s trying to get you back,” I blurted out before I could think. I felt I needed to say something. Maybe I hoped that if I told her, her reaction would reveal whether she still wanted him to come back too.
Blair’s mouth curved without humor. “He’s trying to relieve his own guilt. It’s not your problem.”
“It’s my problem when his actions directly a Successfully unlocked! We are married and-”
“Married,” she repeated, a mild edge in it. “Interesting coming from the man who told Lily he only had eyes for her.”
Chapter 49
Fuck.
I deserved that. I was hoping she had forgotten about it but clearly she hadn’t.
I was still upset that she’d heard me that day.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.” I said.
“I wasn’t supposed to hear a lot of things. Yet, I did.” She reminded me. My jaw clenched.
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I held her gaze. “I’m not pretending I handled everything the right way. But Chase is a fucking asshole that you need to stay away from. I need to know how much access he thinks he still has.”
Blair was quiet for a second. Something unreadable in her eyes.
“He doesn’t have access,” she said finally. “He lost it when he married Sophie without telling me. Tonight didn’t change that. The diner didn’t change that. Learning what I did for him didn’t restore a claim he had already lost.”
‘Good.”
‘Is it?”
“Yes.”
Of course it was good. She shouldn’t ever consider entertaining that asshole.
‘He treated you like you were disposable when the coach’s daughter came around. Now he wants the benefit of who you actually are. That doesn’t get to happen in front of me.” I told her before I could stop myself.
Blair’s cheeks had gone faintly pink again, though her voice stayed steady. “You sound jealous.”
‘I am.”
Fuck.
Did I really just admit to that?
Now that I’d said it, I knew it was irreversible. I watched it register on her face-the slight widening of her eyes, her fingers even tightened once against her own arm.
Blair stared at me like I had shifted the floor under her feet. For once she didn’t have a sharp reply ready.
I stepped back before the moment could become something neither of us was ready to finish.
I had to remember my promise to Lily. I couldn’t give in to these feelings. Not here. Not now.
“I’m going to handle Chase if he tries again,” I said. “You don’t have to manage him alone for the sake of politeness or your past.”
“You don’t have to-”
“I do.” I cut her off.
Then I walked toward the kitchen, trying to calm my racing heart.
I had it bad for my wife and I didn’t know how to deal with this new feeling.
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Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.