Mercy
“I have an idea.”
“Dear God in heaven, the bone-chilling fear that those words instill in me.”
I rolled my eyes and thrust my hand out. Grant eyed the brown paper bag I held with a
mild lift of his brow and carefully set his cup of tea down next to the pile of manila folders
stacked neatly beside his laptop, then folded his hands together and set them on the
dining room table.
What he did not do was reach for the bag.
“You make everything more difficult than it needs to be.”
He hummed, and the completely unaffected look in his eye was practically belligerent
at this point. There’d been no mysterious disappearances that morning—he was
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, already hard at work by the time I crawled out of bed and
made my way into the kitchen.
Had I known he was there, I would have changed. But I didn’t know. So I didn’t
change. And it set the entire morning off on the wrong foot.
The assumption, of course, was that he’d be gone again. That he’d have disappeared to
God-knows-where to do God-knows-what to ke ep the towering wheel of generational
wealth churning steadily.
Instead of being proved right, I found myself pantsless in our kitchen, wearing only a
sle ep T-shirt that hung to my upper thighs, and my husband directly in front of me. Grant
froze, pen hovering over the pad of paper next to his computer, and his eyes locked on my
bare legs.
I had good legs. And in that breathless moment where Grant Hastings could not seem
to look away, I remembered, Oh yes, he’s a leg man, isn’t he?
If I hadn’t felt a desperate need for a shower and a blow-out already, seeing him
would’ve done the trick. Everything about him screamed Old Money. The perfectly
sw ept-back hair, the thick leather-and-gold watch on his wrist, the de ep-blue vest over the
starched white oxford rolled up at the elbows, and a pale-blue tie that made his eyes look
more like the sky than the clouds.
One look at that nonsense, and with the searing look he’d given my lower extremities,
it seemed that retreat was the most prudent course of action. I wordlessly grabbed a
yogurt and marched straight back to the bedroom to make myself a bit more presentable.
This couldn’t ke ep happening. So many things were out of my control that it was
terrifying. By the time I finished my shower—clean hair, damp skin smelling of eucalyptus
and sage—I felt better. In my closet, I didn’t reach for anything unfamiliar, because there
was far too much of that in my life, grabbing instead a Michigan T-shirt that was easily ten
years old and a pair of denim shorts that were probably too short to be worn in public.
You’re doing this on purpose, a voice whispered at the back of my mind.
Maybe.
Maybe I was. Maybe I liked the idea that Grant might feel as unmoored as I did, even
for a moment.
After adding a swipe of mascara over my lashes, I tied my hair back and wound it into a
thick knot at the base of my neck. The desk in my office held a laptop, a stack of papers,
and Post-it notes in bright pink and orange. My favorite brand of gel pens, in every color of
the rainbow, sat in a white mug with the school’s logo.
I’d been approaching this all wrong. It wasn’t about Grant feeding me palatable bits of
information—it was about me figuring out what I was ready to know. Even if it seemed
small. Even if it might be insignificant to someone else.
And I didn’t want to be alone in this anymore.
I pulled out a royal-blue gel pen and a few sheets of paper and started writing. I didn’t
let myself think too de eply on what I wrote down. Best not tip over the dominoes in my
mind of where each question might lead next.
It felt like a game. And for once—just once since the entire nightmare had started—I
wanted to feel like I was moving my piece forward on the board.
When I returned to the dining room, Grant was in the exact position he’d been before
my shower. His eyes tracked from my slicked-back wet hair down to the expanse of bare
skin of my legs, then back up to what I held in my hand.
Understandably, the sight of the brown bag did not excite him all that much.
He flicked his eyes from the unassuming packaging back up to me. “And what, pray
tell, shall I do with this . . . thing?”
“It’s a paper bag, not a weapon.”
“With you, darling, I can never be too sure.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, then spun the bag so he could see what I’d written on
the front.
“‘Just One Thing,’” he read slowly, enunciating the words in his crisp accent. “Will I be
receiving extra context at any point, or am I to die of old age before deciphering what this
means?”
The label was adorable. I’d added a few little flower adornments with my gel pens and
drawn the letters with big swoops and lines. You can take the teacher out of the classroom
. . .
I snatched it back with a slight scoff. “They’re questions, Hastings.”
“Obviously.”
As I slicked my tongue over my teeth, I held his gaze and carefully unrolled the top of
the bag before selecting a piece of paper and holding it up between my pointer and middle
finger. “I asked the last one,” I said lightly. “Now it’s your turn.”
There was a flicker of interest in his eyes, but then he blinked, one sharp snap of his
thick-lashed eyes, and it was gone. “Why would I be asking questions? I’m the one who
remembers.”
“Because you might learn something new.” The folded papers inside the bag made a
pleasant rustling sound when I gave the bag a little shake. “And that is why you’ll be
contributing some questions too.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward, his eyes bright with r epressed amusement. How did I know it was
r epressed? That mouth of his stayed in a firm, serious line. “What if I already know
everything there is to know about you, wife?”
Oh.
A dangerous ping in the pit of my belly appeared, just a quick, breathless swoop of
awareness. The kind that had no place in this relationship. So I took a de ep breath and
beat the shit out of it with my mind.
“Then you’ll get a gold star and hopefully not ruin the game for the those of us with
Swiss cheese brain.”
“Swiss cheese brain?”
“Yeah. Lot of holes. Fairly pointless.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, completely affronted. “Swiss cheese isn’t pointless.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, make one of your questions a discussion point about dairy, and
we can hash this out.” I shook the bag again. “Are you in?”
Grant sat back in his chair, hands folded over his flat stomach, and did that thing
again, the dangerous, irresponsible thing, where he studied me so thoroughly, so lazily,
from the top of my head to the unpainted toes that desperately needed a touch-up. The
well-loved shirt earned me a slight quirk in his lips, especially when he caught me fiddling
with the hole in the hem.
“Are you in?” I r epeated slowly. “Or do you need more time to catalog my general
presence?”
His eyes never wavered from mine. “Kincaid, I could have another hundred years on
this earth, and I’d still find things about you that surprise me.”
I wasn’t entirely sure he meant it as a compliment, so I swallowed the questions that
punched their way to the tip of my tongue.
Though his expression remained unchanged, Grant extended his hand, and I set the
question I’d pulled earlier onto his palm. He didn’t read it right away, because we were
frozen in this hopelessly charged game of chicken that made my heart thunder behind my
ribs. Whoever looked away first lost.
And if Grant Hastings and I had one thing in common, it was that we both hated to
lose.
The path to winning against him had always looked a little different. Grant wore me
down with his general posh-asshole routine. The perfect clothes. The unmoving hair that
defied the laws of gravity with the way it stayed off his face. The complete lack of hurdles
in his life. The ease with which he took his wealth for granted.
The unaffected air that nothing was ever quite important enough to elicit a reaction.
All of that was why I loved pushing him to react. Seeking out the line where his cheeks
would flush just the slightest amount. Where his eyes would flash in warning. Where his
jaw would clench.
Seeing this man lose even the smallest bit of his legendary composure was my drug,
the thing I’d always been addicted to, even if I’d never, ever admit it out loud.
Slowly, I licked my bottom lip. I held his gaze and tilted my head to the side. “Are you
scared of what I’ll ask of you, Grant Hastings?”
He swallowed.
His eyes flickered.
A pulse of victory pushed through my veins, strong enough that my fingers tingled.
Grant tore his gaze from mine and opened the first question. For a moment, he was
completely motionless. Then his jaw clenched, a tinge of color appearing at the tops of his
perfect cheekbones, and it took everything in me not to absolutely crow in triumph.
Curiosity came hot on its heels, because still, Grant didn’t move. My mind raced
through the questions. Some were big. Some were small, inconsequential. Some I was
scared to ask but couldn’t deny the importance of knowing. Some were meant to make his
head explode, just for funsies. But none of them struck me as paralyzing. Nothing to rock
the composure of the most composed man I’d ever met.
Then his eyes closed for just a moment before he pushed his chair back, snatched the
bag from my hand, shoved the paper inside, and strode off, leaving me frozen in place with
my jaw hanging open and a lingering question of whether I’d really won anything at all.