The Billionaire Bargain #2(22)

“Don’t give me that puppy dog look,” I said. I stood, turned my back to him, and started hunting for my clothes. “There’s no time for that. What did they say? How many people know?”

“It’s…on YouTube,” Grant said from behind me. “Every time they take it down, it comes back up.” He added almost shyly, like a peace offering, “There’s already an auto-tune parody.”

If he thought I was going to find that funny, with everything at stake—

I found my dress and pulled it over my head. Well, there’d be no secrets about what we had done last night, but no time to worry about that now. “And Jennings? Does he know?”

I could hear Grant swallow. His foot scuffed along the floor. “He’s been calling the company every five minutes.”

I pressed my hand against my forehead. Took a deep breath. Oh God.

This could undo everything.

? ? ?

I couldn’t face work, not now, not with everyone knowing about that video, so Grant agreed to take us back to ‘our’ apartment and try to run damage control from there.

As soon as I’d changed into formless jeans and a billowy T-shirt—I wanted to hide my body, wanted to hide it even from myself so I wouldn’t think about what I had done with him—I started pulling up the news sites and the gossip blogs.

I could hear Grant talking on the phone while in the kitchen—ordering food? Another peace gesture. Damn the man for being sweet to me at this moment. It made it so hard to be angry at him for his poor judgment.

Not that anyone else seemed to find his judgment poor—at least, not last year’s judgment. The comments sections were full of statements like “dam lukkit the rack on that blond” and “WTF is he doing porking that butterface when he can pull tail like this LMAO.”

The whole internet seemed to be laughing at me. My mouse hovered over the video. Don’t click, I told myself. Don’t do it. You don’t care what he did with them. You don’t care what he liked about them. You don’t—

I clicked.

? ? ?

I heard Grant’s footsteps and quickly exited the page, dashing the tears from my eyes. I was torn between relief that the video had barely started, and anger at myself for clicking Play in the first place. What the hell had I been thinking? That it would all be some sort of hilarious mistake?

Those were the kind of girls Grant wanted. Not me.

“Are you all right?” Grant sat down on the couch next to me, put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you, Lacey.”

“I’m fine,” I said stiffly.

“Bollocks,” Grant said. Then, more softly, his hand stroking my arm: “I’m sorry. You’re miserable, and it’s all my fault for putting you in this position. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said. Funny how I kept letting him do that anyway.

“Look, as someone who’s weathered a scandal or two?” His lips brushed my cheek and I could feel the beginnings of a smile, as if he were trying to coax one out of me as well. “For this first bit, things just have to run their course. There’s nothing we can do that won’t make it worse. All we can do is take care of ourselves. So…let me take care of you.”

His voice was so soft, so soothing. I wanted to lay my head on his shoulder and fall asleep and forget I ever even knew the definition of the word ‘trouble.’ He squeezed my shoulder tight.

“Let me take you somewhere fun, where we can think about something else for awhile.”

His fingers traced a figure eight on the skin of my forearm, and in that moment, I would have gone for a picnic in hell if he’d promised to be there with sandwiches and lemonade.

? ? ?

Ocean Beach may not be the best place to surf or catch a tan, but I’ve always loved it. I could feel my blood pressure going down the second Grant and I stepped from the car, and my anxiety seemed to seep away as we shed our shoes and walked along the coast, sinking our toes into the silky warm sand.

It was a windy, overcast day, which seemed to have driven the rest of the beach goers indoors, but something about the tranquil blues and greys of the sky and sea calmed me. It was as if the world was telling me that life goes on, that we are so small in the grand scheme of things and beyond our pretty trials and tribulations, the ocean always endures. Or whatever.

Grant scuffed his foot along the line of kelp, and spotting a hint of white, swooped down to find an unbroken sea dollar. He handed it to me with that shy smile that made my heart feel several sizes too big for my chest.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Much,” I said, trying to give him a smile back. “How did you know I love this beach?”

“I do listen to you when you talk, Lacey,” Grant said. “All evidence to the contrary.”

I didn’t even remember telling him.

We came upon a beautiful spot, high in the sand dunes but sheltered from the wind, and he spread the picnic blanket and took out our food—Trouble didn’t typically offer food to go, but it’s funny how quickly one flash of that Grant Devlin smile and a fifty under the table had changed that policy.

There were coconuts with holes bored into them, just needing a slight tap for the plug to come out before sticking in a straw and sucking up their sweet juice. There was toast slathered in peanut butter and honey, and—