Brutal Obsession (53)

Greyson’s smirk widens into a shit-eating grin. “Me, Knox, Steele…”

I narrow my eyes. “Yeah, I know pretty intimately why they’d show up for Steele.”

His gaze turns flinty, the smile sliding right off. He doesn’t respond to that—how could he? He’s the one who forced me to get on my knees.

In the back of my mind, I know I had a choice. I could’ve walked away.

But then I would’ve had to deal with the repercussions—worse ones than these.

He leads me to an elevator and hits the up button. We wait in silence, then step inside. Immediately, it feels like we’re in a vacuum. The silence gets louder.

My skin itches with the need to break it. To say something.

I last two floors before I crack. “What are we telling her?”

His cocky, self-assured smile is back. The same one I’m sure he wore when he strolled out of the police precinct after his father got him out. The same one he probably also wore when he left the scene of the crime. He rolls his shoulders back, then cracks his neck. Everything about him relaxes. Even the little muscles around his eyes that, up until this point, held stress.

I look away. This Greyson has been hiding. Shuffled out of sight, because everyone we interact with already knows and loves him. I’m fascinated by it. By the way he just seems to radiate an easy-going confidence. He’s brought out this persona for the publicist.

She’s going to fall in love with him before our time is up.

Am I going with him to be the scapegoat?

Or his savior?

I eye him again, drawn back to the expression he wears like a mask. Maybe I’ve been getting it wrong. Backwards. The anger, the way he is around me… maybe that’s his true nature, and this is the mask. It’s easier to believe that than to think he wears his anger as a guard.

No. He’s shown me who he really is deep down. Not everyone gets to see that.

My nerves are eating me alive by the time the elevator doors slide open. And he still hasn’t answered me about what we’re telling her—what he expects me to say, if anything. I mean, I’m assuming that I have to say something. Otherwise, it’s pointless that I be here.

We exit into a brightly lit foyer. There are windows to our left, and a set of glass doors to our right. We go through them and stop in front of the wide desk that a receptionist mans.

Greyson smiles and tells her who we’re here to see. His gaze flicks up and down the woman’s body, and he winks at her.

She blushes.

I silence my disbelief.

She rises and gestures for us to follow her, and Greyson winks at me. This is all an elaborate game to him. When we reach a corner office, the receptionist opens the glass door and steps back to let us pass.

“Thank you,” he says to her. Then his attention switches to the woman striding toward us from behind her desk, and his smile widens. “Ms. Dumont.”

“Mr. Devereux,” she answers.

They shake hands.

She’s probably a few years younger than my mother. Her hair is white-blonde and pulled back in an elaborate braid. Her makeup is flawless, and her eggplant-purple dress is form-fitting. She has the sort of energy that translates into no bullshit. I imagine she’s had to become a shark to survive in a male-dominated sport.

How did she end up a publicist for CPU? With a corner office at the stadium, no less.

“Good game last week,” she says to him. “The final few minutes were exciting.”

“It was the one time I broke out in a sweat,” he responds. “But we managed to put them away.”

“That you did.” She gestures for us to take a seat. “This year has been great for donors. They particularly like seeing the self-assured nature of the team this year. There’s been minimal stress—and minimal sweat, as you said.”

“Well, that comes down to our coach.” Greyson takes my hand and pulls me with him to the couch against one of the walls. There’s a glass coffee table in front of it, and two single chairs beside themselves on the other side. When he sits, he drags me down so I’m almost on top of him. “This is Violet Reece.”

The publicist’s gaze flips to me. “Ah, yes, I recognize your face from the pictures.”

I swallow and slowly extricate my hand from Greyson’s grip. “Right. That—”

“Is what we’re meeting with you about,” Greyson finishes. “Coach’s orders to straighten this out and all.”

“Of course. Your reputation is our reputation.”

He nods along with her words, then leans back. He splays himself out, his arm over the back of the couch behind me, his legs spreading. Taking up space comes easily to him, I think. It’s natural. Whereas girls are taught to shrink.

For an insane second, I contemplate mimicking him. Spreading out like him, my legs thrown wide.

Might not endear me to the publicist, who’s sitting in the chair like it’s stinging her ass. She’s perched on the edge, her ankles crossed. She opens her phone and types something, then springs back up and grabs her laptop off her desk.

Once she’s reseated, the laptop open on her knees, she looks up and meets his gaze. “So, Greyson. There are some very harmful allegations against you.”

He nods once. The movement is jerky, brittle. I wish I had reread the article before I got in his car, just to better familiarize myself with it. It feels like a blur. It’s been too long.