Chapter 108 Poor Grey
The simple words hit me like a punch to the gut. In all our conversations, through all the stories he'd told me about his past, he'd never mentioned a child.
"Grey..."
"She was three when they died," he continued, the words seeming to tear themselves from his throat. "Emma and Vivian. Car accident on the highway. Some drunk bastard ran a red light."
I held him tighter, this strong, stubborn man who was falling apart in my arms. "I'm so sorry."
"I was at the hospital when it happened," he said, his voice hollow with old pain. "Emergency surgery that couldn't wait. They called me, but by the time I got there..." He shook his head. "Emma was already gone. Vivian held on for three days before the injuries were too much."
"Oh, Grey."
"Do you know what the worst part was?" He pulled back to look at me, his grey blue eyes red-rimmed and devastated. "I was angry at them. For leaving me, for going to lunch without me, for taking that particular route at that particular time. I was angry at a three-year-old and a woman who'd done nothing wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"That's not wrong. Anger is part of grief."
"Is it? it felt like betrayal. Here I was, a doctor who was supposed to save lives, and I couldn't save the two people who mattered most to me... instead of being heartbroken, I was pissed off."
I cupped his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my eyes. "You were heartbroken. The anger was just easier to handle than the pain."
"Maybe." He leaned into my touch. "The nightmares started about a month after the funeral. They'd gotten better over the years, but lately, with everything that's happened..."
"They came back."
"With a vengeance." He managed a rueful smile. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Not exactly the romantic morning after I was hoping for."
"Don't apologize for grieving," I said firmly. "Don't ever apologize for that.Vivian had help faking everything ."
" What if they are both alive
We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, holding each other while the morning light grew stronger outside the windows. I thought about my father's suspicions, about the corporate documents spread across my office floor, about the possibility that this man's love for me was an elaborate deception.
Looking at him now vulnerable, broken open by grief, trusting me with his deepest pain—I couldn't believe it. Whatever games the O'Malley family might be playing, Grey wasn't part of them. He was as much a victim of their machinations as I was.
"There's something I need to tell you," I said quietly.
He tensed in my arms. "What?"
"My father called this morning. About the O'Malley Group and Hunter Maritime."
I told him everything the hostile takeover attempt, the systematic acquisition of our competitors, the timeline that suggested our meeting might not have been accidental. I watched his face change as I spoke, saw the hurt and anger build in his expression.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered when I finished. "They used me. They actually used me."
"We don't know that for sure..."
"Don't we?" He stood abruptly, pacing to the window. "Think about it, Cass. Patrick specifically asked me to go to Isabella's party. Said I needed to get out more, meet people. He even suggested I might like you."
My heart sank. "Oh."
"I thought he was just being a good brother. Turns out he was being a good O'Malley." His voice was bitter with self-recrimination. " How could I be so stupid?"
"You're not stupid. You're trusting. There's a difference."
"Is there? Right now it feels like the same thing." He turned back to me, his expression fierce. "I need you to know that whatever my family planned, whatever role they intended for me to play,my feelings for you are real. This is real."
"I know," I said, and meant it.
"Do you? Because if you have any doubts, any suspicions at all..."
"Grey." I stood and went to him, taking his hands in mine. "Look at me."
He met my eyes reluctantly.
"I believe you. I believe in us. Whatever our families are up to, whatever corporate games they're playing—we're not pawns anymore. We're players."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we stop reacting to what they do and start acting for ourselves." I smiled grimly. "It means we beat them at their own game."
A slow smile spread across his face. "I like the sound of that."
"Good. Because I have some ideas about how we do it."
We spent the next hour planning, strategizing, turning the tables on the people who thought they could manipulate our lives for their own purposes. By the time we were dressed and ready to face the day, I felt something I hadn't experienced in a long time: a sense of partnership, of being part of a team that was stronger than the sum of it.