Playing with Mr. Grant (The Men #10)

He turns, capturing me with his brilliant blue eyes. “My mother and father had love. Until they didn’t. What’s the point if it can be ripped from you like that?”

His tortured eyes hold mine. He can’t see what he’s doing to himself. What he’s depriving himself of.

“What about Francesca? Didn’t you have feelings for her?”

“Who?”

“Francesca Callaghan.” I straighten in the seat, lifting my head off the cushion.

“Oh.” He shakes his head. “No. That was nothing.”

It didn’t look like nothing to me.

I study him.

“I never got my question.” He eyes me with growing interest.

“Huh?”

“I answered four of yours but never got to ask one.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “That’s because you shouted and then told me that I was—”

“I should never have spoken to you like that.” His eyes glisten with regret as his gaze roams over my face. “I’m sorry.”

It’s not,‘I didn’t mean it. You aren’t just a warm body for me to enjoy when I feel like it’. But I guess it’s all I’m going to get.

“Okay. What do you want to ask me?” I pull my legs up beneath me, twisting my torso to face him.

His thigh brushes my knee.

“Tell me about your father. What was he like?”

“You want to know about my father?” My heart clenches painfully as I think about my story. All the words that I’ve managed to get down. Each one harder to type than the last.

“He died when I was thirteen. The pilot re-routed to avoid a storm, but he flew too low and lost control. They crashed in a forest.”

“Tell meaboutyour father, Ava,” Jet repeats gently. “Not the way he died. Tell me about who he was. What he loved. What you remember about him.”

A lump forms in my throat, making my eyes burn.

“He was…” I wring my fingers. “He loved tofly. He loved exploring.”

Jet’s long fingers brush against mine, tracing across the back of my hand. I turn it without thinking and he slides his thumb over my palm, massaging it, before he runs it up to my wrist and places it over my racing pulse.

“What did you like to do together?”

I smile. “We used to go to the waterlily lake at the Silver Estate every time they had an open day. We’d sit and watch the fish, make up stories, skim stones. I’d splash him and he’d pick me up and run toward the edge of the water and pretend he was going to throw me in. Mum and Gramps would go sometimes too. The last time we were all together there was the day before he died.”

“I’m sorry.” Jet’s soft tone makes me bite back tears.

“I miss him every day.”

“I understand.” His thumb strokes over my pulse in a way that has calmness washing over me.

I look into his eyes and smile sadly. “Do you think of her much?”

“Every day,” he answers without missing a beat.