Page 88 of In Love With Mr. Wrong

I take the card without looking at it. I don’t promise anything.

Outside, the air is sharp and clean, the late afternoon light casting long shadows across the sidewalk. I walk with no direction for several blocks, letting the sounds of the city fill the space between thoughts.

I feel… unsettled. But not shattered.

Somehow, it’s not the meeting that changes me, it’s the absence of drama. The quiet, the restraint, the acknowledgment of shared blood without demand. That’s what lingers.

I’ve spent years fearing this moment. Now that it’s come, I realize the fear was never about who he was. It was about who that made me.

***

Back at the penthouse, everything is still. Margot is in the kitchen, barefoot, wrapped in soft, worn cotton and the scent of garlic and lemon. She looks up as I enter, her expression unreadable, but her hands stop moving.

“How did it go?” she asks.

I cross the room in a few long strides, gather her in my arms, and hold her tight, breathing in the space between her collarbone and the slope of her shoulder. She doesn’t ask again. She doesn’t press. She just holds me.

Eventually, I pull back, brushing her hair behind her ear. “He’s not the monster I imagined. He’s not a hero either. Just a man who made a choice. And then lived with it.”

“And you?” she asks softly.

I consider that for a long moment.

“I’m still the man who came home to you,” I say.

And she smiles. Not because it’s the perfect answer. But because it’s real.

48

MARGOT

The penthouse is unusually still, the kind of quiet that makes every sound feel louder than it should, the hum of the fridge, the faint tap of water in the pipes, the low rumble of the city pressing in just beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Morning light spills across the polished hardwood floors in wide golden strokes, illuminating the clean lines of the living room, the modern art on the walls, the soft folds of the gray throw draped across the sectional.

Grayson moves around the kitchen with a careful, deliberate calm, the kind he uses when he doesn’t want to admit he’s on edge. He’s pouring coffee into a thick black mug, methodical in every motion, but I’ve seen the tightness in his shoulders, the way he’s been avoiding his phone like it holds something radioactive. It’s face-down on the counter. It hasn’t buzzed in twenty minutes, but that feels more like a threat than a relief.

I sit at the dining table, curled into one of the sleek leather chairs, nursing a lukewarm mug of decaf tea and wearing one of Grayson’s oversized sweaters because mine all seem to fit differently every day. The silence stretches between us, companionable on the surface but pulsing with everything we’re not saying.

“You’re quiet,” he says, not looking at me.

“I’m deciding whether to ruin our fragile illusion of peace,” I answer.

He finally glances over his shoulder. “Might as well go big if you’re going to do it.”

I wrap both hands around my mug. “Then tell me what Olivia meant. About the month. You having less than one.”

His expression doesn’t change, not really, but I’ve spent enough time watching him to catch the way his jaw tenses, the way his fingers tighten slightly around the mug before he sets it down.

“It’s not urgent.”

“Grayson.”

He exhales and leans against the kitchen island, arms folding across his chest. “It’s a deadline I gave myself. Before all of this blew up. A potential investor, he wants an answer on the expansion offer by the end of the quarter.”

My gaze sharpens. “Crane?”

He doesn’t confirm. But he doesn’t deny it either. And that’s enough. The name hangs there, heavy as stone. I shift in my seat, resting a hand low on my belly as our daughter stirs beneath my skin.

“You don’t have to shield me from this.”

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