Page 100 of The One You Want

Chapter 24

We stayed in bed for a long time. I would have been happy to stay there with him for the rest of the night, but the cats, of course, staged their revolt around dinnertime. I actually laughed when I heard my toothbrush holder crash to the floor in the bathroom—it was kind of nice how some things neverchanged.

Other things, however, were much improved by change. Take my apartment, for example. The addition of a shirtless Grant bustling around my kitchen was a definiteimprovement.

“You have like, no food here,” he said, peering into myfridge.

“I’ve kind of been existing on junk food for the last few days,” I admitted, hating the way his face immediately darkened. I hoped we could get to a point where he stopped blaming himself soon—he apologized and I forgave him. I was ready to moveon.

I was also more than ready to show him off. “Put a shirt on,” I directed. “I’m taking you toCora’s.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You are,huh?”

I grinned. “Yeah. Let’s run up my credit cards while they’re stillworking.”

He laughed and went to find his shirt, which I was pretty sure I remembered throwing over my desk in my haste to get him nakedearlier.

A few minutes later, we made our way down the front steps of the building, arm in arm. It was a beautiful clear night, the bite of fall definitely in theair.

“It’s going to be soup time soon,” I reminded him, and he moaned with pleasure. “I’m holding you to that promise to make mesome.”

“Baby, I’ll make you soup everyday. I’ll spoil you withsoup.”

I was laughing when Grant suddenly stopped short, his body tensing. I looked up to see what had distracted him—and tensed up myself when I saw my grandfather standing there, only a few feet from mybuilding.

He looked between the two of us and something like relief crossed his face. “Peanut,” he said, and for the first time I could remember, he sounded unsure. Not at all like his normal, confident, king-of-the-islandself.

His obvious discomfort wasn’t enough to soften me. “I said everything I needed to sayyesterday.”

He nodded. “I was listening. I know I haven’t always listened in the past. But I wanted you to know that I heard youyesterday.”

Well. That wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Apparently not done with the surprises, he turned to Grant and held out a hand. Grant eyed it for a moment, dislike radiating off of him, and didn’t reciprocate. My grandfather swallowed, lowering hishand.

“I suppose I deserved that. But I’d still like to apologize to you, Mr. Potter. What my wife and I did waswrong.”

“Does she agree with that?” I asked, unable to keep the bite from mytone.

He sighed. “Caroline is a stubborn woman. But we’ve hadwords.”

Hmm. I guessed that was something, atleast.

“Please don’t think about moving.” He nodded up at the building behind us. “That’s your home, peanut. I should have transferred over the deed a long timeago.”

I gaped at him. Maybe he really was going to try to make things different, with or without mygrandmother.

“Thank you, but that’s not necessary.” I looked up at Grant, remembering his offer to let me move in while I got the business off the ground. He’d said something about a spare room, but I was thinking he could probably be persuaded to share his own. “In any case, I don’t think I’ll be living here muchlonger.”

Grant smiled down at me, some of the tension leaving hisbody.

“I see,” my grandfather murmured, looking between the two of us. “Well, regardless, you have full access to your trust fund, Jennifer. And I promise it won’t ever be held over your headagain.”

I studied him for a long moment. He stood below the street lamp, the fluorescent light making him look older than normal. Or maybe he just looked worn out because he was struggling withthis.

“Honestly, Grandpa, I’m not really sure I want the trust anymore.” I knew there were hundreds of millions of people in the world who would trade places with me in an instant, but I wasn’t so sure the money had ever done me many favors. All it had done was allowed me to feel way too comfortable in a steady, boring little life. And made me feel obligated to the people who were supposed to love me withoutquestion.

But my words seemed to hit my grandfather hard. He took a step back, expression shocked and pained, almost as if I’d slugged him in the gut. And I got it—money was the way he showed his love. He took great pride in being able to provide for the people he cared about. Me throwing that back in his face must have felt like he was losing his last tie tome.

But that wasn’t what I wanted. As angry and hurt as I still was, I knew I didn’t want to cut this man from my life. “I actually have an idea for a business I’d like to start,” I told him, pleased with how steady my voice was. I’d assumed I would be shy when I told him, maybe even embarrassed, sure he’d patronize me. But I didn’t feel that way, not with Grant standing soclose.