Page 68 of Praised
“Rose.”
“Listen, Ambrose,” he repeated, ignoring me. “Everyone has money. Some of us just have more than others.”
“He has more than most,” I said.
“And so do I.” Grayson shrugged. “But my boyfriend has more than me. Hell, he has whiskey in his kitchen that costs more than what I spend on clothes in a whole year. That’s his prerogative, not mine.”
“I don’t want his money.”
“And I don’t want Rob’s money, but I want Rob, and they’re kind of a package deal.”
Grayson looked at me like I was a child and he’d just explained a very simple concept that I should have grasped years before. I flexed my hands, stretching out my fingers and then cracking each knuckle to alleviate some of the tension that had built in my bones.
“There are plenty of reasons to not be with a person,” he went on. “If they’re mean in a not-sexy way, or if they don’t tip the wait staff, or like…I don’t know. Plenty of reasons. But if you run a perfectly good man off because he was raised well and had some shit handed to him on a silver platter, then you’re really narrowing your playing field. I mean, you want more than this for yourself, right?”
Grayson’s attention moved past me toward the restaurant, then down my clothes, and finally to my car.
I sighed, kicking a pile of rocks down the alley.
“I don’t want to get used to it,” I said quietly. “And then lose it.”
“That’s the risk with any relationship. And honestly you don’t strike me as the type to let him spoil you beyond measure.”
“He’s already done too much.”
“Says who?” Grayson asked.
“Says me.”
“Are you in a partnership or a democracy?”
Headlights flashed down the alley and a car came rolling down the gravel, coming to stop less than two feet from where Grayson and I stood. The driver cut the ignition and when the lights turned off, I immediately recognized the make and model, and shortly thereafter, the man in the driver’s seat.
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath, steeling myself for whatever vitriol Cody had for me this time around.
“Do you know him?”
“Unfortunately,” I groaned. “My cheating ex.”
Cody shouldered the driver’s side door open and came around to the front of his car, eyes narrowed into judgmental slits. He’d clearly already appraised the situation and made up his mind about who Grayson was and who he was to me. He looked angry, borderline furious and barely restrained.
“Why aren’t you answering my calls, Rose?” Cody took a step toward me, and Grayson moved, putting himself between us.
“Who are you?” Grayson asked, his tone half-sneer and half-laugh.
“Who am I?” Cody scoffed. “I’m his boyfriend.”
“Bet you’re not,” Grayson said at the same time that I also refuted the claim.
“Oh?”
“You might have been in the past, but he’s moved on from men who don’t appreciate a good thing when they see it.” Grayson’s mouth was pulled into a tight and unimpressed line.
“I appreciate you just fine, don’t I, Rose?”
“Appreciated him right into someone else’s bed, I hear.”
For every angry breath Cody took, Grayson seemed to get stronger. The casual way he batted back every insult Cody tried to hurl was only making him angrier and making me more worried. I didn’t know Cody to be a violent man, but Grayson was practically a stranger, and I didn’t want to have to explain to Flynn how he’d gotten injured on my account.
