Chapter Seventy-Two

Safiya

Y ou became mine that day.

Wife.

I took those vows to heart, Safiya .

I was his wife.

Legally.

My mind whirled with emotions. My heart took flight. My soul breathed in hope, and my unsettled conscience tried to battle it all as I attempted and failed to not stare at the American SEAL I had helplessly fallen in love with when he gave me the ocean.

Leading me up three worn steps onto a dilapidated porch, the man who was truly, lawfully my husband glanced down at me with his impassive gaze. Then his quiet but authoritative voice feathered over every one of my tangled nerves. "Ready?"

I did not know for what, but I could not deny that it would not matter if I did. Whatever this was, it was important enough for him to bring me here, and that alone had my acquiescence. "I am."

With merely a hint of a nod, Grayson unlocked the door and held it for me. I crossed the threshold of the older home, but then I saw the couch and froze.

Deftly moving around me in the small space, Grayson went straight for a tiny form curled up on the worn piece of furniture.

The first thing I noticed about her was that she was beautiful.

The second was that she was gravely ill.

Leaning down to hug the slight woman who had struggled to sit up, Grayson did not show any concern as he gently released her. "Hey, Mom. I brought someone to meet you."

Mom? This was his mother?

And he had brought me here? To meet her?

Quickly smoothing her long silvery-blonde hair, she looked up at me and smiled wide. "A very pretty someone. Hello." She held out her hand, not in a way to shake, but as if she were reaching for me. "I'm Raine. It's so nice to meet you." She grasped my outstretched hand between both of hers and held it like we were young girls. Then she looked at her son with a mock scowl that could not hide the love if she had been forced to, and she chastised him. "If Grayson here had warned me that you two were coming, I would've baked."

Either immune to her chastising or used to it, he ignored it. "Mom, meet Safiya. My wife."

The woman's hands tightened around mine, and you could have heard a pin drop.

I did not know who was more shocked, but both of us turned to look at him.

He winked at me, then glanced at his mother. "Have you eaten yet today?"

Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again. Her voice came out as a rasp. "Grayson Ryker Gautier." But then she stopped.

Gautier? Ryker? "You are French?" Or Dutch or German? How did I not know these names of his?

"No. Raine likes made-up names. She's changed my middle and last names half a dozen times over the years." He threw her a look. "Legally changed them before I was old enough to stop her from wasting her time and money."

Inhaling air into her frail body, his mother seemed to come to life, and all at once, I saw a flash of personality and true determination that she had passed down to her son. "First of all, those are not made-up names," she defended with no little offense. "I made careful choices with both of those. Ryker means rich and powerful, which you now are. And Gautier means strong ruler, commander, and warrior, which you also are. So don't expect me to apologize for making sure your names evolved as you did." She looked at me. "He needed strong names, protective ones, did he not?"

I did not know what to say or think. But I could not disagree on one fact. "Grayson is a very strong man."

Her smile returned as she looked at her son, but it was one of victory. "See?"

He lifted an eyebrow at his mother. "Can I start lunch now, or are you going to change my name before I walk into the kitchen?"

"How about you start by telling me why you're lying to me at the expense of this beautiful young woman? Because I can see her aura and feel her spirit, and I know damn well you introduced her as your wife for shock value."

Grayson looked at me, and for once I could read his expression.

He actually looked contrite—for one heartbeat.

Then he became the dominant, unapologetic man I knew him to be. "I've never lied to you, Mom. Safiya is my wife."

Looking between me and her son, grasping my hand even tighter now, his mother focused on me and watched for what I could only assume was a reaction.

One I was trying desperately to hold in. "I think we should have this conversation another time." When I had not had even five minutes to reflect on everything that had been said, none of which was insignificant.

Grayson tilted his head with a mannerism I had never seen from him. "You think?"

It was then that it occurred to me that he had not brought me here solely to meet his mother. "We will have this conversation another time," I corrected.

His mother petted the back of my hand and smiled at her son. "I like her." She looked back at me, and her smile grew. "I like you. Keep reminding him that he isn't the sun, and the earth doesn't revolve for him." Her expression turned toward a seriousness that I had seen reflected in her son. "And the world's problems are not all his to carry." She squeezed me once. "He forgets that last part. Often." Letting go of me completely, she reached for her son. "Help me up. I meant to make muffins today before the blueberries that—" Stopping herself, she cleared her throat. "Before the blueberries go bad." She avoided eye contact with her son as he easily, and with familiarity born of patience, helped her up. "I need to make those muffins. That's all."

His expression locked again, Grayson turned his mother toward a tiny kitchen I saw at the back of the small, tired house, and that was when guilt truly struck me.

The old house, the worn carpet, the even more worn couch. The threadbare blanket that had been over her legs, the slightly dingy walls, the paneling in the hallway that even I knew was outdated.

The entire house was outdated.

Except it was not just past its prime, it was almost falling down.

Grayson had put me in a luxury beach mansion, and his mother was living in conditions not much better than what I had grown up in.

Before the absolute shame could feed itself into a fury, his mother—the thin, weakened woman who had given him life and many names—looked back from the doorway to the kitchen and shook her head. "You don't need to go there, Safiya."

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

Holding her son's shoulder as he had his arm around her waist, she smiled with more empathy and life than her body had to give. "I can see what you're thinking. Your entire mood changed colors, and I see the guilt. Maybe pity and a little anger at Grayson too?" She waved her free hand dismissively. "Anyway, it's not Grayson. It's me. I know how my son lives, and you don't need to blame him or feel guilty. I love my house, and I paid for it all on my own. I raised him here, and I'm staying here. So you can let that bad energy go. I won't allow him to move me out of here."

Grayson immediately countered her stance. "I won't allow you to stay. And yes, you are mov—"

She put her hand over his mouth, actually put her fingers to his lips. "Don't even try it." She pulled back to point at him. "Now help with these muffins."

"Tell me where the blueberries came from," he countered almost casually, but there was nothing casual about his tightly locked expression.

"Oh, go sit down. Safiya, come help me. Do you bake?"

"Of course, and yes, I do." I moved toward the kitchen, but as I did, I made the mistake of looking up at a six-foot-two Navy SEAL.

With eyes the color of a wintery ocean and a presence more commanding than any man I had ever met, I could not deny what his mother had said about the names she had bestowed upon him.

Watching my every step, taking in the full length of me as if his gaze were an intimate, seductive caress, the man who had dominantly washed my body and touched me without reservation made a show of giving me his full, heedful attention.

Then, at the very moment I passed him to walk into the kitchen, his breath and his low voice coated over my skin like liquid desire as he fingered a lock of my hair. " Wife ."