Chapter 12

Twelve

Grace

When I wake up in the hospital room, North’s strong, reassuring arms wrapped around me from behind, I know exactly what needs to be done. Morning light is beginning to fill the space, sunshine turning his dark arm hair to gold, and that tiniest detail is enough to make my heart ripple and squeeze with love. Love so wild and boundless, it scares me a little. Not enough to be cautious, though. Oh no, I’m running toward him without hesitation.

North Whitlock is it for me. Forever.

Until now, until I experienced real, unconditional love, I didn’t realize how much it has been lacking in my life. I’ve grown up in a sterile, affectionless environment. Not only that, but I think maybe I’ve been abused without realizing it. Locked in my room, controlled, manipulated, criticized. Over the years, I became so conditioned to please my father that I never stopped to think what I wanted.

Oh, I had a dream of teaching, but it was never realistic.

It feels realistic now. Anything does.

With this man holding me, I feel like I could fly.

Holding someone down, locking them up, forcing them into subservience isn’t love. It’s bad parenting. It’s terror. And if I let it continue, it won’t stop for my whole life. I’ll just keep running on this hamster wheel trying to make Simmons happy—and he doesn’t even have the ability to feel an emotion like happiness. It will all be for nothing.

I’m not going to an Ivy League college. Especially for finance.

Not because it will take me away from North—although that is a huge consideration, being that I can’t breathe without him—but mainly because I don’t want to. I don’t want to take that prestigious education away from someone who truly dreams of it. What I want is a lot more simple, though. I want to teach children. I want a place to belong.

I’ve found it with North.

Now I have to keep it.

And there’s only one way I can see that happening without his life being jeopardized.

Anger and protectiveness crowd into my throat. I’ve never experienced either of these emotions so deeply, so profoundly. No one—no one—is going to lay a finger on this man sharing my hospital bed. How dare my father even suggest it? I think of the way North carried me into the emergency room last night, hoarsely calling for a doctor, his arms shaking around me, and I decide it’s my turn to save him. To make the hard decision to leave my life behind the only way possible and start over. Start fresh with the love of my life.

There is a lot of guilt associated with what I have to do. A daughter’s guilt. But knowing my father will never feel a hint of guilt over what he’s done to me—or what he wanted to do to North—makes me twice as determined to do the hard thing.

North’s lips press to the nape of my neck. “You’re all tensed up. What are you thinking about, beauty?” His hand travels through the valley of my hip and waist, sending a warm shiver down my spine. “Talk to me.”

I wet my lips and snuggle back, laying my head on his big shoulder. “Remember last night when I told you my father is working with a really dangerous man?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Curtin Tennison,” I whisper, as if the man himself might be listening in the hallway.

North stiffens behind me, the temperature of his body dropping slightly. “Your father threatened to have Curtis Tennison bump me off if we continue to see each other?”

“That about sums it up.” I take a deep breath, pressure pushing down on my collarbone. “Does that…change things? Now that you know the threat is real?”

“Change things how?”

He seems genuinely perplexed. “With us. Being with me could get you killed—”

“Gracie. Jesus.” He lifts his head and looks down at me, brows drawn together, incredulous. “When are you going to understand that I’m in for life, baby? Let them kill me. It’s better than living five more minutes without you. Don’t ask me…please, don’t ask me again if I’m sure. I’m well past sure. I’m sure enough to go to the grave.”

I exhale unsteadily, making room for my fluttering heart to expand. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let that happen.”

“We won’t.” His arms tighten around me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking…we have to go to the police.” Saying the words out loud makes my heart pound loudly in my ears, the room spinning slightly around me. “Once I take this step, though, I can never go home.”

North makes a halting sound. “You’re really going to give it all up…for me?”

“I’m gaining so much more than I’m giving up. So much more. You.”

He holds me tighter. “Then your home is with me now, Gracie,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m going to win that fight on Friday, baby. I’m going to take care of you. Buy us a house where we can wake up together every morning. We’ll have a Christmas tree in the window in December. A wreath on the door. Our last name on the mailbox. I can paint the walls any color you want. And one day, we’ll make one of the rooms into a nursery.”

His manhood is growing thicker against my bottom and that languid, delirious, lovesick feeling wraps around me, my body moving unconsciously, teasing his erection to make it even stiffer, bigger. All this talk of having children, having our own house, is intoxicating. Like a lungful of oxygen after being submerged in a lake. I want it. I want what he’s offering me with every fiber of my being. Because my heart tells me it’s what I need. Tells me it’s right. That anything and everything is right with this man by my side.

“Before any of that, I’m going to put a ring on your finger,” he rasps, his touch traveling over my hip and down, testing the wetness between my legs, plunging a thick finger into my sex, making me sob as he draws it in and out. “Grace Whitlock,” he murmurs in my ear, adding a second finger. “Don’t look at North Whitlock’s wife or he’ll break your fucking jaw. You want people to say that when you walk this fine ass down the street, don’t you?”

I nod, tilting my head for his mouth, moaning when he slicks his tongue up the curve of my neck. “Yes. I want that.”

“I’ll give it to you. Trust me to give everything to you.” My breath catches a moment later when he replaces his fingers with his long, thick shaft, rolling me face down in the hospital bed, shoving the pillow beneath my hips and taking me roughly. “Love my Gracie.”

“Love my North,” I choke out, my teeth beginning to rattle.

That’s my truth. This man is my truth.

Keeping him, keeping what we have, is going to mean betraying everything I know. Everything I’ve grown up with. It’s going to mean setting a bomb and watching it go off. But as my heart swells along with my pleasure, I know there’s nothing that can stop me.

Not when our life together is on the line.

* * *

I walkinto my house in Beacon Hill and close the door.

I creep toward the staircase, freezing when I hear the rapid approach of footsteps.

My father appears around the corner, phone in hand. “Where the fuck have you been?” He emphasizes every word through clenched teeth. “If you tell me you’ve been with that piece of shit from Southie, I’ll put you in boarding school for the rest of your senior year. Right up until day one of college—so fast your head will spin. Do you understand me?” I don’t respond. I can’t. My legs are trembling and my tongue feels like sandpaper. Even now, even with him red-faced and hurling threats at me, I can’t help feeling the guilt, but it’s a lot lighter than my fear of being without North forever. “I will protect my investment,” he finishes.

“I’m not an investment, I’m your daughter.”

Those words don’t seem to penetrate whatsoever. “You were with him, weren’t you?” He looks me over with disgust. “Who knew you’d turn out to be such a whore? Your mother is going to be devastated when she returns.”

That is true. But not for the reason he thinks.

Hot moisture crowds my eyes, but I raise my chin, resolved. Scared but ready to do what’s necessary. And it gives me strength to know I’m not alone. That North is nearby. Waiting. Probably going insane. But waiting for me nonetheless. “I’m not going to boarding school, father. And I’m not going to the college of your choosing.”

“Oh, yes you are,” he grates, taking a step closer. “But just out of curiosity, what would you do instead? Without my tuition money and influence. Without my name? What would you do besides end up in the gutter like your little boyfriend?”

“I’d be happy,” I say, my voice gaining more strength. “I’d make my own decisions. I’d plan my own future, instead of living the one you’ve decided is most respectable.”

He laughs. “Well you definitely don’t care about being respectable. Sneaking in here in broad daylight, wearing the same clothes as yesterday. You’re an embarrassment.” A vein begins to tick in his temple. “Do I have to remind you what I’ll do if you don’t fall in line and stay the hell away from the fighter?”

“You wouldn’t really do that,” I whisper, my earlier anger once again taking hold. “You wouldn’t have him killed.”

“I assure you, I would. It would only take one phone call.” He holds up his phone. “I tracked down his address right before you walked in. Took a while, because his deadbeat parents’ names are on the lease.” His mouth spreads into a sinister smile. “You don’t think Curtis Tennison knows how to hide a body? Maybe we’ll put your little boyfriend in the concrete when we break ground on our development. It’ll be a reminder to you what happens when you rebel and besmirch the Foster name.”

“It sounds like that’s what you’re doing. Not me.”

My father rears back his hand to slap me and I close my eyes, begging him not to. Or if he does, I pray that North can control himself just a little bit longer. Just wait. I’ll be okay.

Thankfully, my father shoves his fingers through his hair instead, but his eyes are still meting out violence. I let out a slow breath of relief, saying, “Father, you shouldn’t be working with Tennison on the Foster development. I know he’s blackmailing you into using Ludlow Builders, but there has to be a way out. Once you give in to someone like him, you’ll have to give in every single time.”

He gets in my face. “Money is money, whether I make it with Tennison or elsewhere. And our partnership is already proving its advantage. I know every politician he’s got in his pocket and I’m using them for my own gain now, too. Blackmail can be a beautiful thing. So can power. I have no qualms using it to put a bullet between North Whitlock’s eyes.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I whisper, pulling up my shirt so he can see the wire.

Behind me, the front door of the house bursts open, cops filling the foyer, guns drawn.

North runs in behind them, wild-eyed, searching for me among the sudden pandemonium. When he sees me, he charges forward, picking me up and wrapping me in his arms. We back away as the police officers slap handcuffs on my stunned father, his shock slowly giving way to outrage. He demands to see a warrant, which they present him wordlessly.

“We’re picking up your buddy Curtis right now on the other side of town,” one of the cops we spent the morning with says, matter-of-factly. “Along with everyone who knowingly defrauded the city through Ludlow Builders. We knew he had his hand in the pot somewhere. And if you want a decent sentence on your conspiracy to commit murder charge, you’re going to let us know every politician Tennison has been shaking down.” The cop slaps my father on the shoulder. “The reckoning has arrived.”

“Gracie. Gracie.” North rocks me, drawing my attention, his pulse going a million miles an hour at the base of his neck. I kiss him there soothingly and he makes a rough sound. “It’s over. Christ, thank God it’s over. I haven’t taken a fucking breath in ten minutes. You were so brave, baby. I didn’t want you to have to do this for me. Not just for me…”

“Just for you?” I ask, looking up into his tortured golden eyes, framing his jaw in my hand. “Just for the other half of my soul? There’s nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for us.”

“I love you so much,” he breathes, kissing my mouth tenderly, then with more and more passion, until we’re forced to pull away or ignite something we can’t finish. “Now it’s my turn to sacrifice for you. Every day of my life. Every second is about my Gracie. And that’s not a sacrifice at all, is it? No, it’s a goddamn privilege.” As my father is led out in handcuffs, North turns his back to block me from view. Holding me protectively to his chest. “I’ll take good care of her, Mr. Foster. I’ll prove it to you. You’ll see.”

My father says nothing back, simply throwing us a final glance of hatred. Disgust.

Until that moment, I don’t realize how badly North wanted my father’s approval. Man to man. Even after my father wanted North killed, didn’t believe him worthy of me. After all of that, he wants to feel that pride of having Simmons accept him. To believe him the right man for his daughter. “North,” I say, bringing his attention back to me, holding his eyes with every ounce of love and trust and confidence I have in him. “You don’t have to prove anything. You don’t have to prove what I know—that you’re a great man. The only man I’ll ever need or love. The best one I’ve ever known.” I draw his mouth down to mine, gently prodding his tongue with mine and listening to his breath stutter. “But on Friday, you’re going to step into that ring and become a god. And then you’re going to bring me home, to our bed, and rule over me. Any way you want. You’re going to be everything we already know you are. Everything I already love with my whole heart. A man that any loving and caring father would be proud to call his son-in-law. A man I’ll spend my life loving.”

And he does become that god on Friday.

To the roar of thousands.

The local boy from Southie knocks out the champ in two rounds.

When the referee raises North’s gloved hand up over his head, those golden eyes are zeroed in on me, as if the crowd doesn’t even exist. I love you, he mouths at me, emotion clouding his face. I love you, Gracie.

Then he takes me home and proceeds to show me how much. Every single day.