Chapter 31

GRACE

It was the next-to-last day of my retreat up in Ojai. It was just after dawn, and I was spending it doing yoga and meditation until we ate breakfast.

“Take a deep breath in, and let everything go,” our instructor said in her calming voice. “That’s it. I can tell some of you are still hanging on to things that are heavy. Release it.”

I focused on my breathing. I’d had a dream about Brady last night, and it was difficult to let go of the memory of that dream.

It’d been a happy one, at least. Sometimes I had dreams where I went into his apartment and saw him sleeping with that Tatiana woman. And then he’d just laugh in my face and tell me to get lost.

The happy dreams, though ... they stuck around longer. They were worse, in a way, because they reminded me of what I’d lost.

I exhaled and moved to child’s pose. My body was stiff, and it took all my willpower to let my muscles relax.

By the time our yoga session ended, I was sweating and starving. The nine other people attending the retreat and I went to the outdoor area where we were served a breakfast of green tea, some kind of healthy protein, and loads of organic fruits and veggies.

When I’d booked this retreat, I’d wanted to get away from LA—and from Brady. I’d never been much interested in yoga or meditation, but it’d promised a respite from reality. So I’d booked it and driven up here, hoping against hope it’d help.

And to be fair, Ojai was a gorgeous area. We weren’t far from the ocean, and some of us had gone there to meditate more than once. We also had the opportunity to go hiking in the mountains. The weather was always gorgeous: warm and dry with bright-blue skies.

I could see why this was a popular place for retreats. It truly did feel like another world.

But my mind and heart were back in LA. Every night when I lay in bed, I couldn’t help but think about Brady.

I wondered if I could ever trust him again. I wondered whether I’d been seeing things, that maybe that woman hadn’t been Tatiana. I wondered whether he’d been sleeping with her, and if so, did I really have a right to be hurt?

We’d broken up. He was as single as I was. If he wanted to distract himself with another woman, did I have a right to get angry about it?

But it still hurt. It made me feel sick to my stomach that he’d moved on that quickly. It was the principle of the thing.

Then, in my darker moments, I thought about finding a guy and just getting some dick, as Kelly would say. Purge Brady from my system. Show him that if he could sleep around, I could, too.

“Are you going to the cooking class this afternoon?” Trina, one of my fellow students, asked me as she began eating a grapefruit.

“I think I might go for a hike,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I might join you.”

I nearly told her not to since I wasn’t in the mood for company, but I bit my tongue. Trina was harmless. Although she tended to go on and on about other people’s auras and loved to practice tarot readings on everybody, she meant well.

I was just bitter that, when she’d done my tarot reading, she’d pulled Death, the Ten of Swords, and the Four of Pentacles. In her interpretation, the cards meant I needed to let go of my anxiety and start opening up to people.

“You’re going through a big transformational phase,” Trina had said. “The Death card could mean the death of a phase in your life, or the death of a relationship. It’s painful, but necessary. I always tell people not to fear the Death card. You can’t have darkness without light, of course.”

I didn’t want to hear those things right then, because all it told me was that I needed to let go of Brady. And I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.

No matter how far I went, no matter where I ran to, he’d follow me. If not physically, then in my heart. It was like he’d taken root inside me, and now it was impossible to decipher where I started, and he began.

That afternoon, I managed to sneak out before Trina noticed and tried to join me on my hike. I pushed myself until I was panting and sweating like crazy. I’d never taken this particular trail. My calves and feet were burning by the time I got to the top. I stood there for a while, taking in the view, breathing deeply.

When I returned for dinner, Kris, one of our instructors, took me aside.

“You seem far away,” she remarked. “Are you all right?”

I forced myself to smile. “I’m fine,” I lied.

“Mmm, you don’t seem relaxed after a retreat where the point is to, in fact, relax.”

Kris gestured for me to sit down. I took her invitation, knowing that she was right.

“I could tell you had a lot of baggage hanging over you on your first day,” Kris said, “and I hoped you could start to unpack it. But it seems like you haven’t even started to unpack your feelings. What’s holding you back?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I just can’t let go of him. Brady. I still love him, even when I know it’s not meant to be.”

“How do you know it’s not meant to be?”

I gave her a shorter version of our story, including me seeing Tatiana going into his apartment that night.

“It sounds like this is all unresolved. What would happen if you talked to Brady? Knew for a certainty that he’s moved on? Because you don’t know if he and that woman were sleeping together,” Kris pointed out.

I shook my head. “I can’t get my hopes up,” I whispered.

“Hope is never a bad thing. But not resolving what’s bothering us, never getting closure when closure is possible ...” Kris’s gaze was direct now. “I think you’re afraid of hearing an answer you won’t like.”

“Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be?”

“Or maybe you just need to forgive this man. It sounds like you’re holding on to a lot of anger toward him. But what does that accomplish? You’ll never be able to heal your own body if your mind is imprisoned with anger.”

I knew Kris was right. I also knew that I was afraid. I was afraid of a world without Brady. That thought alone made me want to cry and scream in anguish.

“I think you need to talk to Brady. Have everything out on the table. And let go of blaming him for something that wasn’t his fault. Your brother was the one who decided to drive that night, not Brady,” said Kris quietly.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I realized I’d been misplacing my anger onto Brady, when who I should be angry with was Ben.

He’d been drunk that night. He’d been the one to go for that drive. What if he’d hurt or killed somebody else? Was it really Brady’s fault that he just handed my brother the keys?

I blew out a breath. “I don’t even know where to begin,” I admitted.

“Just one step at a time. I know you can do it.” Kris put a hand on my shoulder. “And then, once you have that conversation with Brady, you can come back here again to start the real healing.”

I was itching to get back to LA by the end of the retreat. I could tell that Kris was amused by how distracted I was, but I didn’t care.

I knew I wanted to forgive Brady. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t angry with him anymore. I wanted to tell him I still loved him, and that I wanted to fight for our relationship.

And if Tatiana was still around, I’d fight for Brady anyway. At this point I’d fight anyone who stood in my way.

I tried calling Brady before I started the drive down to LA, but he didn’t pick up. I texted him, then left him a voicemail. As I drove, I kept glancing at my phone, hoping he’d call me back.

But he was radio silent. That hope I’d been clinging to was slowly slipping through my fingers.

“No, you can’t give up now,” I muttered to myself. “You’re going to find him. Brady Carmichael, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth if I have to.”

I drove to his apartment and knocked on his door, but there was no answer. I called him, and still—no answer. When one of Brady’s neighbors came outside, I asked her if she knew where Brady was.

“Brady? I don’t think he’s been home for a few days now.”

That made no sense. Where would he be? I racked my brain. The hockey season had ended, so he shouldn’t be away for a game. But maybe he was traveling somewhere? For all I knew, he could be in the jungles of the Amazon.

I got back into my car and drove to Mac’s house. I’d been there only once for a party.

When I got there, though, it was empty. No Mac, no Elodie, and no Brady.

I called Elodie, staving off panic. When she picked up, I didn’t even say hello. “Do you know where Brady is?” I asked.

“Uh, no, I don’t.” I then heard Elodie ask Mac if he knew where Brady was. “Mac doesn’t know, either. Why? Is everything okay?”

“He won’t answer my calls, and he wasn’t at his apartment. I’m actually at your house right now.”

“Oh dear. No, he’s not there. We’ve barely seen him in the past few weeks. Mac keeps trying to get him to come over, but he always says no.”

“When did you last talk to him?”

Mac got on the phone. “Grace? Yeah, I texted with him this morning. I don’t know where he is, but he’s alive, at least.”

I blew out a breath. It wasn’t absolute confirmation that Brady was okay, but at least he’d talked to somebody recently.

I said goodbye to Mac and Elodie and headed over to the Scarlet Rope. Fortunately, it was now later in the evening, when the club would be busy. I went inside wearing just yoga pants and an oversize T-shirt, gaining a few strange looks as I went around asking if anybody had seen Brady.

But nobody had. Then again, the club was all about anonymity. Unless people recognized him as a Blades player, they probably didn’t even know Brady’s name.

I wandered through the club, going to each public viewing room to see whether Brady was there. In one, I caught sight of a man with Brady’s build and hair color.

Oh God, is that him? It looks just like him.

But the man was wearing a mask, so it was hard to tell whether it was Brady. But maybe it was him? Maybe he’d come here and that was why he wasn’t answering his phone.

I sat down, breathing hard. Brady—if this man really was Brady—now had a woman tied up as he whipped her. She was moaning and writhing, her body a canvas of red marks.

I watched as Brady put nipple clamps on the woman. She screamed when he started whipping her harder with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

Brady had never used that on me, but maybe he’d wanted to try something different. Maybe he wanted to do more intense BDSM than I’d ever wanted to do. It made sense, if he’d come here to distract himself.

I felt sick. I watched the scene as it turned into one of rough sex. Brady let the woman down and tossed her onto the bed. He roughly parted her thighs and plunged into her. She squealed and bucked as he fucked her hard, the sound of their bodies slapping filling the room.

I couldn’t watch this. I was about to leave when Brady removed his mask to wipe his face. I realized with a jolt it wasn’t actually Brady.

I bit back a cry. I ran from the room and into a bathroom, locking myself in a stall. I couldn’t stop the tears of relief.

It wasn’t Brady. It wasn’t him.

I was in the stall for so long that someone knocked on the door. “You okay in there?” a woman asked.

I wiped my face and opened the door. “I’m great,” I replied, a wide smile on my face.

The woman gave me a strange look, then shook her head. I rinsed my face and headed home.

When I got to my parents’ house, it was late. To my surprise, though, the first-floor lights were still on.

When I opened the front door, I saw my parents first, sitting in the living room.

And then I saw him. Brady sat on the couch, like he’d been waiting for me to return.

Dad cleared his throat. “Uh, we’ll let you two talk.”

My parents grabbed their things, which only confused me more. “Where are you going?” I asked.

Mom gave me a kiss on the cheek. “A late movie and maybe we’ll go to a bar. We haven’t done that in forever.” She patted my arm. “Be nice to him,” she whispered.

Then my parents were gone, and it was just me and Brady.