Taming McGruff (Book 3, Once Upon A Romance Series) (19 page)

“Thanks, sir.” His muffled voice came out, and then he straightened and closed the trunk with a definite bang.

Griff held out his hand and shook the older man’s hand. “We’ll have to do this again.” He marveled at the easy way Priscilla and the others teased and joked, even drawing him in a time or two at dinner.

“Nice of you.”

Swallowing hard, Griff wondered if he should ask. “Ex-cop, right?”

“It shows. Ex-military, right?”

He nodded. “You ran my plate that first night.” Griff thought he should thank him; otherwise his pixie would never have shown up on his doorstep with takeout and begun to chip away at the stone around his heart.

“Habit.”

“You still have connections.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“Any that could look into a cold case?”

“Maybe. What you got?”

“A white-collar crime.” His middle gnawed at him. Why was he trying to dig up his father’s past? Shouldn’t he focus on ruining Agnes King?

“Conviction?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t get that far. The guy…died just before the trial began.”

“Why now? You got a stake in the outcome?”

Personal one, yes
. “Could be,” Griff said, deliberately evasive. If this guy was as good as Griffin’s prior research showed, he’d figure out the connection sooner or later. So why push it? Griff needed the truth. He looked directly at him, saying, “A lawyer. Charles King’s lawyer, to be specific. It could change nothing or everything for the King daughters.”

Edward seemed to size him up. “You benefit, too. You’re Priscilla’s husband.”

“Not financially, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t want any money. I don’t need any. You can check that out for yourself.”

“I already have.”

Griffin chuckled. “I thought so.”

“Habit.”

“Did you tell Alex or Charlie?”

“Nope. No reason to. Everything checked out.”

“Nice to know someone else is watching out for Priscilla.” The tight band around Griffin’s chest eased. If he couldn’t always protect her, then there were others who would.

“Comes with being family.”

Nodding, Griff looked away as the back door opened and Dolly, clutching leftovers to bring home to Charlie, and Priscilla came out. “You game? Name your price.”

“If it’s bad news, you telling them?”

He wrestled with it. It could only be bad news for him. “They should know. We all should, whatever the outcome.”

“No money. I’ll check around. Gives me something to do during the day while I’m waiting.”

“Can’t get rid of that old cop, can you?” Griff pulled out his cell phone from his top pocket. “What’s your number?”

Edward nodded to the car. “Car number.” He gave it to him.

Griff punched it in his phone, let it ring once, and then hung up. “Now you have mine, too. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“After nine is good.”

“You got it.”

Griffin realized this was the beginning of the end. He’d have answers, but would he like them?

With the vibration of the Harley under him and Priscilla sitting behind him with her arms hugging him, Griffin let all his questions go for now. The dark night streets swallowed them up and he welcomed the anonymity.

The fresh air cleared the cobwebs, soothing his troubled thoughts. In the back of his mind, he knew time ticked.

Only the here and now mattered. Her arms, wrapped around him, made Griff feel someone cared for the moment. He’d take that, take what little he could until there was no more.

He rode for miles, mindlessly driving. He’d done it in the past, many times, but with Priscilla it seemed different, intimate. Her sense of adventure coupled with her charm seeped into him and all the tiny cracks in his broken heart.

She sensed his moods. She knew him better than anyone ever had. And she didn’t hold it against him.

Not yet anyway.

***

The next morning, Peg met Griffin at King’s door.

“For crying out loud, the Barracuda is at it again.” His assistant shoved the folded newspaper she held at him.

His middle clenched. He read the headline: “Who is Griffin James?” “Must be a slow news day,” he muttered between gritted teeth. He scanned the rest of the society column; his attention caught the “reliable sources” phrase and he read that quote more closely. “He’s a fraud. He doesn’t exist before the age of eighteen…” Mrs. King had done her homework.

“What are we gonna do, Boss?” Peg asked, rushing to keep up with him as he marched to the executive elevators. The store didn’t open for another two hours; however, he knew the press would descend soon.

“First, take the knife out of my back, Peg.”

She chuckled, smacking him on the arm. “Thatta boy.”

“Call Charlie. I know mornings are still difficult for her, but she needs to know. Once I read all of this, I’ll draft a statement. And I’ll call Priscilla…” He trailed off. It had to come from him.

The other shoe had dropped.

***

Shaking, Priscilla waited in Charlie’s office for Griffin to join them and Francie. “It’s Mother,” she assured the other two. “When she confronted us weeks ago, she called Griffin a fraud. Riff-raff, too.”

“Yep, that’s in here,” Charlie said, running her finger down the page to find that saying.

“She did it on purpose, so you’d know it was her,” Francie piped up. Leaning over, she touched Priscilla’s arm. “Look, now we’re in the same club. Attacked by Mother club.”

Charlie tossed aside the paper. “Really, someone has got to stop her.”

Griffin entered, saying, “I’m trying. I have been for years.”

Priscilla jumped up from her seat and turned to look at him. “Griff.” She went to him, hugging him. “She’s attacking you to get to me.”

He hesitated for a moment, and then he pulled her close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, kissing her on the forehead and setting her away from him. He went to the door, closed it, and then turned back to them. “I think you should sit down for this,” he said to Priscilla.

His eyes were dark and troubled.

She swallowed hard. “What is it?” she asked, but did make it back to the chair that Francie had turned around to face him. Charlie sat on the edge of her desk, touching Priscilla on the shoulder.

For a long moment, Griffin held Priscilla’s gaze. “I have a confession to make.”

Her middle dropped.

“I came here,” he nodded to Charlie, “for the interview under false pretenses. I wanted to destroy King’s.”

Priscilla gasped. The night they’d met. Francie pulled her chair closer, wrapping her arm around Priscilla’s shoulder.

“I assumed, incorrectly, that to get to Mrs. Agnes King, I had to go through the store and ruin it. That goal sustained me for years. However, once I met all of you, I realized that she was gone and to take down the store would mean I would also destroy all of you and your dreams.” His gaze landed on her. “I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Griffin, who are you?” Priscilla asked, shock racing through her veins. She didn’t even know the man she married.

“Not a nice guy,” he said, looking away. “So I did the opposite. I did everything I could to make this store a success.” He spoke to Charlie. “The one-year and five-year plans I gave you still hold.”

“I approved them,” Charlie agreed. “They’re sound, bringing us up to date within months and projecting our future needs. They’re nothing short of brilliant.”

“Mrs. King, if you choose to believe me or not, wanted to pay me to make King’s fail.” He glanced at Francie, saying, “You were right when you said months ago your mother didn’t want this place to be a success. She thinks once this store is gone, all of your misplaced dreams for the store will be over and done with. Also,” he looked at Priscilla, “she thinks then you’ll have no place to go except home to her.”

Her mind swirled with thoughts, but her heart ached. She shook her head, not wanting to believe he could be a part of this. “And us?”

“Has everything to do with protecting you from her.”

“How so?”

“No more men to deal with.” Francie said, “No more trying to control you or the prospective groom. Griff took you off the market and ticked Mother off to no end.”

“Yes,” he agreed. A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his lip. “I did enjoy getting under her skin.”

“You hate her? That much?” Priscilla asked, stunned at the things he stooped to.

“Yes.” His short, clipped answer rang in the air. “She did get something right in the article. Griffin James did not exist before I became of age.”

“What? You invented him?”

“The name only. My mother’s maiden name and my father’s first name. Mrs. King carved out my black heart when she destroyed my father. He died a drunk, broken man.”

Priscilla felt sick. She recalled the bits and pieces he’d told her. Losing his father when he’d drunk himself to death, in his aunt’s care until she died, then foster care, and then the military. She stared at him. He stood remote and suffering.

All that didn’t excuse him from what he’d done to them, to her. His lies rang in her head. “What’s true?” She wanted to know if at any time were his feelings a sham, too. Could he be that much of a liar?

“We are,” he said with such conviction that it shook her.

“Your eyes,” Charlie said now in stunned wonder, “are like his. I knew there was something familiar about you that first night we met here.”

Griffin reared back.

“Who?” Priscilla demanded.

“James Weatherford, your father’s best friend and attorney,” he announced. “Branded a thief by your mother. Held up to ridicule for seeking the truth. Arrested for supposedly stealing millions from King’s Department Store and the late Charles King.” He halted, allowing that to sink in. “I am his son. I am James Weatherford, Jr.”

***

Priscilla’s head throbbed as she moved with purpose, stowing as many of her clothes in a small suitcase and her toiletries in an overnight bag. The house pulsed with silence. His bedroom, now redone in crisp whites and shades of blue, jeered at her. She avoided looking at the big, king-sized bed she’d made love in with him.

Griffin James was a liar. Griffin James didn’t really exist. He was made up. His life was dedicated to hate, to destroying her mother. How could she believe anything he ever said again? How could she believe whatever he did with her and said to her meant anything to him?

Her McGruff
.

She sucked in a sharp breath, nearly doubling over. “No,” she whispered brokenly. “It can’t be.” Grabbing the counter in the closet, she leaned her forehead against the cool surface. Memories of being in here, discovering him that first time—the jagged scar that sliced his shoulder, and then finding his medals—raced back.

His wound was real. His pain was real.

Her ragged breaths echoed all around her as moments they’d shared crept in her mind between the anger and utter disbelief
of what he’d done to her.

I’m trying to protect you.

I can’t be trusted.

Not every man will be honorable. In the bedroom or boardroom
.

He’d warned her. And she, the fool, boldly proclaimed she trusted him.

And his proposal, a three-month probationary period, to take her off the marriage market, protect her from her own mother’s control and manipulations, rang true, too. Lord, how he must have loved the fact he’d won her in his undercover vengeful attack where it crippled her mother’s ability to strike a deal with another prospective groom. That hurt, deeply and profoundly.

However, he allowed her to push his buttons, extend the boundaries of how far she could go with him, and pressure him into invading his space. He’d given her a place to stretch and grow.

Had he just humored her? “No, not Griff,” she said under her breath. Humor didn’t top his list of skills.

But he had lied. If not spoken, he hid it. Had he lied about them? His feelings? Did he even have any feelings? The memory of first meeting him, his cold, remote stance, rushed back. But his hot, intense stare sliced through her, touching a deep longing within her. His desire was real. So was hers for him.

He tried pushing her away. She refused.

She’d pushed back. He’d taken.

Her chest ached. She could barely breathe now.

Priscilla’s love for him, the man he’d slowly revealed to her in private, warred with every blast of doubt hammering in her mind.

What was real anymore?

With what little strength she possessed, Priscilla pushed herself up, sucking in a shaky breath and standing tall. She swiped the tears from her eyes.

She knew what she had to do next.

***

She didn’t care if he found her, didn’t care what he said. She had a mission to accomplish. This one would not be unveiled on the design blog. No, this was something she had to do. For herself.

A home reflects the heart of a person.

My heart is dark and empty
.

Priscilla, having covered the furniture in plastic and the floors in a drop cloth, dipped the roller in the fresh paint. Applying it to the walls, she worked steadily through the long morning hours. Painting didn’t take much time at all since the professionals had given her many tips and shortcuts over the last several weeks.

Standing back now, she appraised her work. “Not bad,” she murmured. Heading to the nearest fan, she tilted it to hit the wall she’d just completed. Turning, she collected her paintbrushes and began to lug the gear out of the room.

Her back ached, but, she was far from done.

Hours later, Priscilla, with her things in tow, closed and locked the front door. Tears streamed down her face as she walked away from her pretend life. Her heart broke; it was only now that she truly realized with Griffin’s help, her dreams had come true, even the ones she never knew she had.

She was the designer she longed to be. She’d put her unique stamp on King’s, earning the right to call herself a King. And she was cared for, maybe even loved, just for being herself. Griffin’s pixie.