My mind works furiously to figure out what could possibly be going on. Twenty minutes ago we were eating, laughing, and carrying on with Duke, and now Grayson looks like he wants to throttle me.
And not the good kind of throttle, like the other night in his shop, but the bad kind. The kind where whatever he’s about to say is going to make me upset too.
As soon as the front door shuts, Grayson pins me with a hard glare.
“I told you to stay away from Lorelei.”
“I haven’t gone near her.”
“When I said stay away from her, I didn’t just mean physically; I meant it in every sense of the word. What did you do, Nora?”
“Shit.” I hang my head.
Grayson holds his phone up in front of my face. Right there on the screen is a text from Lacey.
I can’t believe you paid Lorelei off. I’m disappointed, Gray. You gave her enough money to supply her drug habit for years.
“What did you do?” he shouts.
“I protected you!” I shout back. “What was I supposed to do? She’s toxic, and she was hurting you and the kids.”
“You were supposed to listen to me. You think I don’t know she’s toxic? Of course I fucking know! That’s why I wanted you to stay away from her.”
“I refuse to apologize for protecting you and the kids.”
Grayson pinches the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t protect me. You betrayed me. Betrayed my trust. You promised to stay away from her.”
“I didn’t betray you.”
“Yes, you did! How much, Nora? How much did you give her?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ll never hear from her again.”
His eyes are on fire, his hands clenched tight at his sides. “It matters to me.”
“Five-hundred thousand.”
“Five-hundred thousand.” His voice is eerily calm as he repeats the number, but I can see the anger building inside of him. “You gave a drug addict five-hundred thousand dollars.”
“She was getting the money from interviews anyway. This put a stop to that.”
“How do you figure?”
“I paid her, and she signed a contract. She has to issue a public apology to you and the kids, and she can’t ever talk to the press again about her relationship with you, or the children, or anything that happened in the past. This is a win-win for everyone, Grayson.”
“You mean it’s a win for you?”
“Excuse me?”
“It gets my crazy ex out of the news and shifts the spotlight away from you.”
“Away from us. Away from the kids. Jesus, Grayson, do you really think I did any of this for me?”
“I don’t know, Nora. I don’t know what the fuck to think anymore. It’s all so fucked up. The paparazzi, my personal life trending on Twitter, and my face on the front of rag mags is fucked up. This isn’t my life, and I hate it.”
Emotion builds thick in my throat. I manage to push it down enough to get my words out.
“But it’s my life. It’s my life, Grayson, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.”