“Thank you,” he began, but she shot him a scathing look and he stopped. “Right. No thanking.”
“Exactly.” Without stopping to check if he was following, Maylee went out onto the porch and sat down on the first step. A moment later, Griffin eased his body down next to her, medals and braids clinking on his ceremonial coat.
She didn’t look over at him, staring off into the distance so she could compose her thoughts. “Nice jacket,” she said, and was proud of how nonchalant her voice sounded.
“It gets me places,” he admitted.
Like into my mother’s trailer, Maylee thought but said nothing. With a long sigh, she braced herself and then turned to face him. “All right, show me the hand.”
He held out his wrapped hand to her, his gaze intent on her face.
Maylee took the bandaged hand in hers, holding it gingerly so she wouldn’t hurt him worse than he already was. “Okay,” she murmured softly. “You know how this works. Whatever you do, you can’t thank me for this.”
“Very well,” he said in a voice so soft that it made shivers go up and down her skin.
She held the thick wrappings for a moment. “Talk to me about the pain.” The first step was always to get the person talking and concentrating on telling her what was wrong.
“It’s with me day and night,” Griffin said in a low voice. “Won’t go away no matter how much I try to distract myself. And I keep saying it’s my own fault, but somehow, it doesn’t help things. All I know is that you’re the only person who can fix it for me.”
“Mmm.” Maylee gently took the wrappings and began to undo them, ignoring the flutter of her heart at his words. “What did you do?”
“I was an idiot and wasn’t paying attention to where I should have placed my hand.”
It was hard being so close to him, she realized. Maylee could smell the clean, spicy scent of his cologne, could feel the warmth of his big body next to hers, felt the heat of his gaze on her face. Her stupid body remembered his touch, though. Her nipples reacted, hardening under her bra, and she wanted to hunch her shoulders in the hopes that he wouldn’t notice. This man had been terrible to her—so why was she still attracted to him?
She pulled the last of the fabric free and was surprised to see his hand was curled into a fist. She put her fingers on his and began to gently uncurl them. “Oh, Griff, you really should relax your hand if you’ve hurt it—”
He flattened his hand and revealed pink, perfect skin.
On his palm, he’d written This hand is the property of Maylee.
She frowned down at it, then looked up at him. “I don’t understand. You’re not hurt?” Why was she so relieved? And confused?
Griffin’s face was solemn as he gazed down at her. “I’m a prat, Maylee. An unthinking prat who hurt your feelings over and over again. I should have held your hand when you asked me to, and then maybe you wouldn’t have assumed the worst when you saw those tabloids.”
She shook her head, releasing his hand as if she was the one scorched. “I don’t understand. How did you—”
“The driver explained a lot to me, and I found the magazine. It was easy to put two and two together,” Griffin said gently. “I never flirted with the princess of Saxe-Gallia. I never flirted with anyone but you. Hell, I’m not even sure I flirted with you, because I’m truly fucking rotten at it.” He raked his hand through his messy hair, ruining whatever hope of style he might have tried to accomplish with it. “I came here to ask you to come back with me, and to offer you this.” He held his hand out to her again, and she stared at the words written on his hand. “It’s yours whenever you want it.”
Maylee had a sudden vision of taking his hand and smacking him in his own face with it. She jumped off the porch step quickly, trying to distance herself from him. “You were mean to me. Constantly mean. And you made me feel like I was never good enough for you! You kept trying to change me!”
He stood, looking distinctly uncomfortable in his ceremonial jacket. “I was,” he agreed. “I was cruel to you and I shouldn’t have been. When Hunter and Gretchen sent you to me, I hated you on sight because you were everything I dislike. You were dressed poorly, talked ignorantly, and I thought I deserved better and that Hunter and Gretchen had foisted you on me to make me miserable at a time in which I couldn’t afford to have anyone but the best at my side.”
“This is not making me feel better.”
“Just listen,” he said, and there was a desperate note in his voice that made her stop. “I kept you on because I was stuck.”