As if he sensed her worry, Maverick squeezed her hand where it lay on his chest. She hugged him tighter, wishing she could get closer, needing him inside her, wanting him to just make all of this go away, even if for only a while.
His little gesture of caring escalated her worry on a whole other front—Grant was off-the-scale irate about what he deemed the Ravens’ interference in his life and their relationship. In fact, she’d never seen Grant less in control than at that dinner. Obsessively arranging the flatware. Cutting the steak she hadn’t stayed long enough for him to finish into precise, same-sized squares. At one point he’d actually stammered, his eyes blinking almost like a tic. The fact that he’d called in Davis at some point proved he wasn’t going to let that interference go unaddressed.
It had been all she could do to keep Maverick from jumping Grant and beating him to a pulp right there in the middle of downtown Frederick. But then Maverick would’ve ended up arrested, shot, or dead. No doubt all things Grant would either like to see happen or maybe even was actively planning. Given what she could finally see about him now, Alexa wouldn’t put such things past Grant. Not anymore.
If only she’d seen it sooner.
A nauseating flutter of nerves rushed through her when they returned to the clubhouse. The way Maverick had been when they’d left the restaurant, there was no way he wasn’t going to be enraged at Grant’s efforts to blackmail Alexa into giving in. And at the same time she hated to do anything that might pull the Ravens further into this mess.
But Maverick was like a dog with a bone. She knew he wasn’t going to let this go, either.
“So what did he say?” Maverick asked when they got inside. The nine of them headed straight to the bar in the big rec room for a drink, and caught up with Dare, who was hanging there waiting for them to return.
“What happened?” Dare asked, rising from the couch where he’d been sitting with Haven and his grandfather.
“Exchanged some words with Slater and Frederick’s very own Barney Fucking Fife,” Mav said. “But nothing major. Except whatever happened inside. Alexa?”
Everyone looked to her.
She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. Alexa couldn’t believe she had to give voice to Grant’s wild demands. She was overwhelmed and worried and stunned. She should’ve been panicking about the implications of what Grant was trying to do. Instead, she was just . . . shocked. All the noise inside her was too much. She’d gone numb. “I . . . he . . .”
“What?” Maverick asked, worry and a banked rage emanating from him.
Finally, she summed it up as succinctly as she could. “If I don’t do what he wants, he’s going to destroy me.” She crossed her arms and squeezed, trying to hold herself together. How was this her life? How was this her life?
“Sonofafuckingbitch,” Maverick bit out, raking at his sandy blond hair.
“And he wants?” Dare asked, his voice low and lethal.
“Me. To have me back. To marry me. Why would he want to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry him?” She shook her head, “bewildered” too small a word for what she felt. “He could have anyone. Why would he go to all this trouble . . . over me?”
Maverick was in front of her in an instant. “One, because you’re you. You’re smart, you’re caring, you’re talented, and you’re beautiful, and any man would want you. Don’t ever let me hear you ask such a bullshit question again.” He arched an eyebrow and nailed her with a fierce stare until she nodded, his words piercing a hole through her numbness and letting in a little heat and light. “Two, because he’s a control freak, and you’re denying him something he wants. That makes him want it even more. Three, because he doesn’t want to lose face by having it known that you called off the wedding and broke up with him. I’m sure he wants to avoid the questions that will naturally arise from that, not to mention the personal embarrassment at having been jilted, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to do so.”
“And four,” she said, having to swallow around the knot of emotion in her throat. She met Maverick’s intense blue gaze. “Because you’re involved—all of you. He’s crazy pissed about that, and he sees this as a competition with the Raven Riders. And Grant doesn’t like to lose.”
Maverick gave a tight nod. “Sounds about right.”
“But I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” she told him; then, she looked around at the group. “To any of you.”
“If Slater throws something at us, Alexa, we’ll handle it,” Dare said. A low rumble of agreement went around the room. She appreciated the sentiment and the support, more than she could say, even though it made her worry more.
“Why did you say he was going to destroy you, Alexa?” Haven asked, coming to stand right next to her. “What does that mean?” Her eyes radiated concern, and her expression was full of strength and resolution. Haven rubbed her back, making Alexa realize how tense her muscles were, like she was braced against an oncoming blow.
Alexa’s shoulders dropped as she released a long breath. “He didn’t say it this starkly, but he threatened to report my car as stolen and take it away and evict Mom from his house. And he hinted that my job isn’t safe, either. And I . . . I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
I’d hate to see you lose everything you’ve worked so hard for, Alexa.
The memory of Grant’s smug voice made her stomach roll. He’d clearly spent a lot of time thinking about what would devastate her the most, and his attitude was full of confidence that she’d cave. Just like she always did. And who knows, maybe she would’ve if she’d sat there long enough enduring the brute force of his badgering and withering stare. But then Davis had shown up and Alexa had been able to see that things were getting tense between the sheriff and the Ravens. Her worry for them had sent her fleeing from the table, wanting to save them from any further trouble and needing to be free from Grant’s threats.
Any one of which would be a huge blow, but all of them together would be catastrophic for Alexa.
And the issue wasn’t just financial—although it was partly that, too. If Grant fired her, what would that do to her future prospects as an interior designer? She couldn’t even fathom all the doors he could close to her. Even worse, her mother couldn’t easily be moved from Grant’s house. It wasn’t just because she had a tractor trailer’s worth of crap in her house to sort through, but because her mother wasn’t going to want to go. Best case scenario, it would take some preparation and cajoling, and probably a little arm-twisting and bribing, too, to get her mother out of the house without sending her into a complete and total mental breakdown. And that was saying nothing of finding another place where a hoarder could live without good references or credit.
Oh, my God, what am I going to do?