Page 31 of All Out of Love

“I said no.”

“Why not?” Even Toya couldn’t understand the reason. “I’ll be out of your way. You won’t have to put yourself through this bullshit anymore. Isn’t that what you just said? I’m not gonna stay where I’m not wanted. Just let me out. Please.” She was fighting back tears. “I’ll go back home.” As if she had a home!

But Grayson was just as stubborn as she was. “There’s no way in hell you’re going back there,” he said, and then looked at her.

His driver looked at him, again, through the rearview mirror.

But Grayson was still pissed. “Now shut the fuck up about it!” he yelled at Toya so angrily that she saw veins in his neck.

Had anybody else said those words to her, Toya would have opened that door and jumped out of that car. She let her mother talk to her any kind of way, and even her sister. But the one thing she never did was let a man abuse her even verbally.

But Grayson wasn’t anybody. He was the only somebody that had ever helped her by putting his own skin in the game. He would always hold a special place in her heart because of that.

But even he wasn’t going to abuse her.

“I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me,” she said to him with what he could see was all sincerity. “You came through for me when I know nobody else on this planet would have. But what you are not going to ever do is talk to me like I’m some damn dog in the street. I don’t have squat right now. I’ll admit I ain’t got shit! But I still have my self-respect. And no matter how much you do for me, or how much I owe you, nobody, not even you, will ever take my self-respect away from me. Now I told you to stop this car and let me out. I’ll let them put me back in jail before I let you disrespect me. Now stop this car right now gotdammit, and I’m not playing!”

Tears were falling from her huge, clear eyes as she looked him in his eyes. Because she knew how this story was going to end. He was all she had, and having him in her corner did give her a glimmer of hope, but he’d had it up to here with her already. He was over it already. “I don’t know what it is about me,” she said, “but people be hating on me when I haven’t done nothing to them. And I’m tired of it,” she added as she angrily took the back of her hand and wiped the tears that had strolled down her face. “I’m tired.” She said this with a trembling voice.

Then she just shook her head as if she knew nobody wanted to hear her sob story anyway. Her voice eased up, as if she was resigned to her fate. “Just let me out and I’ll be on my way.”

Although Grayson was torn up inside by her tears, and he desperately wanted to pull her into his arms, he knew the best thing he could have done for himself was to stop that car and let her go. He abhorred drama in his life and she was the walking personification of it. It stuck to her like glue. Why would he allow himself to get stuck too?

But his mind was made up. No way was she staying in that house, in that neighborhood, another night.

“You are the most drama-filled individual I have ever known,” he said. “But you aren’t going back there. At least not tonight. You’re going with me.”

Going with him where, Toya wondered. Miss Javits made it clear that he never even let his parents spend the night in his private residence, or any of his girlfriends. Why would he let her of all people go there?

Or was he taking her somewhere else? Like to a motel? Like to a place where she could pay him back, away from the glare of all those people that were always at his house, for all that he’d already done for her?

Now she suddenly felt an even deeper sense of hopelessness. And her mother’s words were ringing in her ears. This man was her boss. Forget everything else. He was the person who had to sign the check that would ultimately pay her. And he’d already called her drama with a capital D. There was no way he was going to allow her to work in his home day after day when she was nothing but trouble to him. He was going to take her to that motel, get that milk for free and let her stay there a few days, and then ghost her. They were going to remove permanent status from her. The temp agency was going to call and tell her Carrington Capital no longer needed her services. And that, for him, was going to be that.

But even as she formulated that wild scenario in her mind, it still didn’t feel right. It felt possible, but it didn’t feel like something he would do to her. But didn’t every woman say that about their man? She used to say it about every man she ever dated. He was a good guy. He’d never cheat on her or abuse her or hurt her in any way. When every single one of them cheated like cheating was a given.

But Mr. Carrington wasn’t like that. She saw that he was a different kind of dude even as they stood in that unisex bathroom in his house.

Her mother always said she expected too much from these men, and that was why she never married when Keisha had two ex-husbands already, and that was why she never had kids. And Toya knew that maybe she was falling into that same trap once again. But instead of questioning where he was taking her or his motives behind it, she just sat back and shut up. This man had been nothing but kind to her. She was going to go with that.

But as they rode in silence, she realized that she had at some point in her mind thought of Grayson as her man. How in the world could she even fix her brain to take that giant of a leap? He was helping her, yes, but it began and ended right there. It had to. They were from polar opposite worlds: like oil and water. Both were liquid, but that was about it.

Or was it, she thought, as she glanced over at that gorgeous man with the kind eyes. He was so tired, and seemed so drained, that he closed those tired eyes and shut it all out.

But her eyes were still wide open. She wished to God she could shut it all out too.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After they drove past many motels and hotels, Toya realized they were out of Baltimore and heading straight to Grayson’s mansion. But she knew he didn’t allow anyone to stay in his home overnight. Why would he let her be an exception? He didn’t even know her like that.

But then she remembered seeing what looked like guest houses in the back of the main house. Would he put her in one of those homes, which seemed so isolated and dark? But then she had another thought: Why was she letting him “put” her anywhere? She wasn’t his prisoner. He went out of his way to free her from that. Once they stop, why wouldn’t she just get out of his car and leave?

She could leave, she knew, but go where? Back to her mama’s house and all that craziness with Keisha? Especially now that she was blaming Toya for what Bam did at that gas station. She didn’t want to be around that energy either. And she was flat broke. Almost all of her savings were given to her mama when she first came back to town, except for gas money and a little food money.

But now she didn’t even have a car since that police chase crashed it and totaled it out. She was a thirty-one-year-old woman who, as her mother would have said, didn’t have a pot to piss in, a window to throw it out of, or a car to sleep in! Grayson Carrington, she hated to admit, was all she had.

But yet she wanted to get out of his limo and leave. Where was she going? When she went inside the house to get her suitcase, even her mama was on her case. Even her mama was upset with her for not bringing Bam back home. As if the criminal justice system left it up to her. And Keisha and that fight she started but Toya finished. Did she truly want to go back to that?

That was why she changed her tune and decided that wherever he put her, she had better be grateful.