Chapter 5: The Confrontation

Mary Rose POV

I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see Thomas's face in his study the way he looked at me like I was something precious, the way his voice dropped when he said my name, the way his fingers traced my jaw like he was memorizing the feel of my skin.

And then I remember whose son he is.

By 3 AM, I've read every article about Henry's cancelled wedding at least twice. By 5 AM, I've convinced myself that Thomas knew exactly who I was from the moment I stepped through Graystone's gates. The specific knowledge of my work, the intensity of his attention, the calculated seduction in his study it was all a game. It had to be.

By 7 AM, I'm in my car driving back to the manor, fury the only thing keeping me functional.

The security guard looks startled when I roll down my window. "Miss Bennett? You're early. Mr. Gray isn't expecting you until"

"I need to see him now." My voice shakes, but I force steel into it. "Tell him Mary Rose Bennett is at the gates and she's not leaving until we talk."

The guard hesitates, then picks up his phone. I watch him speak in low tones, his expression shifting from confusion to concern. When he hangs up, he gives me an apologetic look. "Mr. Gray is coming down himself, miss. Just a moment."

I wait, hands clenched on the steering wheel, rehearsing the confrontation in my head. Did you know? Were you playing me? Is this revenge against your son or just entertainment for a bored billionaire?

Then the gates swing open and Thomas appears, striding down the driveway in jeans and a black henley that should be illegal. His hair is slightly mussed like he just woke up, and without the armor of expensive suits, he looks more human. More devastating.

I'm out of my car before I can second-guess this terrible decision.

"Mary Rose, what's wrong?" His immediate concern throws me off balance, but I force myself to stay angry because anger is safer than the alternative.

"Did you know?" The words explode out of me. "When I walked through your door yesterday, did you know I was Henry's ex-fiancée?"

Thomas goes completely still. For a heartbeat, his expression is frozen shock. Then something cold and dangerous slides across his features fury, but not directed at me.

"What did you say?" His voice is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that precedes storms.

"I was engaged to your son." I'm shaking now, adrenaline and sleep deprivation making me reckless. "Three years ago. He left me six weeks before our wedding with eighty thousand dollars in debts and a shattered belief in love. So I need to know did you bring me here knowing that? Is this some kind of sick game to you?"

The silence that follows is devastating. I watch Thomas's face cycle through emotions too fast to track shock giving way to confusion giving way to rage that makes his hands clench into fists at his sides.

"Henry was engaged?" Each word is precisely enunciated, controlled fury barely leashed. "Henry was planning to get married and never told me?"

He laughs, and the sound is so broken it makes my chest ache. "Of course he didn't. Why would he? I'm just the inconvenience he tolerates for the trust fund." Thomas runs both hands through his hair, and suddenly he looks older, exhausted in ways that have nothing to do with the early hour. "No, Mary Rose. I didn't know. I don't keep up with my son's life anymore because every time I try, he makes it abundantly clear I'm not welcome in it."

My anger deflates like a punctured balloon, confusion rushing in to fill the space. "But the society articles your family issued statements"

"Emma handles PR." Thomas's voice is flat now, drained of emotion. "After Catherine died, I wasn't functional for a while. Emma managed family affairs, including apparently covering up whatever disaster Henry created." He focuses on me with new intensity, and I see genuine pain in his eyes. "Tell me what happened. All of it. I need to understand what my son did to you."

So I tell him. Standing in the October morning cold, I tell Thomas Gray everything. How Henry courted me at a Charleston gallery opening, all charm and grand gestures. How he proposed after six months with his grandmother's ring and promises of forever. How he planned an extravagant wedding I didn't want, inviting people I'd never met, turning what should have been intimate into a spectacle.

"He changed," I hear myself say. "The last two months before the wedding, he became distant. Critical. Nothing I did was right my dress wasn't designer enough, my family wasn't connected enough, I wasn't sophisticated enough for Gray family standards." My voice cracks. "And then six weeks before the ceremony, he just... disappeared. Flew to London without a word. I got a fucking email three days later saying he couldn't do it, that he needed to find himself, that I deserved someone who was ready for commitment."

Thomas's hands are clenched so tight his knuckles are white. "Go on."

"He left me with all the vendor debts. The venue, the caterer, the florist everything was in my name because his credit was apparently maxed out on God knows what. Eighty thousand dollars I didn't have." I'm crying now, angry tears I can't control. "I lost my apartment. Had to sell my car. Started my photography business out of desperation because I couldn't find work with my credit destroyed. And Henry? Henry got to run away to London and start over like none of it mattered."

The silence when I finish is absolute. Thomas is staring at me like I've confirmed his worst fears about his son, and the anguish on his face is so raw I almost reach for him before remembering why I can't.

"I would have stopped him." Thomas's voice is hoarse. "If I'd known, I would have made him honor his commitment or face consequences. I would have" He stops, jaw working. "I'm sorry, Mary Rose. I'm so goddamn sorry my son is exactly the kind of man I raised him not to be."

The genuine pain in his voice breaks something in my chest. This wasn't a game. He didn't know. Which means yesterday all those moments of connection, the attraction that felt too intense to be real it was genuine. It was real.

And now it's impossible.

"I should go." I back toward my car, needing distance before I do something stupid like cry on Thomas Gray's shoulder about the damage his son caused. "This was a mistake. I can't work with you. I'll pay the penalty clause somehow"

"No." Thomas closes the distance between us in two strides, and suddenly he's in my space, his presence overwhelming despite the conversation we just had. "You're not paying a goddamn cent. I'll void the contract, and you can walk away. But Mary Rose" His hand rises like he's going to touch my face, then drops. "I need you to know that nothing about yesterday was calculated. I hired you because your work is extraordinary. I pursued you because I haven't felt anything but numb for five years, and then you walked into my world and I felt alive again."

"Thomas"

"I wanted you before I knew about Henry." His eyes burn into mine. "And finding out you're his ex-fiancée doesn't change that. If anything, it makes it worse because now I understand why you look at me like I might be lying every time I say something kind. Because my son taught you that men like us can't be trusted."

"Men like you?" I laugh, but it sounds broken. "You're not like Henry. You're nothing like him."

"Then why are you running?"

The question stops me cold. Why am I running? Because this is forbidden? Because society will judge us? Because I'm terrified of wanting someone this much after Henry taught me that desire is just another weapon?

"Because you're his father," I whisper. "Because this is wrong in ways I can't even articulate. Because"

"Because you feel it too." Thomas does touch me now, his hand cupping my face with devastating gentleness. "You feel this connection between us, and it terrifies you. It terrifies me too, Mary Rose. But I stopped making safe choices when Catherine died. Life's too short to run from things that might actually matter."

His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, catching a tear I didn't know had fallen. "Tell me you don't feel it," he challenges. "Tell me I'm alone in this madness, and I'll let you walk away. I'll void the contract, and you'll never have to see me again."

But I can't. God help me, I can't lie when he's touching me like I'm something precious and looking at me like I'm his salvation.

"I feel it," I admit, the confession feeling like surrender. "I feel it, and it's terrifying, and I don't know what to do with it."

Something fierce and possessive flashes across Thomas's face. "Then don't do anything yet. Work with me for the next six weeks. Let me prove that not every Gray man will destroy you. And if at the end of that time you want to walk away, I'll let you go. But Mary Rose" His forehead drops to rest against mine, and the intimacy of the gesture steals my breath. "I don't plan on letting you go. I plan on making you mine in every way that matters."

"That's insane."

"Probably." His breath mingles with mine, and we're so close that tilting my head would bring our lips together. "But I didn't build an empire by backing down from what I want. And I want you more than I've wanted anything in five years."

"Your son"

"Is a disappointment I'll deal with separately," Thomas interrupts, his voice hard. "But you and I, Mary Rose? We're not complicated. What's complicated is me standing here knowing that every reason this is wrong doesn't change the fact that when you walked into my home yesterday, something I thought died with Catherine came back to life."

His confession steals my breath, makes dangerous hope bloom in my chest despite every reason to crush it. "We're damned if we do this," I whisper.

"Then we're both damned," Thomas agrees softly. "The question is whether we're brave enough to burn together."

His lips brush against my forehead not quite a kiss, but a promise of what could be if I'm brave enough to reach for it. And despite every rational objection screaming in my head, despite the complications and the forbidden nature and the absolute certainty that this will end in disaster

I find myself nodding. Agreeing. Choosing to burn.