Chapter 71: Chapter 71

I am lost in my thoughts that night when I return to the apartment. Just as I am having dinner with Jay, someone knocks at the door.

I’m startled because I don't usually have visitors.

“Could it be your family?” Jay asks.

I’m not up to another visit from my dad or stepmom, and it would be a long time before I’d forgive Evelyn for her treachery. If ever.

But when I open the door, I’m shocked to see Gus standing outside.

He’s wearing a black cotton shirt and his face is slightly red. He smiles at me sheepishly. "I..." He had barely opened his mouth when he notices Jason, who has walked over to stand behind me, and he stops suddenly as if hesitating.

"Why are you here?” Jay asks. “Are you looking for my sister?”

"I... I have some business to discuss with Grace privately," Gus says with a flushed face, then he glanced at me. “Is that okay with you, Grace?"

From the way Jay tenses beside me, I can imagine his wolf is grumbling.

I open my mouth to reply, but Jay interrupts me and says, "Is it something you can't discuss here?"

"It's..." Gus hesitates.

I smile to lighten the mood. "If there's something you need to say, there's no harm in speaking frankly, and in front of Jay.”

Gus starts to wring his hands. “I… I wanted to say that I don't mind that you've been in jail. I really like you and I hope that you can be my girlfriend. I... I can wait. As long as you're not interested in anyone else, I can wait," he blurts all this out in a single breath as if he had had to muster all of his courage to say those words.

I’m stunned. “I, uh, Gus, I don’t know what to say.”

Gus keeps talking. ”I know I'm still just a small-time driver but I will work hard to earn money to support a family, I... I just hope I can give you happiness."

As soon as Gus is done talking, he nods in Jay’s direction, bows slightly to me and then hurries away.

“Just consider it,” he says as his parting words.

I stare numbly at his back. Gus really likes me?

Only when a hand loops around my waist to pull me into the room and the door slams shut do I snap out of my trance.

"What are you—?”

I barely finish speaking when Jay traps me against the door. He leans forward and stares at me fixedly with his dark eyes. Eyes that go from black to bright gold. ”What are you thinking about, sister?”

But there is a bite to his words, and the way he normally calls me sister feels more like a promise—or a threat.

“N-nothing.”

He closed the space between them until she couldn’t draw a breath without breathing him in. "Let me go, Jay."

And yet, it’s as if he does not hear me because he presses his face closer to me instead and his lips lightly graze my neck…