Chapter 28
28
S tunned silence fell over the crowd as Conrad sang the opening words of Unchained Melody .
Greer stood like a statue, frozen in time as he serenaded her with words of undying love in a timid, off-key voice. She didn’t realize she’d raised her hand to her mouth until the tears pricked her lids.
Oh God, she was going to cry. Not with happiness, but with horror stinging her eyes.
Didn’t Conrad realize how late he was? Even after everything she’d said last night? She moved, almost as if her legs carried her without her mind telling them to, one step, two steps, closer to the stage. And farther from Dean.
How could Conrad embarrass her this way? What must Dean be thinking of her?
When the song ended, Conrad jumped down from the stage and marched to Greer. In front of Dean’s entire family, he dropped to his knees before her. Then he opened a ring box and held it out.
In the quiet after the band stopped playing, his words rang out clearly. “I love you, Greer. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Marry me and make me the happiest man alive.”
She felt the stares on her back like branding irons. They all thought she was with Dean. Yet here was this man on bended knee proposing to her. Nana’s gaze tore her apart. The little woman held her hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes.
It hurt so badly that Greer’s tears trickled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stand this another minute.
Staring down at Conrad, her voice soft but harsh, she said, “You need to get up off your knees. And you need to go away now.” She hated the way her voice shook, hated the thought of Dean—and all his family—watching this display. She couldn’t bear to turn and look at him. It was bad enough seeing Nana.
Conrad stood, holding out the ring. “Please. I should have asked you long ago.”
Hand up, she warded him off. “I can’t even deal with you right now,” she hissed. “You’re embarrassing me.”
But he kept on smiling, holding that ring box. “Take the ring. Hold on to it until you’re ready.” He was shoving it at her, taking her hand in his, trying to place the box on her palm.
Suddenly Dean was beside her, his warmth seeping into her where she’d been so cold from the moment Conrad climbed on the stage. “The lady told you to go.”
She couldn’t look at Dean. What was he thinking? What were they all thinking?
But Conrad didn’t listen to him, only looked at her for a long moment. “I can be better for you than he is.” There was none of the jealousy and anger she’d heard the night he left her. There was just a plea, reaching all the way to his eyes.
Why hadn’t he left? Because he couldn’t bear to let another man have her?
“Don’t make me throw you out,” Dean said, steel in his voice. And he would do it.
God, she was so humiliated in front of his family.
Finally, Conrad said, “I’ll be waiting for you.” He turned the ring box, the sun glinting off the too-big diamond as if he thought that would sway her.
Then he slowly, very slowly, walked away.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Do not look at Dean. Do not look at anyone.
Yet his deep voice glided over her nerve endings. “I’ll make sure he leaves.” He must be horrified by the way Conrad hijacked his mother’s party. It was all Greer’s fault.
She stood there like a petrified rock.
Until Bernice slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You know he’s just love-bombing you. Don’t listen to a word he says.”
“Love-bombing?”
Bernice rolled her eyes. “Don’t you read any of the narcissist literature? They shower you with love and gifts and expensive dinners, saying you’re the best thing since sliced bread or the cell phone or The X-Files . And when you’re hooked, they gaslight you, making you think you’re the one in the wrong. It’s all trickery. And now he’s trying to get you back again by telling you what he thinks you want to hear.”
It made so much sense. Conrad had accused her of cheating and canceled the vacation. But she’d gone anyway. Without him. She hadn’t answered his calls after the first one, and she’d ignored his texts.
So he’d flown to Mexico and gaslighted her, pretended he hadn’t meant any of it, that it was his so-called damage that made him do it—just like he had when he accused her of flirting with his colleagues and his boss—then, when she told him to go home, he’d love-bombed her with pretty words, a serenade, and a ring.
“Oh my God,” she said to Bernice, hand over her mouth. “He’s been love-bombing me all along.”
Dean has his hand on the man’s arm, practically dragging him from the scene, from Greer, from the party.
No way could she ever go back to this man. He’d say all the right things, but he wouldn’t stick to it. Dean knew that in his gut. In a month or two, he’d start pulling the same crap.
Absolutely no way could Dean let Greer marry this stalker.
Yet Conrad was smiling. “You know I’ll get her to change her mind when she comes home,” he said with triumph, maybe even glee.
“No freaking way,” Dean said, a growl in his voice and anger twisting his guts.
Even as Dean propelled him across the sand, Conrad had the nerve to laugh, asking with righteous smugness, “Who do you think you are?” Then he answered himself. “You’re just some fly-by-night fling who means nothing to her.”
Here was the real man behind the mask, and he was an ass. Maybe Dean was just a fling, maybe he wasn’t suitable husband material, but Conrad was so much worse.
He couldn’t let the man get any ideas. “I’m a hell of a lot better for her than you ever were.”
As he passed his daughters, they both gave him a thumbs up.
He’d failed them when they were young, but he’d made promises yesterday, promises he would keep. But he didn’t want to fail Greer either. It was his reason for brutal honesty. He was a workaholic. He was a failed dad. He was a failed husband. He could offer her nothing.
But he could save her from this ass.
Then Conrad dug into him. “I bet you told her this little romance of yours will only last for the vacation. And you’re feeling all high and mighty because you’re so honest with her.”
How the hell could the man know that? But then he obviously knew how to read people. Maybe that’s how he got Greer to stay with him even after his jealousy turned their relationship sour. Because he knew just when to back off. He knew just how far he could push and exactly when he needed to placate.
Dean wanted to hit back, wanted to say that Conrad was jealous because his wife had cheated on him. But he’d never gone in for low blows. “The only thing that matters right now is that you never get your hooks into her again.”
They’d reached the boardwalk, and Phillip, obviously expecting trouble, waited with a couple of burly guys who would have been great as bar bouncers.
Dropping his hold on Conrad’s arm, Dean said, “He needs to be escorted off the property and not allowed back on.”
Phillip smiled, and his usually placid but efficient nephew had a feral glint in his eyes. “Rest assured.” Then, along with his burly men, Phillip led Conrad away.
When he was out of sight, Dean headed back to Greer.
He had to make her see that Conrad could never be the man for her.
Greer half expected Dean to leave the party after escorting Conrad off the beach. But he held out his hand, and she was aware of Bernice backing away. “He’s gone,” he said. “At least for now.” And he waggled his fingers. Accepting the invitation, she put her hand in his. “We should talk,” he murmured.
Wondering how long he’d been there and how much he’d heard of what Bernice had said, she was terrified he’d rail at her for letting Conrad take over his mother’s party.
But Conrad had done that. Not her.
She allowed Dean to lead her along the boardwalk, past the open-air Mexican souvenir market. “Where are we going?”
He looked at her, and she hoped that was a smile playing on his lips. “Just to the rocks for a little privacy.”
“I’m so sorry. Conrad made a spectacle of your mother’s party.”
“My mother was secretly delighted with all the excitement.” This time, she was sure he smiled.
“She was horrified.”
He laughed softly. “She was both. And she loved it because she’ll have a fantastic story to tell all her friends.”
Then he helped her over the rocks. Thankful she hadn’t worn her high-heeled sandals, she clambered with him, until he found a flat rock overlooking the ocean, the waves, and Puerto Vallarta’s coastline.
He helped her sit, then took the rest of the rock beside her. Her hand still in his, he said, “You can’t go back to Conrad. He’s no good for you.”
He looked at her, obviously wanting to say more, but she put her fingers to his lips. “I’m not going back to him.” Gazing at him for a long time, though it was probably only five seconds, she let her eyes roam his features. Then she whispered, “You’re such a beautiful man.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said against her fingers.
It was sweet, and she could lose herself in his gaze. But she had so much to say. “All my life I’ve let men like Conrad tell me what to do.”
He shook his head, and she dropped her fingers. Because he was going to talk anyway. “You’re a CFO. You take on other executives every day. And I know you don’t just roll over.”
She dipped her head. “People can have different personalities, one they put on for work colleagues. And another for their personal life. It’s like my father and my mother. At work, everyone loved my dad. He got things done. But at home, Mom and I marched to his tune.” She put a hand to her chest. “I’m like my father. I have two sides. But mine are the opposite of his. At work, I take on the bullies and get things done, even if it makes people dislike me.” She closed her eyes, thought of her marriage. “But at home, I allow myself to be dictated to,” she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “It wasn’t my idea that my husband and I should wait for children until we’d grown our careers and had the right house in the right neighborhood. It was his. I would’ve started long before that. But I knew that after the children started coming, he would subtly push me into staying home with the kids, giving up my job until they were older. Maybe that’s part of why I agreed to wait.”
She looked at Dean, afraid he’d interrupt her, but he didn’t. “When I was too far past thirty-five, he decided we should start trying because if I was getting older, so were my eggs.” She cringed at the memory. “He said he didn’t want me to fail.” She spidered her fingers lightly over her collarbone. “That I would fail,” she repeated, gulping because her tears were rising, and they had no place here. “When it didn’t happen right away, he pushed for the fertility treatments. And every time an egg didn’t take, or I lost an embryo—that’s what he called them, embryos—he let me know that I’d failed, not him. We finally stopped trying after a couple of years because I was a failure.”
This time, Dean wouldn’t shut up. “You’re not a failure. He failed at your marriage. He failed at not starting early enough. He failed because he left you for another woman.”
She said softly, painfully, “I think I can say that now.”
“Don’t just think you can. Believe it.”
He held her hand, his fingers giving her badly needed warmth, enough to continue her tale. “Then there was Conrad. I dated after the divorce, but I was so wary, and I never allowed myself to get terribly serious. Then I met Conrad, and he just seemed so wonderful. He did everything a man should do, took me out for fabulous meals, told me how beautiful I was, that there’d never been anyone like me.”
Dean winced, obviously realizing he’d used some of the same words. She put her hand over his mouth before he apologized. “Not like you at all,” she assured him. “When we started dating, I didn’t know about love-bombing.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Love-bombing?”
She smiled then. “Your sister just told me about it.” Thinking of Conrad, she expanded on what Bernice had said. “It’s when someone showers you with gifts and endearments and pretty much feeds you all the emotional kudos you’ve ever wanted. They make you think they’re the most amazing thing—” She laughed. “—since sliced bread or The X-Files .”
Dean laughed with her. “That’s definitely Bernice.”
“Then he accused me of flirting with his colleagues at a company barbecue.” She closed her eyes, seeing it all again with a fresh outlook, and knowing what she should have done back then but hadn’t. “He apologized so beautifully. He said it was all because his wife had cheated on him, but that he knew I was nothing like her. And he was so sorry.”
“And you bought it.” He shook his head, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
She nodded. “Hook, line, and sinker. He wanted me to move in with him, so I rented out my house. But as soon as I’d moved in, he forgot the promise he’d made, and he accused me of flirting with his colleagues all over again, and even his boss. He accused me of going out with my friends just so I could entice men. And he didn’t want me to see them anymore because he said they were bad influences. He stopped saying all those pretty things I’d wanted to hear. He was a different man. I waited for him to come to his senses. I reminded him that he’d promised he’d never get jealous like that again. And he told me I was imagining things, that he’d simply scolded me lightly for a remark I’d made to his boss.”
“A total ass,” Dean said, his breath a whisper across her cheek, making her quiver.
Conrad had never made her feel like this. His compliments blinded her, but she’d never felt this irresistible desire for him.
“Then he went ballistic over my night out with the girls just before our vacation.” She breathed in deeply. “I’ve been thinking about it all, not just love-bombing or whatever it is, but about how I allowed myself to become conditioned into thinking that I needed to wait around for a man to make the decisions and tell me what to do. To cook and clean for him and make his dinner, and be perfect all the time.”
He clasped her hand in both of his. “You are perfect,” he said earnestly. “And I’m not love-bombing you when I say that.”
She smiled gently, putting her palm to his face. “It doesn’t feel like love-bombing,” she admitted. “It feels real. And I have to tell you that last night, before I came to you, Conrad was outside on the bridge below my balcony. He’d sent up those chocolate-covered strawberries. I thought about ignoring his texts and throwing out the strawberries. I told myself I’d deal with it when I got home. That I couldn’t deal with it now.” She paused for a long moment, and Dean stroked the hair out of her eyes as a breeze blew through. “Then I thought about you. I didn’t want to come to you feeling guilty about Conrad.”
He tipped her chin up. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
She shook her head. “But I hadn’t ended the relationship, not officially. And I wanted to come to you without Conrad between us. So I marched down there and told him everything he’d done wrong. Of course he said he’d never do it again, that he was a changed man.” She smiled, a small yet heartfelt smile. “I didn’t believe him.”
Dean punched the air. “You go, lady.”
She laughed, the smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “I told him to leave me alone and go home, that he was too late to fix things, and we’d deal with our living arrangements when I got back.” She licked her lips. “But he didn’t hear a thing I said.”
“And he tried the ultimate love bomb at the party.” He cupped her nape, leaned in for a sweet, liquefying kiss. “But it didn’t work this time, did it.” It wasn’t even a question.
“No,” she said against his mouth. Then she pulled back, swallowing, and it went down hard. Because what she had to say next was the toughest part. “I know you don’t want a relationship, and I understand why. I know how important your girls are to you and how important fixing that relationship is. And because I also have an executive position, I understand about being a workaholic.” She breathed in the sea air, and with its fortification, she pushed on. “That’s why I believe we can make a relationship work. We both know the demands of a work schedule. And I care about you. I don’t want what’s happening between us to be just a holiday fling. I want to see you when we’re back home.” She risked bringing his hand to her face, holding his palm to her cheek. “I want to make love with you over and over. I want you to be part of my life.” She sucked in a breath, let it out painfully.
Dean stared at her, saying nothing, and her heart plunged. It would have dropped all the way to the rocks, smashing on them. But for that one ray of sunshine, that she had asked for exactly what she wanted.
And she was proud of herself.