Chapter 20
TWENTY
When Millie offered to drop me off, I should’ve said yes. Should have had her pull the limo over so I could get out and away from her, and the shit storm she pulled me into, the second I realized her getaway plans involved air travel.
But no—as usual, in pure Dean Mercer fashion when it comes to her, I let my temper get the best of me.
I do the exact thing I shouldn’t and end up in the last place I should actually be.
Fuck, I don’t even know where we’re going.
All I know is that I’m thirty-thousand feet in the air, hurdling toward an undisclosed location for an indeterminate amount of time without so much as a change of goddamned underwear.
Oh—I also know that if anything happens to his daughter while she’s on her rich girl Rumspringa, Preston Blackwell is going to make me regret the day I was born.
If anything happens to my little girl, I’m holding you personally responsible. Are we clear on that, Dean?
Not exactly a threat to murder me but it might as well be which means I’m stuck. Any plan I had of finding my own way home the second we land flies directly out the window when he says it because his implication is clear—I broke it, I bought it.
Until she decides she’s had enough of whatever it is she’s looking for, Millie Blackwell is my responsibility.
Fuck.
Lifting the arm I have flung across my eyes, I open them and turn my wrist to look at the watch I have strapped to it. It’s nearly six o’clock. We’ve been in the air for almost four hours now. Sitting up, I look out the window above the back of the couch.
Water.
We’re flying over water.
Where the fuck is she taking me?
Pushing myself off the couch, I stand. Taking a look around, I see that I’m alone. No stewardess. No Millie. Making my way down the length of the plane, I stop in front of the one place she could be. Raising my fist to knock, my knuckles hovering above the wood, I hear a voice. A male voice.
Allister.
I’d know his asshole whine anywhere.
…Jesus Christ, Millie—can you really blame me? I mean, if you want to get down to it, this whole thing is your fault. You’re like a dead fish and you know what isn’t fun to fuck? A dead, dry fish. You just lay there. If you’d just put some effort into making it fun, I never would’ve had to—
Dropping my hand, I grab the knob and shove the door open, hard enough for it to rebound and try to slam itself closed in my face.
Millie is sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped.
Face tipped toward the cell phone in her lap, long hair, the burnished color of old gold, hiding it from view.
When I bust my way into the room, her head snaps up to show me her face.
She looks like she’s been crying for hours now.
Cheeks wet. Face puffy. Eyes red rimmed and bleary.
As soon as she sees me, she hits a button on her phone and it goes silent.
“Just when I think you can’t possibly get any ruder,” she says, doing her best to sound irritated. She doesn’t sound irritated. She sounds broken. “You manage to out do yourself.” When I don’t say anything she widens her eyes at me. “Did you need something?”
“Is he on the phone?” I ask. It’s not why I came in here. I came in here to ask her where the hell she’s taking me but that plan went out the window, the second I heard the bullshit that was coming out of that douchebag’s mouth. “Did he call you?”
When I ask, her mouth snaps shut and her jaw shifts like she has no intention of answering me—but then she does.
“Yes, he’s called me several times and left several messages.
” Her cheeks flush with embarrassment and she looks away because it’s obvious I heard what he said about her.
“That was one of them. They run the gamut between apologizing and begging me to come back and blaming me and my… failings for the affair.”
Seeing the mixture of hurt and embarrassment on her face does something to me. Something that isn’t rational. “Do you get reception up here?”
“Yes.” Looking back at me, her brow creases with confusion. “The plane is equipped with—”
“Good.” Stepping forward, I cut her off by snatching her phone from her grasp.
“Hey—” She shoots up from her seat while grabbing for her phone.
Taking her by her shoulder, I gently but firmly sit her back on the bed.
As soon as her ass hits the mattress, her eyes pop wide like she can’t believe I had the audacity to touch her, let alone physically restrain her. “Give me my phone.”
“Relax.” Hand still planted on her shoulder, I scroll through her contacts. “You kidnapped me, Princess—the least you can do is let me call my neighbor and ask them to feed my hamster.”
I’m not calling my neighbor and I sure as hell don’t have a pet hamster. To be honest, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing until I hear his whiny, asshole voice on the other end of the phone.
“Millie,” Allister says, his tone a mixture of relief and smug satisfaction. “Thank god. I know—”
When she hears his voice, Millie’s eyes pop wide and her mouth falls open. Hand still pressed against her shoulder, holding her in place, I give her a look that snaps her mouth shut.
“Yeah—sorry, Al,” I tell him on a low chuckle. “Not Millie.”
“You.” He practically sneers the word. One syllable that tells me exactly what he thinks of me. “What do you want?”
“From you?” Still looking down at Millie, I shake my head. “Nothing—I just thought I’d call to give you some advice.”
“You want to give me advice?” He laughs like I just said the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Concerning?”
“Paige,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “It’s dawned on me that the two of us have been fucking the same woman for roughly the same amount of time but there’s a key difference between the two of us that I think you need to be aware of.”
Allister makes a nasty noise in the back of his throat. “I assure you, Mercer—there are more than one.”
I can’t argue with him there.
“The difference between you and me is that I see Paige for exactly who she is,” I say, ignoring his attempts at baiting me. “I know her.”
“Is that so?” His tone is clipped. Dismissive.
“Yeah—it is. It’s not you she loves fucking with, it’s Millie and it’s not that half-limp, mediocre dick of yours that gets her off, it’s knowing that she managed to lure you away from someone she knows is better than her in almost every way.
” When I say it, Millie’s mouth falls open, and she stops struggling against the hand I’m using to keep her seated on the bed.
“It’s not about you. It was never about you.
It’s about Millie and the fact that Paige can’t stand to see her happy. ”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Allister practically snarls into the phone.
“I do—just like I know you think you’re still okay.
You think you can still recover. I mean, yeah you fumbled Millie Blackwell, but you still landed her cousin.
Not as nearly as rich and not set to take over a multi-trillion-dollar empire when her father retires, but hey—a Blackwell is a Blackwell, right?
” When he doesn’t answer me, I laugh out loud because we both know I read him like a book.
“But—and this is the important part here, Al, so pay attention—the fact that you belonged to Millie is the only thing you had going for you and now that that’s over, Paige doesn’t want you.
She might string you along for a few days to see if Millie forgives you but when she realizes it’s not going to happen, she’s going to dump you while I spend your honeymoon, showing the woman you were dumb enough to cheat on what it’s like to be fucked by someone who actually knows where her clitoris is and won’t stop sucking on it until she’s screaming his name and coming all over his face. ”
“Good luck with that,” Allister sneers. “Perfect little Millie is the most boring fuck I’ve ever had.”
“Wow…” I laugh while Millie looks like she’s about to pass out. “If you don’t know how to make a woman come, you should just say that.”
Ending the call before he has the chance to say anything else, I toss the phone on the bed, next to a stunned Millie.
“What…” Still staring up at me, she shakes her head. “Why would you say that?”
I don’t know.
I don’t really want to know.
“I don’t like bullies and I like narcissistic assholes even less—” Dropping my hand away from her shoulder, I give her a shrug. “and that motherfucker happens to be both.”
“Maybe…” Looking away from me, Millie collects her phone before she stands. “But that doesn’t make him wrong.”
“Seriously?” I practically shout it at her, unreasonably angry for some reason. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not a riddle, Dean,” she laughs up at me, the sound of it hoarse and broken as it rattles its way up the length of her throat. “It means he’s right. I did just lay there. I didn’t put any effort into making it fun.” Pushing past me on another broken laugh, she heads for the door. “I wasn’t—”
Before I know what I’m doing or can stop myself from doing it, I close a hand over her arm and spin her around.
Hazel eyes wide, her mouth falls open on an indignant gasp when I shove her against the door she’s trying to get open.
“You weren’t what?” Letting go of her arm, I lift mine to press a hand into the flat of it next to her head.
When all she does is stare up at me and breathe, I brace myself against it and lean into her.
“Go ahead and say it—it’s okay, we’re all adults here, Mills. You weren’t what?”
“I…” Still staring up at me, she shakes her head before running her tongue across her lips like her mouth is suddenly too dry to speak. “I wasn’t…”
“Aroused.” I say it softly, my gaze dropping to her mouth. “When Allister fucked you, you were never aroused.”
“No.” She shakes her head on a whisper, surprising us both with the truth. “I wasn’t.”
Looking up, I hook my gaze into hers. “And you think that’s your fault?”
Her eyes go wide again, her cheeks flushing with indignation because she can hear it in my tone, just how stupid I think she is. “Of course it’s my fault. Who else could possibly be—”
“Him.” I bark it at her, my anger spiking again.
“He’s to blame, not you.” When she stares at me, mouth open like I just slapped her in the face, I feel like an asshole but I don’t back up.
I don’t let it go. “Let me guess—he’d climb on top of you every Tuesday night, stick his dick in you and give you a few strokes without even bothering to take your shirt off before rolling over and falling asleep—go ahead, tell me I’m wrong. ”
“Thursday,” she says softly. “It was every Thursday.”
“Exactly…” I feel my jaw tic at her admission. “And you hated every minute of it.”
“I didn’t hate it,” she says, her brow knitting together while she shakes her head. “I just didn’t…” Swallowing hard, she looks away from me. “Maybe if I’d tried harder. Or maybe if I’d—”
“You don’t listen very well, do you, Princess?
” Lifting my free hand, I cup her jaw, turning her head to look at me.
“It was his job to get you there, and he failed. You’re more than capable of becoming sexually aroused—” Dropping my hand away from her face, I move closer.
Close enough to feel her nipples stiffen against my chest beneath the soft fabric of the shirt she’s wearing. “I happen to know for a fact you are.”
“Is that so?” She tries for haughty indignation but misses her mark, landing somewhere between confusion and panic.
“Mmmm,” Making a noise in the back of my throat, I bob my head.
“You were right, Friday night—I was checking you out. Your legs… your breasts… the small of your back…” Tilting my head, I bring my mouth to within an inch of her ear.
“And I knew exactly who I was looking at the second you walked through the door. Watching you, fighting with you—fuck, getting the shit slapped out of me by you—all I could think about was how good your pussy would feel, wrapped around my cock. How badly I wanted to know what your cum tastes like. What kind of sounds you’d make for me while I filled you up with mine. ”
Her eyes slip closed and her breath goes soft and shallow against my cheek. “Dean…”
“Yes, Princess?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shakes her head before forcing them open. “What are you doing?” Turning her head to look at me, she hooks her wide hazel gaze into mine. “Why are you…”
“I’m proving my point.” Pulling back just enough to look at her, I give her a smirk. “You might think I’m a rude, conceited, couthless asshole—but I’m willing to bet just about everything I own that your panties are soaked right now, and all I had to do was whisper in your ear.”
Her gaze flares wide on a soft gasp, denial sputtering against her lips.
Before she can give it a voice, I make a warning sound in the back of my throat, daring her to deny it.
When she thinks better of it, I pull back completely.
“It was his job to get you there, Mills, and he didn’t.
He couldn’t because he’s a lousy fuck. That’s nobody’s fault but his. ”
Before she can argue with me some more and quite possibly push me into doing something we’d both regret, I move my hands to her shoulders and pull her away from the door I have her pressed against. “Stop letting him gaslight you. Allister fucked your cousin because he’s a cheating piece of shit with a fragile ego and a small dick and she fucked him because she loves to make you feel small and gets off on taking what’s yours, so stop crying over those assholes,” I tell her before opening the door. “Neither one of them deserve it.”
“He’s going to tell Paige what you said,” she says to me, her tone edged in panic. “He’s going to tell her that you… they’re both going to think that we—”
“That I plan on fucking you? Maybe that we’ve been fucking each other this entire time?” I give her an apathetic shrug. “Good—you got your revenge. Now I have mine.”