Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
The last three days have been the most fun and frustrating of my life.
Fun because they’ve been a whirlwind of activity. Snorkeling. Parasailing. Horseback riding. Afternoon cocktails by the pool. Dinners at Davino’s. I’ve had more fun in the last three days than I’ve had in the last twenty-eight years.
Daily posts from now on, Millie, at the very least. People want to hear from you. You’re a role model. An entire generation of women is looking to you for inspiration. We can’t let this momentum go to waste.
So, in other words—no pressure.
My now daily posts are still boring. A picture of my morning cheese and fruit plate.
The sunset if I can catch it. The hibiscus bush outside the bungalow.
Yesterday, I took a picture of Dean, sitting out by the pool, watching the sunrise—bare chested, dark hair tousled from sleep and looking absolutely gorgeous—but I didn’t have the guts to post it.
I know she’s ready to strangle me. If not for Dean, I think she would have chartered a plane and actually shown up to do it by now because without him, this whole charade would have been up before it even started.
He’s been amazing.
Attentive and affectionate. Supportive and indulgent.
A hand pressed against the small of my back when he pulls my chair away from the table in front of a busy restaurant.
A kiss brushed against the slope of my shoulder while he’s putting sunscreen on my back at the crowded hotel pool.
Hot, toe-curling looks from across the room.
He’s been wearing the Rolex I gave him and he bought me a present in return—a silver anklet with the letter M and a teardrop shaped, emerald-colored crystal—at one of the hotel shops.
He made a show out of kneeling down in front of me to put it on in the lobby after I opened it.
There was speculation on Instagram that he was proposing.
And that’s the frustrating part because the second we’re alone, it all stops. The touching. The kissing. The lingering looks. It’s like the second we step back into the bungalow, and it’s just the two of us, he puts me in a bubble. Like what happened between us didn’t happen.
Like maybe he wishes it didn’t.
We leave the bungalow, directly after breakfast, and we don’t stumble back in, exhausted from a full day of activity, until nearly midnight.
He lets me shower first, making sure I have a clean T-shirt to wear to bed (because I still haven’t made time to buy a proper nightgown) after I get out.
When I’m finished, he showers and dresses quickly before climbing into bed beside me.
All I get is a mumbled night, Mills before he rolls over to turn off his bedside lamp and goes to sleep.
In other words Dean Mercer is a rotten liar because he’s told me, more than once, that he had no idea what being a gentleman entails and now here he is, giving me the textbook definition.
What are you so upset about? Is it the fact that Mateo walked in and interrupted what was promising to be the most explosive orgasm you’ve ever had in your sad, boring, mediocre sex-filled life, or is it that Dean is pretending to fuck in public but when you’re alone, he acts like you have the plague because you were stupid enough to admit just how sad and pathetic you really are and now he feels sorry for, and is probably a little creeped out by you.
Because really—who wants to get involved with stick-in-the-mud Millie?
He’s probably been counting his lucky stars that he dodged the bullet that was your virginity, that night in the Hamptons.
These are the thoughts that chase themselves around my head at night while I lay here in bed and listen to Dean shower like the sad little creeper than I am.
I can’t even doom scroll on my phone to distract myself because every other post on any given social media platform is about us.
Even though I know it won’t work, I’m desperate enough to pick up my phone and nearly faint with relief when I see a text from Gwen.
We’ve been texting daily—something that has never happened before.
At least I can say that this whole mess has brought us closer together.
Gwen: What’s going on between you and Dean? Like for real.
I told Gwen the truth—that Dean and I agreed that it would be mutually beneficial to pretend to be involved for the duration of the trip. What I didn’t tell her is that almost immediately after we agreed, he pulled me into his lap and called me his good girl while I very nearly came in his hand.
Me: Nothing. I already told you. We’re just pretending.
A few seconds later a video link pops up in our text thread. The caption reads—
May this kind of love hit me like a bus because the way he looks at her… *Swoon*
It’s a compilation edit of Dean and I over the last few days.
Still and short video clips of us together.
Cuddled up in our private cabana by the pool.
Him leaning down from his horse after our ride on the beach to kiss my forehead.
Dean grinning like a loon while he watches me parasail.
Another of him kneeling in front of me in the hotel lobby, my bare foot balanced on his knee while he fastens the anklet he bought me around my ankle.
The last shot is a screen grab from the hotel’s website—a photo of the anklet in question.
It’s not sterling silver, it’s platinum and the emerald-colored stone isn’t a crystal, it’s an actual emerald.
Next to the buy now link is a price tag that nearly makes me gag.
In the bathroom, I hear the shower shut off.
Hurrying now, I shoot back a quick text to Gwen.
Me: What can I say? He deserves an Oscar.
Not willing to let it go, Gwen persists.
Gwen: Well, I hope you’re lying. I hope the two of you are fucking like rabbits.
I wish.
Me: Sorry to disappoint.
Gwen: Sigh. You’re still my hero.
For some stupid reason, reading that tightens the back of my throat. Before I can start to blubber like an idiot, Gwen sends a follow up text.
Gwen: Paige is spiraling! She lost her shit in the comments on some random Threads post about you guys and Stacey made her deactivate all her socials. She called me yesterday. I let it go to VM.
I feel my gut clench. Gwen and Paige are closer in age. My little sister has always looked up to her. Emulated her, and like me, has always been easily manipulated by her.
Me: Oh. What did she say?
I don’t have to ask. I know Paige. Whatever she said, it was a lie, carefully constructed, to make herself look like the real victim in all this.
Gwen: Who cares. I deleted it without even listening to it. Fuck her. Growing up is realizing my big sister was never boring. She was just never afraid to be herself. Good night. ILY
Even though nothing could be further from the truth, I don’t correct her.
Me: I love you too, Gwenie.
Hitting send, I set my phone down just as the bathroom door opens.
Hair still damp, wearing another pair of cashmere sleep pants, Dean appears in the doorway a second before he turns off the light.
Offering me a bland smile, he skirts the end of the bed where he lays the watch I gave him on the nightstand next to his phone, before pulling back the covers and settling in.
“Night, Mills,” he mumbles without bothering to look at me.
Before I can even answer him, his lamp is clicked off and we’re plunged into darkness.
Laying down, I stare at the ceiling until I can’t stand it anymore. Finally ready to scream, I roll over to face the Dean-shaped lump on the other side of the bed, as far away from me as he can get.
“Dean.”
He doesn’t answer me but his shoulders go stiff under the blanket so I know he heard me, he just doesn’t want to talk to me.
“I’ll reimburse you,” I promise quietly. “I have some cash with me. Maybe not enough to cover the full amount but as soon as we get back to—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Rolling over, onto his back, I can see the scowl he aims at the ceiling. “Reimburse me for what?”
“The anklet.” Thinking about how much he paid for it, I feel my stomach roll again.
He sits up to glare down at me. “The fuck?” he barks out on a harsh humorless laugh. “Are you for real right now?”
“I—” Suddenly at a loss, I stare up at him, heart pounding in my chest because I insulted him.
I know I did—I just don’t know how. “I know you only bought it for me because we’re pretending to…
” Even though I’ve mostly gotten over my aversion to saying it out loud, the warning sound Dean makes in the back of his throat tells me now is not the right time to say the word fuck out loud.
“Oh, is that why I bought it for you?” he asks, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “So, glad you explained it. I was confused.”
“I had no idea it was so expensive.” Since I have no idea on how to respond, I decide to just stick to the script. Say what I planned and then let it go. “I thought it was just—”
Dean has other plans. “Some cheap, gift shop trinket?”
“Well…” Suddenly uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at me—like I just spit on him—I nod my head against the pillow. “It just never occurred to me that you’d—”
“Let me make sure I’m understanding the situation—you can give me a watch worth more than some people make in a goddamned year, but I can’t give you a fucking anklet that barely amounts to lunch money for someone like you?
” When all I can do is stare up at him, he gives me one of his smirks, this one caustic around its edges. “Yeah—that seems fair.”
Sitting up on a strangled sound, full of frustration, I turn to face him head on. “I don’t know why you’re so angry all of a sudden. All I did was offer to—”
“You wanna know why I’m angry? I’ll tell you—” Dean leans into the space between us, his features suddenly pulling into sharp focus in front of me.
He’s not just angry. He’s livid. “because no matter what I do, I’m never gonna be—” He stops himself before he can finish, his mouth snapping shut so hard, I can practically feel his teeth clack together.
Reaching up, he swipes a hard hand over his face like he’s trying to smother himself.
“Jesus Christ—what the fuck am I doing?” Turning away from me, Dean begins punching his pillow back into shape.
“It’s fine, Mills. You wanna pay me back?
Go ahead. Matter of fact, you can take it off and chuck it in the motherfucking ocean, for all I care.
” Lying down, Dean gives me his back, plunging me into silence and abruptly ending the argument between us.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly because I don’t know what else to say. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Like when I said his name earlier, Dean’s shoulders go stiff against my apology. “Don’t flatter yourself, Princess,” he tells me on another dry chuckle. “You didn’t even come close.”