Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
I’ve completely checked out.
My plan to leave.
My promise to Millie’s father to get on his plane and to leave his daughter alone.
My certainty that even if I’m not the one who leaked those texts between Allister and Paige, that I absolutely took advantage of the situation and used them to get what I want.
That Millie is compromised. Too vulnerable and damaged right now to make rational decisions.
That by giving in and taking advantage of the situation, I’ve become every horrible, fucked-up thing she’s ever thought or believed about me.
The moment I turned around and saw her standing there in that fucking dress, I threw it all out the window, my focus narrowing and sharping down to a single terrifying fact.
I’ve been surviving.
These last few years, that’s all I’ve been doing.
Surviving.
Working. Building my business. Finishing my degree. Going through the motions with Paige—with any woman who wasn’t Millie. Just waiting for my next glimpse of her. My next opportunity to make her look at me. Give her no choice but to notice me. Force her to pay attention.
And now—I can’t even do that.
I can’t survive without her.
And if the last week has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want to. I don’t want to live a single fucking second of my life without her in it because I love her, I’m just too much of a goddamned coward to tell her—just like I’m too much of a goddamned coward to walk away from her.
So I don’t do either.
Instead, I rebuilt my wall—the one I’d been using to keep Millie out—only this time, I made it big enough for two.
I pretend that this is it. This is our life.
That Millie is mine and the outside world doesn’t exist. There’s no New York.
No one watching. No Preston Blackwell. No Paige. No Allister. No promises. No lies.
And that’s the biggest lie of them all.
I put the do not disturb sign on the bungalow door and managed to talk her out of her phone.
I placed it with mine in the room safe, telling her it’s a distraction we don’t need.
I expected her to argue with me. Resist. Hell, I needed her to resist because it was the only way I’d have been able to stop my downward spiral into delusion but she didn’t.
Millie just handed her phone over without a peep of protest, watching me lock it up with a smile on her face that fed my delusion that all of this is real.
We have a week left. Let’s just relax and have a good time.
No more excursions. No more restaurants.
No more pretending. No more performing. We haven’t left the bungalow in three days and neither of us have bothered with clothes for almost as long.
We call for food when we get hungry. We sleep when we’re tired.
We lay awake at night and talk until I find my way inside her, so desperate for the feel of her I can’t think straight and she’s right there with me.
Every gasp, every sigh she gives me driving me deeper and deeper into what I can only describe as a complete and utter break from reality.
It’s stupid and reckless.
I know her father well enough to know that he’s a man of his word.
His plane has been waiting for me on the tarmac for three days now.
I know it has been because he’s called me several times to tell me so via voicemail.
I pull my phone out of the safe and check them while Millie is sleeping.
The last message he left, he threatened to ruin me if I don’t come home like I said I would.
I’m not sure what you hope to gain by ignoring me, Dean—maybe you’ve changed your mind about the money.
Maybe you think that if you can sink your claws deeper into my daughter, you can negotiate a bigger payday.
I don’t know and I really don’t care. I don’t believe for a goddamned second that you love her, so just do what you said you would and leave her alone.
If you don’t, I promise you, I’ll do everything in my considerable power to ruin you.
Everything you worked for, everything you’ve built will be gone and after I tell Millie what you did, you’ll lose her too.
That was Monday night.
It’s Wednesday afternoon.
I know he’ll do it.
I’m no one.
Just a kid from Boston who doesn’t know his place.
One who had the audacity to fall in love with his daughter.
Preston Blackwell can and will destroy me.
And I don’t even fucking care. All I care about is spending as much time with Millie as I can.
Giving her whatever she wants. Making sure that when this is over, she won’t be able to forget and move on, no matter how much she wants to.
It’s selfish and cruel but it’s all I have.
And soon enough, I won’t even have that.
“Truth Island?”
I feel the top of her head graze the underside of my chin when she says it. I’ve got my arms wrapped around her, holding her against me as tight as I can without suffocating her.
It’s late.
So late the dark has been replaced by a pale pre-dawn gray, the dull glow of it reflected back to me by the glass wall of the bathroom. So late I could pretend to be asleep if I wanted to.
But I won’t.
“Yeah,” I answer her, silently steeling myself for a question I don’t want to answer. One I can’t answer without breaking down the wall I’ve built around us. “Truth Island.”
Tilting her head back, far enough to look at me, she gives me a flat smile. “Were you really an Eagle Scout?”
I stare down at her for a second, amused and relieved in equal measure.
“Yes, Magnolia.” Loosening my arms, I let her go to fall flat on my back.
Staring up at the ceiling, I bark out a laugh.
“I was really an Eagle Scout.” Turning my head to look at her, I smile.
“For purely selfish reasons, of course. It looked really good on my college applications.”
Her forehead puckers. “You went to college?”
“Yeah—I did.” I huff out a short, shitty laugh while trying very hard to not feel some type of way over her obvious surprise. “Averagely intelligent, asshole Dean went to NYU on a partial ride. I have my BA in communications and an MBA. Go figure, right?”
Panicked, she sits up. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, looking down at me. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Insult me?” Reaching up, I cup a hand around her bare breast. “Are you sure about that?” Brushing the rough pad of my thumb over her nipple, the corner of my mouth quirks when it stiffens under my touch. “We’re on Truth Island, remember?”
“I remember,” she tells me, her voice trembling slightly while she shifts beside me, pushing herself into my grip, the move so minute, I’m not even sure she knows that she’s doing it. “I’m not lying. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“I think you did…” Holding her breast steady, I lift my head, bringing my mouth to within an inch of it. “I think you like what happens when you insult me, Mills.” I give her a soft, lingering kiss on the tip of my nipple. “I think you like the things I do to you when you hurt my feelings.”
Looking down at me, she shakes her head. “I don’t—”
“So, you don’t like the things I do to you?” Looking up at her, I trace the tip of my tongue around her nipple, caught somewhere between amusement and something darker. Something that could tear apart everything I’ve spent the last three days building if I let it. “Now I’m really insulted.”
“I don’t think you’re dumb.” Reaching out, Millie brushes her fingertips across my forehead. “I never thought you were dumb.”
“You never called me dumb.” Feeling that something settle in my chest, I let go of her to fall back on our shared pillow with a sigh. “You called me averagely intelligent.”
“I never thought that either, not really,” she tells me with a small, helpless flip of her hand. “I was just… intimidated by you.”
For a second, I don’t say a word. I can’t. All I can do is stare at her before I start to laugh. The second the sound of it leaves my mouth, I know it was a mistake. I know I fucked up because her face goes pale. Her jaw goes slack, right before it tightens like I just slapped her.
Turning away from me, she throws back the covers and lunges for the side of the bed like she suddenly can’t get away from me fast enough.
Shit.
Following her, I hook my arm around her waist before I can think better of it, and haul her back and under me, pinning her to the mattress, flat on her back.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I tell her but she’s not listening.
Intent on getting away from me, Millie starts to struggle.
“Goddamnit, Millie—” My attempt at reasoning with her is cut short when she lands a sharp, stinging slap across my face.
“Listen to me—” Catching her hand before she can slap me again, I pin it to the mattress, above her head. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“Oh?” Going still rather than fight a losing battle, she glares up at me, her expression a convoluted mixture of shame and indignation. “Then what are you laughing at?”
“Me. Us,” I tell her before I can think better of it. “This entire fucked-up situation.”
“Oh…” Something shifts in her expression, something that makes me want to put my head through the wall. “And what is it that you find so amusing about us and this fucked-up situation?”
Shit.
Shitshitshitshit.
For a second, I don’t know what to say. Until now, I’ve been able to dodge them.
The questions that the answers to would drag us out of my fucked up blanket-fort and force us to admit that this isn’t real.
That this is all make-believe. That even though no one else is watching, we’re still pretending.
“Millie…” Panicked now, I shake my head.
“You won’t believe me. If I tell you, you won’t believe me. ”
Staring up at me, she shakes her head back at me. “Truth Island, remember?”