Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alyssa
Well, there was no tragedy during the wedding.
The tragedy came after.
After I found out that the musician I’ve been fantasizing about since that night at the burger place—the one who smiled at me like he was seeing something worth remembering—isn’t just anyone.
He’s Dexter freaking Vaughn.
He says he’s sorry for deceiving me, but what about me? What am I supposed to do with this?
This can’t happen. I’m just . . . me. A woman with a credit card balance, deadlines that won’t quit, and a car that still smells faintly like orchids from last week’s wedding.
And he’s—well, him. A name passed around backstage and scribbled in gossip columns, the person people speculate about but never truly know.
I came along because I wanted to figure out what I was missing. I knew something wasn’t quite right. Let’s say that it was curiosity more than courage. Jules signed an NDA—she only bets on sure things. She verifies everything before she signs anything. She told me to trust her.
Still, during the flight, I can’t stop replaying the timeline in my head.
A hotel lobby. A stranger with a guitar. A wrong assumption.
And now, a private jet slicing through the night sky like none of it could possibly be real.
It’s absurd. Unrealistic. Something out of one of those dramas I used to watch with my sister, where the girl gets caught in a whirlwind that isn’t meant for her.
“Why were you in the hotel carrying a guitar?” I finally ask, breaking the silence that’s been stretching between us like static. I pause, then add, “And wearing glasses. Drenched. Then, somehow, looking dapper in a suit twenty minutes later. What’s that about?”
His mouth lifts in what could almost be a smile—but not quite. It’s hesitant, restrained. Then he clears his throat.
“Some kid dumped a cherry bomb in his parents’ bathroom and blew up half the plumbing in the building,” he says. “My penthouse looked like a swimming pool.”
Of course, he lives in a penthouse.
Okay. Maybe things are starting to make sense now. “Is that why you said you were between homes?”
He nods once, casual like it’s not completely unhinged. Like explosions and penthouses and hiding in plain sight are just part of his weekly schedule.
He goes on, voice softer now. “That Saturday was already going to shit,” he admits, then pauses—eyes flicking to my mouth for a second too long before meeting mine again.
“You didn’t even notice all my suitcases being wheeled toward the elevator.
I had a few suits with me. Rosie was there, like always. ”
My jaw slackens slightly. “So I met you on what was officially your worst day?”
He nods again, but slower this time. The way he looks at me—like he’s rewinding something he wants to relive—it makes my stomach twist in a way I don’t want to analyze.
“Yes,” he says. “Until you pulled me out of it. You dragged me out of my own head and made me do something I hadn’t done in a long time—play without expectations.”
“With musicians you’d never met,” I add.
He huffs a quiet laugh, then leans his head against the seat like he’s back in that moment.
“That part was easy. Grandpa taught me young: adapt, blend, listen harder than you play. That’s all music is, really. You disappear into it until it makes room for you.”
He looks out the window for a second, then back at me.
“But it was weird, you know?” he says, quieter now. “No arena. No noise. No fans screaming my name. No one had a clue who I was.”
His lips twitch—not quite a smile, not quite a frown.
“It was so fucking weird. And somehow . . . perfect.”
I tilt my head. “The musicians didn’t recognize you?”
He averts his eyes. “I might’ve paid them for their silence.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Paid them?”
“That wedding was fucking expensive,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “Between the thousand I gave Rafe and—”
“Wait—Rafe showed up?” I cut him off. “You paid him a thousand? He was only going to earn two hundred.”
I can’t help it—I start laughing. It bursts out of me, disbelief and amusement colliding in the small cabin.
“It was the worst negotiation of my life,” he admits, and laughs with me. “Stupid, probably. But I don’t regret it.”
“You lost money.”
“I’d give away my fortune if it meant meeting you all over again,” he says simply.
And that’s the moment I want to punch him. Not because it’s offensive. But because it’s too much. Too sincere. Too impossible.
He’s not supposed to be swoony. Men like him don’t do confessions—they do exits. They drag you into a room, kiss you like gravity’s an option, fuck you until you forget your own name, and disappear before morning. That’s what the stories say.
But Dexter Vaughn isn’t the story.
He hasn’t been anything like that.
He’s been calm when I expected arrogance. Gentle, even careful when I didn’t deserve it.
And it’s terrifying.
Because the more time I spend in this jet, the more I realize he’s not trying to seduce me. He’s trying to know me, to convince me that what he did was a mistake, and regrets it. Not meeting me, but letting the lie linger for so long.
And that might be worse.
The air hums low around us, a constant reminder that we’re somewhere far above the world, trapped together in this impossible pause between who we were before and what comes next.
He turns toward me, eyes unreadable in the dim cabin light, voice low enough that I almost miss it.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
I glance at him, fingers tightening around the armrest. “I don’t know what to believe.”
He nods, like he’s been bracing for that answer the whole time. “Then let me prove it.”
“Prove what?” I whisper. “You said it yourself—once we’re back in Seattle, this ends. Well, you didn’t say that exactly, but let’s be honest. I can’t be part of your world.”
He doesn’t look away when I say that. He remains calm.
“I don’t want you to be part of my world.” His words are not what I expect but I brace for the ‘this is just a fling,’ until he says, “I want to move into yours.”
He leans forward, slow and careful, as if he’s about to hand me something fragile. His hands reach for mine, just brushing against my fingers until I let him take them. His palms are warm. His thumb drags across my knuckles.
My breath stutters. I try to pull away, but he holds on—not forcefully. Just enough to keep me tethered.
“I want to be where you are. I want to show up at your apartment early in the morning with coffee you didn’t ask for, just to see how you light up when you're in your element. I want to sit through wedding rehearsals and listen to you complain about tulle and last-minute changes. I want to learn how you organize your playlists, what scent you keep in your car, how you take your tea when you’re overwhelmed. ”
He swallows hard, voice roughening slightly. “I don’t want the tour bus or the press circuit or whatever the hell people think my life is supposed to look like. I want your Monday mornings. I want the version of me that only exists when I’m around you.”
My throat tightens. I can’t move. Can’t blink.
He leans back slowly, but his gaze never leaves mine.
“You make me feel like I’m not just someone people tolerate because they have to. You make me feel like I’m . . .” He exhales, eyes aching. “Someone you’d choose. And that? That’s everything to me.”
My breath catches somewhere in my throat. I don’t know where to put it. How to breathe through it.
“Dex . . .” I whisper his name, barely a sound. It comes out softer than I meant it to, like it cracked off something inside me. “Never ever.”
He tilts his head, just enough. “Never ever what?”
I shake my head, words caught in my chest. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me. Not like this, as if you mean it.”
“I mean every fucking word, Aly.”
He doesn’t move at first. Just watches me, like he’s tracing every ounce of hesitation, every breath I can’t seem to release. The way my lips part, then press closed again, like I’ve forgotten how to speak—or maybe I’m too afraid of what might come out.
And then, he shifts forward.
Just a few inches. His forehead dips toward mine until we’re so close I can taste the breath between us.
“If you don’t want this,” he murmurs, his voice almost breaking on the words, “tell me to stop.”
I want it. I want it more than I’ve let myself want anything in years. Probably more than I need my next breath.
But all I can do is whisper, “Dex, please.”
His mouth brushes mine. Barely there. Soft. Testing. Like he’s offering a way out I already know I won’t take.
I don’t move. I don’t stop him.
So, he kisses me.
His mouth finds mine like he’s memorizing the shape of a moment we’ll never get back.
Soft. Slow. Like the first page of a love letter.
Like something he wants to earn—not own.
His lips move over mine with a patience that undoes me.
There’s no rush, no force—just a slow, unspoken reverence that seeps into my skin.
It aches, but not in a way that hurts. It lingers.
Leaves something behind without ever asking for more.
He kisses me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he moves too fast. Like he knows, this moment could fall apart if we breathe wrong. Like it’s too precious to fumble.
It’s not a kiss that tries to persuade me.
It’s a kiss that sees me.
And in it, there’s everything I never let myself want—longing, fear, the fragile thread of hope I’ve been burying for years. It rises, quiet and fierce, and slips between us like it always belonged here.
I press into him, finally giving in to all of it—the ache, the doubt, the grief of waiting for something like this and pretending I didn’t need it.
His arms wrap around me, pulling me closer. Not possessive. Not demanding. Just there—present in the way no one else ever has been. And somewhere in that closeness, the slow burn starts to build.
Not rushed.
But undeniable.