Chapter 10 #2
When he says it, I have a sudden flash of memory. Dean and I sitting together on the couch in my room, even closer than we are now. Rough fingers hooked around the back of my neck. His tongue tracing the curve of my lower lip…
Still want to kiss me, Millie?
Pushing the memory away, I take my phone from his lax grip and drop it back into my purse.
“Objectively speaking, Allister and I weren’t even together then.
We’d only been on a few dates. Hadn’t even—” Embarrassed, I try to look away but he won’t let me.
Reaching up, Dean takes my chin between his fingers and gently turns my head back in his direction.
This up close, I can see that the corner of his mouth is bruised from where I hit him.
“Hadn’t even what?” Dean asks, his brow crumpling in confusion.
“Hadn’t even anything,” I say quietly, my cheeks heating up again.
“Three dates and he hadn’t even kissed me yet.
Hadn’t even tried.” Reaching up, I push Dean’s hand away so I can look out the window.
“One lunch date with Paige and he had her in his office, bent over the side of his desk.” I can see the Hawthorne’s bright blue awning about a block away.
“All he had to do was tell me he preferred Paige over me. It would’ve stung but I would’ve understood.
Would’ve accepted it. Paige is… Paige and I’m just stick-in-the-mud, prim-and-proper, prude, boring Millie.
I don’t know a man alive who wouldn’t choose her over me. ”
Present company included.
“Mills...”
It’s Mills on the rare occasion he feels like being a decent human being.
Mildred or Millwood or any other stupid name he can come up with when he wants to irritate me and Princess when he wants to remind me that he thinks I’m nothing more than a spoiled brat who lives a life of privilege and luxury that most people can only dream of.
“Don’t.” Closing my clutch with a loud snap, I shake my head while the limo glides to a stop in front of the Hawthorne. “I don’t need you, of all people, to feel sorry for me, Dean Mercer.”
“I don’t.” Behind us, Burt shifts the limo into park and opens his door. “I was just going to say that tonight’s slutty dress choice is suddenly making a lot more sense.”
When he says it, I feel my chest loosen because decent Dean is gone and asshole Dean is back.
Right now, I much prefer the latter. “I found it on the floor of our closet when I was getting dressed for dinner,” I say, giving him just a hint of a smile while Burt’s shadow passes by my window.
Instead of opening the rear door to let me out, he stands in front of it and waits.
“I’m pretty sure it belongs to Paige. I think Allister nearly had a stroke when he saw me in it. ”
“Well, I know I did.” Holding my gaze for a beat, Dean looks away on another humorless laugh. “How’s your hand, by the way?”
Looking down, I see both of them resting in my lap. “My hand?”
“Yeah.” He says it on a chuckle while he reaches for one of them.
“Your hand—you popped me pretty good in the bar, Mike Tyson.” Circling his fingers around my wrist, he lifts and turns it so he can examine my palm.
“It’s a little swollen—” Smoothing his thumb over it, he looks up at me with a frown.
“did you ask Marcus for some ice like I told you to?”
“No.” Shaking my head, I let out a nervous laugh because he’s suddenly decent Dean again and I don’t know what to do. “It’s fine. I’ll just—how do you know his name?”
Letting go of my wrist, Dean turns away from me.
“Marcus? He works for me.” Rummaging through the mini bar, he finds a small plastic baggie full of lemon wedges.
Dumping them out, he starts to fill it with ice.
“We started offering temp services a few months ago.” Twisting it closed, he turns toward me again and reclaims my wrist. “It’s going pretty good.
Most of our temp accounts are with the Bright Group—probably because I know Gray—” Turning my hand over, he gingerly places the makeshift icepack in the palm of my hand with a sigh.
“Nevermind, you don’t give a shit about my business or how it’s going. ”
Frowning, I want to tell him he’s wrong. Instead, I let the moment pass. “I’m sorry, by the way,” I say when the silence has gotten too awkward for me to handle. “I shouldn’t have slapped you.”
Still cradling my hand in his, Dean lets out a soft chuckle. “Believe it or not—not the first time I’ve been slapped by a woman in a bar.”
“Oh,” The corner of my mouth lifts in a sardonic smile. “I believe it.”
Dean laughs again, the sound of it preceded by another awkward silence. This time, he’s the one who fills it. “So, Prince Charming is fucking the evil step-sister.”
“Looks like.” Paige is my cousin, not my step-sister, but she is evil. I’ll give him that one. “Probably as we speak.”
Dean looks at me for a long moment. “You don’t seem very upset about it.”
“I think I’m too angry to be upset.” Looking back at him I shake my head. “Forty-eight hours from now, I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon with the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.”
He makes another disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “And now?”
“I don’t know…” Shaking my head, I look past him for a second. “As unlikely as it might sound, I’ve never been cheated on before. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“Get even,” he says without hesitation. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to find a way to make that motherfucker pay for humiliating you.”
I laugh a little at the thought, the sound of it bitter. “Is that your plan? Find a way to humiliate Paige for hurting you?”
To my surprise, Dean shakes his head. “Paige isn’t cheating on me with him or anyone else she happens to be screwing around with,” he says with a flat smile. “We aren’t together. Never have been, really.”
“But you wish you were,” I say, my tone insistent for some reason. “Why else would you keep coming back every time she calls?”
He doesn’t answer me right away. For a few moments, all he does is stare at me before giving me a flat, humorless smile.
“Being Paige Blackwell’s arm candy is good for business.
Every time she posts a picture of us together on social media, my client list doubles.
” The smile on his face sharpens just a bit.
“The bathroom blowjobs are just a bonus.”
“Free publicity?” I say it like I’ve just unlocked some great mystery of the universe. “That’s why you keep coming back? Your relationship with Paige is a marketing tactic?”
“I told you, Montgomery—” He laughs a little at my obvious mortification. “It’s not a relationship. It’s barely even a situationship.”
“Okay…” Shaking my head a little, I huff out a breath while pulling my hand from his. “A situationship you allow to continue for monetary profit.”
Dean laughs again, his fingers tightening around mine for a second before he lets me go. “I’m afraid I’ve undersold the power of a good bathroom blowjob.”
I recoil a bit. “You’re disgusting.”
“No, Princess…” He shakes his head, laughter curdling in his throat. “I’m honest—which is more than I can say for your Prince Charming.”
Before I can formulate a response, Dean plucks the ice pack from my hand and tosses it into the ice bucket.
“You’re gonna want to take your ring off and reapply the ice before you go to bed.
” Leaning into me, past me, he delivers a short, hard-knuckled rap to the limo’s side window.
A few seconds later, the rear door opens and Burt’s hand appears.
Because I don’t know what else to do, I move to take it so he can help me out of the limo.
Stopping for a moment, I look back over my shoulder to find Dean watching me.
He looks at me like he wants to say something but in the end, he just slumps back into his seat. “G’night, Mills.”
“Good night, Dean.”
I step out of the limo and into the unknown, alone.