Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
I’ve spent the last four days alone.
I wake up to a note tucked under my phone and an empty bed, the sheets beside me cold enough to tell me that wherever he is, Dean went there hours ago. This one reads:
Macbook,
Took the golf cart.
Be back later.
Dean
I tell myself I don’t care. That he’s doing exactly what I wanted him to do.
What I asked him to do the first night we got here.
He’s staying out of my way. Making an effort to be pleasant and civil.
Doing his best to avoid me so I can do what I came here to do, which is drink champagne by the beach while I lick my wounds in peace.
I hate it.
Every morning, I open my eyes hoping he’s still here and every morning I’m disappointed.
So disappointed I can feel the weight of it in my chest. I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t about Dean.
That it was about Allister. That now that the dust has settled a bit, I’m finally allowing myself to grieve the loss of the man I loved and what I thought would be my fairytale ending.
That I was finally letting myself feel the full weight of his betrayal.
And not just his. Paige’s too. She betrayed me just as much as Allister did—maybe even more—because Paige isn’t just my cousin.
She was my friend. If I’m honest, she was my only friend.
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. Neither one of them deserve it.
Dean said it to me days ago, his tone so full of irritation and impatience that I instantly rejected the sentiment as something he was saying to hurt me. Make me feel bad—but that’s not what he was doing.
Dean was telling me the truth.
He’s right.
Neither of them deserves my tears.
Paige was never my friend and Allister never loved me and while my feelings about Paige and the way she’s treated me for as long as I can remember might take more time to untangle, my feelings about Allister and what he did have become clearer and clearer over the last four days.
I dodged a bullet.
Not because he never loved me or because he was obviously just marrying me for money.
Because I never loved him.
I loved the idea of him.
What he represented.
Stability.
Safety.
Never having to feel the way I felt that night in the Hamptons when I watched Dean follow Paige out of my room and back to the party he was being paid to attend and certainly not the way I felt later, in the small hours of the morning when I finally got up the courage to leave my room to go find him.
I laid awake for hours, listening to them have fun without me.
The music. The laughter. The occasional broken glass.
Gwen’s friends cheering her on, encouraging her to do something I’m sure I wouldn’t have approved of if I’d been a bystander, until it all faded into quiet.
Someone turned off the music. Laughter was replaced by muffled voices and hushed giggles as they all staggered upstairs to sleep it off for a few hours before they woke up and did it all over again.
All I could hear was the quiet clink of glasses being collected.
The hissing brush of a broom being dragged across the floor.
Sure it was Dean, that he was alone, and this was my chance to explain without Paige or one of Gwen’s friends interrupting us, I got out of bed.
I knew the moment had passed. That the chance of whatever might’ve happened between us before Paige knocked on my door was gone, but I still wanted to explain.
I didn’t want to have to face him tomorrow, knowing he thought I let him into my room with the intention of cheating on Allister.
That it would’ve been impossible because Allister and I weren’t even a real thing yet.
I doubted he’d listen, or that he even really cared, but I still wanted him to know.
Just hoping that he’d hear me out, I padded my way down the hall, past the staircase and through the foyer. Rounding the corner, I stopped short just before I completely humiliated myself by stepping into the living room. Because Dean wasn’t cleaning up my sister’s mess anymore.
He was kissing Paige.
He was kissing her the way I’d hoped he’d kiss me.
Eyes stinging, heart pounding in my chest, I stood in the deep shadow of the wall and watched him pick her up.
Watched her wrap her legs around him so he could carry her to the couch and thankfully out of my sight.
I stood there, rooted to the floor by panic and humiliation, listening to them until Paige started moaning and then I went to my room.
I could still hear her so I packed my things and I left.
She was still moaning when I walked out the front door.
That’s what I thought about when I walked into the bar tonight, looking for Dean, and found him talking to that woman.
Even though you knew what it was, you were still stupid enough to hope that maybe, just maybe that kiss meant something. It didn’t. It didn’t mean anything then and it doesn’t mean anything now.
By dinner time I was ready to climb the walls and by the time I’d usually climb into bed to stare at the ceiling, I’d lost my mind completely. Calling Mateo, because Dean has been taking our only mode of transportation, I get dressed and meet him outside.
“Do you know where Mr. Mercer is?” I asked him without preamble. The look he gave me said yes, even before he said it out loud. “Take me there, please.”
With a bob of his head, Mateo led me to his golf cart, twenty minutes later stopping in front of an enormous open air pavilion with a thatched roof and entirely too many people crowded around a 360° bar in its center.
Pointing his finger at it, I see Dean immediately, wearing clothes that I bought for Allister—a loose pair of khaki linen pants and a short-sleeve, white button down with pale blue flowers on it, the collar undone.
He should look ridiculous.
He doesn’t.
He looks like he always does.
So outrageously beautiful that looking at him makes it hard to breathe.
The woman he’s talking to seems to think so too because she’s looking up at him like she’s ready to jump through hoops and land on her knees as soon as he snaps his fingers.
“Ms. Blackwell?”
“I changed my mind,” I say without looking at him. “I’d like to go back.” Laughing at something she said, Dean looks away from her, and like he knew I was standing here, his gaze lands on me in an instant.
Shit.
“Now please.” Stepping away from the pavilion, I hurry back to the golf cart.
“Of course. Ernest will drive you back, if that’s okay,” Mateo says, his tone almost apologetic.
“Fine.” In too much of a hurry to argue I climb into the back with a nod. “As long as he hurries.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m back in the bungalow, face washed and ready for bed.
Clicking the light off, I climb under the covers, my head barely hitting the pillow before I hear the front door open.
Heart hammering in my chest, I turn over on my side, hands tucked under my chin and curl up on the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom wall like I always do.
Holding my breath, I close my eyes, and listen while Dean makes his way inside.
His footsteps stop at the foot of the bed like he’s looking at me.
Trying to figure out if I’m really asleep.
If I’ve been here the whole night or if he really did see me at the bar.
Making a rough sound in the back of his throat, I listen while he gets undressed, the rustle of fabric sliding across skin before hitting the floor. He’s still looking at me, the side of my face practically on fire while he kicks off his shoes.
Holyshitholyshitholyshit.
As soon as I hear the bathroom door close I let out a slow, steady breath before taking another one, this one even and measured while I try to force my heart from my throat and back into my chest.
It’s okay. Calm down. He didn’t see you. He might’ve thought he did but he’s obviously been drinking. He doesn’t know what he saw. He’ll take his shower and pass out and when you wake up tomorrow, he’ll be gone. He’ll forget all about you. Same as always.
When I hear the shower, I decide it’s safe enough to open my eyes but I was wrong because Dean forgot to frost the privacy glass on the bathroom wall that separates it from the bedroom.
I can see him.
I can see everything.
The glimpse I got of Dean while he was getting dressed after his shower, Sunday night, was fleeting. I barely perceived tattooed skin and hard muscles before I realized what I was looking at—that he was naked—and looked away.
That’s what I should be doing right now.
I should be looking away but I can’t.
I’m not perceiving.
I’m staring.
My heart isn’t hammering in my chest anymore.
It’s stopped completely. My breathing too.
Everything is stalled. My entire body frozen before suddenly being set on fire while I watch a very naked Dean step into the shower, because he’s hard.
So hard his thick shaft is standing almost straight up, the head of it bobbing while he moves under the pounding spray of water.
Like I said, I’m almost embarrassingly inexperienced when it comes to male anatomy but if Allister represents the average, Dean is well above it.
Not big enough to scare me but definitely big enough to make me wonder if it would hurt if—
Leaning forward, he plants a tattooed hand on the tiled wall, next to the shower head.
Bracing himself against it, he wraps the other around the base of his shaft and starts to move, his thick bicep flexing while he strokes his shaft from root to tip, squeezing the engorged head of it before he flexes his hips, thrusting into his own grip on a soft groan.
“Millie…”
Watching, my gaze fixed on Dean’s hand, while he touches himself, every stroke harder and more frantic than the last, I tell myself I’m imagining things. He didn’t say my name as soon as he touched himself.
He didn’t.
Dean groans again, thrusting and pumping into his own grip, chest heaving, every visible muscle contracting, reaching desperately for release.
“Fuck, Millie… fuck…”
Ohmygod.
Like I said it out loud, the hand he has planted on the tile above his head cranks itself into a fist, a second before he comes so forcefully that thick ropes of semen hit the tile wall in front of him before being washed down the drain.
Even while he’s coming, he doesn’t stop.
Dean keeps stroking himself until there’s nothing left.
Until he’s empty and looks so tired he’s about to pass out on his feet.
Finally letting himself go, Dean finishes his shower, washing his hair and scrubbing his body clean before turning off the shower and stepping out.
Slinging a towel around his hips, Dean rubs himself dry with the towel I used earlier before brushing his teeth. As soon as he drops his toothbrush in the caddy and straightens himself over the sink, I finally force myself to close my eyes because at this point, I’m just begging to get caught.
Eyes closed, I listen while Dean exits the bathroom, turning off the light on his way to the chest of drawers where Mateo placed all of his altered clothes.
More fabric sliding across skin while he gets dressed for bed, followed by the soft slap of bare feet against the tile floor while he makes his way to his side of the bed.
A few noises follow—I imagine him taking off his watch and plugging his phone into its charge cord—before I feel the covers move behind me and the mattress dip under his weight while he settles into the bed next to me.
For a second, I think I’m good.
That I got away with it.
That he doesn’t know I laid here and watched him masturbate like some kind of weird pervert.
But then he speaks.
“Still want to kiss me, Millie?”
Eyes squeezed shut, I feel my entire body stiffen and my gut clench, I wait for him to say something else.
Something meant to shame and embarrass me.
Remind me of just how uptight and pathetic he thinks I am because that’s what this was.
He did what he did—said what he said—because he knew I was awake.
Just another one of his button-pushing games.
Or laugh.
Maybe he’ll just laugh at me.
He doesn’t do either of those things.
Dean just turns onto his side and goes to sleep.