Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
For the last few days, I’ve woken up to find Dean awake and dressed, sitting by the pool, already halfway through breakfast, so I was a little surprised when I opened my eyes to find him still in bed.
And not just in bed.
I wake up to find myself wrapped up in his arms, my face buried in his chest. One leg thrown over his hip, his thigh pressed into the juncture of mine. His warm, callused hand pushed under the hem of my T-shirt and splayed across my bare back.
Looking up at him, heart pounding in my chest, I had the overwhelming urge to kiss him, so I did the only rational thing I could do—I ran away.
Easing myself out of bed, I got dressed—a dark green bikini because aside from a few cocktail dresses and some undergarments, that’s all I packed, and a flowy, black cover-up—before scribbling a quick note, letting Dean know that I cancelled today’s excursions and that I would be gone for the day.
On impulse, I added the p.s. about the anklet, left it next to his watch and bolted before I lost my nerve.
Outside the bungalow, I called Mateo and asked him to come pick me up.
Like he was camped out in the bushes, waiting for my phone call, Mateo shows up in his trusty golf cart within minutes and whisks me away.
“No Mr. Mercer?” He asks while he drives like a maniac down narrow, cobblestone streets.
“Not today,” I tell him. “I need some downtime.”
“Say no more,” Mateo says. If he’s guessed that we fought last night and fell asleep angry, he doesn’t say. “I know exactly what you need.
Less than an hour later, I’d been installed in a posh, three-sided cabana on the resort’s main beach, drinking Bellinis, and enjoying a full body massage while watching the waves roll across powdery white sand.
Now it’s mid-afternoon and I’m lounging on the cabana’s wide, upholstered bed while reading one of the books Mateo brought me.
Or at least I’m trying to.
“Hey… you look familiar. Do I know you?”
Looking up from my book, I find a man who vaguely reminds me of Allister, hovering just inside the open entrance to my cabana. Mid-to-late thirties. Douchey, mirrored aviators. Dirty blond hair and a slight cleft in his chin. Practiced smile and soft hands.
When Mateo came by to check on me a few minutes ago, he noted that the beach was getting crowded and offered to close the mesh drapes for me. A subtle admission that over the last week, he’s become aware of the trouble I caused in New York before coming here.
The mesh is one way. You’ll still be able to enjoy the view, Ms. Blackwell but no one will be able to see in.
Regrettably, I told him no.
Of course you told him no. If you let him close the curtains, how would Dean find you?
He texted about forty minutes ago, demanding to know where I was. When I didn’t answer him, he got all growly and told me that if he had to find me, I’d be sorry. Something must really be wrong with me because instead of worried or incensed over Dean’s threat, I felt something else entirely.
Still looking up at the man in front of me, I shake my head. “No,” I tell him before looking back down at my book. “You don’t know me.”
Instead of getting the hint and moving on to his next victim, Allister’s clone flashes me his pearly whites and takes it as an invitation to make himself at home.
Moving into the cabana, he sits on the edge of the upholstered sun bed I’m on, so close I can smell his coconut tanning oil, with a laugh that’s almost as practiced as his smile.
“Are you sure?” he asks, pushing his sunglasses up on his head before casually dropping his hand on my knee.
“I know where it was… I saw you at the resort bar a few nights ago. That dress you were wearing was—”
Before I can tell him to get his hand off me and get the hell out, I hear something—someone—that barely sounds human. Looking up, I see him.
Dean.
He found me.
Mouth hanging open, I watch while he storms in and snatches Allister’s clone up by the neck and throws him through the cabana’s wide, open doorway where he lands in the sand with an audible thud.
Jumping up, covered in sand, he looks ready to charge back in to defend his manhood but whatever he sees on Dean’s face stops him in his tracks and has him deciding it’s not worth dying over.
Bending down, he snatches up his broken sunglasses and walks away without a word.
As soon as he’s gone, Dean turns to look down at where I’m still gaping at him from where I’m sitting. “So that’s what you’re doing now, Mills?” He growls at me, his tone low and dangerous. “You’re just letting random men touch you?”
Mouth still open, his accusation closes it with an audible snap.
“Let him?” I hiss at him, my tone full of indignation.
“Seriously? Do you actually think I invited that… that clone to—” Flicking a quick look through the open doorway behind him, I stop.
The beach we’re on is the beach that is open to all resort guests and it’s crowded.
“Let’s not do this here, okay? People are starting to stare,” I tell him quietly.
“Yeah—I don’t give a fuck.” Reaching down, he grabs me by the ankle and lifts, the angle of it forcing me flat on my back.
Planting my foot on his chest, Dean holds it in place with one hand while he reaches into his pocket with the other.
Watching while he pulls out the anklet, I feel my chest go tight.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I glare at him. “Dean—” When I try to pull my foot away from his chest, he tightens his grip. “Please, I don’t want to fight. Can you just—”
“Oh, it’s too late for that, Princess—” Wrapping the chain around my ankle, he looks up at me through his lashes while he fastens the clasp. “we are definitely fighting.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” I whisper, acutely aware of the fact that there are at least a half a dozen beachgoers outside the cabana and all of them are filming our first public fight.
“Unreasonable?” He flashes me a quick, humorless smirk. “That’s a new one—I’ll have to add it to my list of character flaws, according Princess Millie.”
His tone—condescending and just this side of angry—stiffens the back of my neck. “Can I have my foot back, please?”
“I don’t know.” He sweeps the pad of his thumb over the curve of my ankle bone, the graze of it sending an involuntary shutter through me. “Are you going to take this off?”
“If I feel like it,” I tell him, feeling like a sullen teenager, arguing with her parents about curfew.
He makes that sound again. The one he makes that sounds like a warning. Like I’m on the verge of pushing him too far. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he tells me a low tone. “We have an audience, remember?”
“Wouldn’t what, exactly?” I ask, giving my foot another tug. It doesn’t move an inch.
He cocks his head, grip tightening on my foot. “Behave like a spoiled brat.”
I jerk back like he just slapped me across the face because he may as well have. “That’s the second time you’ve called me spoiled today.”
“I’m sorry.” Dean gives me a shitty smirk. “Are you insulted?”
“Yes.” Letting out a frustrated huff, I give my foot a hard jerk. It doesn’t move an inch. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Well, you insulted me first, Princess,” he growls back, a reminder of our fight last night. How angry we got when I offered to pay him back for the anklet.
For a few seconds, all either of us can do is stare at each other. Finally, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying desperately to regain some sense of composure. “I didn’t mean to,” I tell him quietly. “I’m just uncomfortable with you spending money on me.”
“I might not be some rich dick, finance bro,” he says, lowering his tone. “But I’m not exactly broke either.”
“I never said you were,” I counter on a frustrated hiss because we’re right back where we started, last night. “I don’t understand.” Looking up at him, I shake my head. “I don’t understand why you’re so invested in—”
“Okay.” Dean makes that warning sound in the back of his throat again. “Let me spell it out for you, Princess—you let that smarmy dickface you were about to marry, buy you the goddamned Hope Diamond, meanwhile, I can’t even—”
“He was my fiancé,” I shoot back, my frustration bleeding into full-blown anger. Now it’s Dean’s turn to look like someone just slapped him and that’s when it dawns on me.
Allister.
This is about Allister.
Or rather Dean inexplicably feeling like there’s some sort of comparison between the two of them.
There isn’t.
It isn’t even close.
If I’m completely honest with myself, there never has been.
“Allister didn’t buy my engagement ring, Dean,” I confess quietly.
“He picked it out, yes—but he charged it to my account.” Giving him a wobbly smile because saying it out loud makes me realize just how pathetic I really am, I shake my head.
“For the record, I hated it. The stone was entirely too big for my finger. It made daily tasks almost impossible.”
Foot still planted on his chest, Dean’s forehead creases while he puzzles together what I’m telling him. “You bought your own engagement ring?”
Swallowing hard, I nod up at him. “Birthdays. Anniversaries. Christmas. I bought it all. He never spent a dime of his own money on me. It’s not like he didn’t have any.
He works for my father, so I know…” shaking my head, I give him a shrug.
“He’d present me with a lavish, perfectly wrapped gift, making a big show of it in front of my family on special occasions, and then the charge for it would show up on my credit card statements a month later.
I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter.
That it was the thought that counts but…
” Giving him another wobbly smile, I let out a sigh.
“I paid for everything. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“He’s the pathetic one, Mills.” The hand anchoring my foot to his chest tightens while outside, a trio of resort security guards in matching tropical print shirts, give a brief, quiet lecture to the group of people clustered around our cabana.
Within seconds, their phones disappear and they all slink away with their tails tucked between their legs.
Even though our immediate audience is gone, the security guards remain, creating a perimeter around the cabana and forcing people to give it a wide berth.
“Are we finished fighting now?” Hearing the shift in his tone relaxes the stiff set of my shoulders.
“You tell me,” he tells me with a one shoulder shrug while nudging the anklet with the pad of his thumb. “Are you going to take this off again?”
“No.” I shake my head, my elbows wobbling underneath me when he makes one of those deep, rough noises in the back of his throat again.
“I won’t take it off and I won’t mention reimbursing you for it again.
It was a gift and it was rude of me to treat it like it wasn’t,” I finish with a sigh.
“Can we go back to being civil now?” Maybe if we can put this behind us, we can still salvage our dinner reservation.
I’m sure if I call the restaurant, they’d be willing to accommodate us.
“Is that what you want?” he asks, cocking his head slightly while sweeping his thumb across my anklebone again. “You want me to be civil, Millie?”
Heart taking off at a gallop, I feel the bed I’m lying on start to tilt. My mouth goes dry. The curtains on the cabana are still open. Even though our audience has been chased away by security, people are undoubtedly still watching us.
I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything right now.
“No, Dean,” I confess quietly because suddenly, making our dinner reservations is the last thing I want to do. “I don’t want you to be civil.”