Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
I’m not sure what I expected when I stepped off the elevator onto the floor Conner Gilroy and his family had commandeered for the night but it’s blissfully quiet.
Other than several room service carts littering the hall, piled high with half-eaten cheese burgers and plates smeared with chocolate frosting, it’s almost as if I have the floor to myself.
My stomach rumbles, the sound of it telling me I probably should’ve eaten more than a few hors d’oeuvres, snagged from the trays being passed around during cocktail hour.
Deciding I’m too tired and that I probably won’t starve to death in my sleep, I decide to take the easy way out.
No food. I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
Letting myself into the room, I pass through the elegantly appointed sitting room without even bothering to turn on the light, heading straight for the set of open double doors that lead to the suite’s bedroom.
Tossing the room key on the nightstand, I head for the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes and shoes behind me.
Within minutes, I’m in the shower, the hot spray stinging the abraded skin on my back. Reminding me of where I was an hour ago. What I was doing. Who I was with. The things he said.
I was never with her… I was never fucking with her, Mills… I was always with you… in my head, I was always with you.
Closing my eyes, I lean my forehead against the tile in front of me. Letting the relentlessly brutal pressure of the shower head drill into my back, I give in. Finally let myself do the thing I’ve been fighting against since the moment I saw him.
I let myself fall apart.
Big, gulping sobs that wrack my entire body. Hard and deep enough to make me feel like I’m breaking apart inside my own skin. A flood of tears that threatens to fill up my lungs and drown me, I cry until the stinging fades. Until I’m numb. Finally hallow and empty enough to sleep.
I wake with a start.
The room is dark. So dark, all I can see are the faint shapes of things. The shadow of the dresser across the room. The impression of the lamp on the nightstand next to me.
The outline of a man, sitting in a chair in the corner, a few feet away.
Seeing him should scare me but it doesn’t. I should be terrified but I’m not. Because I know who it is.
Sitting up, I clutch the sheets to my chest while I stare into the dark. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe there’s no one there. Maybe I’m so sad and desperate for him that I’ve finally lost my mind and started hallucinating him. Maybe, but I say his name anyway. “Dean?”
For a few moments, nothing. Just a long stretch of silence that nearly convinces me that I am going crazy. And then—
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Dean.”
“What are you doing?” I want to turn on the lamp but I don’t because what if I really am talking to myself. What if—
“Welp…”A short bark of laughter erupts from the corner I’m talking to.
“I’m sitting here, trying to decide if I wanna turn on the lamp or not.
” He tells me. “On the one hand, if I do and you’re not real, I’ll have to face the fact that I’ve finally lost my goddamned mind.
On the other, if you are here, there’s a good chance you’re not alone and if I turn on the light and see that motherfucker in bed next to you, I’m probably gonna do some scary shit that you’ll have to testify to in my murder trial. ”
“Oh…” Even though listening to Dean Mercer casually talk about murder should firmly push this interaction into the hallucination category, I put his fears to rest. “I’m alone.
Curt’s not here. I don’t even know where he is.
” When I say Curt’s name, Dean makes that low, rumbling sound in his chest. The one that tells me he’s struggling to keep himself in check.
Heart taking off at a gallop, I realize I’m not. I’m not alone.
But I should be.
“How’d you get in here?”
“You mean how’d I get in your room in the middle of the night?” Even though it’s Dean’s voice, there’s something off about his tone. The way he’s forming his words. The bunch and stretch of them is all wrong, making his cadence almost unrecognizable. “That’s a good question.”
“Are you drunk?”
The shadow in the corner moves. I hear the quiet glug of liquid before he answers me. “Don’t try to change the subject Miller Time—we’re trying to figure out how you got in my room, remember?”
“Your room?” Finally leaning over, I reach for the bedside lamp and click it on, the soft amber glow of the bulb stabbing into my eyes.
Squinting them, I aim my gaze in the direction of the shadow I’ve been talking to.
Half expecting to find the chair in the corner empty, I’m both relieved and anxious to find it occupied. “What are you talking about? This is—”
“I have a theory.” Dark blue gaze raking over me, Dean lifts a half empty bottle to his mouth. Taking another long pull, he drains it by half before he lowers it. “And it involves my fairy godmother.”
“I don’t understand.” Feeling a little slow and stupid, I shake my head because this is the second time tonight that he’s mentioned a fairy godmother.
He gives me another one of those off-kilter chuckles. “You would if you knew my fairy godmother,” he says. Bottle dangling from his grip, he reaches into the breast pocket of his suit. Pulling out a plastic keycard, he flips it in my direction.
Watching it sail through the air to land in the sheets next to me, I reach for it. Lifting it, I can see the Hawthorne’s crest on one side. Turning it over, I see the room number printed on the other.
1217.
“Wait—” Looking at the nightstand, I see my own keycard sitting on top of it, next to my phone, exactly where I left it. “Conner Gilroy—”
“Ohhh…” Dean gives me an unstable head nod while he lifts his bottle again, drinking the rest of whatever’s in it.
Dropping it, empty, on the floor, he stands.
“So you do know him. That’s it—” Shrugging out of his jacket, he drops it next to his bottle.
“mystery solved. We’ve been parent trapped by a meddlesome psychopath with a ridiculously inflated ego and too much time on his hands.
” Dean starts to undo his cufflinks, one by one, before tossing them onto the chair behind him. “Guy seriously needs a hobby.”
Dumbstruck, I watch while he opens the front closure of his pants. “You know Conner Gilroy?”
“Yup.” Pulling his shirt from his waistband, his tattooed hands stumble down the row of buttons keeping it closed. “I know Conner Gilroy.”
I want to ask him how. I want to demand he explain what’s going on to me but I can’t because there are more pressing matters to discuss.
“Are you getting undressed?” When he gives me a look that makes me feel like maybe I’m the one who’s impaired here, I shake my head. “Why are you getting undressed?”
Still looking at me like I might need help, Dean peels his open shirt off, revealing a stark white undershirt.
“Because I am drunk, Mills.” Dropping his dress shirt on the floor, he sits on the side of the bed, near the end of it, by my feet.
“Because I’m drunk and I’m tired and I’m pissed off and—” Stopping he cocks his head at me. “Are you naked?”
“You can’t actually think I’m going to allow you to sleep here,” I say instead of answering him because I am naked and hearing him say the word out loud is making me want to do stupid things about it.
“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before…
” His gaze dips to the sheet plastered across my chest before bouncing back up to meet mine.
“It’s gonna go about as well for you now as it did then.
This is my bed, Macaroon, but I’m more than willing to share.
” The corner of his mouth quirks at my obvious irritation. “I am a gentleman, after all.”
Tightening my grip on the sheets I have gathered around me, I start to pull, trying desperately to get them out from under him so I can make a run for it. Dean must not be as drunk as I think because he realizes what I’m doing right away and why.
“You’re not leaving,” he tells me, his tone low and even. “I’ll fucking chase you down and drag you back to bed before you even make it to the living room. I’ll call the concierge for rope and tie you to it if I have to, so just—”
Twisting away from him, I lunge for my phone on the nightstand—not because I’m afraid or even because I really want to call someone for help.
Because I’m completely panicked at the thought of lying in this bed with him because I know what will happen and if Dean lies to me again, I’ll break.
If he tells me he loves me, I’ll believe him.
And this time when he breaks my heart, I’ll never recover.
He’s really isn’t as drunk as I thought because Dean gets to my phone first. Snatching it off the nightstand, he wings it through the open door of the bedroom where it pings off the hardwood floor before it skitters out of sight.
“Or maybe I’ll just rip every goddamned phone in this place out of the wall and tie you up with the cords. ”
Operating on a level of temper I’ve only ever felt with him, I don’t lunge for the landline on the nightstand.
I lunge at him. Taking a swing, I’m not at all surprised when he catches my hand before I make contact.
Pulling it toward him with an impatient grunt, Dean turns my palm over in his hand to examine it.
It’s swollen and bruised from slapping him earlier.
Looking up, he gives me a flat, disapproving look.
“You didn’t ice it like I told you to, did you? ”
Feeling chastised, I jerk back but don’t get very far. “I—”
“Don’t leave, okay?” Sighing, Dean’s shoulders slump. “Things are gonna get messy if I have to kidnap you for real.”
In the last ten minutes, this man has talked about murdering my potential suitors, chasing me down, tying me up and now kidnapping. Why am I not terrified right now? Why am I not trying to fight my way out of here, tooth and nail? Why am I going to sit here and do exactly what Dean tells me to?
Because I never really had any intention of leaving.
Because no matter how scary Dean can be, he’s never been scary to me.
Because I know he’d never hurt me.
Because I’m in love with him.
Because I’ve always been in love with him.
“Okay.”
Like he’s sure I’m lying to him, Dean reluctantly loosens his grip on my wrist before he stands to look down at me.
“Just stay here while I—” He stops mid-sentence, his face collapsing into a scowl.
“What the fu—” Reaching out, he moves my hair to the side so he can see the angry red abrasions scattered across my upper back where my dress didn’t shield me from the brick wall he had me pinned against. Hand dropping to my bicep, Dean grips it while he drops into a crouch in front of me.
“What happened?” When I don’t answer him right away, he gives me a short, impatient shake. “What the fuck happened, Mills. Who—”
“We happened,” I tell him, my cheeks stinging with embarrassment. “Earlier. Outside, on the terrace. When we—”
Dean’s face goes bone white when he realizes what I’m saying. “I did that?” Loosening his grip, his Adam’s apple scrapes along the line of his throat like he’s having a hard time breathing. “I—”
“No,” I correct him. “We did that. Together. We—”
“For fuck’s sake, Mills,” he says loudly, retightening his grip on my arm. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me—”
“Because if I said something you would’ve stopped,” I answer him honestly.
“You would’ve stopped and I didn’t want you to.
I didn’t…” Shaking my head, I look away from him because I don’t know what I’m saying.
Don’t trust myself to not say something crazy.
Something I can’t take back. “It’s fine. It doesn’t even hurt.”
“Bullshit,” he says quietly, still looking like he might throw up. “It’s not fine. You look like someone dragged you down the fucking street.”
“No, I don’t,” I say, serving him one of his own shit-eating smirks. “I look like someone fucked me against a brick wall at a charity auction.”
“Jesus Christ...” Letting go of my arm completely, Dean rocks back on his heels.
For a second he doesn’t say anything else.
Just stares at me, brow furrowed like he’s having the same trouble I am.
Like he can’t figure out how this keeps happening.
Why we keep strapping into this roller coaster we’re on.
Why, no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to walk away from each other and make it stick.
Finally he lets out a quiet chuckle. “You’re gonna be the goddamned death of me, Millie Blackwell. ”
Not waiting for me to answer, Dean stands and heads for the door. “I’m going to get some ice, I’ll be back. Don’t call the cops on me.”