Chapter 59
FIFTY-NINE
Thankfully, Gwen gives me a little breathing room. It’s been awhile. Long enough for us to eat our way through a frightening amount of food and kill the bottle of champagne before she asks.
“Is Dean still here?”
Curled up in one of the chair, shoes kicked off with my legs tucked under me, I hesitate, just enough to get irritated with myself for being so guarded. I shake my head. “No,” I say, giving her a wobbly smile. “He was gone when I woke up.”
“Okay…” Giving me the sort of nod a therapist would give me when they felt we were making some sort of breakthrough, Gwen sits back in her seat. “So there is something going on between the two of you?”
“No.” I frown at her before I look away on a sigh.
“Yes… I don’t know. I—” Looking back at her, I shake my head.
“It started out like I told you,” I say, because it’ll be easier if I start at the beginning.
“Dean suggested that we pretend to fu—be together while we were on the island as a way of really sticking it to Paige and Allister and after some convincing, I agreed.”
“Seriously?” Gwen looks at me like she’s struggling to understand how we’re related. “You needed convincing to agree to pretend to spend the week kissing and canoodling with Dean Mercer?”
Narrowing my gaze on her face, I let out a heavy sigh. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Yes.” Rolling her lips between her teeth, Gwen gives me a nod while she tries not to laugh. Once she has herself under control, she pops her lips on another nod. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“After some convincing, I agreed,” I say, still staring at her. “And then he suggested we practice because he didn’t think I could handle PDA without—”
“Practice PDA. With Dean,” Gwen interrupts me with a barely suppressed grin. “You practiced PDA with…” Rolling her lips between her teeth again, she nods her head, fast and tight, while giving me a hurried go on gesture with her hand. “Sorry—I’m listening.”
Figuring this will probably go better if I’m not looking at her, I shift myself around in the chair until I’m sitting in it like a hammock, my legs draped over one of the arms. My head resting on the other.
And then I tell her everything.
All of it.
I don’t leave anything out.
I give my old, married lady baby sister every last, sorted, juicy detail—starting with what happened at our breakfast by the pool and ending with coming out of the bathroom, that last day to find him gone.
“So… that’s it?”
Finally turning my head, I find Gwen sitting in her own chair, a stunned expression on her face.
“He tells you he’s in love with you and you…
” Brow crumpling with something that’s caught between disbelief and concern, she shakes her head.
“Last night really was the first time you’ve seen him since leaving the island. ”
“Yes.” Looking away from her, I aim my gaze at the ceiling. “He was here, at the gala. He said that Conner Gilroy put him on the guest list but when I saw him, he was with Paige. She had her hand—”
“I spent so much time buying into her bullshit,” Gwen interrupts me to gripe. “Gawd, I can’t stand her.”
“That wasn’t always the case.” Turning my head, I give Gwen a wry smile. “Not so long ago, you wanted to be just like her. We both did—I just wasn’t very good at it.”
“I’m sorry, Millie.” Leaning forward in her chair, Gwen gives me a miserable head shake. “I let her come between us and I shouldn’t have. I let her—”
“It’s okay.” Even though it’s not really okay, I don’t care. What matters to me is that she’s here. That when push came to shove, my little sister chose me. “I’m just glad you’re not one of the things she managed to take from me.”
“You’re my big sister,” she says with a watery smile. “I might be a bitch but I’m not going to let some man-stealing skank come between us.”
Giving her a watery smile of my own, I swallow hard before barking out a laugh. “If getting you in the divorce is all I get, then I’m not complaining.”
“I don’t think I’m all you get, Millie…” Digging her phone out of her purse, she hurriedly sends a text.
A few seconds later, my own phone chimes on the table next to me.
“This is why I’m here,” she says, gesturing toward my phone.
“I was scrolling TikTok this morning and… well, open it,” she says, her gestures turning impatient when I don’t automatically reach for my phone.
Picking up my phone, I open the text she sent me. It’s a TikTok link. I can see Dean and the side of Paige’s face on the screen. The caption says DID SHE REALLY JUST DO THAT??? Heart pounding in my chest, I sit up. Tossing a quick glance in Gwen’s direction, I hit play.
I see Dean, sitting at the hotel bar, obviously well on his way to a good, blackout drunk, with Paige sitting beside him. He’s not looking at her when he very clearly says, go away, Paige.
Instead of going away, Paige reaches for him. Slides a hand up his thigh. “You aren’t even a little bit curious about what it says?”
“I’m really fucking not,” he says, loud enough to draw the attention of the people around them. “And I’d appreciate it if you stopped touching me.”
Instead of stopping like he asked, Paige keeps going.
Leaning in to whisper the rest of it in his ear, I can’t hear what she’s saying but it doesn’t really matter because the whole of my concentration is fixated on her hand.
Where it is. Where it’s going. What it’s doing to him—and I get it.
I understand why Dean talked about murdering Curt for putting his arm around me because if I’d had been there last night, I would have killed her.
Hand on his cock, Paige starts to stroke him, but then Dean speaks again.
“It’s not gonna work,” he says before lifting his glass to take another drink. “Millie’s not here.” Laughing, he sets his glass down before turning to look at her. “Matter of fact, I sincerely doubt it’s ever going to work again.”
Like she can’t hear the utter contempt in his tone or see the disgust on his face, Paige doesn’t give up. She keeps touching him. “And why’s that?”
“Because I’ve had the real thing,” he says bluntly.
“I’ve had her. Felt her close around me while she comes and there’s no comparison.
You’re not her. You’ll never be her, so no matter how hard I close my eyes or how many times I call you by her name, fucking you will never even come close.
” Turning away from her, he lifts his glass to drink the last of it before setting it down loud enough to startle the bartender.
“Now, for the last and final time—get your hand off my dick.” Pushing her hand away, he stands.
“You and I are over, Paige. I need you to get that through your crazy, fucked-up skull—we’re over. ”
“You don’t mean that.” She’s crying now but they’re fake tears. Manufactured for her audience. “Don’t leave me, please, just—”
“We’re over.” Dean says it while he puts on his suit jacket. “We were over the second Millie asked me to run away with her—and there’s no going back. Not for me.”
“You’ll regret it,” she tells me, still crying, still putting on a show but her tone has gone hard. Bitter. “She’s never going to want you. You’re going to realize what a mistake you’ve made and you’re going to come crawling back and when you do, I—”
“There’s only one woman I’d crawl for. Her last name might be Blackwell but she sure as fuck isn’t you.” Turning away from her, he looks at the bartender. “Have a bottle of Jameson sent up to my room—I have a feeling those minibar bottles aren’t gonna cut it.”
“Read the comments,” Gwen says from the chair across from me. Pausing the video, I hit the little bubble icon so I can do as she says.
Did I just see that? Did she really just SA him? On Beyonce’s internet?!?
Holy shit—he said stop, right? I’m not the only one who heard that, am I? He said ‘stop touching me’ and she totally ignored him.
If this were a man, caught on video, doing that to a woman, he’d be in jail right now.
God, I hope he presses charges. She needs to answer for that.
Looking up, slack-jawed I find Gwen looking at me.
“It’s all the same,” she tells me. “It’s on every social platform and they’re all saying the same thing. She’s done. Once Dad sees this, it’s over. There’s no way she’ll recover.”
“Don’t count on it.” Setting my phone down, I give her a miserable head shake. “You should’ve seen her last night. She just flitted around from group to group, smiling and laughing like none of it ever happened. It’s like she’s made of Teflon.”
“Well, she’s not dodging that,” Gwen says, her jaw jutting out stubbornly. “Dad and his cronies might be stupid enough to ignore that shit but the rest of the normal-thinking world won’t be so quick to forgive her.”
Even though I don’t necessarily agree, I don’t argue with her. “It really doesn’t matter though,” I tell her with a sigh. “He slept with her. He—”
“Are you victim blaming?” Her shoulders go stiff while she jerks back in her seat. “Are you actually—”
“No.” I cut her off, my tone firm enough to snap her mouth closed. “No—what happened last night wasn’t Dean’s fault. Nothing that happened before then between them should matter. What she did was assault.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Gwen sighs. “But?”
“But… he chose her.” I push it out in a rush because saying it makes me sound petty. Makes me sound pathetic because it’s the thing I can’t get past. The thing I can’t let go.
Dean had me.
He had me and he let me go.
He made his choice and followed it out the door and even if he regrets it now, how am I supposed to trust that he won’t make that choice again?
“I’m not following.” Dropping her arms away from her chest, Gwen frowns at me. “Dean chose Paige? When? Not last night and sure as hell not the entire time you were—”
“That night—the night we met. At your bachelorette party at the Hamptons house. Dean was with me, in my room and—”
“Am I going to need another drink for this?”
When she says it, I remember that she’s not supposed to be drinking. “Probably not. I mean…” Looking down at her stomach, I feel mine drop because I’ve been so preoccupied with my own drama that I forgot about her. “Aren’t you…”
Frowning at me, Gwen’s gaze drops to her stomach, on top of mine like she’s looking for something.
“Oh.” Gaze popping back up on a laugh, she shakes her head.
“What? No—I’m not pregnant. I’ve just been doing a ninety-day cleanse.
” Looking around the room, at all the food and empty champagne flutes, she laughs.
“Obviously I’m going to have to start over.
” Reaching for the basket of pastries, Gwen deliberately chooses a black and white cookie the size of her face.
“I’m only twenty-five and there’s a lot that Dalton and I want to do before we’re ready for kids.
Now…” Breaking her cookie down the middle, she leans across the table to offer me half.
“Focus. Tell me about what happened between you and Dean in the Hamptons.”
“Nothing.” Taking the cookie, even though I don’t want it, I shake my head. “Nothing happened. We were bickering—”
“Like you do.” Gwen grins at me before she takes a bite of her cookie.
“Yes, like we do…” Setting my own cookie down, I brush the crumbs off my hands. “And then you and your bridesmaids came in and asked him to make you shots, and—”
“And I was mean to you and you went to bed.” Gwen tossed her cookie onto the table on top of mine. “I hate myself. I’m such a bitch.”
“Yes, you can be, but we’re focusing, remember?
” Giving her a smile, I shake my head. “Anyway, Dean followed me to my room. We were talking and then he asked if he could kiss me—” Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I give her a shrug.
“But Paige came before anything really happened. He left with her and then later, after everyone went to bed, I decided to go find him so we could—”
“Hook-up.”
“Talk,” I insist, even though she’s not wrong.
There’s no doubt what I wanted from Dean that night.
It’s the same thing I wanted from him last night.
What I’m coming to realize that I’ll always want from him.
“I wanted to talk. She mentioned Allister when she came to get him and I wanted to make sure he understood that there wasn’t really an Allister to worry about.
That we’d only been out a few times but then I walked into the living room and saw them kissing. ”
Gwen looks at me like she’s lost. “Saw who kissing?”
“Dean and Paige,” I say like it’s obvious. “They were kissing and then he picked her up and carried her to the couch where they started—”
“No you didn’t.”
“What?” Stopping short, I look at her like maybe I’m the one who’s lost. “Yes, I did. I saw—”
“No.” Gwen gives me an emphatic head shake. “You didn’t see Paige with Dean that night. I know you didn’t.”
I don’t know why but when she says it, my stomach clenches like I’m going to throw up. “I don’t understand.”
“You didn’t see Paige and Dean, getting it on in the living room that night. You couldn’t have seen them because Dean wasn’t with Paige. He was with me.”