Chapter 63
SIXTY-THREE
I’m nervous.
So ridiculously nervous that I’ve been standing here outside his front door for what feels like hours now, trying to muster up the courage to knock. I can hear the muted sound of a television so he’s home unless he left it on for the hamster I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have. Maybe—
Jesus, Millie. Just knock already.
Lifting my hand, I rap my knuckles against the door in front of me and wait.
And wait some more.
Even though I can’t hear anything but the television, I get the feeling someone is watching me through the peephole.
“You might as well open the door, Dean,” I say, looking directly at the little round fish-eye in the middle of the door. “I’m not leaving until you do.”
Now I hear something.
A low, rusty chuckle, right before the door in front of me swings open. “Hey, Mudpie,” He moves closer to lean his shoulder against the frame, one of those asshole smirks planted on his face. “You lost?”
“Nope.” I hold up the watch he left behind Friday night. “You forgot this at the hotel,” I say offering to him.
Straightening himself in the doorway, Dean takes the watch I’m offering. Looking down at it, he shakes his head. “Thanks, I—”
Not waiting for an invitation, I take the opportunity to push my way into his apartment.
Stopping in front of the couch, I scoop up the remote from the table in front of it and mute the television.
As soon as the noise is gone, I toss the remote onto the couch before turning to look at him.
He’s still standing in the open doorway, looking at the watch I just gave him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, suddenly so anxious, I feel like throwing up.
“What did you do to it?” Ignoring my question, Dean’s head comes up to aim a scowl in my direction. Lifting the watch, he shows it to me. “The inscription is gone,” he says like maybe I don’t know. “What—”
“Me first,” I say, giving him a fast head shake. “Why didn’t you tell me that I was wrong? Why didn’t you tell me that it wasn’t you I saw with Paige that night?”
When I say it, Dean’s face goes still. Turning away from me, he closes the door behind him on a sigh before looking back at me. “Gwen told you.”
“Yeah.” I bark it out. “Gwen told me. My question is why didn’t you?”
“Millie…” Shaking his head, Dean looks away from me. “Do you want something to drink? I have—”
“No.” I give him another emphatic head shake. “The only thing I want is to know why, when I told you that I saw you with Paige, that night in the Hamptons, you just let me—”
“What was I supposed to do?” he asks, his face collapsing into another scowl.
Moving away from the front door, he stuffs his watch into the pocket of his jeans on his way to kitchen.
“I mean seriously—” Yanking open the refrigerator, he stoops before reaching inside.
Straightening, beer in hand, he looks at me.
“The only thing worse than you thinking you caught me fucking your cousin that night would be to tell you that you didn’t because I was with your little sister.
” Slamming the refrigerator door closed, Dean yanks a bottle opener off the front of it.
“What we were doing wouldn’t have mattered because you wouldn’t have listened.
” Angling the opener under the bottle’s cap he pries it loose with a jerk, sending it flying.
“You wouldn’t have believed me. You would have—”
“I’m listening now,” I tell him, sick to my stomach because he’s right. I wouldn’t have listened. I would have believed the worst. “What were you doing with Gwen that night?”
“Millie…” Leaning against the kitchen counter, Dean hangs his head, giving it a miserable shake, eyes glued to the floor in front of him. “Please, just—”
“Tell me.”
Head coming up, Dean gives me a long, uncomfortable look. “It wasn’t her fault. She was drunk and Paige had been—”
“Tell me.”
“Okay… okay, just…” Dean sets his beer on the counter next to him without taking a drink.
“After I left your room that night, I got back to work. Making drinks—making sure everyone was having a good time, making sure nobody drown in the pool.” Letting out a muted scoff, Dean shake his head.
“Paige started pushing Gwen to make a pass at me. I could hear her—you’re getting married next weekend.
Same dick for the rest of your life. Don’t you want to live a little before you let Dalton lock it down?
” Looking away like he’s ashamed for some reason, he gives me a shrug.
“She kept at it until Gwen caved. She came onto me. Tried to kiss me.”
The cheer I heard erupt from the living room while I was laying in bed, trying to sleep. I was right, what had happened was something I wouldn’t have approved of. Angry, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t be, I nod my head. “And?”
“And I shut her down as gently as I could, but I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen,” he tells me.
“She was drunk, Millie. She had no idea what she was doing and Paige wouldn’t let up.
Gwen isn’t to blame here. She—when I told her no and she realized what she’d done, she was mortified. She started crying and she took off.”
“What happened after that?”
Reaching for his beer, Dean lets out another sigh because this is the part he doesn’t want to tell me.
Doesn’t think I’ll believe. “I went after her,” he confesses quietly.
“She ran outside and I didn’t know… I didn’t want anything to happen to her so I followed her to make sure she was okay.
I found her on the lower deck, hanging over the railing, crying and puking her guts out.
” Taking a drink, he shakes his head. “She was mortified. Kept apologizing for what happened. She didn’t know what got into her.
That she was in love with Dalton and she didn’t understand why she would do something like that. ”
Maybe Gwen didn’t understand, but I do.
Paige.
Paige has always had a way of manipulating you into doing what she wants.
Knows just what to say to make you move exactly the way she wants you to.
I can only guess at what her reasons were but I can imagine that if it had happened—if Dean had slept with Gwen that night, she would have told me.
She would have disguised it as gossip, a story about my little sister’s wild night with the hot bartender at her bachelorette party, when what it really would have been is a tool and a weapon.
A tool to push Gwen and me even further apart. A weapon to hurt us both.
“Nothing happened between your sister and me, Mills,” Dean tells me. “She passed out in one of the lounge chairs and I stayed with her because she was too embarrassed to go back inside and I didn’t feel right about leaving her alone. I swear—”
“You came to Gwen’s wedding looking for me.”
It’s not a question and when I say it, Dean stares at me for a long moment before he nods.
“I keep leaving you, Mills, and every time…” Shaking his head, Dean sets his beer down before scrubbing a rough hand over his face.
Dropping it, he forces himself to look at me.
“Women like Paige are something I never run out of. They’re always there.
Always… I followed you to your room that night because you were different.
You made me feel different.” Cocking his head a little, he gives me a sardonic smirk.
“But then Paige shows up and starts talking about your boring banker boyfriend and I realized you weren’t any different than the rest of them and you just wanted the same thing from me that the rest of them do. ”
“Allister wasn’t my boyfriend,” I tell him. I can’t deny the rest. I can’t deny that I wanted him. “We’d only been on a few dates. He hadn’t even kissed me yet.”
“I know that now, but then…” Dean’s jaw clenches and he looks away.
“I let my own insecurities convince me that you were just looking for a good time that night, but after what happened with your sister, I thought maybe I got it wrong,” he says.
“Maybe I misunderstood what I heard. I was going to ask you about it in the morning but when I finally made it back into the house you were gone. I thought about it—you—but I didn’t know what to actually do about it until Paige called me and asked if I wanted to be her date for your sister’s wedding.
I said yes because I knew you’d be there.
I thought maybe I could talk to you. Explain what happened and hope you’d listen but—”
“I was with Allister.”
“Yeah. According to Paige the two of you were practically engaged.” Dean gives me a dry chuckle even though it’s obvious he doesn’t find much humor in it.
“It was obvious that I was the last person you wanted to talk to, but I couldn’t walk away.
I didn’t want to walk away so I kept answering the phone when she called.
I kept saying yes when she…” He rolls his lips between his teeth and shakes his head before he looks at me.
“I know how pathetic it sounds, but I was never with her, Mills. In my head, I was always with you.”
That the only reason I said yes to Paige was because being her fucktoy was the only way I had access to you. That when I fucked her, I called her by your name. That I couldn’t get hard for her—fuck, I can’t get hard for anyone—unless I’m thinking about you.
“There’s a long list of things I think about you, Dean Mercer, but pathetic isn’t on it.
” Giving him a long look, I gesture toward the pocket he shoved his watch into.
“Why are you upset that I took your watch in to have the back plate replaced?” I ask.
“It was engraved with my almost wedding date. Why would you—”
“Because it’s not the day you almost married someone else, Mills.
” Dean shakes his head. “Not to me. It’s the day I watched you finally stand up for yourself.
The day you looked up at me and asked me to run with you and no matter what happened afterward, no matter what you thought or how you feel about me now, that was the best fucking day of my life. ”
Swallowing hard, I pull my bottom lip between my teeth on a nod. “Is that your bedroom,” I ask, lifting a hand to point at the closed door on the other side of the room.
“Yup.” Leaning his hips against the counter, Dean crosses his tattooed arms over his thick, muscular chest before giving me one of those toe curling looks. “That’s where the magic happens.”
Making a noise in the back of my throat, I drop my hand before making my way to it. Opening the door I see his bed—the same bed I saw months ago when he Facetimed me. Kicking off my shoes, I climb onto it and sit in the middle of it, just as Dean appears in the bedroom doorway. “What—”
“Truth Island.”
When I say it, Dean frowns because he thinks this time is just like every other time. That I don’t believe him. That I’m demanding proof I won’t accept. “Mills…”
“Not for you,” I tell him. “For me.” Quirking my mouth to the side, I give him a nod. “It’s about time I started telling you the truth, don’t you think?”
“Okay.” Giving me a faint, lopsided grin, Dean bobs his head. “What do you want to tell me, Mills?”
“That I believe you. I believe you when you say that nothing happened between you and Gwen that night and I believe that the reason you followed her is because, despite your best efforts, Dean Mercer, you really are a gentleman.” Swallowing hard against the lump forming in my throat, I offer him a watery laugh.
“I believe that you love me. I believe I love you too. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you.
You were irritating and smug and so conceited I wanted to scream but when I opened that door and you were on the other side of it, I was ready to risk it all for you because you were right—you are a problem for me, just as much as I’m a problem for you.
I believe that makes us both absolutely insane because I’d rather fight with you for the rest of my life than fuck anyone else. ”
When I say it, he makes that sound in the back of his throat.
“No one else is fucking you, Mills—not ever,” he says, making his way toward me.
“No more boring bankers. No more nice guys with the right last name and too much money.” Climbing onto the bed with me, Dean pushes me back, onto the mattress, until his hips are pressed into the cradle of my thighs and I’m staring up at his beautiful face hovering over mine.
“No one but me.” Looking down at me, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and hope, Dean nods his head. “So… I love you.”
“Yes,” I whisper up at him. “You love me.”
Still nodding, a slow smile spreads across his face. “And you love me too.”
“Despite my best efforts… yes, I love you.” Grinning, ear to ear, I feel my heart swell and knock against my chest. Lifting a hand, I trace my fingertips along the curve of his jaw. “Still want to kiss me, Dean?”
“I’ll always want to kiss you, Miracle,” he promises me, right before he does.