6
Dean
July 2018
T he last sentence Dean had spoken to Ella nearly a week ago had been playing on his mind; ‘Yes, I know, but I can’t tell you.’
The moment he opened his damned mouth, he regretted it. He knew she had always been suspicious of the marriage pact, and she knew there was something more than simply ‘Adrian and Martha get to keep the rich lifestyle they have.’ Ella wasn’t stupid; he knew she would find out one day, but he hoped that day would be long after he put a ring on her finger.
He stared up from his computer in his office and sighed. With the date set, Dean knew that was not the time for her to find out the truth – if she knew the truth, everything would be compromised, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His father sauntered past the window to his office and Dean shuddered. He didn’t know how the man did it: walk around like he was the perfect man. Dean knew he was far from it. The day they told him he was arranged to be married to Ella was the day he found out that his parents were two cheap, filthy, disgusting excuses for people who didn’t even deserve to be alive.
Dean knew, however, that if he did anything about the truth, then there would be hell to pay. If he went to the police, if he refused to go along with the marriage pact, or even if he refused to work with the company, well, Dean knew he would lose everything: money, house, security, reputation. All of it would go down the drain.
He scoffed to himself and sat back in his chair. He couldn’t deny he wanted to marry Ella – who wouldn’t? She was beautiful, kind, funny, and Dean had loved her since he was eighteen. It wasn’t a lust-fuelled love, it was when he realised he wanted to be beside her forever. He’d watched her grow up, mature, and been there for it all. Dean wanted the rest.
He knew she hadn’t taken the hint when she was sixteen with that little diamond bracelet with love hearts set in it. He’d bought it just before they both found out about the arranged marriage, it was intended to be a declaration of his love, but it had clearly fallen flat for two reasons: she hadn’t got the intent, and they found out about the arrangement. She’d never mentioned it to him, and he never mentioned it again. He couldn’t remember whether she’d ever even worn it, but he didn’t blame her for that either.
Dean cursed the luck; of course, he picked the wrong moment to try and show her how much he loved her. He wondered if she’d got the hint and chose to ignore it. He longed to ask her.
The thing Dean couldn’t understand was why he and Ella were thrown under the bus twenty-six years ago, when they weren’t even born or conceived in Ella’s case. All because his mother was an absolute… well, Dean didn’t want to even think about what she was. The only reason Dean had kept his mouth closed was because of the money.
He needed to see Ella. The way they left it the other day was getting to him: he had agreed never to touch her romantically unless she wanted it.
He sighed and stared once more through the window of his office. Ella’s dad walked past with a cup of coffee in his hand. Dean shuddered again at the thought of him. He knew his parents were worse than Ella’s father, but that didn’t make him any less complicit in the sordid details of their ‘friendship’.
If he told her the truth, he would lose it all, and he didn’t want to face that.
∞∞∞
She opened the door to her penthouse, and Dean swore the heavens had started singing when his eyes landed on her.
Ella sighed. “What are you doing here?”
He walked through the threshold and took his shoes off before glancing up as she made for her bedroom door, but what he didn’t make known was that she didn’t need to. Dean knew. He knew that beyond the door that she closed had men’s deodorant, a drawer probably full of his clothes. He knew all about the curly-haired man she tried to keep a secret, but he let her have the pretence regardless.
“Well,” Dean started as they moved into the kitchen. He perched on the sofa. “Since the last time we saw each other didn’t really end well, I thought we should probably discuss it without that added… stress.”
“Tea?”
He noted how she faltered at the fridge and wondered if that hid incriminating evidence of his presence. He knew he liked beer, so it wouldn’t have surprised Dean if the fridge was full of bottles.
“Water would be great, thanks,” Dean answered. She nodded and purposefully avoided answering his first statement. He took the glass from her hand and noticed that blue ring on her finger yet again.
He’d already ordered the engagement ring for her, and he imagined it cushioned on that slender finger. It would look great with the bracelet he bought her five years ago – if she kept it. He took a sip of cold water to calm the thought away – he knew she would hate the ring, and he only bought it to keep up appearances. Their parents would expect a ring, a big debacle and, for the sake of keeping the peace, Dean knew he needed to get one.
“What do you want, Dean? We have the date, we know the score,” Ella questioned and sat down opposite him.
He put the glass on the coffee table that acted as a barrier between them and shrugged his suit jacket off. He’d taken his goddamn tie off in the car and loosened his top button. Both Anthony and Adrian would have probably scolded him if he’d done that in the office. They rarely cared about what anyone else looked like – as long as they looked smart, but Dean, as the ‘heir to the company’, always had to look the part. He hated it.
Dean sighed. He hated having the conversation, he hated being the enemy. If he told her the truth, if he told her that the only reason he and her were ‘engaged’ was to cover up his mother’s crimes and her father’s extortion, then immediately the gloves would be off.
He imagined it at that moment: ‘Ella, the only reason this is happening is because my mother had an affair with a student. Your father threatened to expose her unless they gave him a job, gave him the lifestyle you’re used to.’
She’d be out the door before he could finish the ‘but’ that would come afterwards and be in the arms of her lover. He couldn’t do it. She would be at that police station before he could chase after her and everything he ever knew would crash around him.
He couldn’t let that happen. Dean was all in; he wanted that angelic face, the curves, the addictive laughter, and he wanted it for life. The thing was, he knew he would never have it. Even if they exchanged vows, cut the cake, and went on honeymoon, Ella would never be his. She would never grow to love him because of the curly-haired lover she tried to keep a secret. Once she knew the truth about Amelia’s criminal past, when she found out that her father was complicit all for money, it would make matters worse.
“Ella, we both know this is not what you want,” Dean said. He wasn’t sure where he was going with the sentence, but it got the idea out there. Maybe he could get her to open up about her lover. Maybe they could finally break down the barrier that had been between them since they both found out. Maybe they could get back to being friends again – Dean could dream, he supposed.
“Well, no shit, Sherlock.”
He watched her closely for the first time since he arrived. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and he could see some sort of darkness in those blue eyes. Ella looked like an angelic zombie, and it freaked Dean out.
“So, I thought we could talk about it.” Dean arched his fingers together and leaned forward to make sure she knew he was listening to her.
She leaned forward as well, almost like a duel. He could see the pink rings around her eyes; she’d been crying. Dean wondered why.
“I don’t want to marry you, Dean, because I don’t love you. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”
Her words hit him like a hammer to the head. One after the other: ‘I don’t love you.’
But just like he’d been trained to all his life, Dean recovered from the pain and cleared his throat before answering: “I understand it perfectly well, Ella. If I’m being honest, I think that’s the fault of our parents. They’ve tried to push us together since, well, since you were born because of the contract. In doing so, though, they made a mistake. Us being friends, or, well, sort of friends as we could be with the age difference… made you view me as a brother. They failed to see that.”
His own words stabbed him in the chest; they felt sour on his tongue. Ella nodded her perfect head at him and sat back. She was prepared for an argument, but he didn’t want to oblige her with one.
“Either we get out of this somehow or we get on with it, Dean,” she eventually said. “I don’t want to sit here for the next two months and rehash it all. It’s pointless.”
Dean sighed. “We have our whole lives together to rehash it. You’ve been burying your head for so long now; it would make it much easier if we were open with each other. We used to be friends.”
Ella shook her head. “I have not been burying my head.”
He tightened his jaw before saying anything. He was trying to ‘poke the bear’ so to speak, but he didn’t know that she would take the bait.
“Ella, we used to be friends and you’ve been avoiding me as much as possible since we found out. This situation might not be your… preference, but we’re about to be married. You can talk to me.”
She got up, went over to her kitchen, and grabbed a bottle of wine from her fridge. Dean noted that she did it as quickly as possible so he couldn’t look at its contents. He was trying to allow her to open up about Matthew, or an opening for him to potentially tell her the truth about the origins of their engagement.
She didn’t answer, and it riled him up. He pursed his lips and rubbed his hands together before asking her, “Why did you push me away?”
He remembered the first time she yelled at him about being engaged to him, it was just after they both found out. She had been drinking with her school friends – the alcohol Dean had provided them with as per their friendship terms back in the day. Ella yelled at him as they dipped their feet in the indoor swimming pool at his parent’s house after imbibing an entire bottle of wine her teenage brain couldn’t handle. She followed him outside the house and waited till they were alone to yell and push him away. He demanded to his parents that they tell her the truth, that they were just pawns in their stupid criminal cover-up, but they threatened to cut him off if he did.
He didn’t want to be the enemy, especially in Ella’s eyes. But how could he throw away the two things that never blamed him for anything? Money and status.
“I suppose because if I got closer to you, you’d think I was leading you on,” she admitted. “I’ve never known how to look at you the same way as before we were told.”
Dean looked into his hands. Black ink marks adorned his right hand from where he’d been doodling at work. He needed to rub it off before he went to the meeting that afternoon.
“I suppose because of our age gap and the fact we’ve never… been close friends, I suppose it’s been easier for me to see you as more than a friend. When I was told, a part of me wasn’t sad because although it’s not my choice, if you’re married to someone and they aren’t your friend as well, then what’s the point, you know?”
Ella nodded at him, but he knew who was on her mind as she did.
He was already giving her something, so he figured he might as well carry on. “I thought even if we didn’t love each other when we meet each other at that altar, then maybe we could grow to love each other. I’m already there, Ella. Part of me always thought you’d end up seeing it the same way.”
She sipped her wine, and he could feel her annoyance dissolve a little with it. He essentially poured his feelings out there, but he could see in her eyes she didn’t understand it.
“Dean, don’t be embarrassed. Just because I don’t feel the same way you do doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Neither of us is wrong or right; we both have feelings, and they are both valid. It is what it is.”
He nodded at her; he knew she was right. “I guess I’ve just tried to make the best of the future being handed to us, you know?”
Ella put her wine glass down and he watched her stare out the window. “I get that,” she said.
He knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere, he knew the truth would push her away and break the contract, so he decided to stay silent. She clearly wasn’t going to open up to him either, so he stood from the sofa.
Dean looked at her. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’d love nothing more than for this to work between us. I don’t know if you want to study from home online or whatever, that’s fine. When the time comes, because they will expect children, we can, I don’t know, adopt, or get a surrogate or something if that’s what you prefer. I know our parents are backward. I know this is awful, but we’re in twenty-eighteen, not the fifties. All I ask is that we keep up appearances for their sake; we have to make it look like a happy marriage.”
Dean’s insides twisted. He hated the idea of never showing Ella what he felt for her, and the thought of her heart belonging elsewhere. He wanted her to submit to the damn contract and fall in love with him. The thought of sharing a bed with her kept him awake some nights with pure want. But he knew the reality: he knew her secrets, and he was never coming back from that. Just like it was time for Ella to face the truth of their impending marriage, it was time for Dean to face the truth that she would never be his, even if he wanted it.
So, he continued: “I know I have come on too strong and for that, I apologise. But until the other day, I didn’t know where I stood. I’ll leave you to think about it. Let me know when you’re ready and I guess we can discuss the… boundaries and rules between us. We have two months, so take your time.”
She inhaled. “Okay, I will.”
He tried another tactic to try and melt her ice-cold exterior. “Can I have a hug? For old-time’s sake? I also got you this, as congratulations on graduating. I’ll leave it here.” He put the small box on the table that contained a charm for the bracelet she owned.
Her answer was to walk into his arms. When he folded them around her, her perfume infiltrated his nose: flowery, fresh, and so… Ella . Her feathery hair tickled his hand around her back. He wanted to kiss her hair and feel her skin, but he knew there had to be boundaries and anything untoward would push her further away.
“Thank you, Dean,” Ella whispered. They both knew she meant for both the way he acted and for the gift.
But Dean didn’t answer; he didn’t know how to because he was hopelessly in love with her and he knew he’d never have her.