Laughing a little, even though it’s not even remotely funny,I tell myself enough is enough. I can’t keep hiding all night and if I can’t scrape up enough courage to walk into that auction room, I can, at the very least, find enough courage to leave.
Go downstairs.
Book a room—any room.
Take a shower.
Cry myself to sleep.
I can do that.
Reopening my clutch, I pull my phone out again and send my mother a quick text.
Me: Not feeling well. I’m staying in Boston for the night. I’ll call you in the morning. Please tell Curt I’m sorry.
My mother’s not stupid. She’ll know why. She’ll know I left because I’m a spineless coward who couldn’t stand to watch Paige get everything she wants, and the thought of sitting on a plane with her while she gloats about it is absolutely unbearable but right now, I don’t care. Right now, I just want to?—
Head down while I reclose my clutch, I move out from behind the row of potted shrubbery and plow head long into a wall of starched white fabric. Looking up, I bounce back, dropping my phone on a soft, startled gasp.
“You don’t listen, do you, Princess?” Dean growls down at me, rough hands wrapping around my bare arms while he advances, pushing me back until my shoulders hit the brick wall behind me. “I told you to stop making those noises around me.”
“Well, what sort of noises am I supposed to make when I’m being stalked and manhandled,” I hiss up at him while I try desperately to ignore the way my heart starts to ping pong around my chest because Jesus, he’s beautiful. So beautiful, I can’t think straight. Can’t see anything else.
“If memory serves,and it does,” he says, giving me one of those irritating smirks. “You like it when I stalk you.” Leaning in just enough to knock me off balance, Dean lowers his gaze, letting it trail across the swell of my breasts before looking up at me through his lashes. “And you fuckinglove itwhen I manhandle you.”
Because denying it would make me a liar and lying about it would just give him more reason to gloat, I give up. “What do you want?”
Tilting his head at a predatory angle, he makes that warning sound in the back of his throat. The one that curls my toes and makes me want to do stupid things. “I want to know who he is, Mills,” he says quietly, his hands tightening around my arms. “And then I want to know why he thinks he has the goddamned right to put his mouth on you.”
Stunned, all I can do is stare up at him because he sounds jealous and that’s ridiculous, right? Dean’s not jealous. He doesn’t care about me. Henevercared about me. He came here with Paige. I saw them together. I’ve spent the last half an hour, driving myself crazy, imagining the two of them in every conceivable compromising position—and suddenly,I’mthe jealous one.
“Fuck you,” I hiss at him through clenched teeth. Lifting my hand, I crack my palm across his face as hard as I can. He doesn’t even flinch which makes me even angrier. “Fuck you,you lying, cheating, smug—” Rearing back I slap him again, this time so hard my hand goes numb. “egotistical bastard.”
Glaring down at me, my bright red handprints crisscrossed over his cheek, the corner of his bloodied mouth twitches in a humorless smirk. “You forgotcouthless.”
Letting out a thin, strangled scream, I swing again, wanting nothing more than to knock that self-satisfied look off his face but Dean catches me by the wrist before I can deliver slapnumber three. “Goddamnit,” he growls down at me, pinning my captured wrist against the wall above my head. “Stop—you’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Not finished, I drop my clutch, but before I can swing with my free hand, Dean snags my other wrist and pins it to my thigh, not even giving me a chance to lift my hand. “I hate you.” Twisting my wrist in his grip, I pull but it’s no use. Gaze narrowed down to slits, I aim it up at him while I fight the urge to spit in his face. “I fucking hate you.”
“Who is he, Millie?” His tone is calm but the look he’s giving me tells a different story altogether.
For a second I’m so angry I can’t think straight. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Whoheis. And then I remember.
“Curt?” Answering his question, I say his name like I’m not even sure what it is.
“That’sCurt?” He pulls me closer, glaring down at me. “The infamous Curtis Horne—that’swho you came here with?”
“Yes,Curt,” I hiss in his face. “That’s who I came here with—not that it’s any of your business.”
Something dangerous flashes in his eyes, the shadows of it so sharp, I can feel the stab of it in my throat. He makes that noise again, jaw clenched while he glares down at me like he’s struggling to keep himself under control. As scary and unhinged as Dean looks right now, as certain as I am that he’s on the verge of doing something crazy, I’m not afraid. “Why?” He growls, the sound he makes barely recognizable as a word.
Chest pumping, I stare up at him, confused. Completely mesmerized by the sight of him. The feel of him pressed against me making me so dizzy my knees are shaking. “Why what?”
He lets out a breath, the tendons in his jaw flexing around a curse. “Why are you here with Curtis Horne, Millie?”
“Because he asked me,Dean.Because he’s nice to me,” I tellhim, ticking off all the reasons I gave myself on the plane ride to Boston. “He comes from a good family. He?—”
felt sorry for me.
