“It’s not your fault Burt,” I tell him with a sigh. “I snuck in while you weren’t looking.”
Burt flicks a look past me, landing it on Dean. “Your father instructed me to take the young man wherever he’d like.” His tone turns cautious, like he just stumbled into a situation he’d rather not be in. “Perhaps I should turn around and?—”
“Don’t worry, Burt.” Dean lets out a laugh that sounds like a lie. Like he doesn’t find our current situation very funny at all. “I don’t know where Millwood is going, but it’s not withme. You’re not aiding and abetting any extra-marital activities.”
“I’m going to the Hawthorne.Alone,” I tell the side of Burt’s face. “You can take Mr. Mercer wherever he needs to go?—”
“After,” Dean finishes before I can tell Burt to drop him off first. “You can take me homeafteryou take Ms. Blackwell to the Hawthorne. I can wait—it isherlimo, after all.”
“Very good, sir. Miss.” Flicking me a quick look in the rearview, Burt gives me a head bob before he raises the partition between us.
As soon as we’re alone, I aim a withering look at Dean, across the dark interior of the car. “Millwood?”
“No?” Dean slouches back in his seat and man spreads while flashing me an insolent show of teeth—both purposely designed to irritate me. “Not Millwood, huh?” Lifting a hand from his lap, he licks the tip of his finger and ticks his latest guess off his imaginary list. “I’m guessing it's notMilton, either.”
“You’re ridiculous.” Milton was my grandfather’s name but I’m not going to tell him that. “And juvenile and rude and?—”
“Nothing like your precious Allister,” he finishes for me on another one of thosethis shit isn’t funnylaughs.
When he says it, I feel a very similar sound bubble against the back of my throat. “The two of you have more in common than you think.”
“Do we have the same tailor?” he asks sarcastically.
“From the looks of your suit—no,” I tell him, shooting an arched brow in his direction. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with his suit but Dean Mercer is a conceited asshole and I’ll never let an opportunity to take him down a peg or two pass me by. “But the two of youaresleeping with the same woman.”
Dean’s entire body goes stiff and he sits up, pulling himself out of his man spread to lean forward in his seat. “What?”
“Allister and Paige. They’re having an affair,” I tell him plainly. “Have been for years. They’re probably together right now so I really hope you got your bathroom blowjob when you had the chance because she’s?—”
“Stop.” Dean holds up a hand, shaking his head like he’s punch-drunk. “Back up. Who told you that—how do you know?—”
“I received an anonymous email this afternoon. The subject line readlast weekend,” I tell him while opening my clutch to pull out my phone. “There was an attachment. I opened it, thinking it was photos from my bachelorette weekend but it wasn’t. They were text messages between Allister and Paige. Very...explicittext messages.” Pulling up my email account, I see that I have a new message from the same anonymous sender with another attachment. The subject line on this one says,after your rehearsal dinner.Leaving that one for later, I openthe first email and its attachment before offering my phone to Dean. When he doesn’t move to take the phone, I jiggle it at him impatiently. “Here. They’re cheating on you too—I suppose you should read them.”
He continues to hesitate, but only for a few moments before he moves, transferring himself across the limo from his bench seat to mine. Taking my phone, Dean sits next to me while he scrolls through the pages and pages of text messages between my fiancé and his... whatever Paige is to him at the moment. When he gets to the end, he looks up at me. “Where did you get these?”
“I already told you—someone emailed them to me this afternoon,” I tell him. “Anonymously. When I tried to email the sender back, the message was returned. Whoever it is deactivated their email account after sending them.” Before he cansay the same thing I thought at first, I shake my head. “I already thought of that. They’re real.”
“She texted him first.” Instead of arguing with me or telling me I’m crazy, Dean accepts what I’m telling him as the truth. “Right after that weekend in the Hamptons.”
That weekend in the Hamptons.
When he says it, I have a sudden flash of memory. Dean and I sitting together on the couch in my room, even closer than we are now. Rough fingers hooked around the back of my neck. His tongue tracing the curve of my lower lip…
Still want to kiss me, Millie?
Pushing the memory away, I take my phone from his lax grip and drop it back into my purse. “Objectively speaking, Allister and I weren’t even together then. We’d only been on a few dates. Hadn’t even—” Embarrassed, I try to look away but he won’t let me. Reaching up, Dean takes my chin between his fingers and gently turns my head back in his direction. This up close, I can see that the corner of his mouth is bruised from where I hit him.
“Hadn’t even what?” Dean asks, his brow crumpling in confusion.
“Hadn’t evenanything,” I say quietly, my cheeks heating up again. “Three dates and he hadn’t even kissed me yet. Hadn’t even tried.” Reaching up, I push Dean’s hand away so I can look out the window. “One lunch date with Paige and he had her in his office, bent over the side of his desk.” I can see the Hawthorne’s bright blue awning about a block away. “All he had to do was tell me he preferred Paige over me. It would’ve stung but I would’ve understood. Would’ve accepted it. Paige is…Paigeand I’m just stick-in-the-mud, prim-and-proper, prude, boring Millie. I don’t know a man alive who wouldn’t choose her over me.”
Present company included.
“Mills...”
It’sMillson the rare occasion he feels like being a decent human being.MildredorMillwoodor any other stupid name he can come up with when he wants to irritate me andPrincesswhen he wants to remind me that he thinks I’m nothing more than a spoiled brat who lives a life of privilege and luxury that most people can only dream of.
“Don’t.” Closing my clutch with a loud snap, I shake my head while the limo glides to a stop in front of the Hawthorne. “I don’t need you,of all people, to feel sorry for me, Dean Mercer.”
