I hate it.
Every morning, I open my eyes hoping he’s still here and every morning I’m disappointed. So disappointed I can feel the weight of it in my chest. I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t about Dean. That it was about Allister. That now that the dust has settled a bit, I’m finally allowing myself to grieve the loss of the man I loved and what I thought would be my fairytale ending. That I was finally letting myself feel the full weight of his betrayal. And not just his. Paige’s too. She betrayed me just as much as Allister did—maybe even more—because Paige isn’t just my cousin. She was my friend. If I’m honest, she was my only friend.
Allister fucked your cousin because he’s a cheating piece of shit with a fragile ego and a small dick and she fucked him because she loves to make you feel small and gets off on taking what’s yours, so stop crying over those assholes. Neither one of them deserve it.
Dean said it to me days ago, his tone so full of irritation and impatience that I instantly rejected the sentiment as something he was saying to hurt me. Make me feel bad—but that’s not what he was doing.
Dean was telling me the truth.
He’s right.
Neither of them deserves my tears.
Paige was never my friend and Allister never loved me and while my feelings about Paige and the way she’s treated me for as long as I can remember might take more time to untangle, my feelings about Allister and what he did have become clearer and clearer over the last four days.
I dodged a bullet.
Not because he never loved me or because he was obviously just marrying me for money.
BecauseInever lovedhim.
I loved theideaof him.
What he represented.
Stability.
Safety.
Never having to feel the way I felt that night in the Hamptons when I watched Dean follow Paige out of my room and back to the party he was being paid to attend and certainly not the way I felt later, in the small hours of the morning when I finally got up the courage to leave my room to go find him.
I laid awake for hours, listening to them have fun without me. The music. The laughter. The occasional broken glass. Gwen’s friends cheering her on, encouraging her to do something I’m sure I wouldn’t have approved of if I’d been a bystander, until it all faded into quiet. Someone turned off the music. Laughter was replaced by muffled voices and hushed giggles as they all staggered upstairs to sleep it off for a few hours before they woke up and did it all over again. All I could hear was the quiet clink of glasses being collected. The hissing brush of a broom being dragged across the floor.
Sure it was Dean, that he was alone, and this was my chance to explain without Paige or one of Gwen’s friends interrupting us, I got out of bed. I knew the moment had passed. That the chance of whatever might’ve happened between us before Paige knocked on my door was gone, but I still wanted to explain. I didn’t want to have to face him tomorrow, knowing he thought I let him into my room with the intention of cheating on Allister. That it would’ve been impossible because Allister and I weren’t even a real thing yet. I doubted he’dlisten, or that he even really cared, but I still wanted him to know.
Just hoping that he’d hear me out, I padded my way down the hall, past the staircase and through the foyer. Rounding the corner, I stopped short just before I completely humiliated myself by stepping into the living room. Because Dean wasn’t cleaning up my sister’s mess anymore.
He was kissing Paige.
He was kissing her the way I’d hoped he’d kiss me.
Eyes stinging, heart pounding in my chest, I stood in the deep shadow of the wall and watched him pick her up. Watched her wrap her legs around him so he could carry her to the couch and thankfully out of my sight. I stood there, rooted to the floor by panic and humiliation, listening to them until Paige started moaning and then I went to my room. I could still hear her so I packed my things and I left. She was still moaning when I walked out the front door.
That’s what I thought about when I walked into the bar tonight, looking for Dean, and found him talking to that woman.
Even though you knew what it was, you were still stupid enough to hope that maybe, just maybe that kiss meant something. It didn’t. It didn’t mean anything then and it doesn’t mean anything now.
By dinner time I was ready to climb the walls and by the time I’d usually climb into bed to stare at the ceiling, I’d lost my mind completely. Calling Mateo, because Dean has been taking our only mode of transportation, I get dressed and meet him outside.
“Do you know where Mr. Mercer is?” I asked him without preamble. The look he gave me said yes, even before he said it out loud. “Take me there, please.”
With a bob of his head, Mateo led me to his golf cart,twenty minutes later stopping in front of an enormous open air pavilion with a thatched roof and entirely too many people crowded around a 360° bar in its center. Pointing his finger at it, I see Dean immediately, wearing clothes that I bought for Allister—a loose pair of khaki linen pants and a short-sleeve, white button down with pale blue flowers on it, the collar undone.
He should look ridiculous.
He doesn’t.
He looks like he always does.
