Still looking up at the man in front of me, I shake my head. “No,” I tell him before looking back down at my book. “You don’t know me.”
Instead of getting the hint and moving on to his next victim, Allister’s clone flashes me his pearly whites and takes it as an invitation to make himself at home. Moving into the cabana, he sits on the edge of the upholstered sun bed I’m on, so close I can smell his coconut tanning oil, with a laugh that’s almost as practiced as his smile. “Are you sure?” he asks, pushing his sunglasses up on his head before casually dropping his hand on my knee. “I know where it was… I saw you at the resort bar a few nights ago. That dress you were wearing was?—”
Before I can tell him to get his hand off me and get the hell out, I hear something—someone—that barely sounds human. Looking up, I see him.
Dean.
He found me.
Mouth hanging open, I watch while he storms in and snatches Allister’s clone up by the neck and throws him through the cabana’s wide, open doorway where he lands in the sand with an audiblethud. Jumping up, covered in sand, helooks ready to charge back in to defend his manhood but whatever he sees on Dean’s face stops him in his tracks and has him deciding it’s not worth dying over. Bending down, he snatches up his broken sunglasses and walks away without a word.
As soon as he’s gone, Dean turns to look down at where I’m still gaping at him from where I’m sitting. “So that’s what you’re doing now, Mills?” He growls at me, his tone low and dangerous. “You’re just letting random men touch you?”
Mouth still open, his accusation closes it with an audible snap. “Let him?” I hiss at him, my tone full of indignation. “Seriously? Do you actually think I invited that…that cloneto—” Flicking a quick look through the open doorway behind him, I stop. The beach we’re on is the beach that is open to all resort guests and it’s crowded. “Let’s not do this here, okay? People are starting to stare,” I tell him quietly.
“Yeah—I don’t give a fuck.” Reaching down, he grabs me by the ankle and lifts, the angle of it forcing me flat on my back. Planting my foot on his chest, Dean holds it in place with one hand while he reaches into his pocket with the other. Watching while he pulls out the anklet, I feel my chest go tight.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I glare at him. “Dean—” When I try to pull my foot away from his chest, he tightens his grip. “Please, I don’t want to fight. Can you just?—”
“Oh, it’s too late for that, Princess—” Wrapping the chain around my ankle, he looks up at me through his lashes while he fastens the clasp. “we aredefinitelyfighting.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” I whisper, acutely aware of the fact that there are at least a half a dozen beachgoers outside the cabana and all of them are filming our first public fight.
“Unreasonable?” He flashes me a quick, humorless smirk. “That’s a new one—I’ll have to add it tomy list of character flaws, accordingPrincess Millie.”
His tone—condescending and just this side of angry—stiffens the back of my neck. “Can I have my foot back, please?”
“I don’t know.” He sweeps the pad of his thumb over the curve of my ankle bone, the graze of it sending an involuntary shutter through me. “Are you going to take this off?”
“If I feel like it,” I tell him, feeling like a sullen teenager, arguing with her parents about curfew.
He makes that sound again. The one he makes that sounds like a warning. Like I’m on the verge of pushing him too far. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he tells me a low tone. “We have an audience, remember?”
“Wouldn’t what, exactly?” I ask, giving my foot another tug. It doesn’t move an inch.
He cocks his head, grip tightening on my foot. “Behave like a spoiled brat.”
I jerk back like he just slapped me across the face because he may as well have. “That’s the second time you’ve called me spoiled today.”
“I’m sorry.” Dean gives me a shitty smirk. “Are you insulted?”
“Yes.” Letting out a frustrated huff, I give my foot a hard jerk. It doesn’t move an inch. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Well, you insulted me first, Princess,” he growls back, a reminder of our fight last night. How angry we got when I offered to pay him back for the anklet.
For a few seconds, all either of us can do is stare at each other. Finally, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying desperately to regain some sense of composure. “I didn’t mean to,” I tell him quietly. “I’m just uncomfortable with you spending money on me.”
“I might not be some rich dick, finance bro,” he says, lowering his tone. “But I’m not exactly broke either.”
“I never said you were,” I counter on a frustrated hissbecause we’re right back where we started, last night. “I don’t understand.” Looking up at him, I shake my head. “I don’t understand why you’re so invested in?—”
“Okay.” Dean makes that warning sound in the back of his throat again. “Let me spell it out for you, Princess—you let that smarmy dickface you were about to marry, buy you thegoddamned Hope Diamond, meanwhile, I can’t even?—”
“He was my fiancé,” I shoot back, my frustration bleeding into full-blown anger. Now it’s Dean’s turn to look like someone just slapped him and that’s when it dawns on me.
Allister.
This is about Allister.
