Properly chastised, I gripped the door handle, mentally focused on getting dressed and getting out as quickly and quietly as possible but when I opened the door and stepped into the bedroom, my traitorous gaze went directly to the bed.
I expected to find Dean sleeping or maybe still sitting there, waiting for me to come out so he could lie to me some more, but Dean wasn’t in bed.
Dean was gone.
I spent my last three days on the island alternating between crying hysterically and silent catatonia because if Dean loved me—if hereallydid love me like he said, he wouldn’t have left. He would’ve been waiting for me when I finally found the courage to open that bathroom door and he wasn’t.
“I’m fine, Gwenie.” Giving her what I hope is a reassuring smile, I lift my wine glass to my lips and take a measured sip of chilled Chardonnay. “Really.”
Even though the look she gives me says she’s completely unconvinced, Gwen gives me a smile of her own. This is the best part. What makes everything that happened worthwhile. I might’ve lost my fiancé and my best friend, but I got my little sister in trade. We meet at Davino’s weekly for dinner—just the two of us. It’s the best part of my week.
“You know…” Lifting her own glass of sparkling water, she takes a drink. “We really should send Paige a thank you card. If she wasn’t such a filthy tramp, you’d be married to that spineless troll and completely miserable.”
She’s not wrong.
Time and distance have given me a sort of detached objectivity. Marrying Allister, even if he’d been faithful, would’ve been a mistake. One I would’ve closed my eyes to and refused to acknowledge because at the end of the day, he still never loved me. Still only wanted me for my money. At least Dean had been honest about his motives.
Until he wasn’t.
I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since the moment I met you …
“Have you heard from him again?”
Looking up from my scallop risotto, I blink at her because for a moment, I think she’s talking about Dean. Asking if he’s reached out or tried to see me since I came home. He hasn’t. It’slike Dean Mercer has ceased to exist. I’ve read every article and blind item that’s been written about us since I’ve been back in New York and they all say the same thing—Mr. Mercer remains unavailable for comment.
But Gwen isn’t talking about Dean.
She saidhave you heard from himagain.
That means she’s asking me about Allister.
“Not since the last time.” I give her an eye roll. “I think threatening to have Uncle Andy sic the IRS on him finally scared him off for good.” Cutting a scallop in half with the side of my fork, I flick her a quick look. “Why? What’s going on?”
When I got home, I dove directly back into work. Giving myself no time to fall back into my pit of despair, I showed up at Blackwell Tower, bright and early, Monday morning, smiling at a slightly stunned-looking Alice on my way past her desk. When I came home after a long day, Allister was waiting for me in the lobby. Thankfully, the doorman stopped me and warned me before I went inside. Opting to face him, rather than camp out on the sidewalk, I marched inside, breezing past the reception area where he’s waiting for me, on my way to the elevator. When he saw me, he jumped up from his seat. “Millie?—”
“Call security,” I instructed Mitch, who immediately picked up the desk phone. “After that, call the police. I want him trespassed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mitch answered me, one eye on me, while the other stayed on Allister.
“You can’t ignore me,” Allister seethed at my back. “After spending the last two weeks doing God knows what with that bartender, you owe me?—”
Stopping, I turned back to look at him, ignoring a stony-faced Mitch who’d made his call and come out from behind hisdesk to position himself between us. “I owe younothing,” I told him, my tone cool and level. “And any humiliation or hardship you’ve suffered as a result of my leaking those texts is far less than you deserve.” Turning back toward the elevator, I thought better of it in favor of delivering one last, parting shot. “And thebartenderwas right—turns out, I wasn’t the problem. Itwasyour mediocre dick the entire time.”
Leaving a stunned Allister and a laughing Mitch, I took the elevator to my apartment and promptly listed it for sale, after which I packed a bag and moved to The Hawthorne. I haven’t been back since.
Since then, he’s tried a few more times—once outside Blackwell Tower and once here while I was meeting with a client. That was last week but after threatening him with the IRS, I haven’t seen or heard from him since.
“Welll…” Leaning over the table, she drops her tone into a conspiratorial whisper. “Aunt Renee is still banging herthat dirty bartender faked those texts and disparaged my daughter’s good namedrum for whoever will listen.”
“He didn’t,” I tell her with a definitive head shake. It’s something my father has subtly suggested, more than once. Dean may have done a lot of things but he didn’t do what Paige is accusing him of. “They’re real. I know they’re real. The timing between those texts and Allister’s?—”
“I believe you,” Gwen says, reaching across the table to give my hand a commiserating squeeze. “Dad’s been working on getting them authenticated and finding out who sent them.”
“Good.” Pulling my hand from under hers on a forced laugh, I shake my head. “Maybe then, Aunt Renee will shut the fuck up and accept the fact that her daughter is a narcissistic cunt.”
“Dean Mercer was a horrible influence on you,” she says,sitting back with a mystified grin. “A week with him and you’re casually dropping the eff-bombandthe C-word.”
You have no idea.
