Chapter Six
DEAN
I woke mid-dream.It had been so real—my financial planning place right there on Main Street, with its lampposts and flower baskets. Even in my imagination, it looked like Norman Rockwell had thrown up and created it all.
Yet… I had been so happy. Like a dream had come true.
Awareness crept back in. The silence was different, a deep, unfamiliar quiet, punctuated only by the low whirr of an air conditioner. My throat was dry, my limbs heavy. Sated. I cracked an eye open. The morning light was a pale, hazy blue, filtered through thin curtains. A woman’s arm was slung over my waist, her breathing a soft, steady rhythm against my back.
Panic bloomed within me, sour and icy cold. I wasn’t in my bed.
I was in Brynn Vance’s.
It was supposed to be fake. A vacation charade easily erased and forgotten. Instead, I was drowning in the proof—her warm, sleeping body pressed against mine. Her barethighs against mine. The fact that we were both naked under the covers, and it wasn’t even 8:00 a.m.
I sat bolt upright, peeling away from her cling. The sheet dropped from my chest and hips, exposing every inch of me to the prying gaze of the morning. I barely noticed. My heart pounded, my hands already clammy with sweat.
Last night, it was a den of possibility and euphoria. Now, it was a map leading somewhere I never intended to go. Our clothes were everywhere. Her bra hung off the chair. A framed photo of her and Holly sat on the nightstand—something she’d obviously brought with her. A beach towel in a blinding shade of turquoise hung on a wall hook. Every object was a landmark leading to a place I had spent years avoiding.
It was all so goddamn domestic. So feminine and welcoming. I wanted to crawl out of my own body. I swung my legs off the bed and planted my feet on the cool tile, but my chest cinched tighter with every breath.
That’s when she stirred. Behind me, the sheets rustled, and the weight of her gaze on my back was a physical thing. I tensed, pretending not to notice. Maybe if I stayed still, she’d go back to sleep.
“Dean?” Her voice was hoarse, half-asleep, but soft. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
I gripped the mattress so hard my knuckles went white. “Nothing. Just need some air.”
The lie hung between us, paper-thin. She sat up, dragging the covers with her, wrapping herself in cotton and concern.
“You okay?” she repeated, quieter this time.
The concern in her voice triggered something primal and embarrassing. I felt it in the roots of my teeth, the base of my spine. I’d spent years training myself to be self-contained, invulnerable, the kind of man who could walk away from anything. From anyone. But now, with Brynn in my head, on my body, everywhere—my training failed.
She reached out and touched my shoulder. I jerked away like she’d pressed a lit cigarette to my skin. My breath whistled in and out as fast as a dog panting. But I couldn’t get enough air.
“Dean, please talk to me.”
I couldn’t. My pulse spiked, my vision got hazy at the edges. If I opened my mouth, something ugly would come out. She slid closer, careful and slow, until her bare knee touched my thigh. Her hand hovered near my arm, not quite touching this time.
“You’re having a panic attack.” There was no judgment in her voice. Just a gentle fact, as if she were explaining something to her first graders.
And that only made me feel more inadequate. I braced my elbows on my knees and tried to breathe. “Not… not a panic attack.”
She exhaled, not quite a snort or a laugh. “Okay. Just regular hyperventilating, then.”
Her words should have pissed me off, but they were gentler than I deserved.
I focused on a spot on the floor, where the tile was cracked in the shape of a Y. “I need to get out of here.”
She didn’t move, didn’t pull back. “You can leave, but it won’t help. I know how this works.”
I almost laughed, but the sound snagged in my chest. “Doubt it.”
She waited, giving me time to climb back into myself. When I didn’t speak, she nudged, just enough to tip me over. “Just breathe, Dean. It’s okay. Tell me what’s happening.”
“I had a fiancée,” I said. The words came out cracked, foreign. I couldn’t believe I was telling her. “Three years ago. Thought she was the one. We were engaged a year and a half. I moved for her, changed my job, the whole nine yards.”
Brynn sat motionless, listening.
