The Allure of Dean Harper (The Allure #2)(28)

“Not possible,” he said, shaking his head. I watched him take the stairs back up to the deck and realized that the tension brewing between the two of us wasn’t gone. Our time together on the boat had morphed it into something much harder to control…





Chapter Twenty-One


Lily





After the boat ride from hell, I knew it’d be hard to face Dean at work. I stayed in bed late on Sunday, trying to recreate my memory of the events from the day before. Sometimes I could convince myself that I’d looked cool and sexy with my life preserver on, and then other times my brain replayed the moment when my face collided with Dean’s crotch over and over again like a perfectly looped video that never seemed to end.

When I checked my email that night and saw Dean’s name, I half expected the subject line to read “Obviously, You’re Fired.”



From: Dean Harper

To: Lily Black, Julian Lefray, Zoe Davis, Hunter Smith

Subject: LVRW



As you know, we have a very busy week coming up. We leave for LVRW on Wednesday so I’d like to have a meeting at my house tomorrow morning. We’ll go over the flight, accommodations, and our schedules for the few days we’ll be in Vegas.

My address is below. We’ll start at 9:30 AM.



D. Harper



Huh. No mention of how his crotch-el region was healing up. I’d take that as a good sign.

…



I stood on Dean’s doorstep and knocked, but no one answered. I rang the doorbell, but it felt useless. His front door was black, shiny, and solid. There were no windows to peer through, and the windows along the foyer were dark.

I spun in a circle, trying to decide if I was at the correct house. His Upper West Side townhouse was tucked in a row of stately brownstones. Down the block, I’d passed a neighborhood deli with trendy French tables and ivy vines that looked like they’d been growing for the last hundred years. I’d almost stopped inside for a latte, but I hadn’t wanted to run late. Now, however, it seemed the latte would have been useful. I yawned and tried to cover it, telling myself I wasn’t actually as tired as I felt. Sleep had been elusive the last two nights. I’d filled my days with work, but at night, when my head hit my pillow and I had a moment alone with my thoughts, I’d replay my encounters with Dean.

The way we fought, the way he infuriated me, the way he intrigued me. I couldn’t decide where he fit in my mind’s Venn diagram. On the left side, I had people I hated, and on the right, I had the people I loved. Right in the middle, in a category of his own making, there was Dean Harper.

I tried the doorbell for the second time and then reached for the door handle. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open and stepped into his foyer.

“Hello?”

I took a tentative step forward and spoke up. “Dean?”

My shoes echoed across the black-and-white marble floor. His house, from what I could see, was immaculate and designed to a T. The entryway was a round circular room with a black chandelier hanging above a black lacquered table. There were formal elements, like the chandelier and crown molding, interspersed with masculine details. His bike hung in the hallway leading from the entryway to a large, hand-carved staircase. Photos hung on the wall around the entryway; blown-up versions of Dean as a baby drew me closer.

I slipped off my heels—I figured Dean probably had a no-shoes-in-the-house policy—and stepped closer to the first photo to my left. Dean was young, maybe one or two, sitting on a rocking horse wearing a diaper, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat. His chubby belly made me smile as I moved on to the next photo. Dean was older in that one, with buckteeth and a choppy bowl cut. His blond hair was bright, almost white, and he had popsicle juice streaked across his face as he sat beside an old man on a tractor. The old man was waving at the camera, but Dean was looking up at him, enamored.

I scanned through the rest of the photos on the wall, taking in Dean with braces and Dean on the day he graduated from college, surrounded by his loved ones. I circled back to the table at the entry, too intimidated to venture into any of the other rooms on the first floor. There was a pile of mail on the table, mostly boring envelopes with bills, and catalogs he’d yet to recycle, but stacked on the very top, there was a colorful postcard with a picture of a massive cave beneath the words “Maquoketa Caves State Park”. I glanced up the stairs, listened for footsteps, and then turned the postcard over.



“Dean,

I know you just visited, but I couldn’t resist sending you a post card from your favorite park. I got your dad to go down into the cave earlier. He pretended to hate it, but I know he had fun. Maybe the next time you visit we can come back and camp here like old times.

Love you,

Mom”



“Is it a Texan custom to break into your friends’ houses and rifle through their mail?”

I swallowed and glanced up to see Dean standing at the top of the stairs. His jaw was clean-shaven and his hair had pomade in it, momentarily coaxing the wavy strands into submission. His red tie sat in the center of his pressed white shirt and his navy suit fit him like a glove. He looked like he had the entire world under his thumb…beginning with me.

“I rang your doorbell,” I explained with a shaky voice.

He started down the stairs, dragging his hand along the smooth rail. His dark eyes stayed on me.