The Allure of Dean Harper (The Allure #2)(42)

“You told me to prove it, and I did.”

I frowned, trying to place her words.

“Us,” she said, wrapping the towel around her chest. “It’s just sex.” She smirked. “Dark smoke, but no fire.”

She turned and closed the bathroom door without another word. She’d thrown her knife and it had met its mark; the only thing I could do was leave before she threw another.

I was exhausted, especially after the last few hours, but I couldn’t find a comfortable spot on the sectional. I angled my body one way, then another, then stood and tried a different direction. The couch felt lumpy in places it hadn’t the night before. I stared up at the villa’s ceiling and tried to ignore the dull ache in my gut.

My parents’ words rang back through my mind.

“You think that fast life will sustain you for long?”

“Aren’t you lonely?”

Their questions had always been easy to deflect. I’d moved to New York to become a one-man empire and I’d had no intentions of stopping any time soon. I’d been happy with that life.

One day, I was content, and the next, I was lying on a couch in Vegas with lumps of indecision disrupting my sleep.

I didn’t want this.

I didn’t want change.

I didn’t want to lay awake with a hollow gut and the taste of regret in my mouth. I couldn’t build a one-man empire if I lost focus. I’d pushed away every distraction that had come my way in the last two years, yet somehow Lily had seeped through the cracks, like a poison. I just had to find the antidote.





Chapter Thirty-Four


Lily





Something about Dean kept me coming back for more. It had been wrong to sleep with him the first time and just plain idiotic to agree to round two. Dean had stripped me to the bone on that hotel bed and then he’d left me high and dry. Well technically he’d left after I’d all but pushed him out, but that was the way we were. He pushed, I pushed back. He didn’t want an insipid Barbie. He wanted a challenge, but he kept denying it, so things between us would never change. It was a vicious cycle. I needed an intervention. I needed to cut Dean out of my personal life. Cold turkey.

“Does sitting at a coffee shop across from a cycling studio count as exercise?” Josephine asked as she sat down with her latte.

I blinked away my thoughts and nodded. “The calories transfer. Like osmosis.”

She smirked. “So then we should split that banana nut muffin?”

I didn’t even turn to inspect the case of pastries behind me. I had no appetite. “I’m good. You go ahead.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry, what? The last time you turned down a baked good was because you thought gluten was poisonous.”

“That BuzzFeed article made it sound like it was rat poison!” I contested.

She shook her head and took a sip of her latte. I’d arrived at the coffee shop earlier than her, hoping to sample a few of the pastries for my blog. Instead, I’d sat at a table by myself, sipping on my coffee and people-watching through the front windows.

“You’ve been back from Vegas for a week and you’ve uttered like four words since then.”

I furrowed my brows. “Not true.”

“Asking Siri to play James Blunt doesn’t count.”

I wasn’t sure she was right, but I didn’t have the energy to fight with her.

“I’m going to set you up with this guy I work with at Vogue.”

I scrunched my nose. “I’m not really into male models.”

“No, he works in the graphics department. He has a beard and glasses, and sometimes from the right angle, he looks like Bradley Cooper.”

I hummed. “The Hangover Bradley Cooper or Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper?”

She seemed confused by my question. “Is there a difference?”

“Big time.”

She rolled the question around in her mind and then nodded. “I’d say Silver Linings Playbook Bradley.”

“So he’s cute but a little psycho?”

“Oh my god, forget it.”

I shrugged. Fine with me.

She gave me a few minutes, enough time to start people-watching out the window again before she decided to drop her next bomb on me. “Julian says Dean has been hard to work with lately.”

My stomach clenched at the mention of his name.

“Worse than usual,” she added.

I took a sip of my coffee and purposely stared out at the street above Jo’s shoulder.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Fuck her prying.

I forced my gaze to her. “Jo, you and Julian are awesome. You both love each other and you never fight and you’re the cutest thing since sliced bread.”

“I don’t think that’s how the saying go—”

“I would love a relationship like you guys have, but unfortunately Dean and I will never be like that.”

“Why?”

I laughed. Where to begin?

“To start, I don’t think he and I have ever had a conversation without one of us yelling. He is rude and opinionated and a workaholic. He has the ego of Kayne West and I hate him.”

She ticked off the reasons on her fingers as I spoke. “That’s only six things! Pfft, you could totally work through that.”