Текст книги "The Allure of Dean Harper "

Автор книги: R. S. Grey

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Forty-Three

 

 

 

Dean

“You guys did all of this tonight? While I was at dinner with my sister?” Julian asked, holding Dean’s limp mustache and staring at the three of us with a dropped jaw.

Lily shrugged. “I mean, it took some planning.”

Josephine tried to sidle closer to him, but he shot her a warning glance with narrowed eyes. “And you didn’t even think to tell me?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, trying to come up with an excuse. “I knew you wouldn’t be okay with it.”

He grunted. “Well yeah, you don't know what a guy like that might’ve done if he’d found you out.”

“I was there,” I said, handing Julian the three fingers of bourbon I’d just poured for him. “Hunter was a harmless drunk and she was safe the whole time.”

It was a white lie. A harmless lie. We were all safely inside my house, so what did it matter if an hour earlier Josephine had been alone with Hunter inside a strip club? Julian didn’t need to know every gritty detail.

Julian stared down at the blonde wig laying across Josephine’s lap. “So did it work?”

I smirked and pointed to the recorder beside Jo. “Play the recording for him.”

We had over an hour of Hunter’s drunk ramblings at the strip club. We’d listened to it all earlier, but we only played the highlights back for Julian.

At five minutes into the recording, Hunter started bragging about his new restaurant: “It’s gonna be the hottest restaurant in New York.”

Then there was another ten minutes of him drunkenly bragging about his “brilliant” idea. Jo fast-forwarded to get to the good stuff: Colette.

“Aren’t you married?”

“Only on paper, baby.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when she’s out of town, I do whatever I want, and tonight, I think that’ll be you.”

Julian held up his hand and Josephine hit pause. “All right, all right, I get it. You have some dirt on him. Now what are you going to do?”

“I just left a message for him to meet me here tomorrow. I’ll confront him with the recording and let him decide his own fate,” I said.

“What if he doesn’t back down? What if he doesn’t care about his wife hearing it?” Jo asked.

I shrugged. “That’s the beauty of Lily’s plan. It’s irrelevant what he thinks, because we can always just send the recording to his wife. I don’t think Mrs. Moneybags will be so forgiving. So he either does what we say and kills the restaurant himself, or he loses it completely.”

Julian slung back the rest of his bourbon and set the glass down on the coffee table in front of Lily. “Brilliant, but that’s enough cloak-and-dagger for me for one night. Jo, you ready to go? I’m exhausted.”

She pushed up off the couch and took his hand.

“You still smell like Hunter,” he said, wrapping an arm around her.

“He didn’t even touch me. I just smell like the smoke from the strip club.”

His paused. “Wait, you guys were at a strip club?”

Lily hopped to her feet and ushered them out into the foyer. “All right well, have a good night guys! Julian, you should know that she only went along with this as a favor to me.” She held up the blonde wig. “As repayment, I’ll let y’all keep this. I'm sure you two can find some use for it.”

At first he kept his straight face, ignored Lily, and ushered Josephine over the threshold. The door had almost closed behind them when there was a pause. Julian’s hand slipped back through the crack and Lily dropped the wig into it. Then, without a word, he shut the door.

“Knew he’d take it.”

Lily locked the door behind them and propped her back against it. She’d left her black beanie at the club. Her blonde hair was parted down the middle, falling down over her shoulders. Her tight black shirt had ridden up on the left side, revealing a little sliver of tan skin above her jeans. That patch of skin called to me. I dropped my glass on the table in the foyer and moved closer.

“Do I still smell like smoke too?” she asked as I wrapped my hands around her waist. I dipped down and buried my face in her hair. It smelled like her shampoo, a tropical scent filled with coconuts and sea breeze.

“You smell like Lily.”

She smiled against my neck and then her tongue slipped out and licked down my skin.

“You taste like Dean.”

I laughed and stepped back, forcing her along with me. We made it up to my bedroom slowly, pausing along the way so that she could tear off my shirt in the hallway. I stripped off her jeans on the stairs and she straddled me in the doorway to my bedroom, curving her hips against me until I lost track of where I was going. We were supposed to head into my bathroom and shower the strip club off us, but instead, I carried her to my bed and we fell back onto the comforter.

No one had control of me the way Lily did. I laid back on my bed as she rolled on top of me, her hair tickling my chest. She was a force of nature, a swirling tornado that made me feel weightless and free one minute, and slammed into a tree trunk at 130 miles per hour the next. I let her hold my hands to the side. I let her think she had control for once. I had a dopey smirk on my face as she kissed her way down my chest. Inside, my heart rioted, warning me to proceed with caution.

This was dangerous.

She was dangerous.

“Dean?” she asked, staring up at me with her honey brown eyes. “I’m really happy you were there tonight, helping me.”

She was opening up to me, confirming with her words what she was showing me with her body.

“We make the perfect team,” she said softly.

I could handle the Tiger Lily, the fierce, independent woman who fought with me every inch of the way—but this? The vulnerable girl opening up to me as she lay naked across my chest?

She scared the shit out of me.

I had goals. I had restaurants to open. I had Forbe’s lists to top, and Lily would get in the way of that. Lily wouldn’t be an easy addition to my life. She wouldn’t appreciate the time I gave her. She’d demand all of me, every ounce, siphoning my focus away from my work until I resented her for it.

Love changes a person. I couldn’t let Lily slip into my life and change the core of me. The need for more was always there, lingering in the periphery of my mind. When I took a long lunch or slept fifteen minutes past my alarm, I pushed myself harder to make up for lost time. I had the world to conquer and Lily would only stand in the way of that.

…

I took my time showering, trying to gather up the wits Lily had stolen over the last hour and a half. The water steamed up, burning the skin across my shoulder blades, but I relished the sensation until the water ran cold. Only then did I step out and wrap the towel around my waist.

I wiped my hand across the fogged glass and met Lily’s gaze in the mirror. I wanted more time away from her, more time to regroup.

She was standing at the door of the bathroom, holding up a gold-leafed invitation with one hand and clutching her towel across her body with the other.

“What’s this?” she asked, turning it over in her hand.

It was an invitation to the James Beard Awards, essentially the Oscars of the food world. I’d worked my ass off for years to be noticed in the community and finally, for the first time, I was nominated for an award: Outstanding Restaurateur. Just to be nominated was an honor beyond anything I could comprehend, but I’d held the achievement close to my heart.

A nomination wasn’t a win.

“It’s an invitation to the James Beard Awards,” I said, reaching for my toothbrush.

Her eyes widened and her grasp on the invitation tightened. She knows how important the ceremony is. “It’s next week and you haven’t returned your RSVP.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think they’ll mind. I’m a guest of honor.”

She carried the invitation in and set it down on the bathroom counter, meeting my eye in the mirror.

“You want me to fill it out for us and send it in?”

For us.

Lily took that blank card and filled it in for herself. She assumed I would take her because she thought we were a team; she’d said so herself. I looked up in the mirror and saw her eyes brimming over with hope for us; I couldn’t mimic her sentiment. Where she felt hope, I only felt fear.

“I’m going alone.”

Chapter Forty-Four

 

 

 

Lily

My face stung as if he’d slapped me. I held my hand up to my cheek, just to check, but there was no pain, only red hot heat. The blotchy blush spread from my cheeks down over my neck as Dean stood with his back to me, meeting my eyes in the mirror and daring me to push him on his comment.

I stood there in his towel, on his cold tile floor. I was naked with the scent of his body wash swirling up around me. I turned on my heel and found my jeans, pulling them on before I could find my underwear. I slipped on my bra and tugged my shirt back in place. My hair was still sopping wet and it seeped down the back of my black t-shirt, chilling me to the bone.

Dean came to stand at the door of his bathroom with his towel hung low on his hips. He crossed his arms and turned his dark eyes on me. In the light, when the sun caught them, his eyes turned a golden brown, so bright that I had to look away. In that moment, in the dim light of his room, they were dark pools of black, emotionless and cold.

“Lily, we’re making this up as we go along. I never made you any promises. You said it yourself, this thing between us is just sex.”

His voice sounded dead and my eyes stung with unshed tears.

I didn’t want him to speak and I sure as shit didn’t want to hear his explanations.

“You’ll find a better man than me.”

I stared at the ground and blinked away the tears threatening to spill.

“You think this is a life, Dean? You think those restaurants will make you happy? One day you’ll wake up and realize that you’re completely alone, and your insides will twist with regret. No man is an island. Not even you.”

I stepped toward him and pointed my finger at his chest. His jaw tightened, but he held his ground, committed to his decision.

“And you know what? I’ll have moved on. I’m not waiting around for you, Dean Harper. I’m not begging you to change or standing by as you pretend the past few weeks haven’t been the best weeks of your life. Challenging, yes, but don’t tell me that you’d trade them. So have fun at your awards ceremony. I’m sure it’ll feel good to stand on that stage alone with a bunch of strangers clapping for you.”

I turned away and he stayed in that doorway. I walked out of his room, down the stairs, and out the front door, and he stood still, watching me walk out of his life like it was the easiest thing he’d ever done.

I held onto the fact that I hadn’t cried in front of him. I convinced myself that the insults I’d flung had been well-worded. I wanted my barbed words to sink deep and fester inside him. I still had a thousand things I wanted to yell, but it was done. Dean was in his house and I was walking home alone with wet hair and wet cheeks. I skipped the subway and ignored the cabs. I walked until my feet hurt and I used the burn in my legs to distract me from the burn in my heart.

My phone was silent the entire way home. No text messages, no phone calls. Dean didn’t run out after me and he didn’t care enough to know if I made it home okay.

I was relieved to find the apartment empty. I tore at my clothes, tossing them into the trash on the way to the bathroom. They were sweaty and filled with memories I wanted erased by the morning. I turned on the shower and stepped inside. I squeezed shampoo over my scalp once, and then again, trying to expunge the scent of Dean.

I lathered myself in body wash from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and let it linger before washing it away with scalding water. I brought my arm to my nose and sniffed, feeling my heart break when I still smelled him there. His masculine scent overpowered my flowery body wash. I cried and scraped at my skin, sliding down to the floor of the shower. My fingers scrubbed furiously as I let his words haunt me.

I never made you any promises.

For all the progress we’d made, he still treated us like a contract that hadn’t been signed. I cried and let the water blend with my tears. The salty mixture disappeared past my lips as I curled into a ball.

I just wanted to get his scent off me.

I wanted to get him off me.

I wanted him gone.

Chapter Forty-Five

 

 

 

Dean

I let Lily walk out of my apartment and I stood there frozen. I was pushing her away for good; I knew it, and I couldn’t stop myself. Lily was a distraction at best and a liability at worst. I would have picked up on cues that something was amiss with Hunter had Lily not soaked up my attention during staff meetings. Looking back, there'd been plenty of signs that Hunter had been up to no good. It had worked out in the end, but I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. For the time being, my focus would remain on work.

…

Lily had walked out of my life the week before and I’d gotten more work done in those seven days than I had in months. I’d worked late every night and I’d have continued on like that forever, but the James Beard Awards wasn’t an event to skip. Every top chef, restaurateur, food critic, and journalist was in attendance, crammed into small red velvet seats awaiting the moment when the awards ceremony gave way to the cocktail hour. We’d all stand around for an hour or two ass-kissing the hell out of anyone we could manage to snag a minute with, but hopefully I’d be wearing a James Beard medal around my neck as I did it.

We’d already suffered through most of the awards, shit like Outstanding Baker and Outstanding Wine Program. I fidgeted in my seat and ignored the two guests seated beside me. According to the program, my award was next, and suddenly it was impossible to sit still.

A beautiful woman with dark, exotic features stepped out onto the stage to announce the nominees. I vaguely recognized her from a cooking show, but there were too many to keep track of to know for sure. She stood behind the mic with a gold-leafed envelope clutched beneath her bright red nails.

“The nominees for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur are three individuals that each have a finger on the pulse of American cuisine. These three nominees have set high national standards in restaurant operations and entrepreneurship.”

I straightened my bowtie and leaned forward in my seat. I knew the cameramen would flash my face across the giant screens flanking the stage, but I didn’t paste on a fake smile. I was too focused on the announcer’s words.

“Our first nominee is Rob Villarreal. Rob has opened countless successful restaurants in the heart of Seattle. His restaurants are youthful and full of the spirit of the city.”

Rob Villareal had invested in Starbucks early and used his money to open shitty restaurants. If he won, I’d never drink Starbucks again.

“Our second nominee, Victor Keller, has established himself as the restaurant god of Las Vegas. He operates five restaurants along the Strip, one of which, La Viva, has placed in the top 50 restaurants in the world three years in a row.”

Victor Keller was a hack. He had his nose so far up the ass of the restaurant world it was a wonder he hadn’t shown up at the awards with pink eye.

“Our final nominee, Dean Harper is an up-and-coming restaurateur, making his mark in New York City one inventive restaurant at a time. In a climate where most restaurants rely on stifling traditions or flashy gimmicks, he focuses on fresh, innovative flavors and contemporary designs to set his restaurants apart from the competition.”

My heart was beating out of my chest as she ripped open that envelope. I wanted to grip someone’s hand, but the Asian mom to my left was staring down at her program, and the man to my right was too busy checking his iPhone to notice my nerves.

“And the winner of the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur goes to…” She smiled and paused to make eye contact with the audience. I was going to have a heart attack if she didn’t say the name soon. “Dean Harper! The youngest winner of the Outstanding Restaurateur award in history!”

I blinked.

And blinked again.

I squeezed my hands into fists and sat frozen.

The camera zoomed in on my face so that everyone in the opera house got an up-close view of my wide eyes. I was stunned and there was no one to push me up out of my seat or kiss my cheek as I made my way to the stage.

I stood and slipped past the attendees in my row. A few of them clapped me on the shoulder, but no one offered actual words of encouragement. I walked up the stairs on the side of the stage and was met by a young man waiting to put the heavy silver medal around my neck. My hands shook and my brow beaded with sweat as the magnitude of the achievement set in. I was the youngest winner of the award. I am the youngest, most successful restaurateur in the United States. I swallowed down that lump of success. The award was everything I’d worked toward since leaving my family in Iowa. It was the pinnacle of success and as I bent down to let the young man slip the medal around my neck, I stared down at the black stage and focused on the one emotion overpowering all the others: regret.

I cleared my throat and spoke into the mic, squinting at the glare of the lights beaming down on me.

“This award is a recognition of culinary accomplishment, not speechmaking ability, so I’ll keep this short.”

The crowd laughed good-naturedly.

“I never thought I’d find great success in a market like New York City. I fought tooth and nail for the top chefs and the best people. In the end, I look back on those long nights and lost weekends and I can honestly say…”

I paused and looked down at my medal, glowing in the opera house lights, and I felt my voice start to quake. I tried to clear my throat again. “I can honestly say…”

It wasn’t worth it.

None of it was worth it.

I took a step back, met the crowd’s gaze, and left my sentence hanging. “Thank you.”

The crowd didn’t clap right away; they were waiting for the second half of my sentence, but it never came. Eventually, after a long pause, the orchestra started playing and the opera house welled with light, happy music. I turned and let the presenter usher me backstage. She was busy congratulating me and gushing about how excited I must feel. I wanted to shake off the grip she had on my shoulder. I wanted her to leave me be so I could have one second to realize that where I should have felt absolute happiness, I only felt sorrow. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and the feeling wasn’t fading.

The threat of tears forced me to the bathroom back stage. I played it off like I was overwhelmed with the award and no one bothered me. No one thought twice about the emotional man with his shiny-ass medal and his rapidly closing throat.

I propped my hands on the bathroom counter and the medal clanged against the granite. None of it made sense. The out-of-control feeling I’d had the last night I was with Lily was supposed to have disappeared the moment I pushed her out of my life. The idea was simple: I’d felt like I was in the driver's seat before her, so once I pushed her away and she was gone, I’d regain that control.

“Crazy feeling, isn’t it?”

I looked up to see an older man in a fitted tuxedo washing his hands in the sink beside me. He also wore a James Beard medal around his neck and I recognized him as the winner of the Outstanding Chef award.

“Yeah, crazy.”

He smiled.

“Family here tonight?” I asked.

His brow furrowed for a moment and then he met my gaze in the mirror. “No. They stayed behind in England when I moved to the States for work a few years ago.”

“Don’t you miss them?”

“I’m sure you understand better than anyone,” he replied. “The culinary world is not a field for those who want a picket fence and two and a half kids. We work nights and weekends and our days are spent dreaming up the next great idea. There’s not time for much else.”

He smiled as if he was proud of the man he was, the man who would leave his family to pursue his own selfish dreams. I’d thought I wanted to be a man like him, but my life wouldn’t be wasted in the back offices of a bustling restaurant.

Not any more.

When I walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I felt lighter than I had in years. I’d left the weight of the medal on the bathroom sink, and the weight of former dreams alongside it.