Chapter Fourteen
Olivia
I leaned forward, my fork poised above my plate as I waited with bated breath to hear what Dec had to say. I’d revealed my greatest fears to him, and now it was his turn. He was a hard-to-read guy, always cracking jokes instead of being serious, so now would be a good opportunity to learn some real facts about him, even if it was just for the show.
“I guess you and I are more similar than we first thought,” he finally said.
“Oh?”
He squared his jaw and nodded. “Failure…yeah, that’s a big one. And I’ve been through it, in a manner of speaking.”
My eyebrows pinched together. “Tell me about it.”
“My family are pretty successful. I mean…they were. My father and uncle controlled most of the businesses. We own—or owned—a bunch of stores, restaurants and nightclubs across the country. Mostly in LA, New York and Chicago. When I was old enough, I started working for them as well.”
He paused, and I nodded. So I’d been right the other week. He was someone when it came to the club we met at. The owner. Or a part-owner, anyway.
“Then my father made a mistake. He went into business with another man. A very unscrupulous man, as it turned out. The new business partner totally screwed Dad, who stupidly trusted him, and we lost a lot of the businesses to that man when all was said and done. Now there’s only a couple left. A club in New York and a restaurant in LA. They barely bring in enough to support the entire family, and everything’s sorta been in a tailspin for the last seven years or so because of that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But that’s not your failing, is it? Not really.”
He shrugged. “Well, sure, I guess in the end it was my father making poor business decisions. But that makes me afraid. Afraid I’ll do the same thing, and not be able to provide for my family. See…it’s not just that we have the usual expenses. There’s my half-sister as well.”
I raised my brows. “I didn’t know you had a half-sister.”
Dec nodded. “I do. Amelia. She’s twelve. Dad had her with his second wife. I love her more than anything, Liv. She’s an amazing kid.”
I smiled. “I bet she is. But what’s she got to do with what you were saying?” I knew there was more to the story. There had to be, given the hard look in his eyes when he mentioned his sister.
He chewed on a piece of bread before replying. “Like I said, you and I…we’re more similar than we initially thought. Fear of failure isn’t our only common fear. You’re afraid of sickness, death. So am I, when it comes to her. My sister.”
My heart sank. “She’s sick?” I asked softly.
Another nod. “Very.”
“I’m so sorry. Can I ask what’s wrong with her?”
“Rare form of pancreatic disease. There’s an experimental treatment that’s had very promising results, but it’s very expensive. Over six hundred grand over the next couple of years. As you can imagine, trying to pay for that along with all the family expenses cuts into the budget a fair amount. But it’s her only shot at living.”
I felt a little sick myself as I contemplated his words. Since I found out Dec had married my mother, ostensibly for money, I’d wondered what could possibly make him so desperate (or if maybe he just had no qualms about how he made his living).
Now I finally understood.
My mother must’ve offered to pay his younger half-sister’s medical bills in return for his services as her trophy husband. Dec wasn’t a selfish, lazy, gold-digger at all—he was just willing to do anything he possibly could to save his little sister when his own job couldn’t provide the immediate large sum he needed. And like he once told me, it was my mother who approached him in the first place. I was willing to bet my father was the unscrupulous businessman who screwed Dec’s family out of most of their businesses—my father had quite the reputation back in the day—and as a big ‘screw you’ once my father was in the ground, seeing as their divorce hadn’t exactly been amicable, Mom must’ve decided to help out some of the people he’d once screwed over using some of the money she got in the will. That included the Marin family. But in typical Ellen Esposito fashion, she couldn’t be entirely selfless: she wanted something in return.
And so she got Dec to marry her, be her trophy husband for as long as it was convenient to her.
A million different emotions swept through my mind as I stared across the table at Dec. He met my eyes, a mixture of sadness and anger at the world burning in his. He knew that I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I really hope the treatment works and your sister is okay soon.”
There was nothing more I could say, not while we were being recorded. But there was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted Dec to know. I wanted him to know I understood now, and that I was deeply sorry for all the bitchy, presumptuous remarks I’d made when I first found out about his sham marriage to Mom. I wanted him to know I was rooting for his sister to pull through. Most of all, I wanted him to know how I truly felt about him now that I knew the full story. Every dark detail.
Ben waved his hands at us in the background and held up three fingers. “Move it along,” he mouthed.
“I guess we have to discuss your third fear now,” I said, feeling awful for even bringing it up. After everything he just revealed, surely Dec didn’t want to talk any more. But he did. He pulled himself together and nodded.
“I suppose my third major fear is typical for a lot of guys. I worry about commitment. Ending up with the wrong person, when someone else out there could be the true one for me.”
The way his eyes flashed as he looked right into mine…I knew where he was going with this.
“Are you still worried about that now that we’re here?” I asked timidly. I almost didn’t want to hear his answer. Didn’t want everything out in the open, real and raw.
Dec shook his head and grabbed my hand. “No,” he replied. His voice continued in a low rumble, and my heart skipped a beat. “I’m not worried at all. I think I might’ve finally found the right girl for me.”
My breath caught in my throat. For one crazy moment, I wondered what it would be like to kiss Dec again, just like I had that night in New York. I wondered what he would do if I launched myself across the table and buried my head in his chest, ran my hands all over the hard lines of his muscular body.
But then Ben interrupted us again. “Excellent work, guys! The viewers will love this! It almost looked real. Ellen will be proud.” He winked. “All right, finish your dinner, and then we can get out of here.”
I didn’t dare look into Dec’s eyes again for the rest of our meal. The moment had passed, but that didn’t mean it was actually over. Not by a long shot. Something had been brewing between us for weeks, whether I wanted to admit that to myself before now or not, and now it felt like things were almost coming to a head. Real feelings toward each other were obviously building, but considering the circumstances of our relationship—or whatever it was you’d call it—things were going to be hard. Very hard. But I knew we couldn’t stop. We were like two runaway trains, veering off the tracks and heading straight for each other.
Sooner or later, we were going to crash.