“Yes, Mom, I promise I will not look at wedding magazines until I come back out there for a visit.” I roll my eyes, chewing on my lip knowing that I will never have the privilege of planning festivities for this engagement with my parents.

Guilt suffuses me … how hurt will my mom and dad be when Dean and I end this?

“Okay good, because I just can’t wait. I can’t believe my little girl is getting married!” she screeches, clapping her hands.

I know she’s probably on Pinterest, a website I taught her to use a couple years back when she was getting inspiration for redoing the living room.

“Okay, give Dad my love, and I’ll call you later this week.”

“Mwah! I love you, future Mrs. Jacobs!” she teases, and then we both hang up.

I sigh, digging my feet into the sand. After the initial shock of seeing our engagement in the news rather than hearing about it from their daughter, my parents were thrilled. Mom can’t stop talking about weddings and grandchildren, and I think Dad thinks that I finally gave up my stubborn streak to admit that I love Dean and have been miserable without him.

Little do they know, their daughter is no better than a hired escort, acting in love for money.

Over the past two weeks, the news of mine and Dean’s engagement has gone viral. We’ve done four interviews, two on the radio, one an online video for the most popular celebrity news site out there, and one on the hit morning show that Dean had announced our relationship on. All buzz of his impending trial and rape charge has vanished, so the thing we set out to accomplish has pretty much been attained.

I’ve been contacted by every high-end wedding planner, dress designer, florist to the stars and people trying to make me a donut wall … not that I even know what that is. Hundreds of gifts have arrived, from both people who knew us since high school, and the trendiest of celebs. One of the biggest music stars in the world, who may or may not be in U2, sent us a pair of candlesticks that were carved by hand in an African village.

It’s so overwhelming, from the media coverage to the girls at work fawning over my ring, that I find myself spending all of my free time out on the beach.

“Mind if I join you?”

Dean’s voice comes from behind me, and my silence is my compliance. Aside from public appearances, where we now kiss and act like the two most in love people under the sun, we haven’t seen much of each other. I’ve been working a lot, and he’s been in the studio or planning his upcoming tour.

“I don’t come out here enough.” Dean sits next to me, resting his elbows on his knees.

Clad in a V-neck white tee and gray jogger sweatpants, he looks comfortable and relaxed. I shed my work attire the minute I got home, trading those clothes for a terry cloth romper that was so comfortable, I could probably sleep in it for days.

“You rich people, never appreciating what you have.” The comment is said without any bite, and Dean chuckles.

“I guess you’re right. We buy these mansions in the most beautiful locations, and barely stay here to use any of it. There are about twenty-five rooms in that house, and I use about three of them.”

“Come a long way from the little ranch in Elm Hill.” I trace nonsensical patterns in the sand.

“I miss it, sometimes. Not my childhood, obviously. But the simpler times.”

It’s only then that I look at him, but those stormy eyes are looking out to the sea that matches their color. “Why did you never come back?”

There are so many things I’ve wanted to ask him, so many things I’ve wanted to talk about. Something about this rock weighing my left hand down makes me bolder, allows me to feel like I have the entitlement to bring those things up.

Dean sighs, glinting at me against the slowly descending sun. “You know why. After we … ended, there was nothing left there for me.”

Emotion clogs my throat. “Not even when your father died?”

The expression in Dean’s eyes is threatening, and he doesn’t even bother answering the question. I shouldn’t have gone there.

“Not even for me?” My voice is so quiet, I’m shocked I even voice the question.

“Were you expecting me to? Because I think you made it pretty clear that we were over. Don’t tell me you don’t remember those messages you left.” His jaw clicks, and I can hear his teeth grind.

“Did you mean those things you said at Incognito the other night?” We hadn’t talked about it yet, and I’m not sure why I’m bringing it up now.

Maybe I feel like, with all of the news about us that should be genuine and happy, I need some kind of real connection.

He flexes his hands, my eyes catching on the tattoos running up his arms. Roman numerals, a Celtic cross, and the skull and bones laying over a field all stick out to me.

“You mean that I didn’t cheat? Yeah, I meant it. Because it’s true. I would never have done anything to hurt you, Kara. I loved you.”

The last three words make my blood pressure sky rocket. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Those pictures …”

Guilt and the loss of the time we could have had make my heart sob. What if he’d tried to fight for us? What if I wasn’t so stubborn? What if, what if, what if.

“Yeah, I knew they looked bad. When I first woke up to the news, I wasn’t sure what I’d done that night. And then I got your messages, my agent was calling like crazy, I didn’t know what to do. I was alone, confused. And hurt that you, the one person I had always been loyal to, so quickly turned your back on me. I was a proud jackass, furious that you could just walk away. It only took me a day and a half to realize that I was so wrong, that I should fight. But you wouldn’t return my calls, and I started doubting myself. Doubting us. Maybe we were just a high school love story that had run its course.”

I look out at the water, my voice a whisper. “Were we? Just another high school love story?”

We shouldn’t go here. I should be smarter than this, stick to the confines of the contract and just do what I came out here to. Learn in the best possible professional setting I’ll ever find in my career. Be Dean’s beard. Get him out of a rape charge, both in the public eye and the legal system. Build walls around my heart at all costs.

But per usual, the more time I spent around this man, the more he broke me down. It’s why I’d stayed away for seven years, unable to even hear the sound of his voice or see his face in a magazine.

When I look back at Dean, he’s studying me. “For me, we were the love story of my life. I will never find what we had with anyone else for as long as I occupy this earth. I’m done being angry at you, irrationally upset because you believed others over me. I’m still in love with you, it’s like I’ve walked around half blind for years because you weren’t by my side. I didn’t want to talk about it until I was sure I wouldn’t spook you, even though I probably still am right now, but everything for me the other night was real. What I said, and especially the way I kissed you. I meant every inch of that kiss. So no, we weren’t just the cliché high school sweethearts, and you know it. It’s about damn time we start admitting that.”

His diatribe leaves me shaking like a leaf, fear and adrenaline and the bald truth staring me in the face. I can’t even speak I’m so shocked, his words sending tremors through my body.

A masochist, that is what I am. Because I swore Dean Jacobs off for good, and now I wanted nothing more than to sit here and listen to how he still loved me. How we belong together. And how he meant every damn thing he did the other night.