Chapter One

“Becca, this is Nichole.”

I reached out and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” I lied.

She studied me carefully. “You look … familiar.”

Is she going to bust us? I couldn’t believe that Dean was going to let this bitch work for him; I mean, we’d seen her with Kevin right before he held a gun to my head, and she was the one who showed up at his house that day and thought I was his maid. I forced a smile over my lips as I stepped away.

“I do? Have you been here before?” I wanted to see if she would admit it.

A smile spread across her face as she pointed. “No, you know what it is … I’ve seen you on TV.”

My cheeks flushed. I’d been avoiding the news just for that reason alone. Everything that happened was a couple days old, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still coverage on it.

“Yes. I was held at gunpoint not that long ago.” I didn’t feel anything when I said it, and that scared me. I didn’t have any reaction whatsoever when I said it. My tone was dead flat.

Dean cleared his throat.

“Anyways!” He looked around the room at Melina, who did not look impressed, then to Nichole and finally to me. “Could you two give us a moment? Rebecca and I have something we need to talk about.”

“Sure thing.” Melina was out the door in a matter of seconds, after giving me a soft smile. Nichole looked like she wanted to protest but just nodded before leaving.

I felt my gut knot as Dean and I were left alone. He crossed over to me and pulled me into his arms. I don’t know why I’d been expecting anything else, but for some reason, I had been. My arms wrapped around his neck as I leaned on him, letting him support me.

“How are you doing?” he whispered.

“I’m alright.” I wasn’t going to admit how I really felt, or he’d try to send me home.

“You know, if you need to go home …”

“No!” I took a deep breath and shook my head. Even my therapist thought it was a bad idea to be here this soon after everything that had happened, but I couldn’t just sit around and wait at home to be magically fixed—plus rent was coming due. “I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. I’ll be back to normal after the end of the day.” Okay that was a lie, and he knew it, but thankfully, he didn’t call me on it.

“If you need to leave early, all you have to do is tell Melina or me, okay?”

“Yea.” We’d been over this a couple dozen times already, and I knew the speech off by heart. He was worried about me, and although he respected that I was pushing through, he didn’t want me to do more harm than good. I knew it all.

“And um … there is something else you should know.”

“What?”

“Well, the girls here know I have a girlfriend … and I’m guessing it won’t take them a long time to figure out it’s you. I know a couple of them have been asking Melina questions. She hasn’t heard your name per say, but it’s only going to take so long for them to all know it’s you.”

Feeling dread fill my stomach, I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. One, two, three. I counted each breath that I took. Something my therapist had taught me to do last session. I forced my eyes open, realizing that he was still waiting for me to say something.

“Okay. It’s not a big deal.” I don’t know if I was trying to convince him or myself, but I didn’t feel any better. “I’ve been there before; I know how to deal with them if they are rude.”

“Babe …” He touched my arm gently. “If anyone is rude to you, just tell me.”

“No,” I snapped. “Sorry, it’s just … I can’t. I can’t come crying to you if there is an issue. What are you going to do? Threaten them? I’m not going to be that girl.” It was bad enough I was already the one dating the boss—again. I swallowed dryly, trying to collect my thoughts. “Whatever happens, I’m sure it won’t be bad. I’ll deal with them.” I paused. “But um, if I do anything that you’d fire another employee for, you damn well better fire me.”

Dean looked scared for a fraction of a second. I could have sworn a little color from his face drained. “What do you plan on doing?”

“Nothing,” I admitted. “But I’m not promising that I won’t do something stupid, so if I do, you’ll have to fire me.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Dean closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms. “It’s going to be okay. It might just take a little while for the girls to warm up to it.”

Oh, Natalie was going to fucking kill me when she found out I was dating Dean. And for some reason, part of me was scared of her. I closed my eyes. They were bound to find out about it, though. Forcing the smile back over my lips, I opened my eyes. Dean looked at me carefully.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go home?”

“I’m sure. No point in putting it off.” I pointed to the clock. “Anyways, people are going to be coming in anytime now. I’d better go get ready for my shift.” I wanted to get in the change room before anyone else got there, not being ready to face them all alone in a room like that. “I’ll see you later.”

“You’re still coming over after work, right?”

“Yup, we’ve still got dinner plans with my mom.”

“Right. And how’s your dad doing?”

“He’s getting out of the hospital today. They wanted to keep him another day, but he’s not going for it.”

I turned on my heel and headed for his door.

“Becca, I love you.”

“I love you too, Dean.”

“Come see me at any point during the day, okay?”

“I will,” I promised, opening his office door and stepping out. I was learning from my therapy sessions that apparently I was a bit of a control freak and needed to start giving up that control and letting people help me. I thought it was a stupid idea, and that I could just do it all on my own, but I had to admit that the therapist hadn’t been wrong yet, so if necessary I was going to go see Dean during work today.

I made my way to the change room, opened the door and froze, staring at three other girls who looked at me with wide eyes.

Crap. Crap. Crap. I forced myself to step into the room and head for the corner.

“Hey.” It was Natalie who spoke to me.

“Um, hi.”

“How are you doing after everything?” She actually sounded like she cared. I wasn’t sure if it was fake or not, but I appreciated it.

“I’m okay. In therapy due to Dean’s demands, which I guess could be worse.”

“As long as it helps.” Nichole paused. “And you know, if there is anything we can do … just let us know, alright.”

“Thank you.” I couldn’t tell her how much it meant to me that she would offer to help; I wish I could. I wish she would have some idea how much it meant to me, but I doubted she’d ever realize.

I changed quickly, not wanting to stay around them in case they were just fucking with me and headed for the bar where I was going to start my shift. On the way through the lobby, Dean caught my eye. He was talking to Melina about something, but he was staring at me. Melina didn’t seem to mind.

I heard the girls giggling behind me as they came out of their change room. My heart skipped a beat as I strode towards Dean, not even realizing what I was about to do. Coming to a stop in front of him, I knew it was a dreadful idea.

“What can I do for you?” I could tell he was still trying to pretend that we weren’t a couple. I closed the distance between us, moving into that ‘personal space’ level of distance and wrapped my arm around his neck.

“I just wanted to tell you to have a good day.” Without another word, my lips were on his. The kiss was soft, and it lasted just a couple of seconds; after all, I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it. I wasn’t going to have a full-on make out session with him, but I also wasn’t going to play the victim here. They wanted to know if Dean and I were together; well, there was their answer. I was fucking my boss; if they didn’t like that, then it was their issue. I pulled away and gave him a soft smile. “I’ll see you after work, right?”

“Of course.” He sounded a little shocked still and cleared his throat. “My house, right?”

“Yup.” My eyes sparkled as I turned on my heel and headed for the bar with a wide smile. Taking a risk, I glanced over my shoulder right before entering the bar. Dean and Melina were talking again, and Natalie was still standing there with those two other girls I’d never met. The thing that surprised me was the fact that she was smiling.

She caught my eye for a fraction of a second before striding over to the slots. I glanced down at the time on my phone—we’d be opening in a couple of minutes, so I’d better get ready.