Chapter Three

She arrived just before 8:00, which I knew she would.

“Hey!” She smiled widely as she made her way into my office. “Is everything okay? How did things go with your girlfriend?”

“Uh, they didn’t go that great actually … I learnt some stuff.”

“Oh, no,” she pouted. “Don’t tell me she broke up with you, did she?” Her eyes widened. “She’s not cheating on you, is she?”

I laughed softly, for some reason it was funny that she would jump to that, like now that I knew what her deal was, I realized she was trying to start drama between us. I looked past her shoulder and saw Melina and Becca standing in the doorway. Becca had her phone out and was pointing it at us.

“No, it actually had nothing to do with her.” I turned and grabbed the folder off the desk. “It had to do with you.”

Nichole’s eyes widened. “Um, what?”

“Well, see I thought it might be a good idea to hire someone to look into you—you know, since you were going to be involved in my company and all … I had Becca meet with him to get everything he found out.” So that was a lie, but I wasn’t going to totally throw Becca and Melina under the bus. “I was meeting up with her to get the file.” Opening it, I flipped through the pages, waiting to see if she would say anything. She didn’t.

She just stared at me with wide eyes, so I said something.

“It’s filled with some pretty interesting stuff. Have you been in contact with Harry Blanze recently?” I looked up to see the color drain from her face.

“H-Harry what?” She cleared her throat? “What about Harry? We were friends before, so?”

“Well, it just seems like you stopped talking to Harry right before he lost all his money. Same with John Parker, Adam Stills, and Josh Patt.” I closed the folder and tilted my head as I looked at her. “Did I forget one on there? I think I did, didn’t I?” She didn’t say anything. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I was going to be next, wasn’t I?”

“I …” She trailed off without really saying anything. It might have been mean of me, but I kind of wanted to laugh. I dropped the file on the desk and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yes?”

“Okay, fine.” She let out a huff of frustration. “You caught me; I like to make money off lame men who are more than eager to give it away.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you can do anything about it. It’s not illegal for men to give me some stuff.”

“You’re right.”

“So what’s the harm?” She shook her head, and for a split second, I realized why Becca had never liked her. “You want in on it?” She raised an eyebrow. “I mean, come on, that little girlfriend of yours has nothing on me. She’s broke; I can pay for anything either of us wants. You want to make more than you ever will with this crap job? Play along, let me take you for everything you have and then file for bankruptcy and then we’ll split everything. We’ll go away together, somewhere no one knows about us. It’s the perfect life. You should try it, with me. We should do it together; we’d make a damn good team.” She paused, letting it sink in. “So, what do you say? Partners?”

A woman cleared her throat behind Nichole.

Nichole spun to face Melina, who did not look pleased. She stalked over here with a look that told me it was about to get bloody.

“While I’m sure he appreciates your deadbeat lie of an offer, he already has a partner. Melina pointed to herself. “It’s me, honey. And if you think for a second you are half as good as me, or Becca for that matter, you are sooo wrong.” Melina paused to see Nichole take a step away from her.

I watched Melina’s fingers curl into a fist. I swallowed dryly.

Becca stepped forward. She was no longer holding the camera.

*

“What I don’t get,” I stepped towards her, my eyes locking on hers. “Why were you seen with Keith?” I crossed my arms over my chest but had to step in before Melina knocked her out, that much I knew, and I needed an answer to one very important question.

Nichole turned to face me, and a frown crossed her face. “Who?”

“You know, the one who held a gun to my head.”

“Ohhh, him.” She laughed softly. “Just a little extra drama.” She shrugged. “Everyone is so much easier to control after going through something.” She studied me carefully. “Although I wasn’t expecting you to actually stick around. It would have been so much easier if he actually shot you.” My jaw dropped as I stared at the woman in front of me.

“Don’t,” I heard Dean say behind me and turned to see him holding onto Melina. “I think it’s time you leave.” Dean stared at Nichole.

She laughed loudly. “What, you’re scared I’m going to hurt your partner.”

“No, I don’t want to give you a reason to file a police report.” Dean turned on his heel; dragging Melina with him, he grabbed a paper from the desk. “Here is your notice of contract termination.” He pulled Melina back over to where Nichole and I stood and handed it to her.

I wanted nothing more than to knock the bitch out, but after what Dean just said, I knew I couldn’t. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes. One. Two. Three. My eyes opened just in time to see the look of defeat on her face, and oh, my God, it made me feel so good. I smiled widely.

“What’s wrong?” I gave her a fake pout. “You didn’t actually think I was going to let you take advantage of my boyfriend, did you?” I laughed. “Are you that fucking stupid?”

She stared at me with wide eyes, and for a second, I thought she was going to cry. She spun on her heel and, without another word, she stormed out of the casino.

It honestly felt amazing. I stared after her as she hustled from the casino in a huff and felt amazing. Like there was a weight off my shoulders. I grinned widely.

“Do you think we’ll see her again?” Melina asked.

“Honestly? Yes, I do think we will,” Dean said. “As much as I would like to say, otherwise, I’m sure we will be seeing her again. She’ll try to find a way to make money out of this. Did you get that video?”

“Yup.” I slipped my hand into my pocket where I kept my phone and handed it to him.

He shook his head. “It’s fine, as long as we have it, I don’t care. We might need her confession at some point.” He gave me a smile before glancing at the clock. “Well, I’d better go get some work done; it’s almost opening time, and we just lost our marketing manager.”

For a split second, I felt guilty, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I bit my lip. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“I’ll let you know if I think of something,” he promised as the door opened.

“Why does little miss snarky look like she wants to kill someone?” Natalie asked. She caught Dean staring at her, her eyes widened, and she cleared her throat. “I mean, um …”

I laughed loudly. “She just got her ass fired.”

“Really? Why?”

I glanced at Dean to let him know I wasn’t going to say anything, and he stroked his chin. “I um, didn’t feel she would be a good fit for our little casino.”

I could see the grin spread across Natalie’s face and tried not to laugh. Instead, I cleared my throat.

“Anyway, it’s almost opening time; I’m going to go get dressed and … do stuff.” I had no clue what I was going to do yet, but I was more than happy just to know I was going to have a normal day of work. One without having to worry if Dean was going to pick some other woman over me.

Natalie followed me to the change room. It wasn’t until we were behind closed doors that she spoke.

“So, he actually fired her?”

“Yup.”

“Because she wasn’t a good fit?” She raised an eyebrow. I hung my purse on a rack, laughing softly.

“In a way, yes.”

“She totally tried to sleep with him, didn’t she?”

“I think so, yea.” I wasn’t going to say yes, but I could give her an idea of what was going on. I knew Dean wouldn’t want any of it to be known to everyone, so if it was all rumor, I couldn’t be blamed for it—right?

“I have no clue how you didn’t kick her ass. I would have killed her the second I saw the way she looked at him if I were you.”

*

I took a deep breath, trying to relax as we both sat down across from my therapist. She looked us up and down, tilting her head to the left.

“I’m so glad you two were finally able to make it, but this seems a little rushed; is everything alright?”

“No,” we admitted at the same time.

Dean looked at me, bowed his head and motioned for me to take over.

I took a deep breath. “I mentioned that other woman at work.” My therapist nodded. “Well, I didn’t like her … and I didn’t trust her. A friend and I both agreed there was something up about her.” I looked away. “And we hired someone to look into her.” It felt so stupid to say, but I mean, what else were we supposed to do, right?

“Wait—” She cut me off. “You mean a professional?”

“Yup. Private investigator. The whole nine yards; well, except he didn’t wear a trench coat. Is it bad that I was kinda disappointed about that?” I paused and shook my head. “Not the point. Anyways, it turns out we—my friend and me—were right about this girl and …” I glanced at Dean. “Dean and I have had a couple issues because of her. We thought it might be best to … you know, get it all out of the way and into the past.”

“That’s a very good way of looking at it.”

For a couple of seconds no one said anything. Honestly, I was waiting to see what she was going to tell us to do because I had no fucking clue what we were supposed to do now; all I knew was that we paid her for something, right?

I knew it was a bad way to look at therapy, but the truth was, I needed help.

“So,” she finally said after a couple seconds. “It must have been hard having these issues. It must have affected you guys somehow, right?” We both nodded, and her eyes locked on Dean. “Dean, how did it affect you?”

He stared at her with wide eyes. “Um, I—uh.” He coughed and let out a low laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t think you were going to have me go first. It’s been hard. Not only because of the fact that I hurt Becca, probably a lot more than she’s willing to admit, but also well … it’s just left me questioning everything I’ve ever done, and everything I am doing.” He paused.

I listened carefully, trying to take everything in. I wanted to understand what was going on with him.

“I just … I can’t believe I didn’t see it; like maybe if I hadn’t been so stuck on the idea that she could help, I would have seen through her. I can’t believe I didn’t and can’t help wondering how stupid I had to be not to see through it, you get what I mean?”

She nodded. “That sounds like it must add a lot of stress on you.”

“It does. I mean, it’s like constantly questioning myself the entire time because maybe I fucked up; hell, I’ve got three resumes sitting on my table, and I can’t bring myself to look at them because I can’t bring myself to have faith that I won’t fuck up again, and if I do—” He stopped, went dead silent, and his eyes locked on me.

I couldn’t take not knowing. “What? What will happen if you do?”

The way he stared at me, it felt like we were the only two in the room, like the therapist watching us didn’t matter.

“If I fuck up again, I’m going to lose you, and I don’t want to, hell … I’m not sure I can stand to lose you.”

I stared at him, totally shocked by what he said and unable to believe what I was hearing. That feeling you get when you know someone has a crush on you? When you see them for the first time and realize you have a crush on them? Yea, that one—it returned. My heart did a backflip.

“I love you too.” I knew it was lame, but it was the best I could come up with.

“It must have been hard on you too, Rebecca.”

I jumped, turning to face the therapist.

“Yea, it was,” I admitted, reaching out and taking his hand. “It was really hard to feel like he was picking someone over me, and then when I found out she had a habit for sleeping with guys like Dean … it just scared me even more. I thought for sure he was going to sleep with her or already had because …” Well, because she was way prettier than I was. “Because I was scared.” I didn’t dare admit it, even if it was in therapy.

“Why were you scared?”

“What?”

“You said you were scared he was going to sleep with her. What made you scared that he was going to sleep with her?”

I swallowed dryly. Maybe I would have to fess up. “I just … was.” I knew it was a bad answer, but I kept going before either of them could say something. “And when I tried to tell him about her, he didn’t believe me.” I sounded defeated.

“That must have hurt.” Of course, it fucking did! But I just nodded. “And this girl, is she still working for you, Dean?”

“No. I fired her recently after realizing some things.”

“That’s good. It would be very hard for you two to work through this if she was still around. You do plan on working through it, I assume, right?”

I nodded as Dean spoke. “Oh, yes.”

I had no doubt that I wanted to work through it with him but had no clue how we were going to do it. I squeezed his hand gently as his eyes locked on mine. He gave me a soft smile, and it was like that simple word changed everything. Like I knew then and there that we were going to work through this.

My therapist cleared her throat. “I can tell just by looking at you that you two want to work things okay, and that’s great! You seem like a really strong couple, but it seems like maybe you aren’t communicating about your needs enough.” She tilted her head to the left. “Because of that, I’m going to print off a couple exercises for you guys to do over the next couple of weeks so that you can practice improving that, and everything around you.” She stood and continued, “The important thing is that you both take the time to talk and listen to the other, that’s why I suggest you do it with a timer. Give yourselves a set amount of time to talk about your most important thing, and then your partner will listen before they say anything else.”

Without another word, she strode out of the room, leaving Dean and me alone together.

“So, this is …. going to be interesting,” he said.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just not looking forward to it.”

I honestly couldn’t say I was either, but I was looking forward to being able to put this behind us. So when my therapist came back into the room and handed us five sheets of paper, I took them and thanked her before Dean and I left the building. I looked him up and down as we walked out of the building, and then reached out and took his hand unable to stop thinking about what he had said in there. He’s probably had enough of spilling his feelings for now. I’ll ask him about it later.

“You know, she said we should take some more time just for us,” Dean said.

“Yea, I was listening.” Where was he going with this?

“I was just thinking, maybe we could take another short vacation.”

“No!” Oh, God, I couldn’t afford that. “You’ve got a business to run, and I’ve got rent to pay.” It sounded so silly, but there it was out in the open.

Dean laughed.

I rounded on him with my eyebrows raised. What the hell did he think was so fucking funny?

“Babe, I’m not going to knock your pay because you’re spending time with me. You have more than enough reason to take months off if you want, after everything you’ve been through.”

“No.” I didn’t want to be a victim to this; I didn’t want to let it control my life. I wasn’t going to let it. “I just … don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be hanging around doing nothing is all. I need to keep busy.”

“Alright, well how about we take a weekend off? Is that alright with you?”

“Well, except the fact that the weekends are when you’re needed most.” I mean, come on, the casino would be packed on weekends.

“Fine, how about a two-day vacation midweek? How does that sound?”

I mulled it over as we strode to his car and I slid into the passenger seat. I glanced at him, for a split second, admiring the man beside me. I gave him a smile. “I like the sounds of that.” I reached out and touched his muscular arms, squeezing gently and then swallowed dryly. I wonder if she ever touched him. I took a deep breath, getting ready to ask the one question that had been on my mind since all of this had happened.

I’d asked him if she tried to sleep with him when I confronted him and who she really was—but he’d never given me a real answer.

“Shit,” Dean muttered, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening his eyes, he looked at me. “So, I have to head back to the casino; I’m sorry, but Melina came by a couple of issues. I can drop you off at home first.”

“No, it’s alright. I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You want someone who wants to help you work late, right?” I raised an eyebrow. That’s what he had said yesterday. “Well, I want to help, so don’t try to push me away.” I reached out and took his hand. “Alright?”

He grinned softly. “Yea, alright.”