CHAPTER FOUR
Olivia
FOUR MONTHS AGO, I DIDN’T KNOW Helen Morgan existed, much less that she’d once been married to my husband. She’s standing there now, this woman who shares something with Dean, a painful history I will never comprehend and didn’t even know was a part of him until our marriage began to crack from the inside out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d asked him.
The answer clicks into place for me now, like a key turning in a lock. It’s the same reason he didn’t want me to come with him to California. Dean has never given me any of his dark places easily or willingly. He knows far too well the danger and consequences of telling secrets. He’d learned that lesson as a boy of thirteen and his family has never let him forget it.
I move closer to him, tightening my hand on his sleeve, my gaze on Helen Morgan.
Patrician is the word that comes to mind. Helen has fine, sharp features and is dressed in a knee-length skirt and tailored blouse. Her body is slender with narrow hips and small breasts. She wears her shiny, blond hair short in a casually sophisticated style that emphasizes her high cheekbones and blue eyes.
Just looking at her, I can see how Helen would fit into the West family. I can even see her with Dean—but not my Dean. Not the warm, sexy man who likes ear massages and boring foreign movies about the Huguenots.
Not Dean of the unshaven jaw and messy hair who always finishes crossword puzzles and gets crumbs on the table whenever he eats toast and peanut butter. Not Dean who can’t draw a recognizable picture to save his life, but knows all the geometrical proportions of cathedral architecture. Not Dean with his easy, hint-of-wicked smile that takes my breath away.
No.
I can see Helen with the renowned Professor West who wears tailored suits and lectures at European universities. The financier who can discuss the movement of the stock market, mutual funds, and expense ratios. The scholar who consults with museum curators around the world and oversees archeological digs of medieval treasures. Perfect Dean.
Not the real Dean.
I want to dislike Helen. She looks like she’s from the same circle as the girls who once had a hand in my undoing—elegant, fashionable, secure in her elevated status. She’s successful in her field. She knows what hairstyle and clothes look best on her. She probably spent her childhood with a sense of entitlement.
Helen also had a plan for her life that broke apart in ways she couldn’t have anticipated. She suffered three miscarriages and a bitter divorce from the man with whom she expected to have a family. She once thought she would be married to Dean for the rest of her life, until her image of them as a perfect couple shattered.
I know all about plans that go horribly awry.
I know all about shattered images and dysfunctional families.
So does Dean. And even early on, he tried to shield me from it.
During the busy fall semester after Dean and I first met, we grabbed every spare moment we could find together. We had lunch and coffee between classes, he picked me up after my shifts at Jitter Beans, we went to the movies and spent weekends holed up in either his apartment or mine. Whenever we were together, I hoarded bits of information about him and added them to my store of knowledge.
His favorite food is pizza.
He wears a plain, analog watch with a leather strap.
In addition to the King Arthur tales, his favorite childhood book was about a boy detective named Encyclopedia Brown.
He doesn’t wear cologne, but uses shaving cream that smells deliciously woodsy.
He knows how to make intricate patterns with a loop of string.
He actually has an opinion about apocalyptic imagery in medieval Castilian poetry.
He likes it when I kiss the hollow of his throat.
I liked that too. I liked everything about kissing and touching him. With every moment Dean and I spent together in those early weeks, the more I wanted to do with him.
“No touching,” he said.
I turned from where I was tending the three plants I’d brought him over the past couple of months. With a braided ficus, a peperomia, and an English ivy (Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo), plus a vase filled with dried eucalyptus, his utilitarian apartment both looked homey and smelled good.
“No touching at all?” I asked.
“None,” Dean said as he unfolded the Scrabble board and put it on the coffee table.
“Not even a kiss?”
“Nope.”
I tossed a few leaves into the trash and approached him. He looked adorably serious as he turned the Scrabble tiles upside down and placed the racks on either side of the board.
The sleeves of his white T-shirt had ridden up far enough to expose his biceps, and a swath of hair flopped over his forehead.
“I’m not sure I like these rules,” I remarked.
“You don’t want to play, then?” Dean asked.
“Oh, I want to play.”
His gaze jerked to mine at the suggestive note in my voice. I smiled and sank onto the floor opposite him, tucking my legs beneath my skirt.
We were two months into our relationship, and while we’d done some sexy things with our clothes on, including a lot of kissing, we had yet to see each other completely naked. It was a revelation for me—the slow, easy pace of our intimacy, the fact that we spent much of our time just being together, the sheer pleasure of our heightened anticipation.
“You go first.” Dean nodded at the Scrabble box. “Whoever scores below five points loses that round. You also lose if you have to skip a turn.”
“Remember—only modern English words,” I told him as we picked our tiles. “No Latin, no Greek. No ye olde this or that.”
I spelled out the word LOAF, then Dean used the F to make FORK. He wrote down the scores on a pad of paper.
“Seven for you, thirteen for me with the triple-letter score,” he said. “So close.”
I spelled LID and picked out more tiles. Dean spelled KNAWE.
“Oh, dude.” I sat back. “Major challenge.”
“Go ahead.” He nodded toward the thick dictionary on the sofa.
I thumbed to the K section and ran my finger down the page. “‘A low-growing, weedy Eurasian annual with narrow leaves and inconspicuous flowers’? Are you freaking kidding me?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to know about plants.”
“No one knows about weedy Eurasian annuals.”
“I do.”
“Of course you do, smartass.” Disgruntled, I put the dictionary aside.
He flashed me his you-know-you-like-me grin. My belly fluttered with warmth.
Dean wrote our scores on the notepad. “Twenty-four with the double-word score. You have a double-letter score, so four for you.” Wicked anticipation flared in his expression as he looked at me. “You know what that means.”
My heartbeat sped up. I briefly considered plunging right into the deep end, but my inherent caution warned me against it. I reached behind my neck and unclipped my necklace, then tossed it on a chair.
Dean frowned. “That doesn’t count.”
“Sure it does.”
“An article of clothing.”
“Accessories are clothing.” I wasn’t entirely certain of that, but I wasn’t about to back down. “Check any fashion magazine.”
Dean scowled, but gestured to the board. “Your turn, then.”
I managed to spell NERD, which squeaked me by with five points thanks to a double-letter square, and then he spelled EAR and was saved with a double-word square. We took more tiles. ROW and TETRAGON (seriously). Then RAT and AXE.
“Three.” Dean looked at me, a wicked glint in his expression. “Go.”
I pulled off the navy cardigan I was wearing over my V-neck shirt and tossed it on the chair. I became rather acutely aware that removing my remaining articles of clothing—my skirt and blouse—would leave me quite exposed.
The game continued. After finally managing only a four-point word, Dean took off a sock. I gave him a mild glare. I’d been hoping he’d pull off his shirt.
I spelled RUN to his TOYS. My breath hitched a little as I eased my hands beneath my skirt to roll my tights down my legs. The burn of Dean’s gaze fired my own arousal, even though I revealed hardly any skin as I pulled the tights off and put them on the chair.
Dean took off his other sock after having to skip a turn to exchange a tile. Then I spelled a four-point word and removed my underwear from beneath my skirt. Dean’s eyes followed the plain white, cotton panties as I tossed them onto the chair. I flushed.
“I don’t… um, I don’t have sexy panties.” I wished I did.
“If you’re wearing them, they’re sexy.” His gaze met mine. “Trust me on that.”
“I trust you with a lot more than that,” I said before I could think.
A brief shadow crossed his features—he knew there were things I hadn’t yet told him—but then it disappeared. “Your turn again, beauty.”
I spelled RING. He spelled SIT for a measly three points. I looked at him, anticipation quickening my blood. Both his socks were off, which meant…
He grasped the hem of his T-shirt and tugged it over his head.
Oh, my heavens…
I would never get tired of looking at his chest. My mouth went dry as I stared at the sloping planes of his pecs, the smooth musculature of his shoulders and rock-hard arms. The top button of his jeans was unfastened, displaying the tantalizing ridges of his abdomen disappearing beneath the waistband. I wondered if he was wearing boxers or briefs. Or nothing at all.
I swallowed hard.
“Your turn.” A mixture of restraint and lust gleamed in his eyes.
“Um…” I looked at the board, trying to find a vowel. “I… I’ll have to skip a turn.”
“Too bad.”
I took my time selecting a letter to replace, then glanced warily at Dean. He was looking at my breasts. Oh, he wasn’t going to let me off the hook.
His gorgeous chest moved with his quicker breathing. I curled my fingers into my palms against the urge to touch him. I wanted to feel his taut skin, to rub my hands over him and…
“Liv,” he prompted, his voice lowering an octave.
Dammit. I took hold of my shirt. If only the rules included some form of touching…
Wait a second.
I lifted my gaze to him, a wicked idea sparking. My stomach clenched with nerves.
I couldn’t.
Could I?
I pushed slowly to my feet, my breath hitching. His eyes followed me, but stayed focused on my breasts. My hands shook as I moved them behind my waist. With one quick rasp, I unfastened the zipper of my skirt.
Dean’s breath escaped him as his eyes collided with mine. My heart crashed against my ribs. I started to slide the skirt over my hips.
“This was your idea,” I reminded him, grabbing a burst of courage as I pushed the skirt down and let it pool at my feet. My shirt was just long enough to cover the top of my mons, but otherwise I was naked from the waist down. And trembling.
“Christ, Liv…” Dean’s hoarse whisper made my blood quiver. He stared at the juncture of my thighs, the curves of my hips. Just his gaze alone made desire pool in my sex, and I fought the urge to squirm.
“Um… your turn.” I sank to my knees next to the coffee table, which concealed my nakedness from him, but the fact that he was sitting across from me with his shirt off and...
“I can’t fucking think,” Dean muttered. He stared at the Scrabble board. A sheen of sweat gleamed on his forehead.
“No touching,” I whispered. I was starting to throb. “You made the rules.”
“Yeah, so I can change them.”
I drew in a breath, but managed to shake my head. “No way.”
We played a few more rounds, both somehow keeping our scores to at least five points. Before long I had the distinct feeling I wasn’t going to see Dean take his jeans off. I also wasn’t certain I’d be able to strip more than I already had, but then I took the last tile.
Disappointment lanced through me. I looked at Dean.
“Game over,” I said.
He swore, dropping his head into his hands.
“Your rules,” I reminded him.
While his head was still lowered, I slithered back into my skirt and panties.
“But,” I continued, “the game’s over now.”
He lifted his head.
“And you never said anything about no touching after the game.” My stomach knotted with both nervousness and excitement as I approached him. “Right?”
He didn’t respond, his gaze hot on mine. He hadn’t put his shirt on yet, and I surrendered to the urge to run my hand over his smooth shoulder. His muscles bunched beneath my palm.
Before I could sink onto the sofa beside him, he gripped the backs of my thighs and pulled me closer into the V of his legs. I stared down at him, his thick hair glossy in the light, the straight ridge of his nose, and slope of his chest.
His big hands slid beneath my skirt. I gasped. Shivers coursed through my entire body as he stroked upward to splay his hands over my cotton-clad rear. He slipped a finger beneath the elastic and touched the crevice of my bottom.
My whole body weakened. I clutched his shoulders to steady myself. He took hold of my panties and pulled them down my legs until they were tangled around my knees. He grasped my hips and pulled me down onto his lap. I settled sideways against him, into the half-circle of his strong arm supporting my back.
He lowered his head, his mouth capturing mine in a deep kiss that heated my blood. I tucked my hands into his hair and spread my legs against the constriction of my underwear. He pushed my skirt up and pressed his hand to my sex.
“Fuck, Liv, you’re so wet…” Dean’s breath warmed my skin as he moved his lips to my neck.
I shifted, inhaling sharply when he circled a finger around my clit. Beneath me, his erection pressed against my thigh. I spread my hand over his chest, tracing the ridges of his muscles, feeling the pulsing beat of his heart.
I sought his mouth again and sank into his kiss, arching my hips to meet his stroking fingers. Urgency laced my lower body. He stroked a finger up one side of my folds, around my clit, down the other side…
I broke away from Dean with a gasp and stared at him. His lust-dark eyes burned into mine.
“You’re doing it,” I whispered breathlessly.
“I hope so.”
“I mean… what I told you. That night we had… when I was in Castleford and we talked on the phone and you asked me how I like touching myself. You’re doing it now. Exactly the way I described.”
“I do pay attention.” A smile curved a corner of his mouth. “And I’ve always been a pretty good student.”
He slipped a finger inside me. I clenched around him. A trickle of sweat ran down my temple. A delicious coil of pleasure wound through me. I bucked upward again, straining toward that deep, bright bliss that lay just beyond my reach.
“So good.” I reached down to grasp his wrist, my blood scorching. “I’m going to…”
I bit my lower lip to prevent myself from crying out. Dean flicked his thumb over my clit and tightened his arm around me when pleasure shook me to the core. I writhed in his lap, arching shamelessly into his fingers as he eased the ricocheting sensations from my body.
“Pretty.” He brushed his mouth against mine.
The buzz of his cell phone broke me out of my sensual haze. I shifted in his lap. He muttered a complaint and pulled me closer, nuzzling his nose into my hair.
“I think… I think that’s your phone,” I said.
“I don’t care.” He stroked his lips down the side of my neck. “You smell so damn good.”
“Dean.” Shivers rained down my spine. I squirmed. “Um…”
He lifted his head. “You okay?”
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Oh.” He patted my hip and eased me off his lap.
I smoothed my skirt back over my legs and headed for the bathroom. After using the toilet, I washed my hands and splashed water over my face. My skin was flushed, and my hair was loose and messy around my shoulders. I used Dean’s comb to work out the tangles and left the bathroom.
His voice came from the living room, low and threaded with anger. A knot of worry constricted my chest.
I paused, my guilt over eavesdropping outweighed by curiosity.
“No, Paige,” he snapped into the phone. “If he wants to talk to me, he can damn well call me himself… I could give a shit about her. No. I won’t deal with his goddamned mess again.”
I ducked back into the bathroom and closed the door.
Dean and his sister must have been talking about their brother. All I knew about Archer West was that he was Dean’s younger brother and seemed to be a troublemaker. From what I knew, Dean’s mother and sister often called on Dean to fix things.
That thought lodged in a part of my brain where wariness and fear lived.
I waited until the rumble of his voice stopped before I returned to him. He was pulling his T-shirt back over his head, his movements tense and restless.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He shoved his arms into the sleeves and turned away from me.
I ran my hands down the sides of my skirt and watched as he paced to the windows.
“Was that your sister?” I asked, painfully aware that I was wading into treacherous waters.
“Yeah.”
“And were you talking about your brother?”
“Yeah.” His tone was clipped. He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. “Look, I need to get outside, go for a run. Do you mind?”
“No.” I suppressed the wish that he would confide in me. None of your business, Liv. Leave it alone. “Go ahead. I’ll be here.”
“Good.” He kissed me again before going into the bedroom to change.
“I’ll be an hour, hour and a half.” He grabbed his keys and cell phone. “Call if you need me.”
I nodded. If you need me. I was beginning to need him more than I should have. More than I wanted to.
After he’d gone, I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I took out containers of pasta salad, minestrone soup, and meatballs in marinara sauce that we’d gotten from the deli. I set the table with some nice, white plates I’d found on sale at Target. I put all the salads into the matching serving bowls, got out a bottle of wine, and had everything almost ready by the time Dean came in the door.
“Hey, thanks. You didn’t have to do this.” His face was flushed with cold and exertion, his collar damp with sweat. “But it looks great. I’ll take a quick shower, okay?”
“Sure.”
He headed into the bathroom. I heated up the meatballs in the microwave and put them on the table just as the landline phone rang.
The automated voice announced, “Call from California.”
My heart stuttered. Dean must have turned off his cell. I went to the phone and stared at the display, a 408 area code number. It rang again.
Don’t, Liv.
I tightened my fingers around the receiver.
Don’t. None of your business.
Ring.
I picked up the phone.
Ring.
Stop, Liv!
I pushed the talk button. “Hello?”
Silence on the other end.
“Dean West’s residence.” I felt like my grip on the phone could break the plastic.
“Oh.” An older woman’s voice, wary and sharp. “Is Dean there?”
“He’s… um, he’s unavailable right now. Can I take a message?”
Another woman’s voice sounded in the background. There was a muffled noise, an incoherent discussion, a rasp across the phone’s speaker.
“Who is this?” the woman asked.
“This is Liv.” Unease inched up my throat. “I’m a friend of Dean’s.”
“Well, Liv, friend of Dean’s, where is he?”
“He’s taking a shower.” The instant I said that, I winced.
“Taking a shower?” She sounded as if I’d said he was skydiving.
“Is this his mother?” I asked.
“Yes, it is. Joanna West.”
“I’ll let him know you called, Mrs. West.”
“Do that, would you?” she replied. “And tell him to leave his cell phone on.”
There was a click as she hung up. I put the receiver down.
Shame filled me. What was I trying to do—make sure his family knew I’d staked a claim? That Dean and I were close enough now that I hung out at his apartment and had the right to answer his phone?
I shook my head and hurried to finish getting dinner organized. A few minutes later, Dean emerged in a clean, white T-shirt and jeans, his hair damp. My stomach twisted with a combination of pleasure and unease. As powerful as our physical attraction was, it was becoming fraught with a strange undercurrent of secrecy and evasiveness.
“Your… your mother called,” I told him as he opened the bottle of wine.
He paused. “And you answered the phone?”
“I didn’t know I shouldn’t.”
“It’s probably best if you don’t again.”
“Oh.” I tried to deflect a wave of hurt. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Liv.”
I didn’t want to be that woman who sulks at a perceived slight, but… really? He didn’t want me answering the phone when his mother called?
I turned to set plates on the table. His hands closed around my shoulders.
“Liv.”
I spun around to face him. “She asked me who I was, Dean. You haven’t told her? I didn’t even know what to say.”
Renewed irritation hardened his eyes. “I haven’t told her, haven’t told any of them, because it’s none of their damned business. I don’t tell my family about my personal life.”
“You haven’t told me about them, either,” I reminded him. “Is that because it’s none of my business?”
“No.” He spread out his hands. “It’s because I like this, Liv. I like having you to myself. And I don’t want you dealing with my family’s crap.”
“Why, because I’m too fragile?” The unpleasant thought reemerged. “Or because you’re trying to fix me?”
“What?”
“Your family all comes to you to fix things, right? I don’t want you to do the same thing with me.”
“Because I like what we have, I suddenly want to fix you?”
“That’s what you seem to do with them,” I pointed out. “And if your family is such a mess, then why aren’t you?”
“What?”
“You’ve always been the golden boy, haven’t you?” The differences between us suddenly seemed as wide as a chasm. “Football star, valedictorian, full scholarships, then a doctorate summa cum laude? Best-looking guy at school. Bet you dated the homecoming queen.”
“What the…”
“I was held back a grade, did I ever tell you that? My mother and I moved around so much that I always struggled to keep up with my classmates. One district wouldn’t enroll me because I tested below my grade level, so I had to repeat fifth grade, and even then I needed extra tutoring because I was so behind. I was lucky they didn’t send me back to fourth grade.”
“Liv…” Dean stepped toward me.
“There’s a reason I am the way I am, Dean.” I held up a hand to stop him, hating all the old feelings of inadequacy and fear. “There’s a reason I don’t have many friends and I’m so intense about my studies. There’s a reason why I’m still a virgin at twenty-four goddamn years old and why I’ve had such a hard time trusting people. It took me a long time and a lot of therapy, but I finally understood. What I don’t understand is how you can be the way you are if your family is anything less than perfect.”
“You think you’ve got me figured out because I worked my ass off to be successful?” His features tightened. “Because I had to? Yeah, the Wests are perfect… so perfect that no one has any idea how screwed up we really are.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He paced to the windows and back.
“My father is a justice on the California Supreme Court,” he said. “My mother sits on charity boards and holds fundraisers in between shopping and traveling. They live in a wealthy suburb of Silicon Valley, are a very prominent couple, and have had a shitty marriage for as long as I can remember.
“My mother had an affair years ago.” The words tumbled out of him in a rush. “My father stayed married to her because he needed her family’s money and couldn’t risk anything hurting his chances for being appointed to the appellate court. My brother is a high-school dropout who can’t hold a job, and my whole family resents me because my grandfather left me most of his money in a trust fund when he died. Because I was so goddamn good at being perfect.”
He stopped and turned to me, his expression so heartbreakingly vulnerable that I wanted nothing more than to make things better for him, to ease what seemed like an age-old pain.
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in… forever, Liv. The only person who doesn’t expect anything from me. Who doesn’t care that I’m not perfect.”
“You’re perfect to me,” I said honestly. “Perfect for me.”
“And that’s why I like what we have,” he said, the tension easing from his posture as he approached to stand in front of me. “Because you’re perfect for me too.”
“So what are we, then?” I asked. “When someone asks who I am, what am I supposed to say?”
“You say, ‘Hi, I’m Liv, Dean’s very hot and sexy lady.’”
I couldn’t smother a giggle. “Seriously.”
“Paramour?”
“No.”
“Cuddle bunny?”
“God, no.”
“Valentine? Sweetheart? Girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend.” I rested my forehead against his chest. “I guess.”
“Not the best word, but it’ll do in public.” He kissed my temple. “In private, you can just be my beauty.”
Oh, he was good. My lingering irritation melted in a surge of warmth.
“Give me a kiss, beauty.”
He whispered the words close to my ear, as he always did. I loved the way he could make that one phrase a command, a request, or a question, with just the subtle modulations of his deep voice. This time, it was a gentle command, one I was only too happy to obey.
I lifted my head and closed the scant distance between us to press my mouth against his. Heat flooded me. He slid his hand to the back of my neck and angled his head so our lips fit together seamlessly. After a long, deep kiss, he eased away and leaned his forehead against mine.
I was crazy about him. I loved the way he invested everything he did with such purpose, the way he focused his attention on me and really listened when I talked. I loved his brilliant mind, loved both the impenetrability and sheer dorkiness of medieval history. I loved the way he looked at me, stroked my hair, kissed me. I loved the million beautiful ways he made me feel.
I was starting to love him. Only I didn’t know it yet.
“Be with me, Liv,” he said. “Just be with me.”
I looked at him and thought that for the first time in my life, there was nowhere else I wanted or needed to be.