I told him I’d meet him at the slots, and now I regretted that because of course he wasn’t there. Granted, I’d made him wait an hour instead of twenty minutes, but I’d obviously needed to decompress or maybe build up the courage to face him again.
I sat down at the machine. Betting a penny and pulling the lever was supposed to add a bit of a thrill and a little hope. But I didn’t hope at all now. I’d lost more than once tonight and knew I’d lose again and again.
Going up against Dex Hardy would be a colossal mistake too—whatever he wanted to discuss, our conversation was long overdue.
Rightfully so. Our past had ruined us. Ripped our hearts apart and left the destruction for us to clean up. We’d mended ourselves in the only way we knew how. I didn’t text or call him after that last day together in the woods. I tried my best to move on. But when someone breaks a person’s heart, their words echo around them forever.
I don’t love you. He’d said it so easily as I sat in the grass at his feet years ago. And then he’d walked away. I hadn’t moved that night. I’d slept there with the lilacs around me, crying for hours.
Luck hadn’t been on my side then. And it wasn’t now either. I pulled the lever again.
A penny lost.
I pulled it again.
Another penny lost.
I sighed and kept on. I still had twenty bucks to lose before I left for the night.
I’d wait as long as I’d made him wait. But he showed up sooner than I had.
“So, what exactly is this?” I heard from above me, and the rumble in that whisper of his had my heart lurching. Not away from him but toward him, like it was waking up from hibernating away until its long-lost love came back.
“What exactly is what?” I asked without looking up at him. I kept my eyes on the slot machine screen, hoping he would elaborate without my eye contact.
Dex waited in silence, practically forcing my gaze his way. When I scanned his face, I saw he wasn’t looking at me but the ring still on my left finger.
That stupid heart of mine picked up speed and raced much too quickly for what I was used to. It’d been in hibernation for a freaking long time. I was trying to get accustomed to its erratic behavior around the man I was supposed to not care for anymore.
“You think I’m going soft, Kee?” I frowned in confusion. I never said any such thing. “I know I agreed to your presence at the casino for six months.” He’d argued with Dimitri, I knew that. “Yet, you can’t possibly believe I’m going to allow you to accept a proposal here, under my roof, the first night of this fucked-up contract.”
I shook my head and focused on the slot machine in front of me. Another penny lost, another pull on the stupid lever. This time, my eyes filled with real tears and not because I’d lost another damn cent. Dex Hardy’s voice somehow still had a hold on me. He wanted a truth I couldn’t give him right then. He’d wanted the truth for years.
He’d never get it, though, and he’d never forgive me. I’d left him behind even though I’d always looked back, and he’d never known it.
Dex set his drink down slowly on my slot machine and walked up behind me before he bent down so his mouth was close to my ear. Then, he whispered, “You come to my casino, my resort, have your fuckboy of a boyfriend propose on my property. And you’re wearing his ring like it belongs on your finger. Tell me it’s a joke. Say. It.”
Dex had aged beautifully, and his mouth had become much more lethal too. Each word sliced through my flesh and cut me straight to the bone. Still, I chewed my cheek rather than start the war I knew was brewing between us and pulled the lever again.
Another freaking loss.
He grunted out a sound of disgust near my face and said, “You’re doing it wrong.”
I turned to see his forest-green eyes assessing the machine before he pressed a few buttons. He maxed out my bid and pulled the lever as I immediately glared. “That’s too much money!”
As I finished saying it, though, the machine slowed and lit up like a Christmas tree. The earnings flashed on the screen with sirens going off, doubling, tripling, quadrupling the twenty he’d just gambled.
“You know, Kee, without a risk, you don’t get a reward.”
I scoffed and jackhammered my finger into the button that brought my bid back to a penny. “It’s no risk at all when it’s not your money.”
He hummed. “Technically, since I own most of this place, I’m paying you, heartbreaker.”
I hated that he still remembered the nickname he gave me. Screw him. “Great.” I yanked the card out of the machine and stood abruptly. “I should go cash out then.”
He stepped in front of me, and I bumped into his chest. “You didn’t do as I said, Kee.”
“What did you say to do again?”
“Tell me that all this is a joke,” he reiterated.
“Dex, let’s not do this.” I shook my head at him. It was one in the morning. I was tired, emotionally drained, and ready to tap out. I needed to, because it was that or I was going to unleash every emotion I had on him.
“Do what?” He tilted his head, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking in how good he looked. He’d always cleaned up nice, but he filled out the suit he wore perfectly, his broad shoulders and large chest showcasing that he’d stayed in shape over the years. His hair probably had been combed nicely to start the night, too, but I could tell he’d put his fingers through it more than once now.
“There’s no reason to act like there’s something between us when there isn’t.”
“We’ve got more than what you have between you and Ethan Phillipe.” He rubbed his jaw. “The chin wobble was top notch though. You lie to every guy you’re with, or just him and me?”
“You know what? Fuck you, Dex,” I grumbled and tried to walk past, but he caught my elbow.
“We’ve been damn close to you fucking me, Kee, and I’d bet if I allowed it, you’d take me up on the offer to get close again. Maybe even go all the way.”
I spun on him, pissed that he had the audacity to goad me when I’d tried to be the bigger person tonight. “If you allowed it? If I gave you the chance, you mean.”
He stepped close then. Too close. My breath hitched, and I licked my lips instinctively. My body knew this stance, knew how it would feel to have him, and immediately I wanted to give in, wanted to rake my nails over his skin and claw at every part of him the way the memory of him tore at me.
“And look at you. Those pretty eyes are full of hunger, heartbreaker. Want to give me the chance tonight?”
I jerked back at his words and stepped out of his orbit. Long ago, my body had gravitated toward Dex Hardy but I couldn’t get caught in revolving around him now. “I’m engaged.”
“Not for long.”
“Excuse me?” I glanced around, but it was late. The people in the casino didn’t care about us. Our friends and family were all off celebrating a real marriage.
“You think I’m letting the headliner at the Black Diamond Resort and Casino marry a man I hate?”
“You don’t hate him. You don’t even know him,” I sputtered out as he slid his phone from his pocket. Was he for real? “Don’t you dare call my record label, Dex, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?” Each word came out pointed.
What was there to even threaten? Dex had it all. He had the money, the casino, my stupid contract, and now even my record label in my pocket. “What do you even want from me? I’m not harming you. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“Stay out of your way? This is my place. I don’t go home—back to my hometown—just to ensure I don’t see your venomous ass.”
“Venomous? Are you kidding me right now?”
“No. You poisoned that whole town against me. And then you came home acting like you loved me when really you were going back to hang on Ethan’s arm a week later. Now you’re here doing the same.”
“I did no such thing.” He made what I’d done sound so evil, so calculated. He didn’t know how I’d cried, how I’d suffered, how I’d barely been able to get out of bed.
He barked out a laugh and then bent over and laughed his ass off. “Did you read the news when you left? They practically labeled me a murderer, and I didn’t even want you in the car that night.”
“I…” I shook my head and stepped back. I hated talking about that night. It haunted my dreams and then the news after tortured me. “I didn’t control the news, Dex.”
“No. But you damn sure didn’t rebuke it, which was tantamount to an affirmation coming from the shining star of the town, Ms. Keelani Hale, who could do no wrong.”
“Oh, don’t act like they all hate you. You’ve done just fine since then.” He and his brothers owned a whole freaking empire.
He narrowed his eyes. “Have I?”
“You know you have. So, just let things between us lie. Ethan and I will—”
“You won’t be engaged to him here in this resort. I won’t allow it.”
“You’re kidding.” I stared at him. This was ludicrous. I mean, no one could demand something like that. The way he thought he ruled the world bubbled up inside me, and I now burst out laughing. He didn’t control what I did. I laughed and laughed, probably because I was too tired to do any different. Then, I looked up and saw he wasn’t laughing with me. I waved my hands at him. “You’re funnier than I remember.”
“I’m not joking.” He crossed his arms, and the expensive smart HEAT watch on his wrist flashed in front of me as if to mock my position in this situation. “Call your record label and let them know.”
He searched my eyes for far too long. I squirmed under his gaze, straightened the baseball cap on my head, and tried to back away. “Look, I appreciate the residency here, and I know I’m of benefit to the casino in turn, just as you all are a benefit to my bank account. Ethan and I are truly—”
“There’s no Ethan and you.”
“Of course there is.” I rolled my eyes.
“Bullshit. You didn’t even kiss him after he proposed.”
“Well, I did before, and we were in public and—”
“Public? You scared of PDA?” He smirked now. “Your good-girl image too pristine you can’t dirty it up when you feel like kissing your fiancé?”
“That’s not it.” Honestly, that was always part of the reason I never indulged in PDA, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Right.” He rubbed his chin and said without much emotion at all, “Call your manager and let him know.”
“They own me, Dex; I’m not going to tell them no. It doesn’t work like that. They want me engaged for publicity and to push sales here at the resort. It’s a win-win.”
“So you want to marry him?” He said it louder now, with emphasis.
“Dex, I’m not… I don’t want to marry anyone, and—”
He leaned against a slot machine and crossed one ankle over the other as if he had all the time in the world. “So you don’t want to marry him? Which is it?”
I sighed, so done with the back-and-forth as I rubbed at one temple, willing away the stress headache that was coming on. Then I asked softly, “Does it really even matter?”
His eyes widened and he combed a hand through his hair as I saw his jaw dance up and down. “Yes, it fucking matters, Kee. What type of question is that? Do you seriously have that little of a backbone after all these years?”
“What?” I straightened at that. He had no idea why I did what I did. “You don’t know me. Don’t you dare toss insults my way like that.” I stepped close to him and poked his shoulder.
“If you don’t want to marry someone—”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. That’s not the point,” I almost screeched. “And my marital status shouldn’t matter to you.” I glanced around now, irritated that he wanted to talk about who I was with when I knew he’d been with a woman earlier that night. “Shouldn’t you be worrying about the woman you were here with tonight?”
He rubbed at the stubble on his chin before he admitted, “I sent her home.”
“Why?” I asked, but his eyes burned into mine, communicating all I needed to know.
“Because I could only look at you all night.” He combed a hand through his thick hair. “I’ve been with her for two years, and it’s been damn near fifteen years without you,” he said, and his voice suddenly held all the pain I felt. “And yet I hear your voice on that stage, look at you singing, and I still only want you.”
“Dex—”
“It’s downright shameful at this point that I even consider it. And you can bet I don’t enjoy feeling like I can’t think of anyone else.”
Don’t say it, Keelani. Don’t you dare. But the words squeaked out anyway. “Two years?”
He put his hands in his pockets. “Yep. Coming up on two and a half.”
Jesus, why did that hurt so much? “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Does it matter?” He lifted a brow.
“No.” Yes.
“Then why ask the question?”
“I don’t know. You brought it up.”
“Bullshit.” He rolled his eyes like he still knew me. “You’re as jealous as I am.”
“You can have whoever you want,” I whispered.
“Can I really? Do you have whoever you want?” He narrowed his eyes at me in challenge.
I met him head-on. “Not that it matters to you, but yes, I do.” I was standing up to him, and we both knew it. One of us needed to draw the line in the sand after all these years.
“I’m sure you do.” He clenched his jaw. “But when I’m with someone else, I still picture you…and I’m sick of it.”
My heart pounded. I wanted to tell him he didn’t get to be sick of it when I had to endure it too. Yet, I couldn’t. This conversation needed to be over. So I moved to brush past him, but he caught me at his side and pulled us over to a corner where he could lean in and whisper, “You picture me every time you fuck your fiancé, too, Kee?”
The anger that bubbled up inside me was overwhelming when normally I just tried to ignore my emotions, tried to suppress the irritation I had throughout the day. With Dex, he always had a knack for pushing me too far. “You don’t get to ask me that after you left me in the lilacs, Dex. You left me to become who I am today, and you don’t know a thing about that person.”
“That’s probably true. But I remember who you were, and I want to stop remembering, Kee.” His voice cracked, and I hated that I still wanted to soothe it, that I felt myself breaking too. “So, you’re going to get rid of that fiancé of yours. I’m too jealous to see him here with you.”
I glared at him. “I’m sorry. You’re jealous of what exactly? I didn’t have a date hanging on me all night, whispering in my ear—”
“You accepted a proposal from the guy you’ve been dating for fifteen fucking years.”
“You’ve known from the very beginning it’s fake for the media! I don’t even want to marry him,” I blurted out before slapping my hand over my mouth.
He smirked like he’d goaded me there, like we were in a chess match and he’d won. I even caught a hint of the dimples I used to love flash across his face. I had to admit he still knew me enough to piss me off. He continued on in his stupid chess game, moving me around like I was a game piece he could control. “Then don’t. Don’t get engaged to him. Call your record label right now and tell them no. Kill the story.” He sighed. “I don’t want that shit in the papers tomorrow, Kee.”
The way he used my nickname pulled at every fiber of my being. I was Keelani the Singer, Keelani the Sweetheart. Keelani Hale was a brand.
But here, in front of him, I was just a human, and a vulnerable one at that. “I can’t do that,” I told him quietly as I shook my head.
His stare hardened. “Still chasing that fame then?”
“That’s not—” I took a breath so I didn’t fall down the hole of pain and fury with him. “I have contingencies in my contract. I don’t care about the fame, but the time and money are valuable.”
He chuckled and rubbed his five o’clock shadow. “Money and time? You’re here for six months, and we’re paying you plenty.”
I hated that he acted like he knew everything. “You’re paying my record label plenty, sure.”
“So, what? You want a few more shoes in your closet?” He looked me up and down. “Fine. I’ll double it.”
“Double it?” I squeaked.
“Not good enough? Triple it. What do I care? And it can be outside the label’s contract so you can keep it all to yourself.”
That money would let me pay for my mother’s care for years and give me an opportunity to do what I wanted for once. I’d be free finally.
Still, the deal was too good to be true. I, more than anyone, knew what that looked like now. I stepped back and shook my head. “They won’t agree. They need me to look like I’m going to marry someone. They want the publicity. Without the engagement, there’s no story and—”
“Then you get engaged to me.”
“What?” I hadn’t heard him right, surely.
“Get engaged to me. Give them the story of a lifetime.”
My heart galloped in the way it should have when Ethan got down on one knee. My heart wanted this to be a real proposal when it absolutely wasn’t. “I’m not getting engaged to you! Are you— You have a girlfriend, Dex. How much have you had to drink?”
He rubbed his jaw again, looking me up and down, somehow studying every layer of me even though I wasn’t giving him a single part willingly. “Yeah. It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
He frowned at me and then pulled his phone from his pants. “Time for me to stop trying to get you out of my system without having you here to actually do it.”
I scoffed. “It’s not happening, Dex. I’m not marrying you.”
“You either marry me, heartbreaker, or you don’t get married at all.” Without another word, he spun around and put his phone to his ear. “Yeah, hi, Seanna. You make it home?”
I narrowed my eyes on him. He was calling his girlfriend after just proposing that sort of deal to me?
“Yes, I’m still here with her.” He nodded and then looked directly in my eyes. “I wanted to let you know, I intend to marry her…if she’ll have me.”
The galloping of my heart stopped. Everything did. Dex was here in front of me, promising himself for six months, and suddenly all my anxieties and worries ceased. This was a disaster waiting to happen, but it was also the place I knew I wanted to break apart. Beside him. For him. Because of him.
If I couldn’t find myself with the one man I’d always loved, I could destroy myself at the very least. And I’d still be me.
He paused again. “Seanna, I don’t know, and it won’t matter. I don’t expect or want you to wait.” He sighed. “Sure. Friends.” Then he clicked off his phone and slid it back into his pocket before his gaze caught mine, determined now. “Your turn.” His tone was commanding and authoritative. “Call your fiancé.” He sneered the word, grating on my every nerve.
“Just…” I took a deep breath. “Stop calling him that.”
“Why? That’s what he is.” Now he was goading me. “You gonna marry another man when you belong to me?”
“I don’t belong to you. I never did!” I scoffed. “Even when I wanted to, the label owned me. I… My life is more complicated than you think.”
“Try me.”
“Have you been home lately, Dex?” I whispered.
“My home is here.” His jaw flexed, and I saw the haunted look in his eyes. “I don’t go back there unless it’s for family.”
I wanted to ask him to elaborate and share everything he’d been through. But it wasn’t my place. “Right. Well, things are different for me now. I have responsibilities there.”
“We all have responsibilities,” he corrected, and he was right, so I just shrugged.
“Well, I’m sorry for how things—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he cut me off. “Especially when we can make all that go away with you following through with my plan.”
“Does everyone do what you want around here, Dex?”
“It’s my resort. Of course they do.”
“You think me being with you is going to fix everything?”
“It’ll be a start.” He crossed his arms and stared down at me with disgust.
“If you think that, you’re living in a fantasy land.”
“A fantasy?” He lifted a brow and then leaned in close. “You’re real, Kee. Maybe the all-American Keelani Hale isn’t real, but you here in front of me is. I still feel you next me. I still hear your laugh. I still smell how sweet you taste—”
“Stop.” Too late. He already saw the goose bumps rise on my skin.
He slid his finger across them on my arm, and we both watched how my body immediately reacted to him. I licked my lips and met his eyes right as he looked at me. “I won’t stop until I have you. You know that, Kee. I won’t stop till I get you out of my fucking system.”
“Out of your system while you infect mine?” I shook my head at him. To anyone else, this conversation may have been dramatic, but I knew how Dex could ruin me. I’d never love another man like I loved him. Leaving him had broken not only my heart, but my soul and my spirit.
“Tit for tat, heartbreaker. You ruined my whole life when you left.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You want to risk what I’ll do if you remain engaged to someone I hate while under contract with me?”
“So…what? You’re going to make my life hell if I’m engaged to another man?”
He stood there staring at me as I glared at him. Somehow the background noise around us fell away, the lights seemed to spotlight on him, all my thoughts quieted. “Absolutely. So, you ready to be done with his ring on your finger, Kee?”
“Dex.” I almost whimpered his name now. And then I said softly, “Honestly, why?”
Dex Hardy, in a three-piece suit and all grown up, stood in front of me, ready to take over my world. And then he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Because your ass knows. You’re not marrying anyone but me.”
He took my fast-paced, always-moving world, grabbed it, and caused it to come to a screeching halt. I jerked back, stumbled over my own footing, and almost fell before he righted my stance. I didn’t thank him but wiggled out of his grip again as I stuttered, “L-Look. I already agreed to be with—”
“If you say you’re with Ethan Phillipe one more fucking time, I’ll bring him here and make him admit to everyone your engagement is a fuck-up of a sham. Maybe I’ll make him admit how many times he’s fucked you too.”
I rolled my eyes, because I could only tell him we were fake so many times. “What if he says it was a million?”
He growled and paced away from me before he came right back and said, “You want him to die, don’t you? He must have been real fucking annoying over the years if you’re willing to goad me into punching him a million times.”
Well, Ethan was annoying sometimes, even though I loved him as a friend. I couldn’t stop the smirk that crept out. “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”
One side of Dex’s mouth kicked up. “I don’t know anything, Kee. But I’m going to learn. I got six months to learn every part of you.”
I sighed, looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to us, and then grumbled, “I’m not saying yes yet. I need a drink or time or something to think this over.”
He chuckled. “Careful. Can’t have anyone hearing their sweet Keelani saying she needs a drink.”
I scoffed and brushed past him toward the bar. I hated that he caught me glancing around and that it was true. My reputation controlled me. I’d been trapped far too long.
“You do realize the fact that I have to act like sweet Keelani all the time in front of people makes me less sweet behind closed doors.”
He hummed. “I think I might enjoy the sour version of you after all this time.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure. But even if I do enjoy you, I’m still going to fuck you like I hate you when we get back to the room.”
My stupid, traitorous core clenched in response to his comment. This was going to be the longest six months of my life. I already knew it.
I ordered two shots and downed them both.
