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  Chapter Seven

  Two Weeks Later

  Dustin swore under his breath one more time for good measure as he watched the complex play of emotions cross his father’s face. Keeping his body loose and relaxed by the sheer force of his will, he wished he hadn’t stopped smoking for the first time in years. His father tented his fingers in front of his face, a classic Prufrock stalling mechanism and one he was familiar with. He kept quiet. Filling the air with unnecessary words was not his style. Instead, he looked around his father’s large office, littered with photos of famous people and politicians posing with Maxwell Prufrock on the golf course, inside large Prufrock warehouses, on Lake Michigan beaches and in tuxedoes. All of them known to be wealthy and conservative in their politics and all eager to get on the good side of the richest, most successful entrepreneur in the Midwest. Dustin tried not to sigh like an impatient little kid. His father had hated that even when he had been an impatient little kid.

  “Son,” he finally intoned, “I think you are making a mistake.”

  “Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time you thought that I suppose.”

  His father’s tired-looking face broke into a grin. “No, it wouldn’t be, but this—” The man leaned on his elbows and stared Dustin down, making him feel like the thirteen-year-old he’d been once who’d put frogs in his cousins’ beds at the lake house. “Dustin.” The elder man’s voice was deep and angry. “Your mother is not going to like it.”

  Dustin groaned and leaned back. “Dad, my mother doesn’t like anything I do. I want to know what you think for a change, not what you think she’s going to think.”

  “That’s where you are dead wrong. Your mother only wants you to be happy. As do I. And life with Valerie would be…could be…”

  “Miserable. And I refuse to subject either of us to it.”

  His father frowned at him. “She’s a lovely girl. She cares for you. Will make a fine mother.”

  “Dad, I don’t love her. I never have. She’s great in bed, I won’t kid you, but otherwise, I don’t want to be forty years in a loveless marriage, her drunk every night by ten and me banging everything on two legs in the meantime.” He shot his father a meaningful look. The man had the decency to look flustered.

  His father kept muttering then stood, indicating the audience was over. Dustin rose, shook his father’s hand, wishing for the sort of relationship where he could get real advice and not a bunch of platitudes and excuses. “But it’s your decision. And you are responsible for telling your mother.”

  Dustin let a brief disquiet settle in his chest. His mother had dominated his life, without a doubt, taking her role as seriously as she did everything. But had been unable to let go of him, feeling a need to micromanage him still. And her displeasure could be a real force of nature. He’d rebelled against her in every way he knew how, from smoking as a teenager and screwing girls in the basement of their house nearly nightly, to the moment he took off for the west coast and then Germany with her displeasure trailing after him like fog he couldn’t outrun. The need to shock and still please her nestled together in his psyche like conjoined twins. But he knew this whole marriage compromise with her had to end, now.

  “I know, Dad. I always do.”

  His father put a hand on his shoulder. “Is there someone else?” His green eyes were searching. Dustin decided to own up to it, even though he doubted anything would ever come of the whole thing especially after their disastrous second day together.

  “Yes. There is. She doesn’t know it yet though.”

  His father’s booming laugh eased some of the tension that curled in his gut at the thought of the next conversation he had to have, and the one after that, with the actual woman in question, who had to strip off the Prufrock family emerald-cut diamond when they were done talking. Jesus, what a fucking mess.

  His heart still pounded by the time he climbed behind the wheel of his car. He’d just bought the stupid thing a few weeks ago, ditching the gas-guzzling SUV he’d been driving for a couple of years. This one was worse on the show-off scale, but damn him if he didn’t love the deep rumble of a Porsche motor and the roar of the manual gearshift. He sat, windows down, gulping in air, reliving the moment two weeks ago when he’d known he was ass over teakettle in lust with Helena Turner. Realizing it was likely a bad idea to go with an impulse, he grabbed his phone and typed out a quick text to her.

  Hey. Can we talk?

  It took all of ninety seconds to get his response. No.

  Come on, I’m sorry. I mean, for whatever it was I did that pissed you off.

  He waited another sixty seconds

  You know why I’m mad. Don’t be obtuse. It’s unattractive.

  You’re the attractive one. Not me.

  Flattery gets you nowhere. Go on now, go take your fiancée out to lunch or something. I’m sure she has nothing better to do. I have to work.

  Dustin winced but made himself respond. I told you. She won’t be my fiancée after tonight.

  Well if your ability to control yourself around other women is any indication, it’s probably a good thing for her.

  He could practically see her furiously typing out her responses on the phone. Could picture her biting her lower lip in angry concentration. He gripped the steering wheel a minute, trying to come up with a decent response. But he couldn’t so he threw the phone in the passenger seat and squealed out onto the street, heading to his parents’ house, and his date with a bout of maternal anger. The last step before he met Valerie herself. They had plans to attend some tuxedo-required fundraiser with his parents and he’d tried to convince her to skip it but she’d insisted. Probably anticipating some sort of scene she could avoid by being dressed up and hanging on his arm like a decoration. But he was not going to let it happen.

  Dustin ran a slightly shaking hand through his hair and stared at the woman who clung to him like a barnacle. In spite of the fact that he’d started out the night by telling her their engagement was over, she’d smiled, patted his face and insisted they attend this obnoxious fundraiser together. With his parents. If there was a hell, he was most certainly smack in the middle of it. Sucking back yet another of his own brewery’s beers, he glanced around at the glittering crowd of rich assholes, congratulating each other on being so rich by overbidding on lame-ass vacations and wine dinners for a charity he’d already forgotten.

  He pulled his arm out of Valerie’s clutches. The look she shot him would easily have floored a weaker man. But he kept his gaze flat and noncommittal. Only leaning in at the last minute. “I will need the ring back by the end of the night. I’m gonna find the bathroom, and the bar.” She sucked in a breath, and he thought once again how amazingly lucky he was to do this now, before they went through with the charade and made each other miserable until death did them part. Even after six beers he felt stone-cold sober. And that was not how he wanted to feel.

  After the disaster up in Traverse City with Helena, he’d ended up calling a friend he knew who lived halfway between there and Grand Rapids. He’d laughed his fool ass off at Dustin all the way home, but they’d gone out and gotten shitfaced after that, which allowed Dustin to force all memories of the amazing creature who’d fucked him, then left him high and dry two hours from home, out of his brain. At least until the crashing hangover had dissipated the next day and she filled his head again.

  “Hey, Dustin.” Some random tool dressed in a monkey suit identical to his slapped him on the back. “Great job with the new place.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He tried to muster enthusiasm but couldn’t. He looked for an out, but ended up talking to the guy for nearly an hour, feigning interest in his chatter. He got a lot of advice from people and usually he could let it roll off his shoulders, ignoring the bulk of it as assholes wanting to hear themselves talk. But this guy grated on his nerves. He drank another beer waiting for him to finish. But a feminine hand on his shoulder stopped him from rising to his feet and being insufferably rude. His foul mood h
ad only deepened the longer he went without having some sort of resolution with Helena. The sight of Valerie’s well-manicured hand still sporting his grandmother’s ring did nothing to dispel his frustration. He jerked out from under her touch and stomped away.

  As he emerged from the bathroom, a bit calmer after splashing water on his face and giving himself a lecture, his mother pounced. Clutching his arm, she led him over to a bank of plants and whispered in his ear, “You cannot do this to Valerie tonight, Dustin. It’s just not right.”

  He glared at her. “Mother, it’s not your business. We had this discussion. Stay out of it.” He forced his natural reaction to placate her while simultaneously rebelling under a thin layer of adult control. He took a breath. “I realize what you’re saying. But you said you’d let me handle it my way, remember?”

  She gave him the familiar I’m-so-disappointed-in-you-son withering glare. He ignored her, took the phone from his pocket and pretended to take a call. She narrowed her eyes then moved away, her gait regal, revealing nothing of the trouble underneath, as usual. He had to get out of here before he imploded and started a scene. His discontent had rumbled around in his gut, kept him up late, made him touchy and short with his staff. And he hated himself. Hated his inability to make Helena really listen to him and for being a weakling when it came to Valerie. Well, that he could solve now.

  He saw her across the lobby, her thin frame encased in designer black, her long hair swept up in an elegant pseudo-casual style. She was attractive. She had the pedigree. She’d no doubt take to the job of being Mrs. Dustin Prufrock with all the gusto she gave to her loud, over-the-top orgasms. But the thought of being married to her, having to be with her, day in and day out, made him cringe. And it always had. If he never worked the damn thing out with Helena, at least she’d made him realize that. He gulped, knowing that “never working the damn thing out with Helena” was simply not an option for him, but unsure what to do about it.

  He walked over to her, pulled her away from the crowd of similarly skeletal women, and sat her down on a couch as far from the crowd as he could get.

  She lifted her chin. “You’re drunk.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “No, actually, I am pretty sober considering.”

  She leaned back, crossed her long, well-exercised legs, flashing him a glimpse of tanned thigh. Valerie was no lightweight and he knew damn good and well she’d not go without a fight. He steeled himself for it. “I’m sorry, Valerie. Like I said, I never should have asked you in the first place. Please try not to take it personally.”

  She sipped from her glass of wine. “‘Personally’ is the only way one can take being dumped, Dustin. So spare me your lame apologies.” She put the glass on the table at her side, slid the large diamond off her finger and held it out. He palmed it, turning it over in his hand a few times. He started to speak, but she stood, glaring down at him. “I repeat, spare me.” She moved gracefully away into the crowd. Dustin sat back, amazed but relieved with a sudden urge to get the hell away from here and back in front of Helena. To make her understand how he felt. He stood, sudden purpose lightening his soul. Ignoring everyone who stared, he strode out the front door of the Women’s Club and into the cold night.

  Helena stared at the laptop screen, willing it to work faster so she could complete the day’s report and take a shower. She pressed her fingers into her eyes, trying to take it all back. The flirtation, the temptation, the amazing sex, all of it.

  Dustin Prufrock.

  His scent, the feel of his body she got so briefly, made her shudder. Granted, it had been a long while since her last physical encounter; maybe she’d overreacted to him.

  But he would not exit her brain. His very essence had latched onto her psyche, giving it a nice shake, just enough to rattle her, make her pissed off at herself yet again. She glanced around the studio apartment she rented over a downtown dress store.

  Along with the rest of her generation who’d grown up in Grand Rapids, she knew of his family and their fortune made in the food-supply store business. Dustin was their only child. A golden boy who displayed just enough rebellion as a teenager and now with his brewing dream to remain cool and dripping with women. And apparently engaged to a fellow silver-spoon child of Grand Rapids royalty. She paced, sipping one of her favorite beers. She stopped, glanced at the label—Prufrock 420 IPA. “Fuck!” She heaved the bottle across the room and smiled when it shattered against the wall, making a lovely, liquid amber mess of glass down her wall.

  A loud rap sounded at her door. “Hey, you okay in there?” When she peered through the grimy peephole, she had to resist the urge to groan from consternation. Dustin. With what looked like food, more beer, dressed in—she squinted—a tuxedo and balancing a bunch of deep red flowers in the other hand. She turned away, leaned on the hard, wooden surface and took a deep breath.

  What the hell?

  Arranging her face into what felt like a neutral and annoyed look, she opened the door and stood, arms crossed.

  “You again?”

  He grinned, making her scalp tingle. “Sounds like you just brained somebody with a beer bottle in here. Need help burying the body? I’ll go get a shovel.”

  She shrugged, shoved down the urge to wrap herself around his tall, lanky frame and stood back instead. “Well, come on in. But I’ll warn you I am in a shitty mood. I have had the most aggravating ride-along work days lately.” She stared, amazed at her capacity to be stupid as he stepped into her small kitchen and set the bags on the counter. Without a word, he stuck the six-pack in the ancient fridge, grabbed a beer stein from her dish drainer and plunked at least a dozen huge red roses into it, running a little water over their stems. Whistling, he pulled containers of delicious-smelling Indian food from the greasy bag.

  She remained propped against the front door, observing his busyness in her space, trying to calm her pounding heart. After he found forks and brought all the containers to the table in front of her couch, he popped the lids off two more Prufrock IPAs and smiled at her. She grinned back, unable to stop herself. Then made herself focus, find paper towels and her Dustbuster, and began cleaning up the mess she’d made.

  “I love a girl with a healthy temper.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re trying to get into my pants again, sweet talker.” She stayed bent to the task, trying to ignore him, berating herself for letting him in the door. He stood, watching her work, the bow tie dangling down the sides of the open-at-the-neck stark-white shirt. He slipped out of his jacket, draping it on one of her mismatched kitchen chairs. They stood, staring at each other long enough for it to feel awkward. “Why are you here, Dustin?” She tried to sound strong, but it came out a weak whisper. “I’m not interested, remember? I’m the girl who left you without a ride in Traverse?”

  He chuckled, running a hand across his jaw. She immediately picked up on the fatigue in his stance, the way his eyes were red-rimmed and tired-looking. She held on to the back of a chair to keep from closing the distance between them and gathering him in her arms. The last two weeks had been a sheer hell of remorse and emptiness. She missed him, amazingly enough, and not just his lips and hands, although those would be welcomed at just about any point. No, she missed his voice, his humor, his beer knowledge, his very presence. It had soothed her in ways she’d not been willing to acknowledge until this minute as he stood, looking at her, misery etched in every line of his face.

  “I broke up with her.” He held up the ring she’d seen on Valerie Masterson’s finger. He shrugged and put it away. “I was going to anyway. I promise. It was just…” He stopped and slumped back against the wall. “A badly timed call from her, before I could erase that stupid picture she attached to her name in my contacts.” He held out both hands. “I’m here because I wanted to see you. Why do you find that so hard to believe? I mean, you are a beautiful woman. And I won’t deny wanting a repeat of our cooler moment, slower, easier, and without the risk of someone walking in on us. But I’m here to see you,
to talk. If you will let me.”

  She smiled and he visibly relaxed. But she kept her distance. “Okay, Prufrock. We can talk, but that’s it. You are not to get close enough to touch me. Not until we make a few things clear.”

  He nodded, grabbed a water bottle from her fridge and sat, offering her a sip. She took it, steeling herself against the whiff of his cologne that caught her off guard. The water went down the wrong way, making her cough and sputter and wave her hands around like Kermit the frog. He laughed and stood next to her, smacking her back with a little too much enthusiasm. “Ow,” she muttered. He kept his palm against her for a second longer than was necessary, removing it only when she glared at him. But her heart had resumed its now familiar Dustin-proximity rhythm and she knew she would be a goner if he remained in her personal space much longer. “Go sit,” she insisted, trying to keep her face neutral.

  But he stayed put, finally kneeling next to her and catching a lock of her hair that had come loose from the utilitarian tie-back. Her skin pebbled but she kept her eyes down, watching as he rubbed the dark blonde strand between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear. Trying not to bite her lip like a little kid, she chanced a glance over at him and was shocked at the raw emotion on his handsome face. “Don’t,” she croaked out in what she intended to be a strong command but ended in a weird squeak. He ran a surprisingly rough fingertip down her cheek, along her jaw and neck, resting briefly along her exposed collarbone. She shut her eyes, but her body kept responding. When his lips touched where his finger had been she meant to push him away, but apparently her hands had a mind of their own.

  He leaned in, cupping her face with one hand, letting his lips continue their journey along her shoulder and back up her neck as she threaded her fingers in his hair. Berating herself so loudly in her mind she was surprised he didn’t hear it. She let him part her thighs and settle between her legs, run his hands down her arms and around her waist then back up again. The heat spread from her face south and she gasped as he put a palm against the curve her bra-less breast, arching into him as if attached to a live wire.