“This has nothing to do with you, Dillon. Why can’t you understand that? We have too much against us. Both of our fathers, the Miller curse, the probability of—”
“This isn’t about hereditary traits, bullshit curses, or math equations, Aly. It’s love. You’re either in it, or you aren’t. If you are, then it’s as simple as getting what you put into it. And I plan on putting everything I have and more into this thing.”
Lifting a shoulder in a helpless shrug, she said, “I’m scared.” She hated that her voice trembled.
“You think I’m not? After telling myself my whole life that I wasn’t the type of guy to stick around, I’m handing you my heart on a silver platter to do what you want with it. Because I realized today that no matter what, it’ll only ever be yours, Aly.”
Damn it, why did he have to make so much sense? Why did he have to say all the right things to make her forget what logic and common sense told her? She wanted to say yes. She wanted to tell him that nothing would make her happier than to continue things as they’d been for the last twenty-four hours.
Maybe if they talked some more she could work through her fears and they could see where things went from there. Try having that relationship she’d dreamed of having with him for the last several years.
Except what if it didn’t work out? Losing him now would hurt…but losing him later, after she fell completely and hopelessly in love with him and built a life with him…that would destroy her. Unequivocally and irreparably.
“I can’t,” she whispered through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”
He lowered his gaze to stare off into the distance. “So am I.” Even with how far away he was, Alyssa swore she saw moisture gathering in his eyes. Seeing him so hurt and knowing she was the cause, it was all too much.
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the column. “Dillon…”
“I’m sorry, Alyssa. Truly I am. I never meant to ruin your weekend, much less our friendship. I think it’d be best if we have some time apart. My dad wants me to help the foreman at the Colorado Springs location for a while, so I guess I’ll head down there. Later, Aly-gator.”
Hearing the call disconnect, she whipped her gaze down to where Dillon had been standing only moments before. “Dillon? Dillon.”
She knew he was no longer on the other end of the phone, just as he was no longer standing below like Romeo denied access to her balcony, or worse yet, her heart.
Chapter Ten
The world pulled out of focus. Colors and shapes fused together before her eyes. The myriad pitches in the din around her melted into a muffled monotone that plugged her ears and pressed in on her brain.
Fingers snapped in front of her face. “Earth to Alyssa. Hellooooo.” Finally registering that Trent had been calling her name, she turned her head in his direction. He gasped and gathered up her hands. “Honey, what’s wrong? You look like me when Barneys has a huge sale but all my cards are maxed out.”
Her body was a contradiction of reactions. Never one to give in to hysterics or public displays that might draw attention, Alyssa locked her expression in place like that of a Botox patient. A nondescript visage that belied the pain and sadness welling inside her, except for the silent tears that slid down her cheeks.
“I think I just lost the most important person in my life,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I don’t know what to do, Trent. I don’t know if I can fix it. What do I do?”
“Oh, you poor thing, come with me.” Taking her hand, Trent led her through the crowd of masquerade attendees and through a door he used a special key card to open.
Inside, a cozy office held a mahogany desk, a wine-red antique settee in place of guest chairs, and a small bar with mini-fridge. Bookshelves lined with copies of everything from encyclopedias to historical fiction to romance novels, all with worn covers that showed they’d been well loved over the years. The only odd element was the wall made primarily of one massive window that overlooked the ballroom.
“Welcome to my home away from home.” He closed the door and ushered her to the settee. “Here, sit. Can I get you something to drink? Whiskey and water, hold the water?”
She plopped onto the plush cushion in a graceless heap. “Hold the whiskey,” she managed. As lovely as it would be to drink until all her senses were numb, she didn’t want the morning to be riddled with more regrets than she already had due to impaired judgment.
Trent emptied a cold bottled water into a glass and handed it to her as he sat. “Now tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
So she did.
She told him about meeting Dillon in the third grade and how he didn’t treat her like a freak for skipping grades and stuck up for her when the other kids teased her. How they became so inseparable that people viewed them as a package deal, like Siamese twins. It was assumed that by inviting one you invited them both.
She informed Trent of everything he needed to know and even rambled about things he didn’t. She relayed important events in chronological order, then veered off to reminisce about a particular story before bringing herself back to the time line of facts.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Alyssa knew Trent didn’t need to know most of it, and yet she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t bring herself to get to the point in the story that mattered. The part that started with him appearing in a Tarzan costume, continued with him awakening feelings in her she never knew existed, and ended with him leaving in a tuxedo meant for romance.
Because if she did that—if she said it out loud—the bad dream would become a reality she wasn’t ready to come to terms with.
But then she told him about their weekly dates with reality TV, specifically the one from a few days before where she told him her plan for this weekend and he freaked out on her. And how he showed up out of nowhere and pretended to be a cover model to gain access to the event and then had shocked the hell out of her by suggesting she scratch her sexual itch with him.
Trent listened, his rapt attention only interrupted by getting her more water and a box of tissues from his desk. When she at last finished, Alyssa felt drained and not a little defeated from listening to her own story from beginning to end.
“Wow,” she said, dabbing under her eyes. “Somehow I feel worse after putting it all out there. So much for cathartic release.”
He patted her hand between his. “Give yourself a break, sweetie. It’s too fresh; you can’t expect getting it off your chest will be enough to allow a deep breath just yet.”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
He sat back and asked, “How many times have you had your heart broken?”
She frowned and almost asked him to clarify. Then her common sense kicked her overanalytical brain in the shin and took over. The question was simple and had a simple answer. “None.”
“What?” Then he hitched a dubious eyebrow at her. “How did you make it to your twenties without getting your heart broken eleventy-billion times?”
Alyssa shrugged. “I never dated anyone seriously in high school or college and haven’t found anyone worth dating since I came back home.”
“Ah, now I see. You were waiting on him.”
“What? No. Yes. I mean, maybe.” Her shoulders sagged as she sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m so confused. It’s like I have a split personality. The older me wants to believe that love and a strong commitment can outlast anything. But the younger me keeps reminding me of what happens when you give your heart to someone and they decide they no longer want it.”
“Someone you know?” he asked with understanding coloring his tone.
Alyssa dropped her gaze to the crumpled tissue in her fingers. “My mother,” she said softly. “I remember how she was when I was young. Vibrant, energetic. Sure of herself, of who she was and her place in this world.” A smile crept through as she remembered playing with her mom, making up games, spending hours in the library together. “She was my hero.”
“And now?”
>
The smile fell away; the tissue became ensnared in a fist. “Now she’s a mere shell of her former self. To this day, she still says things like ‘When your father comes home’ and gets excited every time someone knocks on her door. She’ll always be waiting for him to love her back, but it’ll never happen. I refuse to be like that. To let my love for someone rule my life.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
Taking a deep breath, she released it slowly, forcing her shoulders to relax. She may have even succeeded by a degree or two. “Would you mind if I hung out in here for a while? I’m not in the mood to go masquerading anymore, but I’m not quite ready to go back to my room.” Where everything I look at will remind me of Dillon.
“Of course not. I have some emails to catch up on, so feel free to curl up with a book, order room service, or watch the show,” he said, pointing to the window. “I call this the Crow’s Nest because I can see everything that goes on down there. One way or another it’s always entertaining.”
She offered him a wan smile. “Thanks.”
Though she didn’t feel much like watching everyone have fun, it was a better option than staring at the floor and feeling sorry for herself. Standing at the window, she surveyed the ballroom. Hundreds of women in dresses of every color and style imaginable. Some chose to go big like Alyssa with the Cinderella-style gowns; others wore dresses chic enough for the red carpet. The couple dozen or so men stood out in their tuxedos, and of course, everyone wore some type of mask.
The scene was an eclectic array of people and activities, to say the very least. One area offered romance novel-inspired carnival games run by the cover models who, not surprisingly, had been relieved of their jackets and shirts. Since they still wore their black bow ties, she supposed they technically still met the required attire for a black-tie affair.
Front and center, a four-string quartet played ballroom music that no one knew how to dance to properly, but that didn’t stop them from trying. Couples spun and twirled and bumped into each other so much that from Alyssa’s vantage point, the dance floor looked more like a human bumper car ride. Two couples collided in a way that had both women spinning off in opposite directions while the men smashed together to land on the floor in an awkward embrace. Watching them was so farcical that a little chuckle escaped before she could hold it back.
“Okay, I’m intrigued. Which is another way of saying I have situational ADD and don’t want to work.” Trent sidled up beside her and peered down. “What’s giving you a case of the giggles over here?”
Alyssa pointed to the dance floor and he gasped. “Oh my God, what a nightmare. It’s like Night of the Dancing Dead down there.” That actually did make her giggle. They did move rather zombie-ish in their attempts to look prim and proper. “I told Patricia to go with a DJ or an indie band, but did she listen?”
“Speak of the devil,” Alyssa said with a nod in the direction of the table holding the immense punch bowl. Patricia Plimpton, romance royalty and hostess of the yearly convention, wore an elegant light blue, floor-length gown adorned with sequins. Although she wore a matching half mask, she was recognizable by her impeccable posture and silvery hair pulled into her signature French roll. It was hard to tell from so far away, but it appeared that she’d taken a flask out of her silver clutch before discreetly tucking it under her wrap.
“What is she up to now?” Trent wondered aloud. “I swear that woman is a few olives short of a perfect martini these last couple years.”
“You may be right,” she said, returning her attention to the entertaining dancers, “but regular music wouldn’t be nearly as memorable. If Dillon were here, that’s where we’d be. On the dance floor, trying to mimic the moves we’ve seen in movies or just making things up as we go. We’d try to keep our faces serious, but it would only work a few seconds at a time before we busted out laughing.”
“Huh,” he grunted thoughtfully. “Sounds like you’ve had some experience.”
“We have.” Alyssa faced him, leaning her shoulder against the cool glass. “I was his ‘plus one’ at his college buddy’s wedding and his bride came from this rich, pretentious family that made the entire event into a spectacle.” She laughed as she remembered Dillon spinning her into the table holding the gaudy ice sculpture. “Let’s just say her parents weren’t impressed with our attempts at ballroom dancing.”
“Please tell me there’s a video on YouTube.” He cursed when she shook her head. “So what happened?”
“Actually, the mother had had a few too many by that point and she lit into me pretty bad. I was mortified and ready to leave, per her suggestion, but Dillon came to my rescue. He not so tactfully pointed out that if she hadn’t spent so much money on an ugly ice sculpture, she could have afforded a decent band to begin with.”
“No, he didn’t.”
She was full out laughing now. It’d been so long since she’d thought about that day. “Oh, yes, he did. Then he told her that under no circumstances were we leaving until we ballroom danced our asses off, drank our weight at the open bar, and found suitable foster homes for her poor poodles.”
Trent’s jaw had gone slack, clearly astonished by her story. “What was wrong with her poodles?”
“She owned two standard poodles—both male, mind you—and dyed them bright pink to match the bridesmaid dresses. As if the rhinestone bowtie collars and grooming them to look like fancy shrubbery wasn’t bad enough.”
“Ew. Tacky much?”
“I agree. I believe Dillon called it animal abuse. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the dance floor for one last song—just on principle, he said—before we headed to the desserts and fed the poodles tiramisu and champagne under the table.” She winced from a tinge of guilt. “Which may or may not have caused them to vomit in the koi pond.”
“Holy Hannah, you need to submit that to a bridal magazine. Or Vogue. Or Cosmo. Some-goddamn-where. Sweetie, that is the most epic of tales in the history of epic tales.”
She chuckled, helpless not to adore Trent in all of his idiosyncratic charm. “It is pretty great.”
“Your Dillon sounds like a regular knight in shining armor.”
Alyssa’s smile faded. She turned her face and leaned her forehead on the window, seemingly watching the spectacle below, but only seeing Dillon in her mind’s eye with his lopsided grin and perceptive gaze. “He really is. Always has been, actually. If there’s one thing I could always count on in my life, it was that Dillon would always be there for me. He protected me when he could and comforted me when he couldn’t.” Tears started clogging her throat and welling in her eyes. “He never told me, but I think it killed him that he couldn’t spare me from getting hurt every time my father left. As I got older, I tried not to let it show—I figured there was no point in letting my father affect both of us—but Dillon always knew, and he always stayed with me until I evened out.”
When Trent spoke again, it was quiet and tentative. “So how many times did Dillon hurt you?”
She whipped her head forward and stared at her friend with her brows pinched. Had the man not been listening? “He would never. Dillon would sooner cut off his arm than do anything to hurt…” Her voice trailed off as something in her brain unlocked and dozens of memories and thoughts flooded into the center, all tiny pieces of a larger puzzle that began to take shape.
“Oh my God. He would never hurt me,” she said under her breath. Then louder with more conviction, “He would never hurt me.”
A sly grin spread over Trent’s face as he crossed his arms in satisfaction. “Glad to hear it.”
“Oh my God.” How many times was she going to say that? “I’m such an idiot. Trent, what the hell am I doing?”
“I think it’s called having an epiphany.”
Alyssa grabbed him by the shoulders hoping it would help him understand her run-on sentences. “Dillon is about to get on a plane for home, and then he’s leaving town for I don’t know how long because I told
him I don’t feel the same for him as he does me. But I lied. I lied to myself and I lied to him. I do love him; I always have. And now I know he loves me, too, and oh my God I’m such an idiot!” Her hand flew to her forehead as she called his cell, praying he’d pick up. But his voicemail greeting kicked on and her stomach dropped. “He turned his phone off. Shit! I need to talk to him. What am I going to do?”
Trent started crossing to the door. “You’re going to get to him before he gets on the plane. Let’s go.”
It took a few seconds for his meaning to sink in, but it still didn’t make sense. “Getting to him before his plane leaves isn’t going to matter unless you know how to get us through security.” She waited for his “oh, right,” response, but he didn’t so much as flinch at the mention of the complication. A spark of hope flared in her chest. “Can you?”
His eyebrow hitched arrogantly as if to scold her for even doubting him. Holding the door open, he said, “Honey, as far as you’re concerned, this is Oz, and I’m the motherfucking Wizard.”
Chapter Eleven
Alyssa and Trent burst through the main doors of the Masquerade to the bustling semicircular drive. She looked to where the taxi line was three rows deep. Her stomach dropped. “We’ll never make it if we have to wait that long.”
“Gimme a sec to see what I have to work with,” he said as he scanned the area while Alyssa tried like hell not to tug on his sleeve like an impatient child. “Bingo.”
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her toward an old pink Cadillac convertible the length of a yacht. An Elvis impersonator, who was just as much a “late model” as the car, wearing a white jumpsuit bedazzled to the gills that stretched uncomfortably over his ample belly sat behind the wheel. A Marilyn Monroe in her iconic white halter dress opened the passenger door just as Alyssa and Trent practically barreled into the side of the car.
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