InHap*pily Ever After

by Kim Desalvo

  “Tia,” Dylan laughed, pulling her from her concentration as she hauled out all the clothes she’d bought at Harrods when they were in London; the only things in her wardrobe that even came close to being worthy of taking with her. “Sit down for a second. You’re like a bloody tornado.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and he rested his hand on her knee. “I’ve got nothing, Dylan. Nothing worthy of being on television, nothing for meeting your parents…”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “We’ll take care of it later. I’ll have Jessa get a few things for the early interviews, and the two of you can go shopping between appearances.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he silenced her with a kiss. “Hey. What’s mine is yours now, love,” he said. “One of the things you’re going to have to get used to is that you don’t have to worry about money. I have plenty to share and I would love nothing more than to spoil you a little.”

  Tia scowled, but then threw her hands in the air in surrender. “Well, I don’t see that I have much of a choice. Most of the stuff I bought in England doesn’t exactly project the image I want to put out to the public, I’m afraid.”

  Dylan smiled, remembering the smoking hot red dress she wore the night in Northampton when his friends realized, before he even did, that he was hopelessly in love with her. “I agree. That red dress should be for my eyes only,” he teased. “Just worry about the basics, then.” He watched with interest as she opened a drawer and started pulling out panties and bras; leopard print, pink with lace accents—and had visions of taking them off of her slowly, maybe with his teeth… “Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Imagining you in those makes me want to get down to basics.”

  “Yeah, you like?” Tia teased, holding up a lacy purple bra over her faded Bears sweatshirt. “It’d only take me a minute to change.”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” he said, “but we have a lot of details to work out in a short amount of time. I think you should put that near the top of the suitcase, though,” he added, waggling his eyebrows, “for later.” Tia pulled out some matching panties, and tucked them into a pocket of the bag. “Ah, I so wish it didn’t have to be like this…I just want to hole up with you for about a week and ravage you non-stop, but we’re going to have a very busy couple weeks, I’m afraid.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said sarcastically.

  “Ha ha,” he replied with just as much sarcasm. “But let’s put things in perspective, shall we? Before we even worry about talk shows or interviews, we have some business to take care of here. First and foremost, I need to meet your parents, Tia. I need to thank them for raising such an incredible woman, and let them know my intentions are pure. Then we need to make appearances at as many of your hang-outs as we can. If you don’t make personal introductions people will be insulted, and that can cause a lot of negative backlash.”

  “Grrrr,” Tia growled, sucking in a deep breath. “God, I know,” she said, drawing the words out in exasperation. “Oh Dylan…I do want to tell everyone—I’ve been wanting for so long to tell the whole world who I’m in love with—but I just want to keep you to myself, too. I know those two worlds can’t coexist, but still…”

  Dylan raised one eyebrow at her. “You know, it was pretty hard not to notice that no one you work with knew I was ‘your Dylan,’” he said. “I think Lilly about had a bloody heart attack when I walked into the office.” He smiled, remembering the school secretary’s confused expression as she matched the face in the photograph tacked to her wall with the one on the man in front of her. “Does anyone know?”

  Tia looked down at their joined hands and shook her head slowly. “No,” she confessed. “After what happened at the airport in Italy, I was afraid to tell anyone. I’d kept you a secret for so long already; I just figured it would be easier to deal with all the changes when we were together.”

  He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I don’t know whether to be impressed…or insulted,” he teased. “Seriously…no one knows?”

  “No one but Lexi,” Tia said, adding, “Can you believe she’s kept the secret all this time?”

  “I have to say that I’m definitely impressed about that,” Dylan chuckled. “I’m really glad that you waited actually—I would’ve been worried sick being on the other side of the world and thinking of you dealing with the media all alone, even without the whole…other situation. Plus, it’s given you a lot of time to think things through. I bet you’re more ready for this than you think you are. You’ll be brilliant.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if ready is exactly the right term,” she said with a smirk. “But I can say with complete confidence that I’m ready for that part of it to be over.”

  “This’ll be the fun part,” he smiled, “meeting your family and friends.”

  Tia was lost in her own thoughts for a moment before she responded. “Wow, I have so much to tell everyone,” she whispered “especially my parents. It’s been horrible having to lie to them. None of them know about Paris, or Wembley, or the songs you wrote me…I’ve only been able to share a few pictures; and now I can finally tell them everything! That part of it’s going to be amazing…it’ll be like reliving the whole thing over again now that I can finally talk about it.”

  “And I’m excited to share that with you,” Dylan said. “So let’s think about this. We’re leaving Sunday for California. I promised my good friend Tony that I’d give him the exclusive, and he’s worked out a Sunday night special for our little ‘coming out party.’ He’s sending his private jet over…”

  “Tony Granger?” Tia asked. It was the only Tony she knew of who had that kind of pull—he had the number one late night talk show on television. She realized that she and Dylan still had a lot to learn about each other—she hadn’t known that the two of them were friends.

  “The very one,” he said. “He was one of the first people to give InHap the stage and an interview, and we’ve been friends ever since. I called him during my layover in San Francisco and he had it set up within a couple of hours. I don’t know the whole schedule yet—Jessa’s working on it—but I do know that we’ll do that on Sunday, and a couple other smaller shows on Monday. We’ll head out to New York sometime during the week to do it all over again on the East Coast, and Jessa’ll change our flight so we can leave for Australia from there. That means we only have today and tomorrow to make all the introductions…”

  “Oh no,” Tia said. “Not today. I’m going to have to share you with the whole damn world way sooner than I want to—I’m keeping you all to myself today.”

  “Absolutely agreed,” Dylan replied. “But that means tomorrow’s going to be really busy.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think maybe we should meet your parents at the country club. I know you don’t hang out there much anymore…”

  “I don’t hang out there at all,” Tia sighed, “but I had a feeling you were going to suggest it. Most of those people don’t mean anything to me. Why there?”

  “Well, first of all, we should really do as many personal intros as we can before we hit the air waves,” he explained, “and a lot of people there know you. I know the place might not mean anything to you anymore, but it does to your parents. This’ll be a huge story, and they’ll be part of it too, especially in their social circles. You said yourself that your mother loves her gossip. She’ll be at the top of the pecking order with this one—her only daughter will be at the center of a big media circus, and she’ll get to be one of the stars.” Tia looked at him from the corner of her eye, contemplating, and pressed her lips together in reluctant consent.

  “I thought that might be a selling point,” he continued, “but I’ll admit that I have a bit of a selfish reason too…” he paused, and Tia turned to him, furrowing her eyebrows. She’d never seen Dylan do anything selfish. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d like to have the chance to get a look at that Jace character. Call i
t my jealous nature, or maybe it’s just a man thing, but I’d love to see the look on his face when he sees us together. It might just teach him a little humility, or something.”

  Tia smiled at the thought. It was hard to believe that Dylan Miller, Sexiest Man on Earth, could be jealous of someone like Jace. She certainly didn’t relish the thought of seeing him again, but the thought of him seeing her with Dylan gave her a bit of smug pleasure. It wasn’t even the celebrity factor that made her feel that way—it was more Jace’s cocky assumption that Dylan wouldn’t be faithful to her because he was a musician. If ever there was a person who deserved to be put in his place, it was Jace; especially after the way he’d treated Bitsy. And if ever there was a person who could put him there, it was definitely Dylan Miller.

  “Oh, all right,” she sighed, “that’s what we’ll do.”

  “It can just be a hit-and-run, you know; we can go somewhere more private after we make an appearance. We’re kind of making this up as we go along; this is a first for me too, remember.”

  “I’ll have my dad get the DND. The guy who built the country club had this one table in the restaurant built in to be totally private—it’s kind of tucked in the corner and surrounded by high walls, and there’s even a private hallway that leads to other exits so we can make a quick getaway if we need to. A lot of business deals go down over dinner and drinks at that table, so it’s kind of labeled, ‘Do Not Disturb.’”

  “Brilliant,” he said. “Sounds perfect.”

  Tia’s eyes brightened and a smile split her face. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I can finally introduce you to them! I’ve wanted to for so long…”

  “I really can’t wait to meet them, Tia, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.” He pressed his lips together in a half-smile. “Do you think they’ll like me?”

  Tia’s heart nearly melted. She was privately thrilled that he’d be anxious about meeting her parents—especially since she was downright petrified about meeting his. But she knew better than anyone that Dylan didn’t put himself on a pedestal…he didn’t assume people would like him just because he was famous. And he was just down to earth enough not to realize that pretty much anyone would like him just for being himself. It saddened her that not enough people gave him that chance.

  “They’ll love you Dylan, don’t worry,” she said sincerely. “They’ll see in you what I see in you—they’ll get to know the real you, which is at least ten times more amazing than the celebrity you.”

  He was struck speechless by the honesty in her words. He was one incredibly lucky man, he thought. All he could do was pull her close and whisper, “Thank you,” into her ear.

  Tia inhaled deeply and slowly released a long sigh as she considered the dark side of the introductions—fessing up to her blatant dishonesty with the people she cared about the most. “Did I do the right thing, Dyl?” she whispered. Dylan raised an eyebrow in question. “Wow, I guess this is a little more overwhelming than I thought it would be…” she swallowed hard around the lump that was forming in her throat. “…I mean, you know I wanted to tell everyone, right? And I want to tell everyone now, but I still want to keep you for myself…Aurg. It’s just really short notice—I thought I’d have time to ease into it, or at least go into it with some sort of plan.”

  “You did the right thing, baby,” he assured her. “Life would’ve been very different for you if you had told people. Especially when the tabloids started printing all that rubbish.”

  “But it means that we have to practically go on tour to introduce you, and I have to admit to everyone I care about that I lied to them.”

  “They’ll understand,” he said softly. “Don’t be surprised if some of them seem a little put out at first, but once they’ve had time to think about it, they’ll see your dilemma.”

  “Even my parents?” she croaked. She was most worried about them being hurt that she didn’t trust them with the biggest news of her entire life.

  “Especially your parents,” he said. “They raised you to be strong and independent, and to know what’s best for you. They’ll know you didn’t make the decision lightly.”

  She took a deep, cleansing breath; a huge weight suddenly lifted from her shoulders. “You’re pretty remarkable, you know that?” she whispered, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze.

  Dylan squeezed back, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “As are you, my love. It’ll be fabulous, don’t worry.” He rested his forehead against hers and smiled. “So now that we’ve got that sorted out, how about we go to the pub tomorrow night, then? I’ve got a couple bottles of Tully in my bag for Paddy that I picked up in Ireland. Do you think you could get some of the same people who were there that first night to show up last minute?”

  “Most of them practically live there on Saturday nights,” she said, “but I’ll text Sean and have him put out the word.” She shook her head, smiling wryly. “Damn, Miller—we’re really going to freak out some worlds tomorrow!” She thought back to that first night at Paddy’s—the very first night they had met—when Sean had played a few of Dylan’s songs on the pub’s stage, completely unaware that Tia’s escort was actually Dylan Miller himself. She’d spent a fair amount of time at the pub over the past four months, and had really reconnected with her old friends. Dylan had made a great impression on them—not just because he bought a round of Paddy’s favorite whiskey for the house, but because they all knew how Tia had suffered after Nick’s death and they were genuinely happy to see her smile again. They credited Dylan with that and they were completely right; but they still had no idea that the two of them had just met earlier that night.

  “I really look forward to seeing Sean again,” Dylan said. “All of them, actually. They are your true friends, you know, and they’ll be the ones you turn to time and time again. I hope they’ll be my friends, too.”

  “I do know, believe me. And I think they’ll be pretty cool about it. As cool as anyone can be, I guess. It’s going to be quite a surprise no matter what—I think we’ll need to be prepared for a little shock and awe.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a bit of a stunner,” he said smirking, “but that’s another reason why it’s good to hit places with a bunch of people. It’ll be “shock and awe,” as you so eloquently put it, for the first bit, and then things will calm down. It beats doing it over and over, believe me.”

  “It’s weird to think that after tomorrow, my life will never be the same.”

  “No, Tia, not the same. But what fun is a life that just stays the same? It’ll be a whole new adventure that we’ll embark on together.” He paused for a moment, a melancholy look casting a shadow over his eyes. With everything in his life there was a give and take; a sacrifice to be made. He was torn between wanting to shield her from the changes his celebrity would bring to her life and being incredibly grateful that that same celebrity would make sure she never wanted for anything.

  “So,” he said, changing the subject. “Any other places we need to hit? Do you belong to any clubs, or groups, or church or anything?”

  Tia shook her head. “No, that’s pretty much it. I’ll text Lilly and have her invite my work friends to Paddy’s so we can do that all in one shot. I have a pretty pathetic life, huh?”

  “Not at all. And even if you did, I’m making it my personal mission to make sure you have only the best from this point on.”

  “I’ve got you, Dylan. It’s already the best.” He wrapped her up in his arms and held her tight.

  “Well, that’ll make for a pretty crazy day, I think; and after that, a bloody typhoon. It’ll be much quieter when we get to Australia—we’ll need do an appearance or two, but we’ll be able to enjoy the holidays in relative peace.”

  “How long before the typhoon moves off to calmer waters?” Tia asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “We’ll just have to take it day by day.”

  Tia stopped and looked around her little bedroom while another thought gained
clarity in her mind. She turned to Dylan. “I’m not coming back here, am I?”

  Dylan bowed his head and looked at the ground, unwilling to meet her eyes as he delivered the news. “No,” he said, “not to live on your own, Tia, I’m sorry. Once your identity is public knowledge, this house won’t be safe enough for my comfort level, and I won’t compromise when it comes to your safety. I’ll have Jessa look into some apartments in the city while we’re on holiday.”

  Way to go, he thought as he watched Tia’s face. She continued packing, but her eyes darted around the room, taking in the familiar scenes that would no longer be part of her life. So far he’d told her that she’d likely never return to her job, that she’d have to be very careful about making new friends, and that she would never again live in her own house. Saying it out loud made him realize just how much she was going to have to give up to be with him. He was damn sure going to make certain it was worth it. “Bloody hell,” he said, standing and pulling her into his arms. “I feel horrible about the sacrifices you’re having to make—I promise I’ll make it up to you, Tia.”

  Tia sighed and took a long look around her little bedroom. She’d once planned to make a life here; in this little slice of suburbia. It seemed like a lifetime ago now that she stood in this room with Nick, the walls bare and white as they taped up color swatches and planned out how they’d make a home; and someday a family; in this little house. But this wasn’t her life anymore, and hadn’t been in quite some time. She’d just been going through the motions of that simple existence—even though she’d maintained the façade fairly well it was still just that—a cover that masked the changes that had come into her life the minute she’d met Dylan.