Page 66 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

When I ran out of logistical tasks, I took a shower and shaved everywhere. I put on my makeup, a process that took forty-five minutes instead of the usual nine, because I kept losing my place and forgetting if I’d already done my eyeliner or not. I tried on the dress, then the backup dress, then the original dress again. I took a photo and sent it to Gen who responded, Damn girl, Dean is going to need a bib to catch all that drool.

The mention of Dean sent a new shiver up my spine, one that had nothing to do with my child’s current whereabouts and everything to do with the fact that the man had been a complete freaking mystery for the last two weeks. He was still around—still showed up for meetings, still checked in on me and the fundraiser’s progress, still fixed things around my house and made sure the balance sheets always balanced—but he’d gone from slowly-opening-up to fully-locked-vault almost overnight.

Every time I tried to ask about it, he’d give me the same stock answer, “Just busy.” When I tried to be playful, he’d respond with a dry, distracted smile and change the subject. When I tried to confront him about his withdrawal, he’d say something like, “There’s just a lot going on,” and then vanish for an entire evening. It was the weirdest, most infuriating emotional retreat I’d ever witnessed, and I’d dated a man who once feigned a nap to avoid talking about our anniversary plans.

I knew it had to do with Tanner showing up, but since Dean and I weren’t an actual couple, it wasn’t like he owed me anything, that was part of the rules. Thankfully, I’d been so busy with the fundraiser, I was able to distract myself from the shift in our relationship.

When Dean pulled up at six on the dot, looking like the face of Armani in a black tuxedo, I was already a raw wire of nerves and unspent frustration. I opened the door, surprised to see him. I’d told him to go ahead without me.

“You look…beautiful.” Dean’s compliment was given behind that familiar Lockhart wall, the one built with a mix of old ranch stoicism and new corporate insulation. He said it like he might say “the quarterly forecast looks stable” or “please pass the salt.” But I caught the fractional hesitation, the blink-and-you-miss-it softening of his eyes, even thought it was barely there to the untrained observer.

I had spent a lifetime cataloging the subtle art of male emotional camouflage. Dean Lockhart’s tells were small, but they existed, if you cared enough to look.

“Thanks,” I said, “you look… really good.” Which was true, and also unfair, because he made formalwear seem like the natural evolutionary endpoint for his entire bloodline. He looked like a lost Bond villain who’d missed his stop at the casino and ended up on my porch, all broad shoulders and tailored lines and a face that made you want to deliver your deepest, darkest secrets just for the chance to see him smile.

I stood there in my form-fitting red cocktail dress, the one with the architectural neckline that made me feel like a modern-day princess if the fairy tale was set in an accounting office, and tried not to let my anxiety show. I failed.

He nodded, like we were both adults who understood the transactional nature of compliments.

“Did you get my text?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t missed it.

“I can wait if you’re not ready,” he responded without answering my question.

“It’s not me.” I looked past him, down the length of the drive, as if Maverick might materialize in a burst of energy, clutching a juice box and a fistful of wet sidewalk gravel. “Mav’s not home yet. You can go on without me.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s with Tanner.”

Dean’s jaw twitched at the mention of my ex’s name. “I’ll wait.”

Part of me wanted to insist he go on ahead, but another part of me was relieved I wouldn’t be left waiting alone.

He stepped in, closing the door behind us and locking it with that precise, mechanical efficiency that made me irrationally stabby and a little bit wild for him. He stood in the center of my living room, hands at his sides, shoulders back, as if he was bracing for something, I just had no clue what that something was.

“So. You’ve been… busy?” I used his words.

Dean hesitated, and his jaw twitched. I could almost see the gears grinding, weighing how much to say, how much to keep locked up.

“Work has been a lot,” he said eventually, which was such an anemic substitute for everything he could have said that I almost laughed.

“Have you been avoiding me?” I asked him point blank.

His expression remained unreadable. “No.”

“That’s not a complaint.” I crossed my arms, suddenly feeling very exposed. “You can. I know that we aren’t…whatever, but I just… kind of thought we were friends. Or, I don’t know, something.”

Dean’s lips twitched at the word friends, and for half a heartbeat I thought he might actually smile. “I wasn’t avoiding you.” His hands flexed at his sides, as if this conversation was making him physically uncomfortable. “I just thought you could use space.”

I stared at him. “Space from what?”

He shrugged. “From me.”

That took me off guard. “Did I say I needed space from you?”

“You don’t have to.” Now he did smile, faint and fleeting and so sad it broke my heart a little. “I knew it would be best if I weren’t around.”

Best if I wasn’t around?