AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The brief discussion played on repeat in her head as she stepped into the blue gown, pulled it up onto her shoulders, and slid the zipper up the side. She eyed the ornate clock hanging on the opposite wall and quickly put her shoes on. She wanted to be downstairs and waiting before Dean showed up in case her mother felt the need to intercept.
Jillian would put absolutely nothing past Helena Monroe.
As she slipped her toe into her satin ballet slipper shoe a much more welcome voice greeted her ears. “Don’t you look lovely tonight, darling.”
The very first syllable pulled a wide smile from her and eased some of the Helena-induced tension in her stomach. She held out her hands to the older man approaching on her right. “Grandfather, you look dashing as always. New tux?”
He drew his bushy, gray brows together. “At my age? Bah! Why would I buy a new tux?” He lifted an arm and twirled her beneath it. “Unless my granddaughter requires someone a bit more dapper to dance with tonight.”
She laughed lightly and rested a hand on his shoulder as she came to a stop. She desperately tried to ignore the fact that his cheeks were just slightly hollower than they had been before his latest trip to the hospital. “Sorry, Grandfather, I’m going to a dance with Dean tonight.”
In an opposite reaction to what she’d expected, her grandfather’s eyes brightened at her declaration and a spark of mischief twinkled at the corner. She’d long ago realized that one of the things she loved best about Dean was how close his personality was to her grandfather’s.
Perhaps most girls gravitated toward men who reminded them of their father, but not Jillian. While her father was a mostly quiet and docile man, he was also rather absent, spending much of his time holed away in his library or at the club with friends. A fact her grandfather had noted and commented on more than once with choice words for his son.
“You are going to have a much better evening than I.” He bent forward slightly and laid a soft kiss on her cheek. “And I do like that young man. Good to see he finally asked you out.”
Heat crept up the back of her neck. “It isn’t like that, Grandfather. We’re just going as friends. His girlfriend broke up with him and he’d already bought tickets. It isn’t a real date.”
The older man cupped her jaw. “You never know when things may change.”
Warmth spread up to her cheeks, engulfing her face in fire. He couldn’t possibly know about that stupid crush she had on Dean…could he?
The doorbell rang, cutting through her muddled thoughts and her grandfather grinned. “That must be your young man.”
Before Jillian could find the words to correct him, he disappeared around the corner, undoubtedly heading toward the kitchen to pester Frieda and pilfer snacks before the gala commenced. Or possibly hunt down her father and give him another lecture on spending the evening holed up in his study playing poker or rummy or whatever he chose to overestimate his abilities on this time.
With a sigh she headed to the front door just as Henry pulled it open and stole every molecule of air from her lungs in the same moment. Dean stood on the other side of the threshold with a lopsided grin holding a delicate pink tissue paper-covered lump in one hand and sporting a perfectly tailored black suit that did absolutely nothing to help her dismiss the dozens of ideas about her best friend that had been playing on a loop since talking with her grandfather.
This was going to be a very, very long night.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dean
Present Day
“You’re drunk.”
He held his breath as he waited for her to respond and prayed to every god he could remember from his Greek mythology class that he wasn’t dreaming.
Jillian smiled and his heart nearly quite beating. She popped the top button of his shirt free. And then the next one down. “Sparky, I had two glasses of champagne. You know me well enough to know it takes a hell of a lot more alcohol than that to get me drunk.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth, intent eyes boring holes through the small, flimsy wall of chivalry he was desperately trying to cling to. Her finger circled the next button. “If you don’t want me, if you don’t want this…tell me to stop.”
That word most certainly wasn’t on his radar. But a mountain of concern and doubt was. “There isn’t any sex in the world that is worth me losing you.”
Her entire face softened. She moved her hand from his shirt to his jaw. “You are the only man in this world I know I can count on without even a shadow of a doubt. I have always known you’d be there for whatever I needed, but you proved even that to be an understatement when you agreed to basically sign away your life for damn near two years to just bail my sorry family out…just because I asked. There isn’t anything in this universe or the next that could ruin that.”
Now. Now was the time to tell her, to finally confess that he loved her.
She pressed her body to his and he gripped her hips, keeping her firmly in place. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth as the heat from her flesh mixed with the smooth decadence of her satiny gown mixed in his grasp.
Damn it all to hell, maybe tomorrow he’d tell her. Because right now getting the woman of his dreams, the woman he loved, naked and writhing beneath him was not something he was willing to risk by opening his mouth.
Until he did.
“You don’t owe me anything for that. I agreed to it because you needed help. I’m here because you’re my best friend and I love you, and I wouldn’t let you handle something that big on your own.” He swallowed several times. “But you don’t owe me anything, especially not this.”
