She blazed a trail through the pedestrian traffic, jostling past bodies at the crosswalk, heedless of the screeching tires and blaring horns when she stepped into the street. How on earth was she ever going to tell Dibs? She must now spend time with the one person she wanted most in the world to avoid.
That conversation would lead in one direction. Already the outcome blinked at her like some eye-wincing neon sign. Dibs would insist she quit. Or, worse yet, ask his father to find someone else to host the event. The entire misunderstanding would create a huge amount of friction, only serving to validate every single warning his mother had given him. He wouldn’t see the incredible opportunity this was for her business. Bless his heart, his only concern would be for her personally. Not TNT, or the work invested, or Tiffany...
She stumbled to a stop. Tiffany…
she
was the answer. If Tiffany agreed to run some interference, maybe, just maybe, the event might still work.
Quitting was out of the question, especially because that would mean Michael had won. Once again he would have cheated her out of something important, something that could change her circumstances for the better. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She
wouldn’t
allow it, yet again.
She stepped off the sidewalk and tossed her hand in the air. As a cab slid in front of her, she made her decision. Continue with business as usual, and move forward with the same plan. Do the BFG event, and keep her mouth shut about this whole Michael business with Dibs. That was the only way the event would work, while at the same time she protected their future.
By the time she entered the office, most of the details were concreted in her mind. She stormed directly into Tiffany’s office and threw her purse onto a chair. “You’re
never
going to believe this!”
“Oh boy.” Tiffany swiveled away from her computer, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Pacing a worn tread in front of the desk, Tessa spilled all the gruesome details. Tiffany’s shoulders drooped farther and farther, until Tessa had finally talked it all out.
“This is a really bad idea.” Tiffany shook her head. “And I realize this might send you completely over the edge, but I think this is one of those rare circumstances that just might be outside your control.”
Unacceptable. Tessa clenched her hands on her hips. “Well, what do you propose? We can’t quit! We can’t break the contract!”
“I know, I know.” Tiffany stared at her desk, palms together, bumping her fingertips against her lips. She looked up from under her brows. “You’re positive Dibs would ask you to quit?”
Tessa crossed her arms. “What would you do if Kevin got a job with his ex-fiancée who, by the way, ripped his heart out and ruined his life for three years?”
“Freak out and tell him he couldn’t do it.”
“Exactly.” She pressed a hand to her forehead and resumed pacing.
Tiffany chewed her thumbnail. “Shit.”
“Exactly.”
She finally sighed and sat back from her desk. “Okay, we’ll do exactly what you suggested. I’ll run interference so you and Michael have as little contact as humanly possible.”
“And we need Phoenix Rising’s schedule.” Tessa wagged a finger. “So we know when he’ll be at the facility. Maybe it won’t be as bad as we expect. Maybe we’ll be on opposite ends of the building.”
“We don’t have that kind of luck.”
“And we need to keep Dibs and Michael separated.” She slashed a hand through the air. “I do not want them accidentally running into each other at this thing. Michael should be behind a camera the entire time. And I can invent something to keep Dibs occupied.”
Tiffany groaned, dropping her face into her hands. “This is never gonna work.”
“Stop it!” Tessa halted her steps. “It has to work. We can do this.
I
can do this. It’s that important!”
Tiffany peeked out from between her fingers. “Why do I suddenly feel like Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz?”
Tessa’s jaw dropped. Tiffany clapped a hand over her mouth. A moment passed before they burst into frantic laughter.
****
The afternoon passed much the same as the morning—Tessa stuck behind her desk, candidate after candidate droning on about their past work experience. She should have cancelled. No distraction was big enough to stop that scene in the restaurant from playing on a constant loop in her head, the slap to Michael’s cheek, the bright shock in his eyes.
Her emotions jumped around on the Richter scale. At one point depression set in, the sadness and frustration building to a deafening roar until bloated tears swarmed her eyes. Then in the next, anger ruled the day, a jagged pickaxe digging in her chest. How was she ever going to pull this off? The next three months were bound to be a living, breathing nightmare…all while Michael lurked in the shadows, waiting for the other shoe to drop so he could gloat in her face.
Fear clawed to the surface of her consciousness. Dibs was already suspicious. What if he took one glance at her and immediately guessed something catastrophic had happened? And what about during the event? She’d be walking on eggshells the entire time, fretting he was none the wiser about what she was hiding. And dear God, what if the Brenners discovered her connection to Michael?
By the end of the day, she was a strung-out mess, and couldn’t seem to get a handle on any one thing. She longed for Dibs to arrive, needed the comfort of his arms, the soothing murmur of his voice in her ear. And at the same time, terror sizzled along her nerve endings each time she envisioned meeting his discerning gaze.
But there was no stopping the clock, and when the doorbell rang at five forty-five and she lifted her chin, a sob lodged in her chest, the weight of her decisions almost too much to bear.
Love shone like a ray of light on his face.
She braced herself and stood, praying the entire mess wouldn’t tumble out all over the paperwork on her desk. But when he opened his arms, she simply couldn’t help it. She rounded her desk and threw herself into his embrace.
“Hey.” He cradled her head against his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve had a horrible day.” She clung to him, stealing a moment to bring her emotions under control.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m much better now that you’re here.” She buried her face in the gentle slope of his neck. “Will you do something for me? Take me home and help me forget this entire day ever existed.”
“I can most certainly do that.” He patted her bottom. “Come on, let’s go. And leave your briefcase here.”
The short ride to his house was filled with an unsettling tension, but Dibs remained silent, and after they arrived, he removed her coat from her shoulders and led her upstairs to the master bath.
“Why don’t you get in for a long soak and I’ll bring you a glass of wine.” He twisted the knobs on the whirlpool bath, tested the water temperature with his hand.
“God, I love you.”
He ran a hand down her arm and exited, leaving her alone with her reflection in the mirror. The strain of the day was obvious in the sunken shadows under her eyes, the defeated slash of her lips. She dropped her clothes and stepped into the swirling water.
A moment later a fingertip grazed her arm. Dibs stood over her, two glasses of wine in hand. He balanced one on the side of the tub and leaned against the counter across from her, easing a hand into his pocket. “So, why don’t you start by telling me about this lunch meeting you had today?”
Tessa froze, a gasp seized in her throat. How in the
hell
had he found out? She searched his face for an explanation, but the unreadable mask staring back at her revealed nothing. No hurt, no anger…not even mistrust.
She quietly cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”
Cold steel hardened his gaze, and with the next stuttering heartbeat, grim reality sharpened every facet of the room down to one abhorrent truth. She had just made her first mistake.
He studied her for a long moment before lifting his wine for a deep drink. His focus remained on the glass as he lowered it from his lips. “Your luncheon interview, Tessa. You told me you had plans today, remember?”
She shook her head, recalling her excuses from that morning. “Oh, yeah. It was fine.” The hot water reddened her toes when she flexed them under the streaming faucet.
“Oh…my…God.” His voice was quiet, but a dark storm brewed just underneath.
“What?” she whispered.
He swept a hand across his forehead, placed his glass on the counter, and crossed his arms. “I’m going to ask you this question once. And I expect the truth in return.”
She shrank back against the tub. Oh God, what had she done?
“Are you seeing someone else?”
A torrent of emotions flooded her chest. Relief he hadn’t discovered the truth. Sadness at his belief that she could ever betray him. Anger that he didn’t trust her, and finally love over the immeasurable pain in his eyes, how even the mention of her infidelity tore his heart out.
Their relationship hung in the balance, so she carefully considered her next words before she spoke. “You are the love of my life, David Brenner. And the answer to your question is a very definite and emphatic no…never. How could I be so stupid as to screw up the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me? For your information, I happen to be head over heels in love with you.”
The hard edge in his eyes diminished, but the tension in his jaw remained, as if he harbored grave doubts about her words.
She sprang forward and grasped the edge of the tub. “Dibs, you can’t seriously be considering the idea that I’m cheating on you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I can’t? Stranger things have happened, Tessa.” He shoved away from the counter and left the bathroom.
“Dibs, wait.” She turned off the water, snatched a towel from the bar, and hurried into the bedroom. He paced before the bed, steps frantic, a hand raking his hair. “This is crazy. I am
not
having an affair.”
“Is it?” He halted and jabbed a finger at the floor. “Is it crazy, Tessa? Then who did you have lunch with today? Tell me. Who was on the phone with you last night? And what the hell has been
wrong
with you these past two days?”
“I’ve had a bad couple of days, okay? And furthermore, I resent that you would even think such a thing. After everything we’ve been through, are you now saying you don’t trust me? That you don’t believe me when I say I love you?” She crossed in front of him and dropped to the end of the bed, head in her hands, fingertips screwed into the hollows of her eyes. So much for the perfect end to the perfect day.
“I’ve been on the receiving end of deceit, Tessa. I know the signals. I ignored them before and I’ll be damned if I do it again.”
Her head lifted as memories of Dibs’s past flitted through her mind. And then everything fell into place. “This is about Margaret,” she said.
“This is about us!” He stalked forward. “Look me in the eye and tell me the truth, Tessa. I deserve the truth.”
Misery wrenched her chest. The deep anguish, the horrible fear razing a path across his face. Dibs was right. He did deserve the truth…and so much more.
Throughout their entire relationship, at every moment, he had been the one to reassure her. All his heart-felt confessions of love. Asking for her hand in marriage, only so she could deny him. And now here he stood, wondering if she had betrayed him. She didn’t want that for Dibs. She didn’t want him to ever doubt her love.
Yet admitting to her discussion with Michael would accomplish nothing other than just that. The way she’d snuck around behind Dibs’s back, kept things from him she should have confessed long ago. The compulsion to manipulate every aspect of her life so she could avoid the constant fear others would let her down. Those traits were all thanks to Michael’s desertion, not because of Dibs. How could she lay the blame for her character flaws at his feet? How could she hand him distrust and suspicion when he had earned nothing but her love and fidelity?
She couldn’t. Not while he stood before her, holding his heart in his hands.
She offered him her palm. “Come here.”
He crossed the room and fell to his knees in front of her, eyes red-rimmed, leaking heartbreak.
“Allow me to share a few truths I am quite certain of.” She cupped his cheeks in her palms, searching for the words. So he would know. So no misgivings would remain about how much he meant to her. “The truth is I would be an empty shell without you, and I thank my lucky stars every day I’ve been fortunate enough to know you.”
She clasped both his hands in hers. “And the truth is you mean everything to me, Dibs. So I will do whatever it takes to make sure you stay safe and protected. Because without you, I have nothing. Without you, I
am
nothing.
“And the truth is I love you so deeply, sometimes I’m amazed my heart doesn’t just burst with it. You are here”—she put her fingers to her temple—“and here”—she placed her hand over her heart—“every moment of every day.”
She returned her palm to his cheek. “So when you ask me that very silly question, ‘am I seeing someone else,’ the only response I can give is no, Dibs, because that’s the truth. I could never do that to the one person who means everything to me.”
She came forward, staring him directly in the eye. “I am
not
having an affair. I love you, and only you.”
Relief flooded his gaze. He threw his arms around her waist and pulled her to his chest. “Don’t you ever leave me, Tessa.”
“I won’t. You can trust me.”
He cinched her tighter still, deeply inhaling against her skin, warming her shoulder when he exhaled.
She sat back and lifted an eyebrow. “So, here’s an idea.”
He grinned.
“What do you say we both go climb into that bathtub?”
Chapter Eighteen
Never before had TNT’s calendar ramped up to such a breakneck pace, but the work was a welcome distraction. The hustle and bustle indicated their business was flourishing, and the hectic days helped Tessa refocus her energy, become immersed in those activities she loved most—the things she could directly maintain and patrol. With the completion of each passing event, her confidence soared, and the excitement level helped foster a change in her outlook. Perhaps she
could
view the BFG event in a positive light. After all, TNT was coordinating an extravaganza that would surely springboard them to a height of unsurpassed success. Michael’s involvement notwithstanding, if she used her talents to the best of their abilities, that was something he would never be able to take away from her.