His hand shot up to soothe the sting in his cheek as a pair of livid blue eyes glared bloody murder at him. It took him a second to place the pretty blonde who’d attacked him. Katie? No, Kelly. The waitress he’d hooked up with a few months ago at one of the engagement parties DreamMakers had planned.
“Kelly,” he started, but his former flame didn’t let him finish.
“You know what, Dean? It’s bad enough that you didn’t call me after we slept together,” Kelly said angrily. “But then I find out you got with Rachel? What kind of jerk does that?”
Confusion fogged his brain, along with a flicker of panic when he noticed Emma edging closer to the hotel door. The rain had stopped, but a mist still hung in the air, creeping along the sidewalk like fog in a horror movie. And Kelly’s mood matched the weather, her stormy expression focused solely on Dean, as if Emma wasn’t even there.
He shot Emma an apologetic look before turning back to Kelly. “I’m sorry you’re upset I didn’t call,” he said gruffly. “But I thought we agreed it was a one-time thing.” He offered a pointed look. “You said you were okay with that.”
“I didn’t think you were serious!” she shot back, her grip on her foam coffee cup tightening with anger. “But that’s not even what I’m mad about! I’m mad because you slept with my sister!”
Oh shit.
He had?
Kelly scowled at his perplexed expression. “Yeah, Dean, Rachel is my sister! You know, the girl you met at the Frog and Crown and then dated for a month?” Her voice turned shrill again. “I get one night and she gets a month? What happened to your whole I-don’t-want-to-date-anyone speech, huh?”
Emma inched farther away, bringing a jolt of panic to Dean’s gut.
“Kelly—”
“No, I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit excuses,” she interrupted. “You’re a liar and a player, and I’m done with you. So is Rachel, by the way.”
With that, the blonde huffed off, her high heels clicking on the pavement with each furious step she took. Dean watched her retreating back for a moment, stunned by what had just happened. Christ. He’d had no idea that Rachel was Kelly’s sister. What the hell were the odds of that?
Either way, it was time to do some serious damage control. He’d just spent nearly an hour trying to show Emma he’d grown up, that he was someone who merited another chance, even if it was just a chance at friendship. And now thanks to one jilted ex-lover, all the groundwork he’d laid had been stripped away.
Taking a breath, Dean turned around, armed with an apology he never got to voice.
Because he was staring at an empty space.
Emma was gone.
Chapter Eight
It wasn’t gaming the system.
It wasn’t.
Dean ignored the little voice inside his head that insisted he was doing an awful lot of doubletalk these days, but screw it—he was a man on a mission. And in his books, getting the mission accomplished meant any and all means necessary were A-okay.
Which meant taking action. Now. He went straight from the abysmal end to his time with Emma to the DreamMakers office, deliberately going in the back door to avoid their all-too perky receptionist.
Chances of Didi figuring out something was up? One hundred percent.
The older woman was mostly bloodhound when it came to sniffing out topics they didn’t want to discuss. Like the time Parker and Lynn had a fight about Cheez-Its, of all things, and the rest of them only knew Parker was pissed about something. Didi had spotted the orange stain on his fingers and got all the details out of him.
Hell, maybe instead of working the front counter they should hire her to do all their undercover work—she’d have full intel in no time.
But as entertaining as it was to see Parker squirm, Dean didn’t want the same thing to happen to him, not this morning. So he snuck in the back door, waving briskly at Jack and Gillian who were chatting in the staff area before marching into his office and closing the door.
It had been a hell of a long time, but he’d been honest with Emma. If it hadn’t been for her, not only would he have screwed up their date oh-so-long ago, but DreamMakers would never have taken off in such a huge way. Still, staring at the questionnaire they gave out standard issue to their clients brought a strange sensation to his gut. He filled in everything he could. Favorite color: yellow. Favorite food: seafood. Favorite song—
God, the memories were going to kill him.
He’d always teased her about liking the music she did. He wondered how her old enthusiasm for raunchy acid rock had played out as time had passed. He wondered exactly how many of the details he was writing down were even true anymore.
The weird sensation that hit him was a challenge and a right hook to the jaw at the same time.
It took him twenty minutes to go through the form as best he could, filling in a few current-day tidbits he had gleaned from searching online and his brief moment in her suite. But it wasn’t enough. Not if he wanted to do a complete job of impressing her.