Best Man's Conquest (11 page)

It was one of those subjects that they'd never brought up. One of many.

She glanced over at the digital clock beside the bed. It was eight-fifteen and he still hadn't shown up. How much longer did he plan to make her wait?

Until she was tucked into bed and sleeping?

If that was how he wanted to play this, fine. If he could wait, so could she.

To pass the time she opened her laptop and launched her e-mail program. Might as well do something constructive while she waited.

There were the usual three hundred or so e-mails for male enhancement drugs guaranteeing her a larger penis in six months, erectile dysfunction drugs at a deep discount and replica watches for rock-bottom prices. There was also a message from her writing partner, Miranda Reed, marked Urgent. The body of the e-mail was a series of question marks and exclamation points. There was a second message that simply said,
call me!
in fifty-point, hot-pink type.

Ivy had promised to call her the instant she learned the identity of the mystery best man. She'd been so far off-kilter, she'd completely forgotten.

She dug her cell phone from her purse, and, sure enough, there were a dozen missed calls and half as many voice messages.

She dialed the number and Miranda answered on the first ring. “Who is he?”

Ivy laughed. “Hello to you, too.”

“Have pity. The suspense is killing me. Is he dark and sexy? Does he bear a striking resemblance to Johnny Depp or Antonio Banderas?”

In the weeks before the trip they had speculated who the mystery man might be, coming up with both the best-case scenario—he looked like Johnny or Antonio with a body to die for—or worst case—he would look more like Johnny Cash but older. And he would have a beer gut, thinning hair and ingrown toenails.

In some ways, what she'd ended up with was worse.

“Yes, yes, no, no.”

“Okay, dark and sexy is good. Is he nice?”

Rather than play twenty questions, she decided it best to just blurt it out. “He's Dillon.”

There was a pause, then, “Like, Matt Dillon?”

“Nope.”

“Ugh, not
Bob
Dylan.”

“Dillon Marshall.”

Another pause while she digested that, then, “You mean, he
looks
like Dillon?”

Oh, didn't she wish. “I mean he
is
Dillon. In the flesh.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah. Surprise.” She gave Miranda a blow-by-blow of the trip so far. The way he'd been following her and how they couldn't be together five minutes without arguing. She left out the kissing parts, since they were completely irrelevant, and the way she'd made him jealous today. Oh, and the fact that she actually wanted him to intrude on her. “Deidre thinks I need to let the past go and forgive him.”

“May be that's good advice.”

“Miranda, we can barely say two words to each other without an argument starting. How are we supposed to resolve anything if we can't talk to each other?”

“May be you're not trying hard enough.”

For a moment she was too stunned to reply. Surely Miranda of all people would be on her side. She would understand what Ivy was going through. Finally she managed a baffled, “Excuse me?”

“Don't take this the wrong way. But you can be stubborn sometimes. May be you're just not listening to what he has to say.”

“I listen to people for a living. I would not be where I am today if I didn't know how to listen. And you think
I'm
stubborn? You should try having a serious conversation with this man. He's
impossible!
”

Her tone softened. “I swear I'm not saying this to upset you. I'm just worried that the past is holding you back.”

“Holding me back how? Is this about my sex life?”

“Well, no, not exactly, although you've got to admit, it
has
been a while.”

“Next you're going to tell me that you think I'm unhappy.” There was silence at the other end. “You do, don't you? Why is everyone so convinced I'm not happy? I'm a psychologist, for God's sake. Don't you think I would have noticed? If I was so miserable, don't you think I would have done something about it?”

“May be you're so used to feeling that way, you don't even realize it's happening. I think…oh, shoot! The other line is ringing.” She paused, and Ivy knew she was checking the caller ID. “It's our publicist. We're supposed to make the final arrangements for my trip to NewYork, for that radio interview. I really should answer.”

“That's fine,” Ivy said. She'd heard enough, anyway.

“I'll call you right back. I promise.”

“I'll talk to you later.” Ivy disconnected and shut off her phone. She didn't want to talk to her again. Calling Miranda was supposed to make her feel better, not worse.

If everyone else was so convinced she was miserable, what about Dillon? What did he see when he looked at her? Did he think she was unhappy?

She looked at the clock. It was half-past eight, and she was tired of waiting. If everyone was so darned convinced her unresolved issues with Dillon were ruining her life, then damn it, she was going to resolve them. Once and for all.

Self-esteem take a hit? Get past the hurt and move on. Find a new activity or group to get involved in. Exercise! Walk! Look in the mirror every day, and say, “I like that person looking back at me.”

—excerpt from
The Modern Woman's Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)

I
vy flung open the bedroom door and peered down the length of the hallway. No Dillon. But a narrow sliver of light shone through his partially open door like an written invitation. She marched down the hall, intent on barging in on him before he had the chance to do the same to her.

Rather than knock, since such gestures hadn't been high on his list of priorities, she shoved the door open and stepped right inside.

The first thing she noticed was the binders and loose papers strewn across the bed. The second was Dillon sitting in the middle of it all, back propped against the headboard, reading some official-looking document. He didn't look as though he was preparing to barge in on her anytime soon.

“Problem?” he asked, watching her expectantly.

She just stood there, mouth hanging open, probably looking like a trout stuck on a hook. He was wearing a pair of jogging pants, a Texas A&M T-shirt, and his feet were bare.

He really hadn't been going anywhere. When he said he was going to his room to stay, he'd been telling her the truth. He hadn't been planning to bug her after all.

He set down the papers he'd been reading. “What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

She said the first thing that popped into her head, and she said it with…
enthusiasm
. “I am very happy with my life.”

He shrugged, looking more than a little confused by her outburst. “Okay.”

Now what? Now that she'd just made a complete ass out of herself. “I just wanted you to know that. Because I'm finding out that some people don't think I am.”

“Really. Do these people have names?”

“That's not important. The thing is, these people seem to think that my unresolved issues with you are holding me back somehow.”

He folded his arms across his chest, looking intrigued now. “Oh, yeah?”

“In case you're wondering, they're not. But, to shut them up, I'd like us to sit down and talk and figure out what it is that's unresolved, and resolve it. Without arguing or fighting,” she added. “In other words, I want us to get along.”

“There's only one problem with that,” he said. “Your idea of getting along is when I shut my mouth and agree with everything you say.”

The accusation stung, and she was about to snap right back at him when she realized that would only start a fight. If they were going to do this she had to be willing to listen to what he had to say, even if it was sarcastic and snotty. May be it was the only way he knew to communicate his feelings.

“So what you're saying to me is that you feel I don't listen to you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, as though he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. “Active listening, right?”

The man never ceased to surprise her. “How do you know that?”

“I did go to a few of my classes, you know. And I dated a psychiatrist a couple of years ago.”

“Then think how easy this will be.”

“For some reason I doubt that,” he said. “You sure you want to do this? You want to dredge up the past and try to sort it out after all this time?”

She did and she didn't. All she knew was that Deidre's thinking she was unhappy was an annoyance, but hearing the same thing from Miranda had scared her a little. And though she'd denied it, deep down she couldn't help wondering if they were right. What if they were seeing something she wasn't? What if there was something better out there and she was missing it? What if all this time she'd just been slogging through life, not really living it?

“We at least should try,” she said.

“You might not like what I have to say.”

She was well aware of that. “I'll take my chances.”

“Okay,” he agreed. He gathered the papers and tucked them into the binder, then gestured for her to sit.

She perched on the edge at the foot of the bed. “So, where do we start?”

“Since we're new to this communicating thing, May be we should practice first. May be we should try talking about something we never fought about.”

That subject did not exist. “Dillon, we fought about
everything
.”

“Not everything.”

“See, we're fighting already!”

“This is not fighting. This is discussing.”

“Name one thing in our entire relationship that we didn't fight about.”

“Money,” he said.

“Money?”

“Money was never an issue. You nagged me about school and rode me relentlessly about my drinking and my weekend excursions. But never money. Even during the divorce it never came up.”

He was right. She may not have approved of the way he spent his money, particularly the trips to Vegas and Atlantic City that would put him back thousands of dollars. But she hadn't felt she had any right to dictate where and how he spent—or wasted—his fortune.

And when the divorce happened, she didn't ask for a penny. She just wanted it to be over fast. And it might have been if his father hadn't gotten involved. Apparently, he hadn't trusted her to fade away quietly. Either that or he was just pissed off that he'd been wrong about her, that she really hadn't been after Dillon's money.

“And sex,” he said. “We never fought about sex.”

Oh, but they had. One time. It had been
the
argument. The one that had hammered the final wedge between them.

“The day I told you I thought I might be pregnant, we argued. Sex…pregnant. Can't have one without the other.”

“And I've been trying for the first one for days now, but you're not cooperating.”

Clearly, he used humor as a defense mechanism when she came close to hitting a nerve, to making him face something he didn't want to deal with.

“Don't do that,” she said. “Don't make a joke out of this or nothing will get resolved. Just talk to me. I know you're not used to talking about your feelings, but you're going to have to if we really want this to work.”

He was quiet for a second and she could see the wheels spinning, see him working things through, trying to decide if this was worth the hassle.

What would it be?

“I had every reason to be upset,” he finally said. “Neither of us was ready to start a family.”

“You were more than upset.” He had been furious.

How could she let that happen, he'd shouted? How could she be so careless? As if he'd had no part in it.

The pregnancy test she later took had been negative, but by then the damage had already been done.

After that it had been as if they were afraid to touch each other, afraid there might be an accident that would bind them together for life. And without the sex, there had been nothing left to hold them together. She knew that it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart. But admitting it was over was as good as admitting that her mom was right. So she had hung on until the bitter end.

“I overreacted,” he admitted, then he really blew her away by adding, “I think that deep down I knew I was a lousy husband and thought I would be an even worse father.”

It was the most honest thing she had ever heard him say. The first time he'd ever admitted he wasn't flawless, that he had doubts just like everyone else.

“You weren't a lousy husband.”

He got that stubborn, sulky look. “You sure as hell made me feel like I was.”

Her first instinct was to lash out and deny the accusation. But Dillon was not the kind of man to admit to having feelings he didn't really have. He was too damned proud.

“I didn't mean to,” she said.

“It wasn't always that way. After we got married, you changed.”

Another denial sat on the tip of her tongue. Why was this so hard? Why was her gut reaction to go on the defensive?

Instead, she asked, “How did I change?”

He shrugged. “You were just…different.”

Well, that wasn't much help.

She tried another angle. “What was I like before we got married?”

He thought about it a second, and the hint of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Fun. You were a little repressed at first, but you were willing to try new things.”

They did have fun. So much that she used to believe it was too good to be true. She wondered why a rich, handsome man was even remotely interested in someone as boring and plain as her. Dillon had brought her out of her shell. He'd made her feel good about herself. At least for a while.

The next question was harder to ask, since she was pretty sure she wouldn't like the answer. “And after? What was I like then?”

“You were so…
serious
. All you did was study.”

That was entirely unfair. Not everyone had the luxury of screwing around. “I didn't have an eight-figure trust fund to fall back on and a ready-made job being handed to me. I needed to get my degree. And I had to maintain my GPA or I would lose my scholarship. Which, as you know, I eventually lost anyway.”

“Because of my father,” he said.

She nodded. He'd pulled a few strings and her full scholarship had mysteriously been revoked. She'd worked hard for that money. She'd busted her butt all through high school and graduated at the top of her class.

With the snap of his fingers, Dillon's father had snatched it away. To this day she wasn't exactly sure why.

Was it because she'd never been impressed by his money and power? Because she couldn't be bought? Not for any price.

May be he'd done it to put her in her place. To prove the power he held over her.

To add insult to injury, no one would give her a student loan, not when she was married to a billionaire. She'd had to go to work full-time to cover her tuition and living expenses until the divorce was final, and Dillon's father saw to it that it took a very
long
time. By then she was so far behind, she'd graduated two years later than she'd originally planned.

“I didn't find out what he'd done until it was too late,” Dillon said. “If I had known at the time I would have stopped him. Or at least I would have tried.”

She'd convinced herself that he'd known all along and had let it happen, and she'd hated him for it. But the truth was, he'd never been vindictive. Just arrogant and misguided.

And she believed him. If he could have stopped it, he would have.

“Working harder for it just made me appreciate it more,” she told him, and it was the truth. It taught her to be independent and self-sufficient. She learned she was tough enough to handle just about anything.

“I would have paid your tuition if you had only asked.”

She knew that, too, but she'd been too proud to go looking for a handout. Too embarrassed to admit how badly she had screwed up. She had to do it on her own. As Miranda had said earlier, Ivy had a stubborn streak.

“You didn't even have to go to school,” he told her.

“I would have taken care of you.”

“I'm sure my dad said the same thing to my mom. Then he walked out the door. Besides, if I had quit school, we both would have been bored silly within a month.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

“So, I guess our marriage failed because I was a good student,” she said, half joking. He didn't return her smile.

“It wasn't just that.”

Oh, great, there was more? Was there anything she did right?

“You sure you want to hear this?”

She wasn't sure of anything anymore. “No, but tell me anyway.”

“After we got married you nagged me constantly.”

Oh,
ouch.
That one really stung.

Her mother's nagging had driven her nuts. Had she really done the same thing to Dillon? “I nagged you?”

“No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough.”

That wasn't true. Although she did recall thinking that being married hadn't been what she'd expected. In fact, it hadn't been any different than when they'd been dating. Dillon hadn't changed at all.

May be
that
had been the problem. She'd been expecting him to change. To mature overnight.

“I think I had certain expectations about being married,” she told him. “I thought we would settle down and get serious. Start acting like grown-ups. But things didn't happen the way I planned. You were so…irresponsible. I think May be it scared me.”

“I wasn't ready to grow up,” he said. No apology, no excuses. Hadn't that always been his M.O.? This is the way things are and if you don't like it, tough cookies. But that wasn't the way it worked.

“Part of marriage is learning to compromise,” she reminded him.