Little by little, a growing but grudging respect for Dean blossomed in my chest. I could see the brain behind the man who never seemed to take anything seriously. I could see there was another layer to him. He actually cared about this stuff, and he was good at it.

I wasn’t sure why, but that seemed to matter.

I found myself clapping hard when he finished. Nearly an hour had passed in what felt like minutes, and Dean was smiling, waving, then leaving the stage. A few people stood and then the whole room was standing and clapping.

Marley was beside me, holding her phone with one hand and whooping loud while fist pumping with the other hand. It was like she’d just watched a concert instead of a speaker at a business conference.

“Man,” she said, holding her phone protectively. “That is an hour of pure gold. It’ll be worth the toaster you’re going to throw at me. Gotta go!” She winked, then rushed out of our row of seats.

I watched her go and couldn’t help smiling. I wondered what she’d think if she knew it was all a sham. The man my entire company was probably falling in love with after our couple’s game, and now that talk, wasn’t really mine.

I may not know if I actually wanted him to be mine, but I thought I knew exactly how Dean felt. I guessed he wanted nothing to do with being tied down. At best, he might want to act on the sexual tension he teased me about. But that sex would only be an act to help get me off his mind. In other words, he’d fuck me to forget me. Maybe that should’ve been flattering on some physical level, but it only made me feel empty.

Wasn’t that just like all the guys who came before? They only took what they wanted from me, then moved on. Dean was no different. I needed to remember that.

I sighed and followed the crowd out of the room, dreading dinner with him more than ever.

17

PEARL

I debated going back to the room to change before dinner, but decided there were two very good reasons not to. One was the possibility that I might run into Dean when I went to our room. After all the thoughts swirling in my head from listening to him talk in front of the staff, I didn’t fully trust myself to run into him alone yet. Especially not in private.

The other reason was I already had on a modest blouse and high-waisted skirt I’d worn for the work event. With my cardigan, it was perfectly appropriate for a fancy restaurant, and there was no smart reason for me to go fuss over my outfit. I needed to convince myself I wasn’t trying to impress him, even if I was starting to wonder about how true that was.

I had to stop myself in the hallway and talk through the anxiety bubbling up from every corner of my brain. No, I wasn’t going to blurt something stupid and mortally embarrassing the moment I saw him, like “Take my body and use me like a fuck doll.” For the record, I was only slightly worried I’d say something like that after spending an hour in awe of him while he spoke to the staff. And no, I wasn’t going to throw up on him. I wasn’t going to faint. I was just going to be a normal, well-adjusted human being.