Page 41 of Doctor Grump

He didn’t look like he liked that explanation, and he opened his mouth to say something more, but I laid a hand on his chest. “But thank you for caring.”

He looked down at my hand on his chest, then up at my face once again, his eyes dropping to my lips. I swallowed as I saw the expression on his face shift to a desire so dark that it made my heart tremor. I realized then how close his face was to mine. We hadn’t been this close to each other since that faithful night a month ago, and now that we were, the magnetism was back.

He’s going to kiss me. It seemed inevitable at this point, and everything inside me tightened in anticipation.

But once again, he stepped back, releasing me completely from his arms.

And once again, a mask slipped over his face.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

Disappointment sat heavy in my chest, but I looked away, trying to shield it. He stiffly held out his hand, but I shook my head, falling in step beside him instead.

* * *

The restof the month passed in a weird trail of events.

Surprisingly, I didn’t need to tell my parents the news of my engagement because it reached them two days after the confrontation with the twins. I woke up early that morning to my phone ringing incessantly, and unfortunately, I picked it up without looking at the caller ID or realizing the assigned ringtone.

“Hello?”

“Tell me it isn’t true!” my mother’s voice was nearly a screech. “Tell me you haven’t gone and gotten yourself engaged to the man who’s trying to steal from us! Tell me this is just one of your jokes.”

I sat up in bed, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “Who told you?”

“What does it matter who told me? Is it true, Piper?”

I sighed. “Mom, I really didn’t want you to find out like this. I was going to tell you, but it happened so suddenly and—”

“Oh Jesus,” I could imagine my mother swooning in her bedroom. “And to think, this whole time, you told me there was nothing between the two of you! I believed you, of course, because what would a man like that want with you?”

Ouch. “Yeah, Mom, I lied. Sorry about that, but we wanted to keep everything lowkey, considering—”

“Well, I don’t care, Piper. You can’t marry that man. Do you hear me? I forbid it! Forbid it!”

Then, after forbidding me two more times, she hung up the phone sharply, only to call thirty minutes later with another litany of wails about how I had betrayed her and the family with my actions.

I held strong through most of it, trying to reason with her and remind her that I always told her I had no intention of marrying the count. Still, the longer she talked, the guiltier I got. It was a relief when she finally hung up the phone because any longer and I might have spilled the truth about the whole affair.

After that, I started dodging my mother’s phone calls. I didn’t trust myself not to give in to her demands, and this was too important to allow guilt and my misplaced sense of duty to ruin it. This was my life and happiness, and I was going to fight for it, even if it meant going against my mother.

She eventually stopped calling. Instead, she simply sent me a strongly-worded text message in which she went through all the known stages of grief. Denial and anger were in the first few texts, and then she moved on to bargaining, telling me that if I were to only have one dinner with the count, she would let go of this entire thing once and for all and forget it ever happened. Then, after she saw that it wouldn’t work, she settled on depression. Surprisingly, she hadn’t quite gotten to the acceptance part of things, but I already knew it would take her some time to get there.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Ian and I evolved. While he was still somewhat guarded, I began to see the cracks in his facade the closer I got to him. I started asking him more questions about his past under the guise of our fake relationship. I told him that I needed to know in case anyone asked me, and even though I don’t think he bought my reason, he still told me most of what I asked.

He was more multidimensional than I thought. I had initially seen him as this straight-laced, albeit good-looking man, but there was a secretly whimsical and mischievous side to him. It was difficult to pin his personality down exactly as an archetype. He told me that he nearly joined a motorcycle gang in his teens because he enjoyed riding so much, although he didn’t anymore. But on the other hand, he was also in the birdwatching club in college. I briefly made fun of him for it before revealing that I had also been in a birdwatching club in high school. We laughed, and he told me about his history as a high school quarterback and math tutor.

It seemed the man was an open book, except for one topic. Whenever I asked about his military days, he would always shut down the conversation or steer it to something else. He didn’t appear particularly traumatized or anything, but there was a clear sense that he didn’t want to talk about it, so out of respect, I stopped broaching the topic.

Our friendship grew naturally, but so did the desire I felt whenever he was close to me or when I could smell him, feel him.

Still, we maintained the facade of easy camaraderie, ignoring the undercurrent of sexual tension. That was, until the night of the ball.

“I can’t wear this,” I said to myself for the umpteenth time as I stared at myself in the mirror. I had no idea what came over me to cause me to pick this dress at the store. It was a tight-fitting red silk wrap dress that draped over my body. While it wasn’t revealing in the least, it was nevertheless sensual as it highlighted the curve of my breast, the dip of my waist, and the flare of my hips. I didn’t usually wear such tight clothes as they often felt wrong on me, but when I tried this one on at the store, it made me feel….desirable. I had stared at myself in the mirror for a full hour after I wore it, imagining if maybe Ian would think so too.

Lucia had certainly thought so, and she spelled it out teasingly, “He's going to die when he sees you.”

“No, he won’t,” I had said with a roll of my eyes. “I told you, the thing between us is fake.”

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