Page 122 of Between Never and Forever

Still, Dex didn’t come to bed that night. He told me he would be in his office working and I knew what he was working on.

The problem with technology was it didn’t track letters and those red envelopes didn’t have fingerprints on them. Someone had been too careful, but Dex would be more meticulous in his search.

I could see it even when that week rolled into the next and he packed his suitcase for our hometown. He told me to do the same.

“We shouldn’t be getting married,” I told him, worrying over how tense he looked. Yet, I knew we were too close to the date. I also knew that the record label was running with the story, that Dex wouldn’t back down, and that I would have to see this through.

“Of course we should be,” he replied. “You want to get divorced in a few months, fine. But this is the plan until you’re done with Trinity. What are you so worried about anyway? You can’t think being married will be much different than being engaged.”

“Well, no. But…this is a huge thing to do. It could be hell to deal with.”

“We do huge things for family though right? And you’re family. You’re mine. I’ll go to hell and burn there for all I care. You think I won’t?” He stopped what he was doing to stare at me then. He was daring me to disagree.

Silence stretched between us before I finally sighed. “Marriage then. For a little while.”

He huffed and went back to work.

* * *

When the time came,he drove us to the corporate airfield and we got on the private jet.

That’s when it started to feel more real. Olive, Pink, and Dimitri passed us in the aisle to go to their seats and Olive murmured for me to check my phone.

“Jesus, what are we doing?” I whispered as I stared at the text she’d sent.

Olive: A source at Trinity leaked that Dex has always struggled to right his bad-boy ship. See attachment. They say he’s noncommittal and influenced you when you were underage causing destruction to your hometown and you, but he’s seeing the light now. You’re saving him supposedly.

“They’re dragging you through the mud because of me.” I closed my eyes,growling at that, and pounded the top of my phone so the screen would turn off. Then I stared out the window of Vegas getting smaller and smaller as we approached the clouds. “I can’t let this happen again.”

Dex shrugged at my frustration. “You realize that this time, I’m letting it happen,” he said and turned to give me a small smirk. He looked lighter and less stressed now, as if we could relax even though we were barreling toward saying I do when we should have been saying I don’t.

“This is serious, Dex.” I held up my phone to show him and then started to ramble. “The media outlets are trying to paint you as some man who needs redemption and that’s not true. I can’t be responsible for that. You should release a statement on your own. You could discredit the label and me if you need to.”

“Keelani Hale.” He stopped me by dropping my full name. “Do you ever let someone help you?”

“Help me with what?”

“With handling your life. You’ve done all this for far too long on your own. You know that?”

I huffed at his comment. “So what? I’m used to it. They’re ruining your image and twisting mine and—”

“Who cares?” Dex patted my leg and opened his laptop, not at all influenced. “It takes one social media post from us to quell the news anyway. It’ll be fine. We’re just not giving them anything right now, so they’re recreating drama.”

“Don’t you see how terrible that is?” I shoved his hand off my thigh at the fact he wasn’t as offended. I was offended for him. He protected me, watched over me, made me feel freaking free. Yet, they were saying he did the complete opposite. It was wrong. They’d been wrong for years but now I wanted justice. I wanted to rage and act out and release a statement that would ruin Trinity. I didn’t care anymore. He was doing too much for me and receiving nothing in return. “And you’re spending unnecessary amounts of time on people who are mad I’m engaged to you.”

“Are you talking about your fucking stalker, Kee?” he gritted out, his eyes turning dark as he stopped looking at his laptop to glare at me.

“It’s merely a fan,” I tried. “They’re mad I’m not single and—"

“All the more reason to get married,” he bellowed. “Don’t you see that? I’m not going to let someone threaten my girl.”

“Dex—"

“No, Kee. You’remine. You can take all the time you want to accept that, but they can’t.” His jaw worked up and down. I didn’t know how to accept it when I was scared to burden him with all this, when I was scared there wasn’t a way we’d truly be able to make it after everything we’d been through.

He continued on, “I’ve started running checks on every celebrity you’ve talked with in the last couple years. And we should pull a list of people at events who’ve shown up repeatedly.”

“Dex, I promise it’s nothing,” I told him and squeezed his arm.