One More Time (MMG Series Book 3)

by Hilliard, R. B.

  Five shots and three drinks later, I was a stumbling, bumbling idiot. “Weeeeeee!” I squealed, as I tried to focus in on the bouncing dots at my feet. Zane, who had been dancing with me, steadied my hips with his large hands. I couldn’t deny it felt good. Piper and Ellie tried to step in several times but I wouldn’t let them. In my wasted brain I was just fine pretending it was Dillon’s hands on me, and I wanted to enjoy the fantasy. They could go find their own big hands. Then I remembered Dillon didn’t want me and got pissed. The alcohol fueled my anger and made me bold, so bold I decided to do something about it. Iggy Azalea’s Fancy blasted through my core as I turned to face Dillon. Not Dillon, Zane, I reminded my inebriated brain. Zane’s eyes ate me up and I knew he was putty in my hands. His big hands slid from my waist up my torso and I pressed the lower half of my body to his. As we swayed back and forth to the beat, I could feel how hard he was for me. If I closed my eyes, I no longer saw Zane, but Dillon pressed tightly against me. I let out a slight moan when his thumb grazed under my left breast. My heart pounded inside my chest. Will I let him touch me? Should I? I felt his warm breath on my lips for a split second and then…nothing. I opened my eyes and staring down at me was a very angry Dillon. Uh-oh.

  “What the fuck, Isabella?” he shouted over the music. Before I could answer, he had me up and over his shoulder and we were marching for the door.

  “Let me down!” I screamed.

  “No!”

  “Dillon! I was having fun with Dane!”

  “His name is Zane!” he yelled.

  “That’s what I said!”

  As soon as we got to the parking lot he set me down and a wave of dizzy nausea hit. As if sensing what was about to happen, Dillon flipped me around, lifted my hair and I puked everything in my stomach onto a poor unsuspecting bush. Then I promptly passed out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dillon

  ‡

  “Fucking great,” I muttered, as I leaned Isabella over so she could christen the bush with vomit.

  The second she finished, she straightened up and said, “I’m pished at you.” Then she passed out cold. I muttered a few choice words as I lifted her into my arms. The sound of heels clicking across the pavement got my attention and I turned to see which of my so-called friends had the cojones to tangle with me right now.

  Piper and Zane, fucking great.

  “Is she okay?” Piper inquired. The concern in her voice made me swallow my nasty reply.

  “I didn’t know she was yours man,” Zane said. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have given her a second look.”

  “Why in the hell did you let her get so hammered?” I directed at Piper.

  “Me?” she squeaked. She wisely took a big step back. Then, squaring her shoulders, she gave it to me. “The last I checked, she is a bone-a-fide adult.” When I didn’t reply, she gave me more. “I gave her a shot, Dillon. That’s all. The next thing I knew, she had downed five more and was out on the dance floor dirty dancing with Zane. Don’t you dare blame me, buddy. You’re lucky I even bothered to call you.”

  “And you didn’t think to inform Zane she was mine?” I coldly asked.

  Her bold expression collapsed into one of guilt. “Every time we tried to get near them, she shooed us away. No one got the chance to tell him.”

  “We good here?” Zane asked.

  I fought the urge to set Ibby down and pummel him. “The next time you hit on a woman, make sure she’s not taken first,” I warned.

  Zane’s jaw tensed, but instead of giving me lip, he simply gave me a half-nod and walked away. Good move. I did not want to have to kick his ass right now. I also didn’t want to discuss it with Piper anymore. I needed to get Ibby home. Shifting her to a more comfortable position in my arms, I turned away from Piper and headed for my jeep.

  “Where are you going?” Piper shouted after me.

  “Where do you think I’m going? I’m taking her home.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “I’m fucking furious, Piper.”

  “You can’t be mad! I called you!”

  Ignoring her plea, I strapped Ibby in and headed for home. I would deal with Piper later.

  A girl I’d never seen before met me at the door with a concerned look on her face.

  “Is she okay?” she stared uncomfortably at Isabella in my arms.

  “You the sitter?” I asked her.

  “Yes, Uh, I’m Kaitlen.”

  “Can you watch Milly for a few more minutes while I get her mom settled?”

  “Milly?” she questioned.

  “Amelia,” I clarified. Before she gave me an answer, I headed for the bedroom.

  “Oh! Sure!” she yelled after me. “I-is she going to be okay?”

  “She’s going to be just fine,” I tossed over my shoulder as I entered the bedroom.

  Closing the door with my foot, I carried Ibby to the bed and checked her pulse. It was normal. I lay her down and carefully stripped off her clothes. Just to irritate her and make me feel better, I found one of my old T-shirts and yanked it over her head. As I turned her onto her side, I pulled the sheets up over her and thought about how much pain I had caused her. I knew I messed up, but until Sunday I hadn’t realized how badly. Her words had followed me around all week.

  “You are Amelia’s father, Dillon. I will never keep her from you. However, I need for you to leave now.”

  As I reflected back on Isabella’s icy tone and cold eyes when she told me to leave on Sunday, I realized how much damage I had caused. Someone had tried to hurt my girl and I couldn’t protect her because she wouldn’t let me. Watching her walk away and knowing I was leaving her unprotected was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I knew, though, if I was going to get her back, it wasn’t going to happen then. I needed to regroup and come up with a game plan.

  Instead of following after her, like I wanted that day, I went in search of Adam. I found him with Sally in Milly’s room. My baby girl smiled at me when she saw me come through the door of her room and my heart squeezed.

  As I took her from Sally, I placed her on my shoulder and whispered in her ear, “I love you baby girl. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make this right. I promise, one way or the other, we’ll be a family again.”

  “I hope you mean that,” Sally said through gritted teeth. “Izzy is the best person I know. If you aren’t one hundred percent sure about your feelings for her, then let her go. She’s better off without you.”

  “I know,” I told her as I handed Milly back over. I wasn’t going to get into it with Sally. Not here and not in front of my daughter. My thoughts and feelings weren’t any of her business. They were for me and Ibby only. “We need to go,” I directed at Adam. We were fifteen minutes late for our appointment with Parker and I didn’t want to keep him waiting any longer.

  My colossal fuck up had caused Isabella to do something rash and stupid tonight. Seeing her on the dance floor with Zane almost undid me. One second later, he would have had his lips on her and I would have killed him. I stared down at Ibby’s sleeping form and wondered if she would have stopped him from kissing her. Shaking the thoughts from my head, I went to relieve the sitter.

  Thirty minutes later, the sitter was gone and I was holding Milly in my arms again. It seemed like a lifetime since I had held her. The dark, quiet room was peaceful. As I rested my head against the back of the rocker, I thought back on my sessions with Adam and Parker.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” I asked. All this time I thought Dad was trying to hurt Adam. He wasn’t and Adam had known it.

  “What good would it have done? It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Adam replied.

  “I shot and killed our father, Adam!”

  “And I could have stopped you, Dillon! Don’t you think that hasn’t plagued me every single day of my fucking life? I could have stopped it from happening! I could have prevented so much fucking pain, but I didn’t. Instead I just sat there screaming like a fucking b
aby!” he shouted.

  Adam’s painful confession shocked me. There I was feeling guilty because I had taken Dad away from him and the whole time, he had been living his own personal hell for not stopping me from pulling the trigger.

  “So many wasted years and so much guilt,” I whispered out loud. Milly snuffled and rubbed her face against my shirt before settling back down.

  Adam and I met with Parker again on Tuesday afternoon.

  “Why are you afraid to tell Isabella about what happened with your parents?” Parker asked.

  Because she’ll think I’m a monster, I thought but didn’t say.

  “He’s afraid she won’t want him after she finds out,” Adam answered for me. I cut my eyes to him and his brow raised in question. “Am I wrong?”

  “Do you love Isabella?” Parker asked.

  Stupid question. “Of course I do,” I answered.

  “And you love Amelia?”

  “More than anything,” I replied.

  “Does Isabella love you?”

  She used to, echoed through my head.

  “She adores him,” Adam answered for me.

  “You can’t continue to paint your parents love with the same brush as the love you have for Isabella and Amelia,” Parker said. “There is a stark difference. Do you know what that is?”

  “Mom never loved Dad,” Adam answered.

  He was right. According to Mom’s journals, she was in love with another guy before she hooked up with our father. The guy broke up with her. To get even, she slept with Dad and got pregnant with Adam. She wanted Adam, but didn’t want Dad. Dad wanted both she and Adam. Since she was a year away from graduating from Design School and Dad was already established in his business, he convinced her that he would pay for her to finish school if she would marry him and have Adam. So, instead of following her heart, she went with Dad…and made him suffer for it.

  Isabella was nothing like our mother and I was nothing like our father. It took me a second to let this sink in.

  “I accused her of trying to tie me down. I told her I didn’t want to be a father or a husband,” I confessed.

  “Is that how you really feel?” Parker asked.

  “I thought if I pushed her away and rejected her first, it would be easier.”

  “Has it been easier?”

  “All I can think about is that fucker Jimmy trying to hurt her and me not being there to protect her from him.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I fucked up. She thinks I’m this great guy but I’m not. I fucking killed my father, I’ve strung women along for as long as I can remember because I’m scared shitless of commitment. I don’t want to end up pussy-whipped and pathetic like my dad. I’m afraid when the newness wears off, Ibby will discover what I really am and won’t want me…Just like my mom didn’t want my dad. So I….”

  “So you rejected her before she could reject you,” Parker finished for me.

  “That’s fucked up,” Adam said. Our eyes met and we both broke into laughter. It was all kinds of fucked up. I got that now.

  When the laughter died down, Parker smiled. Then he hit me with a poignant observation. “Your love for Isabella and hers for you is both mutual and true. Your parent’s never was. Your father bribed your mother to stay. She had a choice. She could have said no. You are using a false comparison, and in turn are selling both yourself and Isabella short. It pains me to see you do so because Isabella is not the only one suffering. You are as well.”

  I spent the last thirty minutes of the session discussing Dana, and what happened with Dooley and Piper, with Parker. He told me I had enough on my plate for the moment, to hang in there and we would definitely work through it at a later date. By the time Adam and I walked out of Parker’s office, I knew what I had to do. I had to get Ibby back. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, especially after she kicked me out of the house yesterday, but I had to try.

  “How do I get her back?” I asked Adam, later that night.

  “Uhhhh…try telling her you want her back,” he answered.

  “I did, dumb ass, and she told me to leave.”

  “Have you played for her yet? Girls love that shit,” he suggested.

  After mulling it over for a while, I called Kurt and set my plan in motion. Then I picked up my guitar and worked up a play list.

  Yesterday morning Adam headed back to Charleston and I spent the rest of the day and today practicing.

  After finding my girl in another man’s arms tonight, I wondered if it was all for nothing. Am I too late? I kissed a sleeping Milly on the side of the head and lay her in her crib before heading back downstairs to check on Ibby. As I walked down the stairs, Sally came through the front door. She froze like a deer stuck in headlights when she saw me.

  “Is she okay?” she asked.

  Not able to help myself, I lit into her. “No, she’s not okay. What in the hell were you thinking?”

  “I’m not her keeper, Dillon. I’m sick and tired of you treating me as if I am!” she snapped.

  “She was so drunk she was about to get fucked on a dance floor by a stranger tonight, Sally! Where were you while this was happening?” I snapped back.

  Her eyes widened in surprise and she whispered, “Please tell me you are kidding?”

  “I kid you not.”

  “I stepped out for no more than an hour to smoke a joint with Blake. I left her sitting at a table with Piper, Ellie and Joss. I wasn’t gone for long, Dillon, I swear.”

  “Well, while you were busy getting high, your best friend was about to get taken advantage of. When are you going to grow up and start acting like a responsible adult?”

  She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, right before she blasted me. “You dare speak to me of responsibility? You are the king of irresponsibility. Not only did you nail Izzy once, get her pregnant and leave her high and dry, but you turned around and did it again! What is it with you, Tarzan? Is one fatherless child not enough for you?”

  Her words hit me head on and my gut clenched. “What the hell are you talking about?

  “Remember the morning you walked out on Izzy and Milly after telling her you didn’t want her? Did you not come home the night before drunk as a skunk and screw her yet again…” she leaned forward and hissed, “without using a condom?”

  My first inclination was to deny it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized she could be right. I remembered sleeping with Isabella. How could I not? It was the one time we had been together after Charleston. I had been fighting myself all week and finally broke. My shoulders slumped in defeat. Did I not use a condom? Fuck! What is wrong with me?

  Sally’s words had a minute to sink in. My girl could be carrying my baby right now. My head snapped up. “Is she pregnant?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. She hasn’t talked to me about it since the day you left. It’s probably still too soon to tell.”

  I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “I fucked up, Sally. I need to make it right. I’m not just saying this because she could be pregnant. I’m saying it because it’s how I feel. There’s a lot you don’t know…that Isabella doesn’t know. Let’s just say my demons finally caught up with me and I almost let them win…”

  “But you didn’t,” she cut in. “I can see that. I saw it on Sunday. Izzy loves you, she’s just hurt. If you are serious about making it right, I will help you, but if you hurt her again, Dillon, I will do everything in my power to get her away from you once and for all. You get me?”

  I got her, loud and clear. “I won’t hurt her again. I promise. I need her at Dragonfly tomorrow night. Can you get her there?”

  A smile spread across her face. “I’ll make sure she’s there.”

  “I’m going to go check on her one more time and then I’m leaving. Are you okay to watch her?” I asked.

  “I’ll turn on the monitor and sleep downstairs with her. I promise she’ll be fine.” I started for the bedroom and Sally’s words stopped me. “S
he wouldn’t have slept with Zane tonight, Dillon. She loves you too much.”

  With a nod of acknowledgement, I checked on a still passed out Ibby and then headed to Dragonfly. I would rather crash in the office then to deal with Piper again. I needed to cool down before that happened.

  After tossing and turning on the lumpy sofa in my office at Dragonfly, I finally fell asleep. Scattered dreams of Isabella pregnant, my mother crying and Adam telling me he knew our dad wasn’t trying to hurt him invaded my sleep. The third time the dreams woke me, I made myself get up. I wanted to call and check on Ibby, but as it was five in the morning, I had to wait.

  At noon I met with Parker for a quick thirty minute session. I wasn’t cured by all means, but I wanted to thank him. It was because of him I didn’t feel my life was hopeless anymore. I no longer felt like a worthless piece of shit. I realized we had a long way to go and I was good with this. I was ready to get Isabella back and fight for our relationship. Whatever she needed, I would provide. I can do this.

  I called Sally after I left Parker’s office. She said that Ibbs was sick as a dog when she woke up and beating herself up pretty badly about last night. All I cared about was her making sure Ibby made it to Dragonfly tonight. I drove straight to Piper’s where I showered and changed. Thank goodness she was out. I didn’t want to have another confrontation with her. As soon as I was dressed, I grabbed my guitars and headed to the jewelry store, where I purchased the ring I had been eyeing before the Charleston trip derailed everything. As I headed back to Dragonfly, I couldn’t help but smile. Tonight Isabella Fisher was finally going to be mine.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes until show time. It had been a while since I’d been on stage. I had a lot riding on this and Ibby hadn’t shown up yet. My stomach was in knots. Where the hell are you, Sally? Five minutes later I watched them walk through the door. Thank fuck. Isabella was wearing faded blue jeans and a light pink top. I couldn’t see the expression on her face to know if she was happy or angry. Oh well, either way, this is happening.