by Francis Ray
The buzzer sounded. She glanced up. Her face broke into a wide smile. Pressing the buzzer for admittance, she hurried to meet Trent halfway. Seconds later she was in his arms, his lips on hers.
He smiled down into her upturned face. “Now, that’s what I call a welcome.”
“I suppose you just happened to be passing by?” she teased, her fingers twined around the back of his neck.
“No, I missed you and I didn’t want to wait until tonight to see you,” he told her frankly. “If not for all this glass, I’d show you exactly how much.”
Her heart sped up. “I’d let you, too.”
“You’re making it awfully difficult for me to behave.”
She grinned. “I could say the same thing about you.”
“You’d better.” He kissed her on the nose. “I have a surprise for you tonight.”
“What?”
“If I told you—”
“It wouldn’t be a surprise,” she finished with a pout.
He laughed and hugged her to him. “I love teasing you.”
I love you. The words popped into Dominique’s head and almost tumbled over her lips.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” he asked, staring down into her troubled face. “You’re trembling.”
“I—” She couldn’t tell him. That would mean the ultimate in being vulnerable. With an effort she brought a smile to her lips. “I guess I’m a little tired.”
“My fault. You’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight,” he promised.
She pulled her arms down. She tried to tell herself that she should be pleased that he was being thoughtful again, but somehow she felt abandoned. “I should get back to work.”
His hands on her waist held her in place. His gaze intent, he said, “If this is going to work we have to be honest with each other.”
Some secrets she wasn’t ready to divulge, but he was right. “I guess I didn’t think you’d get tired of me so soon.” She wasn’t prepared for the anger that flashed across his face or to find herself off the floor and staring into his blazing eyes.
“Tired of you? What gave you such a crazy idea?”
She would have been indignant if his anger hadn’t stunned her. “You—you said I’d get a good night’s sleep.”
“That’s right. So we’d better get to bed early. Any objections?”
She shook her head. “None.”
“Good.” He set her on her feet. “Then I trust there won’t be a reason to have this conversation again.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…” Her voice trailed off. She glanced away.
A lean, hard finger brought her head back around. “Don’t start doubting me or yourself. And remember, whatever it is we talk about it, no jumping to conclusions. All we have to do is be honest with each other, and things will be fine.”
She shifted restlessly. “Things aren’t as simple for some of us,” she told him while thinking of her real identity, her love.
“They can be if you let them.”
“Perhaps,” she said evasively.
“Sounds as if you need convincing.” He kissed her hard on the lips, then went to the door. “It’s a good thing I enjoy a challenge.”
Dominique watched his truck pull away from the curb, her thoughts troubled. He might enjoy a challenge, but he detested dishonesty. Somehow she had to find a way to tell him about her identity. The longer she waited, the harder it was going to be for both of them.
Trent deserved total honesty. She could give him nothing less. Somehow she’d make him understand she hadn’t intentionally deceived him, that she had simply been trying to make it on her own.
Tonight. She’d tell him tonight. Her mind made up, she turned toward her desk.
The buzzer sounded. She glanced around. Her hand, already reaching for the control, froze.
Standing outside the glass door were Isaac and three other male teenagers, including Jessie. Isaac twisted the doorknob, pounded on the glass. When the door didn’t open, the teenagers began making lewd, suggestive motions with their bodies and hands while mouthing the foul words.
Disgusted, she jerked up the phone. They should be in school instead of bothering her. She was calling the police.
Her gaze switching from the youths to the phone, she punched in 9, then 1, then 1. Frantically pointing to her, three of the boys ran out of sight, leaving Isaac to make one last hand gesture before following.
Moments later a fast moving, battered, red Camaro sped past the front of the studio with Isaac and another teenagers hanging out of the windows, yelling what she was sure were obscenities. Her hand trembling, she dropped the receiver back into place.
What could she tell the police? That some teenagers had made suggestive gestures and then run? Hardly enough to warrant the call.
Yet, if Trent found out about the incident there was no telling what he might do. It wasn’t worth the possibility of his getting into trouble with the police. She was safe inside the studio, and she always left before dark. She wasn’t worried about them coming back. They had fled too quickly when she had picked up the phone. Cowards, all of them.
Rounding her desk, she sat down and wondered how they had found her, then decided it didn’t matter. Determined to forget them, she went back to working on the photo shoot for Gia.
* * *
Trent was smiling broadly when he entered his outer office. With a wave to Anita, who was on the phone, he went to his private office and sat behind his desk. Scooting his chair closer, he picked up the ballpoint pen he had left on top of the bid proposal earlier.
Seconds ticked away. The pen remained immobile. His mind was three-point-seven miles away in Deep Ellum, more specifically on Dominique Everette.
By nature, he wasn’t an impulsive person. Yet, he had wanted to see her and had simply given into the urge to do so. He leaned back in his chair and freely admitted he hadn’t been a lot of things before he met Dominique. He didn’t mind the new Trent one bit. He couldn’t remember being happier.
In his mind he replayed the happy expression on Dominique’s beautiful face when she saw him, the utterly beguiling taste of her lips, the way her body melted against him. He didn’t see how it could get any better than this.
Every moment with her was fantastic. And when he wasn’t with her, he wanted to be. He loved everything about her.
He loved her.
The realization didn’t shock him. Since he had first seen her, he had been falling. He’d gone to the mat and stayed there when she came over to comfort him after his confrontation with Isaac. However, he didn’t think she was ready to hear the words.
Her jumping to conclusions when he mentioned letting her get a good night’s sleep was evidence that she remained unsure about their relationship. She wouldn’t for long. He was going to show her in every possible way that they had a future together. He was used to working hard for what he wanted, and Dominique Everette was definitely at the top of his want list.
This time things were going to turn out differently. This time he didn’t have to worry about deceit and dishonesty from the woman he loved. This time his second chance at happiness was just the beginning.
Chapter Thirteen
Dominique had planned to tell Trent the moment she saw him. Her plans were altered when he came over after six that evening and insisted she come with him at once. Janice, planning to go out later with Paul to a movie, waved them off with a smile.
Dominique had gone willingly, prepared to explain everything to him, until he showed her her first surprise in his bedroom. Two dozen pink and white roses sat in a delicately etched, crystal vase on the dresser. Beside the flowers were a sterling silver comb and brush. Her unsteady hand picked up the comb, then the brush.
“There’s another present over there.”
A long, pink, silk robe lay on the bed. Beside it was a pair of matching slippers.
“There’s one more.” Tugging her hand, he took her into the large bathroom that held an oversize
d sunken tub and a glass enclosed shower, then pointed to the top of the black marbled vanity.
A dryer. A lump formed in her throat. She turned to him, the brush still clutched to her chest.
“I knew you were upset this morning about your hair. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Her arms went around his neck. She gazed up at him. “Thank you. Your thoughtfulness always makes me feel special.”
“You are special.” His arms circled her waist. “But I benefit, too. We can make love in the shower or the tub and neither of us has to worry about your hair.”
“T—Trent.” His name trembled on her lips. A familiar heat began to build inside her.
His hands lifted and began unbuttoning her white blouse. “What do you say we test the dryer? You never know when you might get a dud.”
Placing the brush on the vanity, she smiled up at him, her hand closing around his masculinity. “A problem you don’t have.”
He nipped her on the ear. “And aren’t you pleased?”
“Very.”
His fingers made short work of her cotton blouse and lacy bra. “Then I know you’ll be happy about something else.”
She was almost as quick with his shirt. “What?”
He reached for the button on her slacks. “Ice cream.”
Her hands paused on the snap of his jeans. “Ice cream?”
He grinned wickedly. “Trust me.”
* * *
For a long, satisfying time Dominique could barely lift her eyelashes. She did, though, just enough to see Trent’s slumbering face inches from hers on the pillow they shared. She felt the sheet on her and knew he had pulled it over them. She hadn’t had the strength.
She should have known when he said “Trust me” with a gleam in his eyes that he was going to do things to her body that still made her blush. Her lashes closed as she remembered doing similar things—and enjoying every sensual, erotic-filled moment.
She’d never think of ice cream in the same way again.
“I’m going to help with your hair as soon as I can sit up.”
Dominique opened her eyes to find herself staring into Trent’s dark gaze. She loved him more with each passing moment. Somehow she found the strength to move enough to touch his face with her fingertips. “We need to talk.”
“Later.” His mouth found hers again and once again she was taken to a place only Trent could take her. By the time he joined her, she had ceased to think.
* * *
The next morning Dominique didn’t think about telling Trent until she was halfway to work. She’d just have to tell him that evening. When she arrived home Janice put her to work helping prepare for the neighborhood block party in their backyard. During the laughter-filled gathering, she was too busy meeting the mostly elderly neighbors and helping Janice and the other ladies make sure they didn’t run out of food or drink to think of much else.
It was almost eleven when the last couple left. Trent had taken her back to his house and straight to bed. The following night they double-dated with Janice and Paul and went to a dinner show at the Venetian Room in the Fairmont Hotel. This time she took Trent straight to bed.
She really planned to talk with him when she arrived home Thursday, but they went to watch The Tigers practice and show them their pictures. They stayed at home Friday night, but by then her courage had decreased dramatically. She didn’t want to chance ruining their relationship.
Her days were filled with doing a job she loved: her nights in the arms of a man she loved. She had waited so long for the former and hadn’t known how much she wanted the latter until Trent had walked into her life.
As days turned into weeks, she knew she had no choice. Her family was becoming suspicious, since she was gone so much at night. Dominique expected them to pay her a visit any day. Before that happened, she had to tell Trent.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Trent said beside her one night in bed, their heads on the same pillow.
Her fingertips grazed his lips, traced his dark brow. “I guess it’s time I told you.”
Frowning, his hand caught hers. He kissed her palm. “What is it, Honey?”
“I know you think of everything in black and white with no shades of gray, but that isn’t always the case with some of us,” she said carefully.
“Is this about your marriage?”
“No. You banished LaSalle completely,” she told him truthfully. “I didn’t think that was possible before I met you.”
“Then this isn’t about another man?”
“This is about us. If … if afterwards you still want there to be an us.”
His arms closed tightly around her, dragging her to him. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. You had me thinking you were going to leave me.”
“You may want me to after I’ve finished.”
He sat her away from him, his gaze searching. “This sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“I’m listening.”
She bit her lower lip. “I think we should get dressed first.”
His hands tightened for a split second, then opened. “You can get dressed, but you’re not leaving me.”
She had to touch him one last time. She laid her hand on his chest. “That will be up to you.” She turned away from him, gathered up her clothes, and dressed in silence.
Finished, she went down the hallway and perched on the edge of the chair framing the window in the living room. It wasn’t lost on either of them that the seat was only a few feet from the door.
Trent stared at her choice of seats, then pulled the matching chair around her, effectively blocking her escape, and sat down. He didn’t know what was going on, but she was not running away from him. There was another surprise he intended to give her tonight, and nothing she said was going to change that.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Dominique clasped her hands together. Nothing had been this hard, not even telling Daniel about the horrors LaSalle had put her through.
“If you want to, we can forget this, do your hair, then have the dinner I picked up on my way home,” he suggested. “It’s Chinese.”
She didn’t even think of taking his offer. It was now or never. She moistened her dry lips. “Janice was right about a second chance. I needed one desperately. I needed to find something that brought peace and permanence. I had been looking and wandering for eight years.”
“Since your divorce?” he asked.
“Yes. It … it wasn’t pleasant.”
He came out of his seat to kneel in front of her. His hands gripped hers. “You don’t have to tell me anything more about that. It isn’t hard to imagine what happened when you were tied up.”
Shame went through her. She tried to tug her hands free. It was impossible.
“Listen, Dominique. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t you think I felt you tense sometimes when I touched you? If that bastard hadn’t been dead, he would be now,” Trent said fiercely. “But you’re past that now. In the past weeks we’ve been as intimate as a man and woman can get, and you were with me all the way. He’s behind you. You’re independent and strong. You’re free.”
“Now,” she said, continuing slowly, “but when I came to Dallas all I had were dreams. I was running from who I am, and trying to prove to the world I was as talented as anyone in my family.” Her hands clutched his. “To the people who loved me it didn’t matter, and I shouldn’t have let others influence me into thinking it did.”
“He made you think it did,” Trent told her.
“Yes. During the nine months of our marriage my best was never good enough, and afterward I was never quite as sure of myself.”
“It’s over. You’re stronger now. You can accomplish anything you want.”
She pulled her hands free. “I know that now, but it took caring about you, being around you, to make me realize that. I don’t regret how I handled things. I regret thinking it was the only way.”
“What a
re you talking about?”
“I wanted to make it on my own as a portrait photographer. I didn’t want another failure in my life,” she told him tightly. “I wanted no one to be able to say I had used my family connections, as they did in Paris.”
“Paris?” He straightened. “I thought you modeled after high school.”
“I did, then off and on since then,” she told him watching him stand and move back a step. So it had begun already.
“So when did you start taking pictures?” he asked.
“Two years ago we were on location for a fashion shoot for a European magazine at a small fishing village, and the photographer’s assistant became ill. I was finished for the day so I volunteered to help. Looking through the lens instead of being on the other side opened a whole new world. Most photographers start very young, but I was determined.”
“Apparently you learned well.”
A chill went through her. His controlled words hadn’t sounded like a compliment. “I like to think so. It was past time for me to find something I enjoyed, and was good at. I tried a couple of other business ventures, became bored, then sold out. In the meantime I wandered around the world.”
“It takes money to do both.”
She started to drag her hand through her hair, encountered the tangles, and put her hand in her lap. “Yes, it does. But I have money.”
“How did you get it?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“The old-fashioned way. I inherited it.”
His brown eyes narrowed. “If you have money, why were you so worried about your business?”
“Because I want to succeed on my own,” she reminded him. “For once in my life I want to stand and accomplish something on my own merits and know it’s not because of my last name.”
His hand brushed across his head. “Come on, Dominique. I keep up on African-Americans who are the movers and shakers in the business world, and I don’t remember seeing Everette on the list.”
“That’s because my grandfather retired years ago. I’m sure the name Falcon was on the list.”