"OK, chickie, think good thoughts, sleep tight and I'll call you tomorrow," she announced, whilst giving me a bear hug and an extra squeeze just because. I squeezed back, because a hug should always be returned, no matter what.
I slid into Katie's car, my overnight bag on my lap and watched as Kelly pulled away and headed back towards town. Katie slipped into the driver's side and started the engine. It even sounded cute.
"You know," she said softly as we too pulled away from the white monster house, "Dominic is an extremely private man."
"Katie," I warned, not really wanting a Dominic-fan-club-pep-talk.
She ignored the warning. "Most of the time Nick and I don't get to meet the women in his life. When we have it has been by mistake, a coincidence. Same restaurant or event, call around unannounced and she might be there."
Oh, I really did not want to hear this. I crossed my arms over my chest, resting them on my bag in a mini-huff and stared out the window, trying to think of something to hum.
"Those we have met, he's barely introduced them, let alone shown any intimacy toward them in front of us. He can be quite cold, in fact. My heart always went out to them."
"I don't know if this is a good idea," I said stiffly.
"No, probably not, but I'm telling you anyway." I sighed, long and loud. She ignored that too. "The moment he introduced you I knew it was different. Not only did he do it properly, the way he looked..."
"Yeah," I interrupted. "That would be the properly where he didn't say a word and let me believe you were something other than what your are. Say, like his girlfriend."
Katie laughed at that, I didn't appreciate her humour.
"Darling," she said exasperated. "He'd already told me all about you. In fact, he wouldn't shut up. Your name, where you work, your business and the incredible coffees you sell. The fact that your shop was the busiest one on High Street the day he visited it. That you have made it into something of a cult - not his words, I think he used... hotspot - the place to be. Never in all the time I have known my brother, have I seen him so enthusiastic about someone he is dating. In fact, darling, even before I saw the way he has to touch you or be near you every second you are in the same room, I knew he was in love. I'm not sure what's going on, but it isn't what you think."
I stared at her, open mouthed and not caring that I was catching flies. It couldn't be true. None of it. She was simply blinded to the situation, seeing things that weren't there, because she loved him so very much. He was her big brother and she doted on him, as I was sure she doted on Nick too. That was just Katie. Her heart was enormous, her capacity to see the good in people, limitless. She'd got it wrong. She had to have got it wrong.
Because it was one thing for me to have fallen in love with the man within three days of meeting him, but it was a whole other thing to think god-like, dream-like, sexiest smile and name, Dominic Anscombe, could have fallen in love with me too.
Eventually I shut my mouth and for only the second time in a very long time had nothing to say. So, I stared out the window and watched the city flash by as Katie drove just as silently at my side. I have no idea what she was thinking, whether she regretted saying any of it, or now understood - having heard it said aloud - how silly her suggestions were.
Finally we pulled up in front of a small single story house in Herne Bay. White picket fence, white standard roses and a white weatherboard house with dark green trim. It was so perfectly Katie, all she needed was a dog, 2.5 kids and an adoring husband and the image would be complete. I wondered if she was seeing anyone. Maybe that could be the topic over breakfast.
She led me into a modern interior, cream walls and soft, muted colours, not at all girlie as I had suspected, but square furniture, bold prints, and not a flower in sight. A man would feel quite at home here, the colours soft enough to let you see Katie's feminine side, but not over the top fluffy to have him laying a track right out the front door.
"This is lovely, Katie," I said, as I gazed around the open plan kitchen, dining and lounge.
"Thank you, darling. It's small, but it's all mine. Had to design a few interiors to pay it off, but there's nothing like doing it yourself, is there?" she said it as though she knew I was exactly on the same page. I worked for what I had, everything I had was mine by right of sweat and determination and a hard slog. I may have had an inheritance from my gran, but I hadn't used it. Even though I didn't get a chance to, because of Brett, it was not something I had expected or counted on at all.
"You design interiors?" I asked, thinking she was very good at it indeed. There was so much to take in, but on first glance her house seemed so very simple and just right.
"It takes talent to make it seem real," she said at my shoulder, looking out over the room with a small smile.
I had a disappointed thought. "Did you do Dominic's place?"
She burst out laughing. "Good heavens, no! But, I've just signed a contract to redo it. I start at the beginning of next month, I still have a few current projects on the go. He's only just bought that place, he had to move in before any work was done."
"Oh," I said, feeling relieved and then instantly sad, that I wouldn't get to see how she finished it for him. That someone else would instead.
"Maybe you can put you're two pennies in and give me some ideas," she suggested, slyly I think.
I crossed my arms over my chest and gave her a mock frown.
"Just a suggestion, darling. From the sound of your shop, you've got style."
"If you call black and hot pink style," I rebutted.
"Oh, I'm not talking about your colour choice, although for the purposes of a business it has a certain wow factor. No, I'm talking about the eye-catching glass at the front, the music alcove at the back, the fact you've mixed chocolate and coffee and music together. It's clever, Dominic was impressed."
On that she started to head out the door. I didn't want to think of Dominic being impressed. I didn't want to feel the sense of pride that stole over me at her words. I wanted to keep my head down and my heart contained behind a brick wall. So, I straightened my shoulders and followed the sound of her high heels on the polished wooden floor.
"This one will be yours," Katie declared, showing me into a lovely welcoming room. Browns and golds and a hint of aqua to feminise the scene, copious pillows on a large king sized bed, dark furniture and an overstuffed armchair in the corner.
"This is great!" And I meant it, she had a real talent.
"The bathroom is through here, fresh towels are already laid out and if you need anything else, I'm just next door."
"Thanks, Katie. I really appreciate this."
She smiled at me from the doorway. "I do hope you know what you're doing, Genevieve." She held my gaze for a while and then softly closed the door.
I was so exhausted - again - I decided to not dwell on her soft warning, so I didn't waste time stripping and dressing in Dominic's T-shirt - well, I couldn't have left it behind, could I? - and slipping under the heavy duvet and crisp sheets. Within seconds I was asleep, despite the tumultuous thoughts swirling in my head and the mess of emotions battering my heart. Tomorrow was another day, I'd stick to my plan and deal with one thing at a time. Firstly, and most importantly - because it never broke my heart, ever - Sweet Seduction. And afterwards... I didn't know. I couldn't see past this hurdle. Hence one thing at a time as my plan.
It was a good plan, and I'd managed to pull off a good move tonight, so sleep came easily.
Until a warm, hard body wrapped around the back of me and a steel-like arm pulled me back against his chest and waist under the covers. Dominic's lips brushed against my temple, hot breath in my hair.
"What part of me not letting go did you not get, sweetheart?" he whispered in my ear.
"Dominic," I said, suddenly feeling like my heart was tattooing an intricate pattern inside my chest wall.
"Hush. We'll talk about it tomorrow, I've had a shit of a night. I need sleep."
My body f
roze, complete and utter tension through my frame. I wanted to run, I wanted to hide. I wanted to cry, because I was just so damn confused. Why was he here? Why did he come looking for me? Why couldn't he leave me alone rather than breaking my heart even more? And why did he have to feel so damn fine flush against my skin, wrapped around my body, face nestled in my hair?
He fell asleep almost instantly, but I didn't sleep another wink for the rest of the night.
Chapter 18
Hundreds Of Tattered Ribbons
Four hours of lying awake beneath the soundly sleeping, warm, gloriously half naked body of Dominic was torture. Luckily I had managed three hours before he slipped uninvited into my bed. But three hours, on top of the bone shattering exhaustion I was already feeling, was simply not enough. I felt like I'd been run over by a Mack truck, and to top it off I was sure I was having a mental, as well as an emotional, breakdown.
My mind was running around in circles. One minute ecstatic to have his body against mine, the next horrified that I'd felt elation at all, when he clearly was going to trample my heart, or at the very least continue to be called away by the other woman. I'd started calling her that some time around five in the morning. No man drops everything when called twice for anything other than a short skirt.
Yet, he came to find me, crawled into bed next to me, repeated he wasn't going to let go, and has held me all night since. We started out spooning as I had been curled in a ball on my side when he arrived. His body wrapping around mine, arm over waist, face nestled in the dip between my head and neck, his legs mirroring the position of mine. We couldn't have got closer if we'd tried. But even when it was clear he was sound asleep, I still couldn't extricate myself.
The first attempt had him rolling over and taking me with him, my whole body covering his for a second or two, and then gently tucked under his arm and against his side. I was sure he didn't wake, but even asleep the man could organise and demand. His hand grabbed my thigh, slipped down to my knee and brought my leg up and over his body. I was so stunned I stayed there for a solid hour, or at least I told myself that was why. It certainly had nothing to do with how good it felt.
That was my story and I was sticking to it.
The second time I tried to roll away, he simply shifted his body, so it was him pinning me, his leg over my thighs, his head on my chest. The same position we had woken up in the day before. This time I didn't try to escape. This time I just let silent tears stream down my face - not in defeat, but in a confused tumble of emotions that included pain, longing, desolation and desire. I was in so much trouble it wasn't funny anymore.
By the time I knew he had woken, the tears had thankfully stopped, but I hadn't been able to sleep at all. This was not good. This was incredibly bad. Yet I had never felt as alive as I did with Dominic by my side. The injustice of that was not lost on me.
From one second sleeping peacefully, to the next, his entire body came alert. Then he was above me, wide awake, dishevelled hair, sleep lazy eyes the only indication that he was still in bed, the rest of him was ready to go. He hovered over my body, his legs either side of mine, his hands holding his upper chest off me, one on each side of my head. The distance created only allowing me a superb view of his defined muscles, over his shoulders, down his slightly straining arms and across his damn fine chest. My eyes trailed every inch before I could stop them, drinking in the beauty of the man before me. Then reluctantly, I pulled them to his face. He didn't look too happy, despite evidence elsewhere to the contrary.
"You left my house," he said in a low voice, traces of sleep still obvious in the roughness along the edges of each word.
I bit my bottom lip and watched his eyes dip down to the movement. Heat began to sizzle behind his half closed lids.
I spoke before he acted on whatever emotion was getting fired up inside.
"I wanted to see Katie's house."
"Is that right?" he said, but it sounded like he wasn't buying it.
"Yeah, she's an interior designer," I announced as though he didn't know what his little sister did for a living. "I was thinking of hiring her to do something to the loft," I lied, shockingly easily. "So, getting an idea of what she's capable of seemed like a good idea."
"In the middle of the night," he said evenly.
"Well, I don't waste time when I get an idea in my head, so yeah." Great come back, Gen. One of your best.
"You didn't think that traipsing around the city was an unsafe move? Or that being near my sister wouldn't bring her into harm's way? Or that I might be worried about you, when I came home exhausted, wanting nothing more than to sink myself into you, and you weren't there?"
All of this he said in the same even, low tone, except the last three words. I swallowed under his intense gaze. Then felt instantly angry that he thought I hadn't considered all of that. Well, at least the first two, I was ignoring that last sentence.
"Of course I thought about it. Brett doesn't know Katie, so wouldn't look here and because of that King wouldn't be aware of her either. It was a safe decision, a good plan. And besides, we left a note."
"We'll get to your note in a minute," he said ominously, making me regret not proofreading Kelly's work before we left. But in my defence I had been in a hurry.
"Elliott knows about me, therefore has made it his business to know about my family, which means he'll be aware of Katie before too long, if not already." Oh my God. How did Brett know about Dominic? What did that even mean? "You could have led him directly to my sister, but that's not what I'm really pissed about." I was getting that, that he was pissed off, really pissed off. It was slamming into me in waves of hot air emanating from his body, hovering inches above mine. "No, what really pisses me off is you left a state of the art security system, in a house that has been wired with video surveillance connected directly to ASI and monitored 24/7, a practically impregnable design, out of the CBD for a cottage with sash windows that barely lock, two minutes drive from Sweet Seduction. What were you thinking?"
"You have cameras in your house? People watching it twenty-four hours a day?" I was dumbfounded, who has that much security, even if Dominic's brother runs a security firm, it was way over the top for a lawyer. "Are there cameras in the bedroom?" I demanded.
"Yes," he clipped. "Every room except the bathrooms."
"They watch you with your women?" I asked, my voice somehow rising in pitch and volume with each word.
"What women?" he asked, frowning. Then shook his head to dismiss the question completely. "They switch the monitors off when I'm in the bedroom, standard SOP."
"But when I was alone in there?" Still voice high and loud.
"They would have kept an eye on you," he replied coolly, and then a slow smile spread his lips. "Why? What did you get up to? Do I need to request a copy of the footage from Eric?"
I blinked at him. He could go from killer-lawyer, to iced-lawyer, to heated-man-with-hooded-lids within seconds. It was kind of impressive if not a little startling.
"You're crazy," I declared, ignoring the building heat in his eyes and coming off his body. "Nobody wires their house to that degree. Who the hell heard of having cameras in the bedroom, unless you're kinky. Are you kinky? No, don't answer that, I don't want to know. The fact that you have cameras through your house is not kinky, it's psychotic. You're psychotic. You've obviously got some sort of security hang-up, maybe it's because you're a lawyer and you see what fucked up things people can get up to, but whatever it is, you've got to know it's not sane. This behaviour is not sane. There's something wrong with you and I want to get as far away as possible." I took a deep breath in, either to recover from that tirade or to prepare for the next sentence, it was difficult to tell. "Please get off me."
He was still smiling, it had turned amused. But he didn't get off me, he lowered his body until he was flush against mine, entirely. Chests, stomachs, hips, groins, legs. Top to bottom touching. I held my breath.
"Have you finished psychoanalysing me?" he
said in a soft voice. I nodded, somehow I thought that question required an answer, it was only after I did it that I realised he didn't really care. He'd already moved on to the next topic. "Lets get a couple of things straight. I am not insane. I have never been certified crazy. Although I am beginning to wonder if I am a little crazy contemplating a relationship with you." He said relationship. Lack of oxygen had made me hear things that simply were not true. "There are valid reasons why my house is wired to such a degree - your words, not mine - that I do not wish to discuss at this point in time. The bottom line is, it is the safest place for you to be, and although Katie doesn't know that, you should have trusted me. Do you really think I'd leave you alone in my house if I didn't think it was one hundred percent safe?"
I stared at him, he glared back, his look alone demanding an answer.
"You're intense," I stated, because that was forefront in my mind and my mouth simply grabbed it and ran with it. "I've never met anyone like you. You scare me. You confound me." And now would be a good time to shut the fuck up. "You totally bamboozle me."
"Bamboozle," he said on a smile. "I like that, but you're distracting me from the question at hand. I asked you to trust me, yet time and again you don't. Why is that, Genevieve? Is it because of your ex? How he let you down and you can't seem to bring yourself to trust another? I'm not Brett Elliott. I'm nothing like him. You need to see that."
"Now look who's psychoanalysing," I shot back, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with how accurate his analysis was.
"Sweetheart," he said, shifting to rest on his left elbow, his right hand cupping my face tenderly. "Give us a chance. Trust me. We'll get through this, we'll get Elliott sorted and we'll get your life back. I have every intention of being a part of it when we do. Know this, the more you push me away, the more intrigued I become. I haven't had this much fun in a long time, Genevieve. I'm not about to walk away from something so delightfully addictive any time soon, so stop running."
I wanted to believe him. Dear God, I wanted to believe him. He was almost too good to be true when he said things like this. Maybe it was because he was a lawyer and words came naturally to him. But it felt like he meant them. It felt like everything he said came from deep inside. I just couldn't understand how this Dominic related to the Dominic who'd take a phone call and leave without saying good-bye.
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