Sweet Seduction Sacrifice

by Nicola Claire

  Finally my phone finished its warm up and I was immediately assailed with multiple buzzes and chiming indicating a fair few messages waiting to be cleared.

  "Looks like you're going to be busy, Genny-Benny," Dad commented. "We'll go grab some coffees and get you something nice to eat from the café, while you catch up with your friends."

  "We will?" Mum asked, clearly not liking that idea. "What if the hunk comes back?" Oh God, she did not just call Dominic a hunk.

  "Then Gen's in good hands, I think." Dad winked at me. Somehow in the brief amount of time Dominic was here, he'd won my father over. My mother may have appreciated his good looks, but she wasn't entirely convinced just yet.

  "What changed your mind, Dad?" I asked out of curiosity, expecting it to be the kiss on the temple - my favourite part - or maybe just Dominic's gentle manner and caring touch.

  "The fact that he still came to sit with you despite the obstacles we put in his path."

  I smiled, my face managed to accommodate the action without too much discomfort. Maybe practice was helping with that.

  "We'll see you in a little while, Genny-Benny," Dad said, grabbing Mum's hand and tugging her towards the door. "Come on, Cheryl, let the girl phone her friends."

  Mum grumbled the entire way out the door and I could still hear her as they walked down the hall. I returned my attention to the phone in my hand. Flicking through Kelly's many messages, Jane's, Lucas's and Karla's, then several from Wayne and Edward, two this morning alone from Katie, and one from my brother, telling me he had things in hand and was working closely with ASI. Always aware of how my mind operated, Jason was keen to settle my worries right off the bat.

  I smiled at his message and flicked on to the next. Then froze. It was from Brett, or at least from his phone. A picture/text message, not voice mail, so I couldn't be sure. But the tone of the text and subject matter led me to believe it was him, because Lofty sure as hell wouldn't have given such a damn.

  So, he was alive. That was my first thought, accompanied with a plethora of mixed emotions. I quashed them all, deciding he didn't deserve the effort required, and then opened up the attached photo.

  My breath left me in a rush, my hand started shaking making the image on the screen blur. I rested the phone down on my lap and stared at the two people embracing in the picture. Dominic, in the same suit, shirt and tie he was wearing today and a woman. Blonde, long slim legs, thin to the point of being heroin chic, large breasts straining through a tight fitting red blouse, that couldn't possible be natural considering her slight frame. And an adoring look on her face as she stared into Dominic's eyes from inches away.

  She loved him. It was clear from the pose to the love-sick puppy look on her face. She adored him. But then who wouldn't, I thought on a sob. And Dominic? His arms were around her slim waist, his hips flush against hers, his face dipped down as if he was about to kiss her. And the killer? His face was soft, caring, compassionate. He adored her too.

  I felt crushed by the image alone, but the text Brett had sent with the picture sealed the deal and shattered my heart.

  You should know what he's been doing while you've been unconscious in bed. Three times since Tuesday. Three times wrapped up in her arms. He's using you, baby. You're just one of many, nothing special, nothing unique. Phone me.

  I stared mutely at the text message, unable to face the picture again, but knowing I wouldn't delete it. That I'd go back to it time and again. Because if I ever needed discouragement, that anything with Dominic could be long term, that picture would remind me.

  Not only did my body feel abused and battered because of Brett, now my heart felt ten times worse, because of Dominic Anscombe.

  With a body shuddering hitched sob, I curled into a ball, ignoring the stabbing pain it caused through my entire body, and cried my tears into the bed.

  Chapter 27

  He Just Shrugged

  "Fuck!" The words were muttered above me and broke through my numbed state.

  I'm not sure if I had fallen asleep or simply ceased to exist, but Dominic's muttered curse made it through whatever fog I'd hidden in, but still didn't register completely. I curled a little further in on myself, relishing the pain shooting through my hip and across my left side and let the tears continue to fall.

  "Sweetheart," he whispered in my ear. I burrowed my face deeper into the hospital sheets, smelling the disinfectant, through the weave, that had been used on the plastic mattress beneath.

  The bed dipped, heat wrapped around me from behind and Dominic's face nestled into the curve of my neck. His arm draped over my stomach, carefully placed not to cause pressure on my bruised hip and side.

  "Lovely, talk to me," he encouraged against my ear. "I know you've seen the picture. Talk to me."

  I shook my head, then bit my lip and frowned at myself for having given anything at all away. I should just ignore him, pretend he isn't there, that he no longer exists for me. It would be easier that way. Still painful, but the sooner I got that and behaved like this time with him had never happened, the sooner I'd walk out of this pit of despair.

  I felt him settle in further behind me, his hand at my waist began to gently stroke across the material of the hospital gown under my breast. I wanted to pull away, to throw my shoulder into him, elbow to his guts, but movement of any sort would hurt and didn't support the pretend-he's-not-there plan.

  "Her name is Caroline," he started in a low voice. I sucked in breath and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't and I did want to hear this, but I knew either option was going to hurt. "I dated her for three months at the end of last year. It started out OK, she was fun, intelligent, available." He let a breath out on that last word as though a little disgusted at himself. For me, I was now barely breathing at all. "Then things changed and she became demanding, clingy."

  My frown deepened. Was I clingy? I'd practically admitted to the nurse how much I needed him and within seconds of waking his name was on my lips to my folks. Dominic didn't do clingy and I had definitely begun to cling.

  "Then the demanding became invasive, she'd turn up at work and throw a fit in reception if Cathy told her I was busy. Which nine times out of ten I was. At first, I hadn't been trying to avoid her. Towards the end, I avoided her like the plague. The invasive became dangerous when she started to act out in public, placing herself in ridiculously hazardous positions to gain my attention. I was called to bring her down from the first high-rise ledge two months into the relationship."

  Oh. OK, so maybe a little more unstable than me. I let a breath out on that thought, but my stomach roiled thinking how desperate she must have been and how hard it must have been for him too.

  "My tyres were slashed one week afterwards, couldn't pin it on her, but it meant I was unable to leave her house unless I called a taxi and made a fuss. I stayed, it was a mistake. It rewarded her behaviour. She started to think up better and bigger scenarios to keep me at her side. Threw herself in front of a taxi." My entire frame stiffened at the image that evoked. "Her Yorkshire terrier was found dead in her back yard, when I was due at a business meeting. Poison, again I couldn't be sure she did it. Who kills their own dog to stop someone from leaving their house?"

  Holy crap. I realised I'd turned my body towards him as he'd been saying all of this in a soft, even voice at my ear. He'd moved to accommodate my new position, no longer stroking the material beneath my breast, now he was stroking my arm instead. Skin directly on skin, and I got the impression he needed that.

  "I had Nick look into her past, to see if she'd done anything like this before. I was about to cut her loose, file a restraining order, but I wanted to make sure she got the help she needed - if she needed it - first. What he found was not good." His face nestled into the side of mine, he inhaled as though he needed to ground himself in my scent to continue. "She'd suffered, Gen."

  That was the first time he had ever shortened my name, it sounded nice on his lips, but also alien. I understood he could hardly call me "swe
etheart" or "lovely" whilst telling me all of this, but that didn't stop me from missing it. I really was a pathetic case.

  "She'd been abused, seriously abused, by her stepfather. In and out of foster care since then, mental health facilities as an adult. She'd hidden it all well. She functioned, on the surface, appropriately. Had a good job, made good money, nice flat and car. I had no idea." He sighed. "I tried to talk to her about it and she flipped out. Took a knife from the butcher's block in her kitchen, threatened to slit her wrists. I had her hospitalised after that. They put her on medication, it worked. Or seemed to. Then I came home to my house having been totally trashed. And I mean totally. Nothing was salvageable." He fell silent then, as though that was all he had to say about that, but he was only part way through the story I was sure.

  So I decided to help, or at least my mouth did.

  "That's why you're in this new house. Katie said you had to move in quickly, before you could have the interior altered to suit you."

  His head twisted so he could look me in the eye, a hand came up and brushed my hair from my eyes, then trailed a delicate path down my cheek. Directly over the bruise Brett had given me, but so light it felt like a feather, soothing rather than aggravating the wound.

  "Do I look like a white on white person to you, sweetheart?" You have no idea how good it was to hear him call me that. I smiled, a crooked smile and gave a minute shrug. How was I to know if he wasn't? And then I thought of his car museum downstairs, the red Ferrari, the green MG, the silver Aston Martin, the steel grey Jag. Hardly boring. Hardly a white on white kind of theme. Even his offices had more life than his home did.

  "I'm relieved," I admitted softly as his hand cupped the back of my neck. We were on our sides facing each other now. I could feel his hot breath washing my cheeks. "I always thought white was for pure. You didn't come across as pure to me."

  He raised his eyebrows at me, a look of mock shock on his face.

  "And you, my lovely, are definitely a black-with-hot-pink kind of girl," he said, then leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose.

  "What does that mean?" I demanded, pulling back slightly. His arm over my waist stopped me with a gentle tug.

  "Adventurous, wild, courageous, full of passion. That's you, Genevieve. You grasp life and you live it. You have dreams that mean more to you than most people care for their loved ones. You are the most beautiful soul I have ever met."

  Oh my God. I blinked a couple of times and watched his lips curve in a smile.

  "And you are crazy good in bed," he added with a slight wink.

  I shook my head softly, realising how intimate we were lying, how wonderful it felt, despite the topic of before.

  Talking of which. "What happened to her? To Caroline? That picture was today?" My lip found its way in between my teeth. Dominic watched the movement.

  "Yes. She's been in a care facility and they've recently just let her out. Back into society. I've kept tabs on her, to make sure she was getting all the help she needed. For the past fortnight I've been trying to help her settle, but things have headed south again. Demanding phone calls. I'm afraid, sweetheart, I am not a particularly patient man. Her interruptions were contrived. She knew I was on a date with you when she phoned that time. It was then I realised she was regressing again. I lost my temper, but felt obliged to check on her. She mentioned she'd purchased some knives."

  Oh wow. That was manipulative, especially if...

  "She hadn't. It was a ploy and I walked into the trap again." Yeah, especially if it was a ploy. I let a long breath out.

  "And the cuddling?" Because that's what it looked like to me.

  "It wasn't a cuddle, but I will admit it was an embrace. And the only one she has received since she came out of the care facility. Elliott got lucky with his timing on that. Caroline had just agreed to go back into care, I was handing her off to her psych nurse at the facility this morning. The photo is right outside the building she'll be spending the next six months inside."

  Could I believe it was that simple? Well, not exactly simple, he'd been harangued and stalked by an unstable woman who had suffered for most of her formative years. I looked into his eyes, I wanted to believe the honesty there. He was open, his eyes held mine without any hesitation, his embrace one of such tender care. I decided I could believe. All I had to do, was let myself do it.

  "I'm still scared," I whispered, blinking at the admission that left my lips.

  "I know," he said softly. "And I'm thinking you may find another reason to doubt me again in the future and I'll have to lay my heart on the floor at your feet to prove how much I love you. But I'll do it. Every single time you think to run. I'll put it all out there, sweetheart. Because I have no doubts. Not a single one." I stared at him stunned to my very core. He just said he loved me. One week after meeting me. He used the L-word and not just to admit he loved something I did or said, but me.

  "You love me?" I asked and didn't even have the wherewithal to question my runaway mouth moment.

  "Absolutely. And Genevieve?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You love me too, sweetheart. You just don't realise it yet."

  No. He was wrong. I realised it two days in, I just chose to ignore it.

  I leaned closer, watched his eyes widen, felt his arms pull me even further to him, and ran my tongue along his bottom lip. He groaned, an entirely too sexy sound, and parted his lips for further exploration. All my aches were momentarily forgotten as our tongues tangled and my body wrapped around his. His hands - one up into my hair, entwined in the strands, directing my head to exactly the right angle for him to deepen the kiss. The other down my back, cupping my butt cheek, under the hospital gown I wore - and his hips pressed firmly against mine.

  It was delicious. It was heaven.

  It was paradise, because I knew he loved me and I accepted it, even if it frightened me, even if I knew he was right and I'd probably doubt again at some future time, right at that second I believed. And it was paradise.

  This was what he meant when he told me I was his paradise after we made love. He had no doubt about how he felt, about our future, and because of that, when we kissed, for him, I was paradise.

  Right now he was mine. And I realised that nothing in the world could touch the feelings he evoked inside my heart. Not even my Sweet Seduction dream.

  And didn't that just surprise the hell out of me.

  For so long Sweet Seduction had held a special place in my heart, had protected me from the loneliness Brett had made me feel, had sealed away a part of me that he couldn't hurt. It was my haven, my dream, the one place I could run to and forget the rest of the world. But wrapped up in Dominic's arms, feeling his heat, the taste of his tongue on mine, the press of his lips against me, I knew he had discovered another piece of my heart. Something that would always be his and surpassed anything else I'd ever harboured love for in the past.

  But unlike Brett, Dominic didn't feel jealous of Sweet Seduction. Katie had said he was in fact impressed with what I had done. So maybe, just maybe, both pieces of my heart could coexist together. Sweet Seduction and now Dominic Anscombe. One a dream come true, the other a dream-like man.

  My man.

  I think I moaned at that thought, or at his touch and entirely inappropriate for a hospital bed kiss, but whatever reason it broke the spell. Or at least made Dominic pull back with a groan and eyes full of lust.

  "Christ," he murmured, his eyes flicking over my, no doubt flushed, face. "I want you so much right now."

  I nodded, because clearly I was on board with that plan. He made that cough-which-could-have-been-a-laugh sound, brushed his lips over my temple, in amongst my hair and whispered, "There'll be time, sweetheart. I can take you home tomorrow, the nurse said. I had to promise to look after you. I told her she needn't worry, your wish was always my command."

  I let a huff of breath out on a laugh at that.

  "Since when, Mr Control Freak?"

  "Oh, Genevieve," he sai
d smiling, "you have no idea."

  And then he kissed me again, deeply, wetly, with tongue and hands and teeth and lips and both of us emitting decidedly sexy moans.

  Only to be rudely interrupted by a clearing of a throat and Nick saying, "Is this a bad time?" from over at the door.

  Dominic pulled back lazily, giving my lips a gentle tug, and lifted his eyes over my body to his brother.

  "You better have good news, Nick. Otherwise you can bloody well leave so I can get back to my task."

  "And what task would that be, Dom?" Nick said, walking further into the room so I could see him. He placed a lovely bouquet of pink Gerberas on the end table of the bed. It was that which held my attention for a moment, so Dominic got to answer before my eyes had a chance to flick up to Nick's face.

  "Keeping Genevieve's mind on me and off anything else."

  "Really?" I said looking back up at Dominic.

  "Really," he said dipping his head down to give me a quick kiss on the lips.

  "Yeah, I bet that's the only reason," Nick offered, causing me to look back at him and that's when I noticed his cut lip and bruised eye.

  "Oh my God!" I breathed. "What happened to you?" I had visions of Brett hitting Nick. Of all the possible terrible things he could have done. Then those quickly fused with images of Katie's unconscious body outside the Events Centre in Manukau. I started to chew on my bottom lip.

  "It's all right, Gen," Nick said, noticing my declining mental state I was sure. "Nothing I didn't deserve or expect."

  My head had tipped down with all the images - both real and imagined - flashing through my mind. At his words, it shot back up so I could look at him.

  "What do you mean, nothing you didn't deserve or expect?" I had a bad feeling about this.

  Which intensified when Dominic shifted at my side.

  "Did you do this?" I demanded of Dominic. He just shrugged.

  Just shrugged.

  "Oh, hell no!" I declared and promptly pushed him unexpectedly off the side of the bed.