Part of the Family

by Cristina Grenier

  “I…” She quickly scrabbled for an excuse as his mouth turned downward slightly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  When he spoke, Dominic seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “Am I that repulsive to you?”

  “No!” She immediately burst - perhaps a bit too loud. “That’s not it at all! You’re very attractive, Mr. West. Very attractive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen-”

  “Dominic.” He cut off her tirade before she could get very far, his expression unreadable. “Call me Dominic.”

  It was enough to cow her into silence for good minute before she drummed up the courage to take him up on the offer. “You’re very attractive, Dominic. I’m sorry...it’s just...it has nothing to do with you.”

  “You just don’t want me inside you.”

  His words, spoken so suddenly - without any warning at all - were enough to bring a soft whimper of raw want bubbling up from her throat. That was just the problem. Dominic West was the first man she’d wanted inside her since...well, he might be the only man she’d ever wanted inside her. With her ex, she had only ever been lukewarm, at best.

  “Dominic, please…” If there was only some way she could make him understand… “Can we please just go to bed? I’m exhausted.”

  But she wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready to expose herself to him in a way she couldn’t take back - for him to know her in a way almost no one did.

  For a long moment, the dark-haired man said nothing, merely staring at her with that knowing green gaze of his. When he finally spoke, his words cut her to the quick, shocking her eyes wide.

  “Who hurt you, Makayla? Tell me, and I swear to God, they’ll pay.”

  Makayla couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe. All at once, she wanted to spill everything inside her as much as she wanted to keep quiet. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and run away. But, in the end, she only had one option. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.” The words left her on a hollow note as she set her brush down, turning to cross the room and climb into the immense four-poster. There, she huddled in the corner and wrapped herself tightly in the coverlet as she tried to calm herself down.

  How could he know?

  How could he possibly know?

  Eventually, the bed dipped and the covers shifted as Dominic joined her. Slowly, his breathing evened out and he found sleep - but Kayla didn’t. She was too worried about the nightmares that might plague her.

  Chapter 6 - Rediscovery

  “So, how’s it going?” Dominic was supposed to be having a business lunch with Stephen, but, of course, all the man wanted to hear about was Makayla. He’d been a right smug bastard since he discovered that Dom had actually contacted a woman from DownDaddies - moreover, that he was using her as a prop to keep women from swarming him. It was the social coup of the century.

  Dominic had actually made him sign a contract promising that he would keep mum - though, in Stephen’s opinion that was hardly needed. He might be a bit of a party animal, but he never revealed any of his friend’s secrets.

  “I assume you’re not talking about the company.” Dominic eyed him over his second martini of the afternoon.

  He was exhausted. If running a company wasn’t enough, for the past month, he had to get used to sharing his home with a woman - something he had never imagined he’d be doing. He supposed that it would be one thing if said woman was a clinging, needy woman who was always on the bell and bat for his attentions, but Dominic found it more trying that she was Makayla Price; the one woman on earth who was determined to avoid him at all costs.

  “Not so much. I have to say, you guys don’t look very convincingly loving in public.” Stephen tapped the cover photo of the paper next to them, which pictured Dominic and Makayla leaving an art gallery on the Upper West side. Though poshly dressed enough, Makayla looked as if she was all but fleeing him as he followed her to the car park. He himself looked frustrated, though Dominic supposed that was a mild word for what he was currently feeling.

  She didn’t want to talk to him.

  Kayla took any and everything as an excuse to get away from him - even in his own house. Mind you, now that her semester had started, she spent a great deal of time on the Columbia Campus, but there was a part of her contract that stipulated that she had to spend evenings in the penthouse. Unfortunately, Dominic hadn’t specified that she needed to spend those evenings with him, so she usually spent hours in the study, citing homework, or sequestered herself in the living room, pouring over books.

  Besides greeting him and wishing him goodnight every day, she might have been living completely alone.

  It irked the hell out of him.

  She’d been shutting him out ever since he discovered that someone had obviously hurt her in the past - and Dominic would be damned if he didn’t get to the bottom of it.

  “She’s still not giving up any details?”

  Stephen’s question made him frown. “None. She won’t even tell me what she wants for breakfast.”

  “Well, isn’t that Sophia’s job?” Dominic all but growled at the younger man’s attempts to be funny. It wasn’t funny when he had a woman living in his house who seemed all but terrified of him. They were supposed to be a loving couple for the cameras, and she could barely stand to be in the same room as him. “No offense, Dominic,” Stephen finally ventured when he’d recovered enough from the older man’s warning glare, “But wouldn’t this just be the part where you pulled the contract on her? I mean,” he took a bite of his swordfish before continuing. “You spent like, what, almost a hundred thousand dollars on her? You could just remind her that she’s here for a reason. She seems like the type that would...I dunno...fulfill her obligations.”

  Dominic frowned. It was the first intelligent thing Stephen had uttered since they sat down; mind you, the man had made no real attempts to be serious until this point - it was further confirmation for Dom that he was only playing dumb ninety percent of the time.

  He was right. Makayla was certainly the type of woman who would be more than willing to pony up if he reminded her what her obligations were. Certainly, she was living with him, but they’d made an agreement - one that she wasn’t entirely fulfilling. If he baited her with that little tidbit…

  Dominic swallowed a groan. He knew very well what would happen - and he’d feel like an absolute ass.

  “It’s...the principle of the thing.” He finally countered, his frustration leeching into his voice. “Why is she do goddamned scared of me? I want to know, and I want to do it without forcing her to play house with me.”

  It was a true enough answer - if not a complete one. Dom certainly did want to know who or what had hurt Makayla so badly in her past that she responded so violently to a simple touch - but beyond that, only a fucking monster could fail to see the pain in her eyes whenever he brought up something she didn’t want to talk about. Whatever she was hiding was still hurting her, no matter how hard she tried to pretend.

  Was it so bad that he wanted to alleviate that pain? To make her feel more at ease? She had already travelled across the country to placate a stranger. The least he could do was ensure that she felt safe around him.

  But for that to happen, Kayla was going to have to open up to him - and Dominic wasn’t sure that was in the cards.

  At that moment, his phone rang. Dom might have ignored it - he usually did, during his lunch hour - but some small part of him wondered if it might be Makayla.

  Of course, it wasn’t - but at the sight of the number scrolling across the screen, his nostrils flared slightly in surprise.

  His mother.

  “One second, Stephen.” He gestured to the man in front of him before answering the buzzing device in his hand. “Hey Mom.”

  “Dominic, how dare you.” He immediately stiffened at her severe tone, wondering what on earth he could have done. He hadn’t even spoken to her for two weeks. “I’m sitting here, looking over pictures of this lovely girl you’ve been seen with
and you haven’t said a word to me!”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. If nothing else, it seemed that the tabloids were at least doing their jobs in that respect. There were pictures of him and Makayla emblazoned over the cover of every magazine in the Northeast. The media were wild with speculation about who she was, and he intended to keep it that way for a good while. “Mother, it’s only been a few weeks. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Bother me?” His excuse hardly staved off the older woman - he could hear the frown in her voice. “You finally get serious about someone and you don’t want to bother me? I’m offended that I wasn’t the first person you called!”

  “Well, Mom...things are still fairly new between me and Makayla.” Stephen was watching him from across the table with bated breath. “I...know how you feel about me and women, so I was hoping to be more sure about her before I contacted you.”

  Elaine West snorted. “Well, I can see why. The poor thing looks terrified of you. What have you done to her?”

  Dom glanced down at the picture on the front cover of the paper before him. God, was it that palpable to everyone? That Makayla and he weren’t in the slightest bit connected? “She’s just a bit shy. She’s not used to this particular lifestyle. There’s an...adjustment period.”

  “Well, where on earth is she from? Who are her parents? What does she do?” He was suddenly being pelted with questions that he realized he couldn’t answer. Dom knew, in that moment, that if he and Kayla couldn’t even fool the masses, they certainly weren’t going to be able to fool his mother.

  Which meant that something had to change.

  “Why don’t I let her answer all those questions for you when you come for the holidays?” It was the best answer he could come up with for the moment - and, thankfully, it seemed to placate his mother.

  “I got the tickets in the mail the other day, darling. I can’t wait to come see you.” Her tone had softened considerably, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief. “And this mysterious young lady of yours.”

  When she finally hung up, Dom stared at the phone for a long moment, contemplating what the hell he was supposed to do now. He needed to get Makayla to trust him, or the entire arrangement between them would mean nothing.

  “How’s she taking it?” Stephen’s voice jogged him back to the present and Dom exhaled a long breath before raising his hand to order another martini.

  “I’ll be more worried about that come December.”

  **

  Makayla had known that her workload would be substantial as a medical student – and she’d been prepared to whether the difficulties. What she hadn’t been prepared for was to be on top of her schoolwork while she suffered at home.

  Or rather, in Dominic’s home.

  The young woman was discovering that the biggest challenge she faced in New York was living with a mouthwatering billionaire while trying to keep secrets from him.

  Chewing her lower lip in contemplation, she stared at the page of the microbiology book she had been reading for the past ten minutes. Usually, she was more focused, but, at that particular moment, she found herself wondering where Dominic was. Though he usually came home late, he always came home – but that hadn’t been the case the previous night. She had slept alone in the big bed, and woken alone.

  It made her wonder if she had done something to piss him off.

  Of course, sometimes Makayla wondered if her mere presence wasn’t enough to anger the man. She’d been living with him for over a month, and in that time, she hadn’t exactly done her best to play the part of a loving girlfriend.

  On that count, she was more than a little nervous.

  Every time he came near her, Kayla remembered the dejected look on his face when he tried to touch her and it seemed like her embarrassment grew threefold. She hadn’t meant to react like that, and it was only natural that he ask questions. The problem was that she was scared to answer them.

  And so, she did her best to stay busy – at school and even when she was in the penthouse. Dominic, for his part, didn’t bother to question her again. The few times they went out together were characterized by a sort of awkward acceptance – one that she hardly believed would fool the tabloids. But, what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t as if she could make her body calm down when he came near her. If she could do that, then this entire situation would be a nonissue.

  The young woman was about to head to the kitchen to ask Sophia if she knew where her employer was when her phone buzzed. When Makayla saw it was Melody, she picked up immediately.

  “Jesus Christ woman, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the last week.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Makayla apologized profusely. “I’ve been…tied up.”

  “With Mr. Tall, West and Sexy I hope.” Melody came back almost immediately, and Makayla could all but hear the smug grin in her voice. Unfortunately, on that front, she didn’t have any good news for her friend.

  “Actually…things aren’t going so well there.” The moment she spoke, Melody was on her with a fevered interrogation, the pitch of her voice making Kayla wince slightly.

  “What do you mean they aren’t going well? The last time I spoke to you, you told me everything was peachy! That your classes were fine and West was the perfect gentleman. Your exact words.”

  Makayla squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She might have fibbed a bit on that point – but the last thing she wanted was Melody worrying about her. Despite how gung ho the blonde had been about her having a sponsor, she didn’t begin to imagine that Melody wasn’t worried about her safety.

  “Well…Mel…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. He tried to touch me and I-”

  “What kind of touch are we talking about?” Melody interrupted, her tone skeptical. “Did he touch you-touch you? Because that wasn’t in the contract.”

  “Not like that,” Makayla clarified quickly, sliding her biology book aside. She probably wasn’t going to get back to it that evening. “He just…put his hands on my shoulders. The night after we went shopping and I…well, you know how I am.”

  For a long beat, Melody didn’t say anything. When she did speak, her tone was slow and careful. “How did he take it?”

  Makayla groaned. She didn’t like to remember. “How do you think he took it? Very personally.”

  Melody made a soft sound of frustration in her throat. It was, Makayla knew, not because of her, but in empathy with her. “Well, have you tried again since then?”

  Kayla sighed, shaking her head as she replied. “I dunno if I can. What if I can’t let him, Mel? You know how long it took with you…I know I’m being stupid, really, I am.”

  “There’s nothing stupid about it.” Melody soothed her in a no-nonsense tone. “He doesn’t know how you grew up.” She paused for a second. “Have you…considered telling him?”

  Kayla’s eyes immediately flew wide. “Are you crazy? He probably thinks I’m weird enough as it is.”

  “Well, babe, I hate to slap the tough love on you, but I can’t imagine you can keep up this charade very long if you’re running away from him all the time. I know it’s tough, Kayla…but maybe for the sake of this arrangement, it would be best if you told him. Just a little bit. I’m not saying you have to spill your guts…just…enough to help him understand. For the both of you.”

  Kayla wanted to refuse. She wanted to keep on living in her little bubble of self-comfort and pretend everything was going to be alright – but she knew that was idiotic of her – idiotic and selfish.

  “Ugh…” She expelled a long breath before running a hand through her loose curls. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s my girl.” The idea that Melody was grinning, even three thousand miles away, was enough to elicit a small smile from Kayla as well. “You can do this.”

  The blonde’s words echoed in Kayla’s ears long after she had hung up the phone. She tried her best to go back to her homework but found that she couldn’t. Now all she
could think about was how she was going to bring herself to tell a man she’d barely known for a month something less than a handful of people knew about. How he would judge her once he knew.

  But there was nothing for it. Though Dominic was a patient man, not even he was a saint. He’d all but admitted that when he told her it was hard to sleep next to her.

  And God knew she agreed with him on that point. No matter how her body reacted when he touched her, she wanted more. She wanted to span the chasm that separated them so he could move beyond touching just her shoulders…But that wasn’t in the damned agreement. She wasn’t supposed to want him at all.

  Goddamn it.

  Groaning, Kayla buried her face in her arms upon the desk. She was monumentally fucked up. It was like her head and her heart were in two different places. On top of that, she was pretty sure that Dominic was already pissed at her. Any day now, she expected him to throw the book at her and demand what she’d promised.

  She couldn’t let it come to that.

  The young woman managed to convince herself to creep from the study ten minutes later. She planned to march right into the kitchen, ask Sophia when Dominic was coming home, and be there to confront him the moment he walked into the door. She would admit to him what was holding her back, and then…

  Well, she didn’t know what would happen after that. Quite possibly he would kick her out of his house.

  When she strode into the living area, however, the young woman was shocked to see Dominic already sitting there – in the middle of his work day. He was sprawled over the couch sans his suit jacket, his tie hanging loose around his neck as he casually thumbed through messages on his phone.

  Jesus, the man could make scrubbing a toilet look sexy. He wasn’t doing anything but lying there, but his long, relaxed form looked so ungodly tempting that Kayla feared she would either run for the hills or jump his goddamned bones.

  Luckily – or unluckily, depending how one looked at it – enough for her, Dominic looked up before she could do either of those things, and she found herself pinned in place by his piercing green gaze. At that moment, she was acutely aware of the leggings and pale pink sweater she wore – both purchased by him. She had gotten up too late to do her hair, so it hung loose and riotous about her shoulders, and she wasn’t wearing an iota of makeup. She half-expected him to scold her.