Part of the Family

by Cristina Grenier

  As she held her friend protectively close, her expression hardened. If West didn’t want her, that was fine. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her. But Melody would be damned if he got out of this before she got a piece of him.

  **

  Work was easy now. The routines were easy now, and losing himself in them was even easier.

  Dominic didn’t have to worry about who was waiting for him at home, he didn’t have to worry about pleasing anyone but himself, and he had his solitude back.

  It was a breath of fresh air.

  And God knew he needed fresh air, because sometimes it felt like he could hardly fucking breathe.

  He tried drinking more water, getting more sleep - taking longer lunch breaks - but nothing seemed to work. Ultimately, Dominic ended up booking a ticket to go home and spend the holidays with his mother, if for nothing else than the fact that the city suddenly seemed to be pressing in on him.

  He couldn’t go anywhere without being reminded of her.

  Had she really infiltrated his life to such an extent? Sure, she’d lived with him. They’d travelled together and she shared his bed...but Dominic was certain that if he concentrated on his business - as he should have from the very beginning - he could forget all that.

  Even if it took him the rest of his life, he was determined to forget it.

  After about two weeks, all his attempts got him were constant headaches and a temperament that earned him the avoidance of both Brett and Sophia whenever he was home. As a result, Dominic started spending more and more time on the frigid streets.

  Christmas drew nearer and nearer, and as lights and revelry lit up the city, he found none of it moved him. Not that he was usually gung ho about the holidays, but now, he was only reminded how excited Makayla had been over the prospect of choosing a real Christmas tree. She told him she’d ever only had a dinky plastic one, and had always wondered what it would be like to shop for a real evergreen.

  But that had been a lie.

  It had all been a lie.

  All she wanted was for him to spend his money on her - and he’d believed every shit story she fed him. He’d lapped it up like a goddamned fool, and thinking about it hurt.

  Dominic wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself, but sometimes he almost felt ill. There was an empty, dull ache in his chest that wouldn’t seem to go away, and when he thought about Makayla, the pain only intensified.

  He remembered the shocked look on her face when he had confronted her with her own treachery, how she had trembled and begged him to believe her.

  She had screamed like an animal when he put her out - and, for a split second, Dominic had been scared that he’d actually hurt her. The raw panic in her expression struck a chord with him, and he’d almost lost his nerve.

  Almost.

  Lucky for him, he had stood firm. He always stood firm - and he always recovered from missteps. At the end of the day, that’s all Makayla was: a misstep.

  When he told Stephen this, however, the man seemed slightly skeptical. “I dunno, man. You seem pretty torn up over her.”

  Dominic bristled, clutching his wine glass so hard that it cracked, drawing a thin line of blood against his palm. “I could give two shits about her. It’s over - and, as far as I’m concerned, I dodged a bullet.”

  Stephen’s brow knitted together. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Dominic snapped defensively, before changing the subject abruptly. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure,” Stephen replied dryly. “How about why you’re so pissed, if you don’t care?”

  “Because,” Dominic growled, his face flush with anger, “I spent money on her. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. I played right into her trap.”

  “Is that it?” Stephen returned carefully. “No offense, Dom, but even millions of dollars is a drop in the bucket for you. It’s just money. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

  Dom glared at him for a long moment before he rose to his feet and drained the rest of his wine in one gulp. He plucked a few bills from his wallet and dropped them on the table before leaving without a word.

  He didn’t want to talk about this. He wouldn’t talk about it, damn it, and no one could make him. He was Dominic West - he always had, and always would make his own rules. And he did that best with fewer distractions.

  That night, he slept fitfully, and the next morning, Brett and Sophie both stayed well out of his way as he went through his morning routine. He managed to get to the office without uttering a word, only to find that his first appointment was already waiting for him. He barely glanced at Miranda as he ordered her to send him in.

  “Her, sir.” At the correction, Dominic merely glared at her before stalking into his office. It seemed everyone was out for his blood these days.

  To his surprise, the woman was already sitting in his office.

  She was a leggy blonde in a pinstripe suit, and as he settled at his desk, he gave her a good once over, sizing her up. She was the manager of the bank that he was contemplating moving a good deal of his holdings to - but in the mood he was, she would have to impress him royally to earn his business.

  “Good Morning, Miss-?” He cursed inwardly when he realized he’d been too pissed at Miranda to remember to ask for her name.

  “Thompson,” she responded promptly, fixing him with intense blue eyes. “Melody Thompson.” She held out her card and he took it to scan absently.

  Almost immediately, he frowned. The information proclaimed her the owner of an art gallery, not a bank manager. “I’m sorry, Miss Thompson. I believe there’s been a mistake.”

  “No mistake.” She returned evenly, still eying him strangely. For a long beat, a tense silence passed between them, and when Dominic finally spoke, his tone was irate.

  “You aren’t my nine o’clock.”

  Melody merely smirked humorlessly. “I am now.”

  He reached for the phone on his desk instantly. “Not when I call security.”

  To his surprise, the woman didn’t cringe at the threat. Instead, she just laughed bitterly, shaking her head.

  “Wow, you really are an asshole. I suppose I shouldn’t be that shocked. Any guy that manhandles a woman can’t be very gentlemanly.”

  Almost immediately, Dominic stiffened, his blood running cold. “Who sent you here?”

  “No one sent me,” She replied primly. “I came to return something to you.” With that, she opened the briefcase at her feet and extracted what appeared to be a check, laying it on his desk. It was made out in the amount of two hundred and forty thousand dollars.

  His scowl only deepened. He didn’t like where this was going. “What the hell is this?”

  “The money I got for reselling all the stuff you bought Kayla.” Dominic felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach, and for a moment, all he could do was gape. “Most of it had the tags still on it - pricy shit. You’ve got some seriously good taste.”

  “I don’t want this,” he hissed, shoving the check off his desk as if he couldn’t stand to touch it. “I don’t want anything from her.”

  “You fucking liar.” All at once, Melody had risen from her chair, her expression twisting into pure fury as she glared down at him. She bent to pick up the check before tossing it at him so it fluttered onto his desk once more. “Take it. Since your precious money is more important to you than anything else, I figure it will help you sleep better tonight.”

  “I assume you’re a friend of hers.” Dominic deadpanned. “She sent you here to make herself feel better. Is this,” he raised the check between his two fingers to gaze scathingly up at her, “Even going to clear? Or has she spent all of it already.”

  “How dare you,” Melody spat, her face deep red. “You think you know so much when you don’t know shit.”

  “I know that she lied to me.” He couldn’t keep from raising his voice to match her tone now. “That she planned on milking me of every cent she could get and then moving onto her ne
xt goddamned mark when she was finished. Am I supposed to forgive her for that? For using people? For using me!?”

  In response, Melody opened her briefcase once more, taking out a thin binder to slam on his desk so hard his laptop rattled against the gleaming mahogany wood. Blazoned across the top of the binder were the words Trembley Medical Rehabilitation Center. “Look at this.” The blonde demanded, her tone hard. “Look at it.”

  He should have shoved it away, but there was something desperate behind the rage in the blonde’s eyes - something that drew his hand forward to take the binder from her. With a brief glare at her, he flipped it open and found Makayla’s name written across the top.

  For a moment, he expected another criminal file - but his eyes widened when he realized that it was an admissions record.

  Makayla Renee Price had been admitted to the children’s psychiatric ward in Trembley, California no less than ten times in her youth. “What the hell is this?” He breathed softly.

  “She told me you found her criminal record.” Melody returned, her tone softer now. “I’m sure it told you about all the times she was put up for adoption or in foster care. That her mom was always so drugged up she could barely tell up from down and that her dad was a killer. But it glosses over the finer details. Like why she was taken out of the home in the first place.”

  Slowly, Dominic began to flip through the folder. Kayla had been admitted to the hospital for the first time with third degree burns under her neck and over her shoulder - where her parents had apparently spilled boiling water on her. The event was ruled an accident.

  The second time was when she was four. Her arm was broken and they had never discovered the cause, but when the little girl was discharged to her father, she went home in tears.

  The third time was just after she’d been caught for stealing the first time. When the center got her, Makayla was nearly catatonic, covered from head to toe in bruises and barely walking.

  And it only got worse from there.

  Every time the young woman was arrested or charged with a crime seemed to correspond to an admittance to the hospital. At first, the injuries were just physical, but as she entered her teen years, depression and tactile sensitivity entered the mix - she felt any and all pain and pleasure with ten times more acuity than the average person, and doctors speculated that the disorder sprang up from years of physical and mental abuse.

  Eventually, her sensitivity got so bad that she barely allowed anyone to touch her - but that didn’t stop her from being admitted to the hospital twice more before she was seventeen. She was brought in handcuffs each time, and refused to answer any questions posed to her about the horrifying injuries she had treated.

  “You want to know why she didn’t talk?” When Dominic finally raised his head to find Melody staring down at his stiff form, her eyes glistening with something that looked horribly like tears, “Because she was scared. All those times she stole - whether from strangers or foster families - it was because her parents made her. Because they threatened to beat her within an inch of her life if she didn’t help them feed their vices and they always, always fucking delivered.” Melody drew in a shuddering breath before she sank back into the chair in front of him. “Did her record say anything about how she got into a private high school on scholarships while they were torturing her? That she maintained a four point oh grade point average and that was what finally, finally allowed her to escape? Did it tell you that the first time I hugged her, she cried? She fucking cried?”

  Dominic merely stared at Melody, horrified.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  This was what she’d been hiding from him. This was why Makayla never told him the complete truth - because she knew how shocked and sickened he would be by what she’d endured. And she wasn’t wrong.

  Every time he’d touched her, traced his hand over minute scars that pockmarked her skin, kissed her so she sighed and nestled against him, he was unraveling the map of her past...a past where every touch meant agony, and she had been denied the love and affection of the two people she needed most.

  And now, he’d denied her.

  He’d seen her criminal record, lost his mind, and thrown her out of his life.

  Fucking Jesus, he’d literally thrown her….carried her, screaming, down the hall…

  With an agonized groan, Dominic buried his head in his hands. He was a monster. A goddamned monster.

  When she had struggled - when she begged him to believe her, he had been stubborn and foolish and now...now…

  “Where is she?” He finally managed in a hoarse tone, raising his head.

  Melody merely glared at him, long and hard. “Why does it matter?”

  “What the hell do you mean ‘why does it matter’?” He barked, his tone hard. “Because I hurt her! All she ever did was give herself to me and I fucking hurt her. I need to make it right!”

  “And how will you do that?” The blonde demanded, her gaze fiercely protective. “Tell me that, Mr. West. Do you even know how to fix what you’ve broken?”

  He had no idea.

  But Dominic knew he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.

  The last few weeks had been hell for him - a hell of trying to convince himself that he didn’t miss everything from her laugh to the way she smacked him when he embarrassed her. Every time he walked into his study, he expected to see her sitting there, pouring over her medical books, and his bed felt empty without her at night.

  “I’m not letting you go to her.” His gaze snapped to Melody’s once more, incensed. “Not until you can convince me that you will never, ever let her be hurt again. She deserves at least that much.”

  He was a bastard, he knew that. A man so wrapped up in his own success that he saw everything as a threat. Makayla had shown him how to let someone else in - and the idea that he might lose that forever was enough to humble him beyond measure.

  Dominic was willing to do anything to get her back.

  Anything.

  Including the one thing he promised himself he’d never do.

  Chapter 10 - A Healing Touch

  It was harder than she thought.

  Makayla’s salvation had always been work, so part of her truly believed that going back to her jobs would be the key to helping her forget all that she had lost.

  It was shocking - in three months, she’d nearly forgotten the exhaustion of a lifetime. Suddenly, two shifts in three days drained all of her strength, and it was all she could do to get up the next morning.

  Even if there was a few hour stretch when she didn’t have work, she spent it in her room, staring at the ceiling, wondering why she had ever allowed herself to believe that everything was going to be alright. When her letter from Columbia came, it was like a fire had been lit inside her. She suddenly had a clear path to her dreams and she knew that if she could just find a way to get to New York, then everything would be clear.

  But when she arrived there, things had only gotten more muddled.

  Dominic made everything confusing.

  With him, down was up and up was down - he turned every feeling she had on its head, challenged her to move beyond what she’d ever believed herself capable of, and, for just a little while, he had allowed her to believe that it wasn’t her past that defined her.

  Now, she knew just how foolish she had been.

  Makayla should be happy with her lot in life - happy that she had her jobs back and she was living with Melody. It would take time, but she would heal. She might not ever get to be a doctor, but she could be good at what she did. She was always good at what she did - even if she didn’t do much.

  Even if she came to terms with this, it would still be hard to think about Columbia. She’d come so close to getting what she wanted - to sharing it with a man she believed in...and then, just like that, the rug had been ripped out from beneath her.

  It could have been worse - at least, that’s what she told herself. In reality, Makayla didn’t know if there were
many worse things in the world than the memory of the fury on Dominic’s face when he’d confronted her. Beneath that fury, there was hurt - such hurt that he had tossed her out rather than attempt to face it.

  And she had no one to blame for that but herself. She had kept secrets from him - and she had hoped that who she could be was enough without who she had been.

  Now, she would have to live with that.

  At a soft knock on her door, she turned to see Melody poking her head in. “Hey, Kayla.” Her smile was mild and careful. “I saw your schedule on the fridge. If you don’t have a shift until later on, I thought maybe we could go for a walk?”

  The dark-skinned woman wanted to stay inside and shut herself away from the world - but she knew that would only make her more miserable. Besides, Melody’s tone sounded so hopeful that she couldn’t bear to turn her down.

  “Ok. Gimme a sec.”

  She tugged open her closet to extract her beat-up converse. She had long thrown out everything Dominic bought her. It was harder to have reminders of him - and besides, when was she ever going to wear clothes that cost more than she made in a week? She didn’t need them anymore.

  In short order, she joined Melody outside, and the blonde woman took her hand, entwining their fingers before she eyed Makayla in question. “This Ok?”

  The dark-skinned woman nodded wordlessly, and allowed Melody to lead her outside and to a nearby park.

  It was a gorgeous day outside, the sun shining bright overhead and the air warm. Makayla knew that, around this time in New York, it would have begun to snow.

  For about twenty minutes, she walked alongside Melody in silence. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice when the woman beside her halted until she tugged at her arm. Makayla raised her head to look over at her friend in inquiry, and she found Melody eying her with a strange, apologetic smile. “What?” She inquired, raising her free hand to her face. “What is it?”

  Melody expelled a long sigh before letting go of Makayla’s hand. “Don’t hate me, ok?”