"Which I'm sure we can discuss over dinner?"
Samantha stopped smiling. "Dominick…"
"Dom."
"Dom, I'm…what happened-we can't. What I'm trying to say is that---I'm not really looking for a relationship right now." Had her mother heard this, Samantha would've gotten a good smack across the head for it. Here was a guy, who actually wanted her, asking her out on a date and she was turning him down. Why? Samantha could probably pull off blaming it on her unrequited love for her boss.
Five years of crushing that hard, building a dream around that crush, and attempting to have it come to fruition wasn't something that she could easily relinquish. It'd defined a good portion of her personal life for so long, that giving it up now would leave her floundering.
She just couldn't.
"I'm not looking for a relationship either." He brought his hand behind his head and nervously scratched, "Look, I like you Sam, I like being with you."
"You don't even know me."
"You're far better company than most women, let me tell ya," he ruefully smiled, "I just want to be with you, no strings attached, no complications, just you, me and the occasional body wrestle in the sack ."
"Like," she looked around and leaned closer, "sex buddies?"
Dom laughed, hearty and joyful, finding her odd naivety refreshing, "So to speak," he stepped closer to her and tenderly caressed her pink cheeks.
She wanted to fall into those deep blue pools, she wanted to lean closer into his warmth and take what he offered, but Samantha wasn't sure she was the sort of girl who could do impersonal sex without getting emotionally involved.
She was the sort of girl who needed structure, she needed goals, she needed a day-by-day agenda. She matched her panties with the days of the week---she organized her freaking cereal for God sakes! She didn't do impulsive-she didn't do casual flings. She certainly didn't have one-night stands with even stranger men and think nothing of it, but that very first night with Dom had pushed that out the window, now hadn't it?
"I…"
"Samantha?" Samantha jumped away from Dom at the sound of Nicholas voice, as though she'd been scorched. She spun around and like a cadet saluting her commanding officer, she gave him her undivided attention, but Nicholas gaze was no longer on her, it was on the ginger haired man behind her.
"Dom?"
"Nicholas?" they chorused simultaneously, astonishment sweeping across their faces.
"Well if it isn't the Devil himself, how've you been man?" Dom pulled the dark haired tycoon into a friendly hug and Samantha continued to stare on, stupefied that Nicholas returned the embrace. "Heard you were on your way to conquering the world, how's that going for you?" they pulled apart, the grin on Dom's lips almost split his face.
"Can't complain," Nicholas shrugged broad shoulders, reciprocating Dom's smile, genuine it all its sparkling white glory. "How about yourself, how's life treating you?"
"Well, I'm no fucking billionaire that's for damn sure, but what can I say, life's a bitch." If Nicholas noticed the acrimonious dryness in his tone, he did not let on. He did, however turn his attention back to a dumbstruck Samantha. "Dom and I attended the same high school, hung out in the same circles,"
"Oh," she weakly laughed. "I see." Which explained his forthcoming demeanor and the uncharacteristic hug he'd just given. She, more than most knew that Nicholas was never big on public display of affection and if he was, it was rarely towards anyone other than the members in his family.
"How do you know, him?" Dom offhandedly asked, slipping his hands inside the pockets of his slacks.
Samantha's face warmed, how exactly did she explain that, without divulging too much? "Uh…”
"She actually saved my life," at Nicholas raised brow, Dom laughed, "long story, man. How about you, how do you know Sam?"
"She's my personal assistant."
"Well isn't this a fucking small world, huh?"
"Sure is." the moment was becoming increasingly awkward, so Nicholas decided it was time he took his leave. "Listen, get my number from Samantha, we'll set up a time to catch up." He took his hands out his pockets and took hold of Dom's hand, "it was good seeing you again." He looked as though he meant it, and he more than likely did, Dom to Nicholas, had been one of the very few people he'd been able to tolerate back at John Edgar and after years of estrangement, he found that he still liked the guy.
Dom nodded, "Yeah, man, it'd be great to catch up. You'll definitely be hearing from me."
"Then I'll be expecting your call. I really do have to run." Before he left, he turned back to Dom and said, "Oh and keep your wife at home. I'd much rather you brought along Samantha." He took his leave then and entered the interior of the black limousine awaiting him by the curb.
Dom cursed Nicholas for his tactlessness, before turning to an expressionless Samantha. "I can explain."
She brushed past him and stabbed her key into the keyhole of her car, "You don't owe me an explanation." To think, she silently fumed, that she had been so close to submitting to his previous proposal! When the idiot knew he was married! Married for heaven's sakes!
"It's not what you think; just give me a chance to explain." He held her put, preventing her from entering her car.
"There's isn't anything for you to explain," she retorted, far too irritated than she wanted to be, "what we did was wrong, had I known you were married, we wouldn't have gone as far as we did."
"But she cheats on me!"
She looked up, her eyes blazing with a thousand furies of an incensed woman, "So you decided to sleep with me to get back at her?" never mind the glaring fact that she'd also used him, to some extent, to forget about her unrequited love for Nicholas, but, he didn't need to know that.
"No! okay, so maybe a little---" he stepped between her and the car when she made to jump in. "Look, Sam, I'm not the sort of guy who can go around sleeping with women on a whim. That night---" He sighed in frustration, unable to properly express himself. "I don't think this is the sort of conversation I want to be having in the middle of downtown's business district. Can we just have dinner and I'll explain it to you?"
She turned and faced him, "Dom, this thing between you and me, it's just not going to work. You're married and since I last checked, married men, weren't my type."
Dom leaned in and kissed her then, she gasped when he nipped on her lip and he took the moment to quickly slip his tongue between her lips and swallowed her moan. She reluctantly held him, he knees far too weak to hold her up.
Far too quickly, it ended before she wanted it too. She struggled for air.
"Have dinner with me and I'll explain everything." Dom pressed.
"I---"
"Please?" his eyes were her undoing.
With a show of disgruntlement, she sighed and glared at him."Bring the Chinese food." She whispered, before pulling away and getting in her car, staying any longer would've prompted her to say no.
Dom grinned as he watched her car signal and merge into traffic.
~*~*~*~
Ellie broke the news to her parents a few days later. Her mother hadn't taken it well. Ellie knew how much her mother and the rest of her family rooted for her to find joy. To them Devlin had been it and on the surface it'd looked that way. But no one knew. No one understood that she couldn't do it anymore. Ellie couldn't continue to convince herself that love would eventually come. She was tired of wondering if passion, desire and yearning were something she could live without.
The appearance of Nicholas back in her life had served to awaken something that'd she'd buried long ago, something she hadn't known she'd given up until Nicholas first kissed her. But Ellie couldn't say that Nicholas was the sole reason why she'd ended things with Devlin. From the very beginning there had always been the niggling feeling deep inside her that her relationship with Devlin wasn't all that it should've been.
She and Devlin never truly fought, never truly felt the heart pounding emotions that swept you away during a fevere
d argument. The gravitational force that compelled you to push as hard as you were pushed. To parry every move your partner made. To fight for dominance that you knew you were going to lose but relished the lost when it came because your mind, your soul, your heart, and your body craved what that lost promised? It was rapture, the highs and the lows, the chase and the capture. It was pure, resplendent rapture.
Ellie had remained quiet for the rest of their conversation, unable to say much. Her mother had told her she loved her and supported her, no matter her choice. Ellie had been warmed to hear that, feeling foolish that even at twenty-seven she still felt as though she needed her mother's approval, still felt horrible at the fact that he could disappoint her and her father. But this wasn't about them, this wasn't about anyone but herself and what she'd needed to do to find the peace of mind she was warranted.
They’d said their goodbyes, with a promise that she'd call her soon. Seconds after hanging up the phone the doorbell rang and Maddie yelled that she'd get it. Ellie didn't make any move to rise from her seated position on her mattress, nerves and dread kept her rooted to the spot. If her conversation with her mother had made her nervous, then the upcoming tete-a-tete between herself and Gabe was going to give her a heart attack.
Gabe knew the deal. He'd been there from the very beginning and he would stop at nothing to make Ellie understand that what she'd done was by far one of the biggest mistakes she'd made in her short life. He wasn't above playing dirty if it meant getting his point across. He would no doubt slam home the fact that Nicholas was not the man for her, rehash buried events of his past indiscretions and throw it in Ellie's face.
Ellie was ready for it. She just wasn't ready for another confrontation so soon after the one she'd had with Devlin. Could she prevent it from happening, she would've. But this needed to happen, she had to tell them and she knew one of her two guardians was going to froth at the mouth and Ellie knew it wasn't going be Ronnie.
"Ellie...?" Ellie sighed. "Gabe and Ron are here."
"I'll be right out!" She called back then grabbed a shirt from her closet, deliberately ignoring the three boxes marked Devlin she'd carefully packed and stuck in the corner. Maybe in another week, Ellie silently rationalized, she'd be ready to face Devlin again. Right now she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
She opened her bedroom door and quietly closed it behind her.
"You okay? You look a little green around the gills."
Ellie rolled her eyes, "I'm glad I can always count on your uplifting sense of humor to brighten my mood, Maddie."
Maddie slung an arm around Ellie's shoulder and smiled. "That's what friends are for. Mooch off ya, occasionally piss you off, and lighten the mood when things seem especially dismal."
"When you'd you get to be so smart?"
Maddie scrunched her face in concentration, "I think it was somewhere between India and China but not exactly in Tibet."
Ellie glanced at Maddie as they crossed the threshold into her dining room. "I envy you sometimes."
Maddie looked at Ellie as though she were insane. "Okay, no," she shook her head and glared at her best friend. "Ellie, I would give my right boob just to have a little bit of what you have. Your kids are amazing. You have a wonderful family who loves you to pieces. And let's not forget the fact that you can reduce gorgeous, intelligent men to Neanderthals with your insane hotness! You have all these things going for you and yet you envy me? Why, I feel I need to ask you."
"I don't know. I guess it's just that you get to travel, get to see all these beautiful places. You have the freedom to just up and leave when you want to. You can…you can be whoever you want to, be with whomever you want to be with without feeling guilty." She worried her bottom lip, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I envy your freedom."
"Ellie," Maddie gently touched her arm, "Where is this coming from? You're really scaring me now. I know life's been a little tough for you, but you can't just cop-out, now. What's going on with you?"
"I know! I don't know! I…I just feel a little restless. Everything sort has me on edge and I think I'm just stressing."
Maddie was by her side, "Ellie…"
"I'm fine. I think I just need to eat something." She left Maddie worrying about her as she entered the kitchen and was greeted by Ronnie and Gabe.
"Hi, Ellie, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, dinner's ready, why don't you guys keep Maddie company while I finish up here?"
"I'll help."
"No!" at their surprised glances, Ellie flushed, "I'm practically done, there's no need for you to get your hands all dirty, Ron. Besides, I asked you guys here for dinner, not to help me clean up."
"Is everything Okay with you?" Gabe prodded.
Ellie nodded. "Uh huh, couldn't be better!" She pushed them out then and quickly grabbed the bottle of Aspirin from the top shelf over her fridge. She dry swallowed two, taking a moment to gather her bearings.
It took Ellie ten minutes to tidy up the kitchen and five more minutes to slide the bubbling pizza from the oven and onto the flat tray before making her way to the dining room.
Bella and Dylan had eaten their own self-made pizza earlier and were now upstairs, playing games within the half hour they had before bedtime. Ellie didn't want them involved in this conversation.
"Oh! You made us pizza!" Ronnie cheered, making room for Ellie to set to tray down on the dining room table.
"Bella and Dylan helped make it, they added extra mushroom, just for you." Making-pizza- with-Mom-night, as they'd called it, had entailed flurries of flour all over the kitchen counter, on freshly laundered clothes and on adorably grinning faces.
They'd created two separate pizza pies and when they'd finished Ellie had shooed them off to get cleaned up. It'd been a fun, relaxing time with her kids. The only bad thing had been not having Sophie around. Ellie had prepared Sophie her own pie and would bring it to her after she was through with dinner.
She missed her little monster.
They ate in relative silence, which was occasionally filled by random chatter. Maddie cheerfully regaled them with amusing anecdote of her travels. Ellie stopped listening after a while, the pizza, like sawdust in her mouth.
"Ellie!"
She jumped and turned to the pair of eyes curiously fixed on her. "What?"
"I was just wondering if you were okay. You've been very quiet." Ronnie took a sip of her water and waited for Ellie's response. "Did you and Devlin have an argument?"
Ellie settled the slice she'd been munching on and grabbed her glass of water, Ronnie's innocent inquiry taking the moisture from her mouth. Seated across from her godfather, Ellie met Gabe's gaze over the rim of her glass and almost choked on the water at the knowing look she saw there. She set her glass down and coughed into her hand, with eyes downcast she muttered, "Webrokeup."
"Wait…what?" Gabe asked for clarification.
Knowing the inevitable was finally here, she peered up and said."Dev and I broke up." She felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders the minute those words emptied out of her mouth.
The silence that followed however had Ellie on the defensive, knowing the fallout was coming.
"You broke up?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"What happened? It's so sudden, Ellie, are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I've been thinking about it for a long time now, it had to be done. I didn't love him, not like I…he needed to know." Not like I love Nicholas. She'd nearly let that one slip and Ellie wasn't stupid enough to think that no one at the table realized what she'd meant. She chanced a glance at her uncharacteristically quiet godfather and wondered at the sudden take of silence.
"Say something." She urged, tension rising.
Gabe rested his elbows on the table and continued to eat, his face swiped clean of any emotion. "What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know, say anything, just…just don't look at me like that."
"What look am I giving yo
u?"
"Like I've got shit for brains or something! You're looking at me like I'm the biggest idiot that ever walked the surface of this planet!"
Despite Ellie's rising ire, Gabe remained calm. "You've stopped listening to anything I have to say, so why should my opinion matter now? You're a grown woman, Ellie. You've made your decision, and anything I say now would be moot."
"Exactly! I'm a grown woman. I've made my decisions, so stop punishing me for them!"
"I'm not…"
"You are! Maybe not deliberately, but you are, Gabe. You have been since Nicholas came back and I don't know how to make you stop."
"For someone so smart I don't know how you got to be so dumb when it came choosing men, Ellie. First Tony, then Nicholas, they both fucked you so badly that it's taken all these years just for the scars to heal and now, the one time, the one fucking time, you actually picked a good man, a guy who practically worships the ground you walk on, you decide to throw it all away."
"You think it was that easy for me?" Ellie asked. "You think I just woke up one morning and decided to end my relationship with, Devlin?"
"No, but Nicholas's presence back in your life, sure as hell helped, didn't it?"
"This wasn't a fucking whim, Gabe! And it certainly had nothing to do with Nicholas coming back into my life! He doesn't influence my decisions. My reasons for ending my relationship with Devlin are mine alone. I don't need to explain or defend my actions to you or to anyone else. The way I feel for any man, Nicholas or otherwise, should not influence the way our relationship works! You're my godfather; you've been my guardian since I was sixteen. You know me far more than my own parents know me. To have to stand here and feel guilty for something that you should've backed me up on…" She furiously blinked the tears away, hating herself because she allowed them to come.
"I needed you to be my guardian again, Gabe. I needed your support in this." Through her hazy gaze, she poignantly regarded her godfather. "You don't know how much it hurts, knowing that I've disappointed you, for nothing less, than loving the father of my children." She pushed the chair back and immediately found the exit, but before she could get too far, Gabe cornered her and gathered her to him.
Redemption (The Bet) Page 32