by M. S. Parker
Startled by the touch—right here in public—I jerked back.
Heat…and something else…glowed in his eyes.
“I…” I cleared my throat and pretended to check the time. “Tonight, Dominic. We can talk tonight.”
A muscle tensed in his jaw.
He wanted to argue with me. I could tell.
Part of me wished he would.
But that wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t lying. We did have a busy day ahead of us and Dominic had some important business meetings to attend to. That pretty much decided it right there.
For Dominic, business came first. First, last and always. Maybe if he had said, fuck that. Fuck the meetings, we’re doing this now, it would have done something to ease the misery inside me.
But he didn’t.
We left.
* * *
It was the day from hell, even worse than the week after the debacle with the party planner.
Everything was stilted and formal. One thing was certain. Molly hadn’t been wrong when she’d said I needed to deal with this. And Dominic hadn’t been wrong, either.
We had to talk.
Either I could handle what had happened Friday or not. It was as simple as that. I had to figure out if I could let it go, and if I couldn’t, then I’d have to turn in my notice.
The meetings that normally fascinated me seemed boring and interminable. I pulled up reports for Dominic and jotted down notes. I made personal meetings and dealt with emails, all while on edge most of the day. Constantly, I could feel his eyes on me. When I’d look up, he would be looking elsewhere, but as soon as I looked away, I’d feel him studying me again.
It was enough to make any sane girl crazy and at that point, I didn’t feel particularly sane.
Each minute dragged on into eternity, right up until four o’clock.
The first month leading up to the opening of Dominic’s newest business, we’d often worked up until seven or later, but it had been open a few weeks now and thanks to the excellent staff he’d found, he had started leaving around five, which had left me free to do the same.
Suddenly, time didn’t go slow anymore. Those seconds seemed to speed by. It was like I’d fallen through a time warp. Minutes became seconds and I would have done anything to slow that clock down. I still didn’t know what I was going to say to him and I had no idea what he planned to say to me.
It was 4:39 when I locked myself in the bathroom. With my back to the door, I punched in a desperate message to Molly. Silencing the ring tone, I hoped and prayed she wouldn’t be working.
Her response came up almost right away.
Yeah, I'm working. But I'm on my break. What's up?
I punched in my response.
We haven't talked yet. We're getting ready to after work. What am I supposed to say to him?
Her answer came up:
That's easy. Tell him what you feel. Tell him what you want.
She called that easy? Hello, I didn't even know what I wanted.
I told her that. She responded back in the same matter of fact, no nonsense way.
Honey, you know what you want. You want him to know that he hurt you and you want an apology and you want to know that it's not going to happen again. If that bitch of a mother of his attacks you like that again, he needs to address it. He needs to address it right then and right there and tell her she can’t talk to you that way. And next time you need to be more of a bitch yourself right back to her.
I didn't know how to respond to that. She wasn't wrong.
But could I actually say that to him?
When I didn't respond right away, Molly sent me another text.
Break's wrapping up and I got to go. Look, maybe he’s just into you because you’re hot and sexy and he wants you. If that’s the case, find out, deal with it and move on because you deserve more. But if it could be more…if it is more, you’ve got to talk to him and work it out. You’ve got a right to expect him to care about you and he should know he hurt you. Either you two have something or you don’t. If you do, you've got a right to know these things. And if he cares about you, you’ve got a right to expect these things. And you owe it to yourself to stand up for yourself. You deserve better.
Two seconds later, another message came through.
Love you sweetie. Stand up. You can do it.
Pressing my head against the door, I clutched the phone tightly. Stand up.
Five o’clock rolled around and I gathered my things. But Dominic wasn’t in the office.
After a few moments, I went out to where his administrative assistant worked. The two of us had gotten to know each other fairly well and she shot me a look that managed to bring a weary smile to my face.
“I don’t know about you, but that was one lousy Monday,” Amber said softly as she held out a note. “From Mr. Snow.”
“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement and then looked down at the note.
I managed not to make any reaction as I read it and gave her a faint smile when I looked back up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
The note, I crumpled in my hand.
You can take the car home. I’ll be there later this evening.
So much for talking.
And I supposed that answered the unspoken question about what I meant to him.
I had Chinese delivered. Listlessly poking at the beef and broccoli for a few minutes, I gave up and just finished off the hot and sour soup, staring out my window into the park. I wanted summer. I wanted longer days so I could take walks in the evening. I also wanted warmth and sunlight and something other than the chill in the air when I went outside.
I was stirring the dregs of the soup when the penthouse door opened.
I waited.
But he didn’t come in.
Leaning back, I stared up at the ceiling. I could hear him moving around in his room and I shoved back, gathering up my trash.
He was going to jerk me around like a puppet on a string? Fine. If he wanted to talk, he could come find me when he was ready.
Controlling bastard.
I settled in my room and started to flip through the channels. I rarely watched TV anymore. Barely read. Didn’t do anything that didn’t involve work. I wondered if maybe—
My door opened.
Slowly, I turned my head and found Dominic filling the entrance.
He flicked a look around my room and then his gaze came to me. “Perhaps now is a good time to have that talk.”
Slowly, I rose. Thumbing off the TV, I put the remote down and moved over to the window. The view faced out over Manhattan and the lights and spires of the buildings turned the skyline into a jewel-bedecked panorama.
“Talk,” I said. I glanced at him over my shoulder and realized I was smiling. It was a humorless, bitter sort of smile.
Stand up, Molly had told me. Yeah. I think maybe I needed to do that.
“Sure, Dominic. We can talk.”
Dominic’s gaze slid down to my mouth, then away.
I guess the smile wasn’t a pleasant one because he didn’t smile back. That was fine. I hadn't meant it to be nice. I went back to gazing out over the city.
I had to know where I stood. Where we stood and I had to know soon.
This was just too hard. Either we had something or we didn’t, but if we did…
“I’m sorry about what my mother said, how she acted,” Dominic said quietly, his voice oddly formal, almost strained.
Leaning my head against the pane of glass, I whispered softly, “You’re sorry…for your mother.”
The silence that followed was awful.
When he finally spoke, it was in that same stiff, formal voice and the sound of it made me flinch. “I realize, looking back, that I should have said something. I didn’t. I’m sorry for that.”
“Are you?” I asked quietly.
When he didn’t say anything, I turned and looked at him.
He had turned away. His back was rigid, his shoulders a hard, solid line. H
e looked so unapproachable.
That was fine. Just then, I didn’t think I could have handled the idea of approaching him anyway.
I think it’s time to figure out just where I stand. The longer I stared at him, the more I realized I needed to know. “Do we have anything here?”
It was a simple enough question, I thought. I didn't know a whole lot about guys, but I did know that guys didn't like to talk about emotions and the general idea of relationships could make a guy gun shy. But the decent ones would man up and deal, right? Especially after something like what had happened.
I'd thought Dominic was one of the decent ones. I was starting to believe I'd been wrong.
He turned and looked at me, his gaze remote. “Of course we do. I think we’ve covered everything we need to cover, Aleena. I am sorry for what happened Friday. I assure you it won’t happen again.”
He was almost to the door when I spoke. I couldn’t see him through the tears in my eyes and I silently cursed myself for not being able to do this without sounding like a simpering ex.
“Damn right it won’t.” I blinked away the tears and managed to at least keep my voice steady. “I quit, Mr. Snow. I’ll work out the time needed for you to find a new assistant, but this arrangement clearly isn't working.”
I started for my bedroom. I needed to get as far away from him as I could. Antarctica sounded ideal.
Before I could open the door, one hand closed around the doorknob. He grabbed my arm with the other hand and spun me around.
“What?” he demanded. There was more emotion in his face than I’d seen all evening. No, this was the most emotion I’d seen in him since that monstrous woman he called his mother had walked in on us.
“You heard me. This isn’t working for me.” Jutting my chin up, I repeated what I’d said only moments ago. “I quit.”
Dominic’s mouth came down on mine.
I locked my jaw when his tongue stroked across my lips, demanding entrance. Despite the heat that twined and stroked through me, I refused to give in. After a few moments, he lifted his head.
“Why?” He remained tantalizingly close. Tormenting close. It was enough to drive me out of my mind.
“Are you serious?” I shoved him away. I had both regret and relief when he went.
Stepping aside, I darted past him and strode out of my apartment, toward the stairs. I’d just leave if I had to. If he touched me again, I’d probably give in, and I couldn't do that.
“I already told you I was sorry!” he shouted.
I stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around to face him. My temper was rising and I was tired of keeping it down. “And then when I asked if we had anything going on, you stiffened up like I’d shoved a hot poker up your ass!”
His reaction to that was…off.
He went white. So pale, like all of the blood had been drained. He turned away so I couldn't see his face. Bracing his hands against the wall, he stared down. “What is it you want, Aleena? Help me out here.”
“Is it really that complicated?” My hands were shaking and I couldn't tell if it was only anger or if desire was mixed in there. “I can't do this back and forth thing, okay? I need to know where I stand with you. Do we have anything going on between us? Do you care about me? Because I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
His answer was so quiet, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d heard him right.
“Neither have I.”
“What?” Confusion took the edge off my anger.
He lifted his head and stared at me, eyes glittering. “Neither have I.”
“But…” I flicked a hand, waving the idea off. I didn't want to stop being angry. I needed it to keep from being hurt again. “Dominic, you’ve been around the block more times than a marathon runner.”
“No.” His lip curled, an almost ironic, dismissive sort of sneer. “I’ve had sex. I’ve had sexual relationships and I’ve had lovers and I’ve escorted women to and from social events. None of them have ever gone as far as to ask me if I cared about them. And they wouldn’t have bothered because they knew the answer would be no.”
Something cold went through me, extinguishing the anger and leaving...nothing. My gaze fell away from his and I started to back up. I'd wanted an answer and I'd gotten one.
Before I could get to the steps, he was there. His hands came up and caught my arms. “But you aren’t…” An unfamiliar look drifted across his face. He looked hesitant, uncertain even.
Dominic Snow never looked uncertain.
“I don’t do relationships, Aleena. It’s an ironic twist that I decided to play around with a matchmaking company. Love is all well and good for others, but I don’t believe in it for myself.” Then he lifted a hand and pushed it into my hair. “I’ve never even wanted to care about a woman…until you came along.”
The look he gave me left me feeling stripped bare and if it wasn’t for the massive pain I felt inside, I might have…well, I don’t know what I might have done. Because that agonizing emptiness inside was about to devour me. It was about ready to just eat me alive and I couldn’t think past it.
“You care,” I said, my voice hitching. Dammit. “Or you think you care.”
“Aleena…”
I tugged his hand away and stepped to the side to put some distance between us. “Why are you apologizing to me, Dominic?”
He stood there, staring at me, confusion on his face. Finally, he shoved a hand through his hair. It tumbled right back into place. The unkempt hair and the tight set of his jaw gave him a slightly edgy look, a slightly wild look, a slightly wicked look. I curled my fingers into fists and rested them behind me. I wanted to reach for him. So bad.
“I already told you. Look…” He stopped and sighed. “My mother has this class issue. I hate it, but I can’t change her. I should have said something and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Oh…your mother has a lot more problems than issues with class,” I said and this time, I didn’t hold back the scorn, or the anger I felt. It burned away some of the pain, or at least hid it.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Aleena, half the people I know—no, more than that—tend to have class issues. I don’t like it, but it’s not like I’m friends with them. I don’t hang out with them. I’m not looking for friendship or anything with them. It’s just how they are.”
“How they are.” I nodded. “And let me explain just how they are. If they're anything like your mother, they're racist, narrow-minded elitist assholes.”
Dominic jerked his head back as if I’d slapped him. “She’s not—”
I took a step forward, letting the little spark inside me burst into a full-fledged flame. “Don’t you dare tell me she’s not racist! What the hell? You think she was calling me exotic because I’m not rich?”
“Aleena…” He opened his mouth, closed it. I could see in his eyes that he knew.
“You’ve never been in my shoes. You can’t know what it's like.” I curled my hands into fists so he couldn't see them shaking. “Now I’m pretty sure if I was some little blond-haired, blue-eyed white girl and she walked in on us, she might have been plenty disgusted, but it goes a lot deeper than that. Because I’m not. She saw me, saw a little colored girl…she saw your hired help and she totally dismissed me as a person. I’m not a person to her.”
Tears burned my eyes now and I swiped them away as they fell. “And you just sat there.”
He reached for me.
I held up a hand. “Don’t. I can’t—” My voice broke and I just shook my head.
The silence that fell was horrible. My heart felt like it was going to split in two as I struggled to get the tears under control. I didn’t want to break in front of him. I wouldn’t break in front of him. After a few moments, I managed to stop the flood and I stared at him. He looked…lost.
“Why did you just sit there?” I asked. “I told you about what had happened to me before. You knew how much her words would hurt me and you just sat there.�
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Dominic looked around and finally, he just slid down to the floor. It was…incongruous. I did the same thing, taking up the space on the wall opposite him, and staring at his pale face.
“I’m adopted,” he said softly.
Those were the last two words I expected him to start this conversation off with. I said nothing, just stared and waited for him to make sense.
“I…” He drove his head back against the wall, hard. Hard enough to hurt, I’d think, but he didn’t even blink. “My mother and I haven’t had a good—or easy—relationship in…well. Ever. I know she loves me, but things were never easy. I think she thought she’d be getting this sweet, quiet, gentle little doll she could dress up in doll clothes and parade around in front of her friends and then she could put me back in a box until it was time for the next occasion to show me off.”
The words weren't bitter, just matter-of-fact.
“I don’t know who my birth mother is. For all I know, she was…” He sneered now, infusing the words with the patrician tones I didn't doubt he'd heard from his mother. “Some ‘low-class tramp of a girl’.” He angled his head to the side. “That wasn't the first time she’d walked in on me with a woman, Aleena. And that phrase? That was what she said to a girl I’d brought home with me when I was a teenager. She was a nice girl. I…I think I could have liked her. But she ran out crying after that and never talked to me again.”
“It sounds like your mother enjoys belittling people,” I said.
“She does.” Dominic’s mouth tightened. “I love her, but I don’t really like her.”
With a start, I realized that I felt sorry for him. Sorry for this rich, privileged man who'd grown up with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Folding my hands in my lap, I thought back over my childhood and realized that maybe it hadn’t been as rough as I’d thought. Yeah, I’d often been ostracized—I'd been the outsider, but some had been through choice. I’d been smart and not like the flirty, giggly girls who cared about clothes and gossip. And I'd been the girl who was never quite white enough or never quite black enough to be accepted into either social circle.
But I had parents who loved me and worked hard to make a good life for me. No matter how bad things had gotten at school, I'd always known that I had a refuge at home.