“Some decent layers to add body and for heaven’s sake, get rid of those split ends.”
I wanted to tell them it was my hair and maybe I should have some say in how it was cut. Maybe I’d like it all cut off. To be honest, it was a pain to look after and took forever to dry when I washed it. The only reason I kept it long was because it was easier to cut it myself that way.
But I knew without even saying anything that Dom wanted, Dom got. If he wanted me to be the subject of some weird makeover, then I’d play along with it. It wasn’t like these changes would be forever.
After three hours of intensive hair stuff, though, I was ready to quit.
“Can I at least get a cup of coffee sent in?” I asked. “I need something to keep me going.”
Although if I passed out, at least I’d avoid the worst of it.
“I supposed that would be fine. I’ll call for someone,” Vivian said. She’d been mainly supervising and passing judgements while Charlotte did the actual hairdressing work.
I sipped on my coffee while they discussed me. The non-hair aspects. Wow, I never knew I had some many shortcomings. Apparently the brown shoes didn’t match my red dress, which was why Dom had been so offended. I wanted to remind them that I never left this house so the whole matchy-matchy thing didn’t matter one iota. There was only Dom to see me and that was for the short period of time before he had my clothes off me completely.
Finally, Charlotte finished. She’d dried my hair and let me see it. It was — I wasn’t sure. It was some fancy lady hairdo. Like someone older would have. It was so different than I’d ever had. The highlights she’d put in shone in the sun, though. They were so subtle, you didn’t even realise they were highlights at all. But that wave, it was just yuck.
I sighed. No one wanted my opinion anyway.
After the hair, they started on the make-up. That was even worse. At least I could sit in the chair like a zombie while they fussed with my hair, but I had to watch them do my make-up, then they wiped it all off and made me redo it so I learnt. I wanted to scream. There was no way I could get it to look like they had. I just had no idea. And my skin hurt. What was the point of make-up if my skin was red raw?
“I think we need to take a break for lunch,” Vivian said.
Yes! Those were the words I wanted to hear. Lunch was exactly what was needed. Then a nap. And maybe some sex. Then more naps and more food. No more hair and make-up.
Lunch was anything but fun, though. Every single thing I did was wrong. I’m pretty sure that half the “rules” they were nagging me about, they’d made up just for the sake of nagging. Who could think of all those things when there was food to eat? It ruined my appetite. A little.
After lunch, we had more torture. Learning to walk properly in high heels. Learning to sit properly, even. It was exhausting.
“Well, it’s an improvement. You can’t say we haven’t tried,” said Charlotte. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
The thought that we might be finished was enough that I didn’t mind being called a sow’s ear.
I followed them to Dom’s office. He must like all this fusty stuff for him to have them do it to me, but I hated it. I wanted me back. The real me with no polish. I had no desire to be a lady with this horrible hair and the stupid shoes. The make-up looked okay, I guess.
“Bring her in,” he said.
I walked into the room, more worried about his approval than I ever thought.
He walked around me, inspecting me.
“The clothes are better. Posture better. But that hair! She looks like a dowager. Fix it. No curls, no fancy stuff. Just straight, like it was but better.”
Vivian started to protest, but Dom put his hand up to stop her.
“Redo it.”
I was so right about the hair. That gave me a sense of satisfaction, even if it did mean having to go through the whole process again. And that gleam in Dom’s eye meant there’d be some reward for me tonight. I guess that made the torture worth it.
Chapter 11. Veronica
Breakfasts with Dom had become easier. I no longer had to think so much about what to do. I dressed in the clothes he gave me. I did my make-up as I’d been instructed. I could walk in the high heels and I ate my food slowly.
My reward for all this was the time I spent with Dom. Our games had been getting more intense.
The day had started like any other, but then the conversation took a dangerous turn.
He mentioned the debts I’d run up to the loan sharks.
I knew what he expected. That I would smile and thank him for his concern, but screw that. I couldn’t let something like that pass so easily. I might be his play toy but I knew a helluva lot more about how the real world worked than he ever would. He lived his life in this luxurious cocoon, away from even day-to-day interactions with people. I had no idea why. There was more to that than he ever would tell me. I didn’t question him. I didn’t probe into his personal life.
When he called me out for the way I lived my life, I couldn’t curb my tongue.
I put down my fork and stared at him, the words coming out without me even thinking.
“You don’t get it, do you? What would you do if your mother was sick and needed medical treatment? You wouldn’t let her suffer. You’d do what’s best and let the future take after itself.”
He turned from me when I said that. He couldn’t meet my eyes. He didn’t even want to think about what I’d been through, that much was clear.
“No, you don’t get it. Business decisions should always be kept separate from emotional ones. The decision to borrow money was a business decision. A bad one. You let yourself get clouded by emotion and people took advantage of you. That’s what people do, Veronica. That’s why you should never let your emotions get the better of you.”
I folded my arms. He’d never get it through his thick head that when you didn’t have a family fortune backing you up, life wasn’t that simple.
“I don’t regret it,” I said. “If Mum had a bit more happiness in her last days, then it was worth it.”
“You might not be saying that if you were in some back-alley brothel with a dirty bastard about to rape you for the twentieth time. You’re lucky I rescued you.”
The bile in my stomach rose. He was right. I’d not thought of that when I’d borrowed the money. Still, I didn’t want him to think it was that easy. At the time, when Mum needed medicine and treatment, I’d have done anything to help her. I could hardly go to the bank for a loan without a job or any assets. It wasn’t like we had a fortune stashed away.
“You didn’t rescue me. You kidnapped me.”
He glared at me.
“Well, I don’t have to worry about borrowing money to save my mother because she’s dead. No amount of money would’ve saved her. Maybe not marrying your dad would’ve, though.”
I fought down the sparks of angry starting to flame in my stomach. That was a shitty thing to say, but it wasn’t untrue. I knew to pick my battles, and defending my father’s honour was not a battle I was prepared to fight. Throwing his dead mother into the argument to counteract my dead mother was a low shot, though.
He’d been devastated by Mitzy’s death, even though he’d mostly hidden it. I could see that the cold front he presented was just a way of covering up and stopping himself from being hurt. I’d become so in tune with his moods that I recognised the way his mouth tightened when he said her name and the way he’d sometimes gaze at objects, things that must’ve been hers. When he did that, I wanted to tell him I understood, that I’d done the same things. But those moments would only last a split second and they’d vanish.
I wanted to get the conversation away from that whole track.
“So, kidnapping me, was that a business decision or an emotional one?”
That question actually made him blanch a little. Before he could answer, Harrison had come in to tell him he had a call. He left without saying anything.
&nbs
p; Chapter 12. Dom
As much as I’d protested to Veronica that I didn’t let emotions interfere with my decision making, she’d put me on the spot with that question. I wasn’t sure if I should punish her for her impertinence in asking or let it slide so that hopefully she wouldn’t ask again.
In the meantime, Brady had called with more details about the will.
Maybe he had finally done something useful and had gotten this mess sorted out. I indicated to Harrison to bring a coffee to my study and went to answer the call.
If the mess had been sorted, what would I do with Veronica?
All logic said to let her go. Send her off into the big wide world and go back to my happy solitude. But I’d invested a lot in her, and there was still a huge return on investment that I could reap from the situation. All those clothes, the hair, the training. I could keep her around as an experiment.
When I got to the phone, Brady had the worst news possible.
“They have the new autopsy results, Dom. It’s not good.”
“Well, it’s an autopsy, it’s never going to end with a good prognosis.”
I let myself grin at the cleverness of my answer.
“It’s not situation for jokes. They’ve established the time of death. Mitzy died before Richard.”
“That’s a technicality, though, surely. You can’t be saying…”
“It is a technicality, but that’s what the law is about. She married without changing her will. She died intestate. Whether its five seconds or five years, he survived her and he’s her next of kin. The bulk of the estate goes to him. And, his next of kin is —”
“Veronica.”
“Veronica.”
I gulped. What did that mean? I was poor and she was rich? That was not possible.
“But Mitzy wasn’t of sound mind. That much was obvious or she’d have never considered marrying that man.”
“Maybe so but that would tied up in the courts for years with all kinds of publicity.”
I saw his point. That would not be good for the company.
“Can we bury the results?” I asked. Surely, enough money could mean that people would keep quiet. That would be the best solution for all concerned. Best for me, best for them because they’d have a fat wad of cash. Best for the employees because they wouldn’t all end up out of work when the company collapsed. Veronica had her good points, but I doubted that she had the skills and experience to run a multimillion-dollar corporation. It’s not like she wasn’t provided for. I’d made sure she had everything she needed.
“There’s problem there too. You don’t think the second autopsy was conducted on a whim, do you? Someone was behind that. Someone very powerful.”
“Well, fine, just out-powerful them.”
“And what if we can’t?”
“Nonsense.” Was the man a fool? You could outplay anyone if you played smart enough. No one would take me on, not when I was playing for real. If there was someone behind this, and I wasn’t convinced that Brady wasn’t just being paranoid, they’d back down when they heard my name.
Then Brady mentioned a name of his own.
Elliot Khan.
I sucked in my breath. There weren’t many players in this world that would have me speechless, but that was one name that had power behind it. Real power. The kind of power that could topple governments at a whim, even end a monarchy. The kind of wealth that made me look like a kid with a piggy bank. Elliot Khan was known as God in the business world, his reach was so vast.
“What would someone like him be doing involved with something like this? It’s not his concern.”
Brady had no answer. I sat at my desk and pulled a file out of the drawer.
“Just a thought, Brady. I’ll give you a name. Get someone to do some subtle checking. See if there is any connection to Khan. She might’ve changed her name at some point but, given the age and other details, maybe a female relative in Khan’s family who disappeared, that kind of thing.”
Brady paused, I assumed to write down the details. I also told him about the brooch and told him I’d send him through a photo. I didn’t go into how I’d obtained it.
“In the meantime, what are you doing to do?” Brady asked.
“I can offer her money to sign it all over to me.”
“That won’t be so easy now. She’s got a lot more power. It’s not just a stake in things now. It’s the whole shebang. You can’t just sign that kind of thing over without a ton, and I mean a shit ton, of legalities. For a start, you’d be paying a massive amount of death duties. A heap of money for literally nothing. No way around it, either. She’ll be inheriting millions in assets. For her to “gift” them to you, which is what she’d be doing, means you’ll get fistfuls of fingers in that pie. Then, you’ll have to detail the entire estate before she signs. She might not be so keen to sign when she knows what she has. She might decide to take the money and leave you far, far behind.”
Brady’s words twisted my heart. She wouldn’t do that. Surely she’d see that this was rightfully mine and let me have it. She said she’d never run away. But money changes people, especially people who’ve not grown up with it. They don’t know how to handle things.
She’d leave me.
Of course, I wouldn’t be dirt poor. I’d still have an interest in the company. It just wouldn’t be a controlling interest. And, if the company failed, then forty per cent of nothing is nothing. I had the house and money of my own, but property and money were nothing. I wanted an empire.
“There is one way around it. Don’t get angry, Dom. It’s not ideal, but it might stem this mess. It’s a simple solution that I’ve already suggested…”
Chapter 13. Veronica
He walked into the room and smiled at me. No apology for making me wait around for him, not that I expected anything like that.
“Come for a walk in the gardens,” he said.
That was odd. Not sex, not playing, but a walk in the gardens. Unless he had something sexy planned for outdoors, which would be not ideal in this cold weather. It was hard to know what he was thinking, though. His smile seemed strange and a little bit creepy, but I got up and walked with him.
The crisp air made my skin goosepimply.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “I can give you my jacket.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m just not used to being out in the cold air.”
He made a strange move like he was going to take my hand, then thought better of it. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. He wasn’t the hand-holding kind of guy. We walked along the path, side by side, without talking. Our footsteps crunched on the dead leaves, but that was the only sound.
“Did you grow up here?” I asked him, not sure if he’d find that too invasive. We were having a regular conversation and I didn’t want to blow it. It made my heart warm to be with him like this. It seemed so normal and so intimate.
“For a while,” he said. “Then I went away. The house belonged to my father’s family. I’m the only one left now.”
“It’s a gorgeous house, but so big. Don’t you get lonely living here all on your own?”
“But I’m not on my own,” he said.
He broke into a smile. A real smile. A smile that lit up his eyes. I’d never seen him smile like that before. I’d seen the cold smile and the sex smile, but this was a different thing altogether. Like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. I was no longer cold, but it hurt my heart a little that he so rarely smiled like that.
I smiled back, not sure if he meant he wasn’t alone because he had me. I hoped that’s what he meant, but I wasn’t sure.
“Were you lonely, Veronica?” he asked. “Looking after your mother and having all your friends desert you?”
Sometimes, the things he knew about me shocked me. Those private moments that I thought were mine alone had been ferreted out by whoever he’d used to investigate my life.
“I was too busy to be lonely when Mum was alive. I had no time to worry about my
own life. She needed a lot of help with things and I wanted to make the most of the time we had left together. Everything else seemed trivial in comparison.” I stopped to draw breath. “But, after she died, yes, I was lonely. We’d been so close and then there was nothing. Life had moved on without me and I had a heap of trouble.”
We’d reached a pavilion in the middle of the garden and walked up the steps together. The winter sun shone through the fretted wood, making patterns on the ground. I sat down, but Dom remained standing. It seemed like he’d lost some of his usual arrogance and there was a skittishness about him.
I waited for him to talk.
“Are you happy here, Veronica?” He paced with his hands folded behind his back as though he was a headmaster and I was a schoolgirl caught doing something wrong. Was it bad that I found that extremely sexy?
“Yes, of course I’m happy.” I smiled at him. This conversation seemed awkward and I wasn’t sure where it was heading. Was he meaning to kick me out? I figured if he were, then he’d be a lot less tactful about it. He’d bundle me up and dump me somewhere like I was an unwanted puppy.
“How would you feel about staying here forever? I mean, do you want to marry me?”
My head swam. Had he really said that? That was so not what I was expecting. Maybe I’d heard him wrong. My pulse raced like crazy. I’d assumed this was a temporary thing, a crazy whim of his. And he’d been all about me being his sister not so long ago.
I tried to still my mind. Did I want to marry him? Did I want to live in this house forever and be with him?
“Hell yeah,” I blurted out.
It wasn’t the romantic proposal of my teenage dreams, but when I said the words, I knew it was true. I did want to be with him forever. I shivered, not from the cold this time but from the realisation that this wasn’t about sex and it wasn’t a game.
I was in love with Dom.
Even with his craziness and his arrogance and all the mystery around him, I loved him.
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