His Stolen Secret (His Secret: A NOVELLA SERIES Book 2)

by Terri Anne Browning

  I stroked my hand over her arm, and was rewarded with a sprinkle of goosebumps wherever my fingers touched. “I know you don’t feel up to it, but you have to eat. You don’t want to make yourself sick, Triss.”

  Lily’s head snapped up at that, her eyes filling with fear. I instantly regretted my words.

  “You can’t get sick, Triss. Please don’t get sick.”

  Triss reached over, cupping the girl’s face. “I’m not going to get sick, baby. I promise.”

  “You have to eat something. Please?”

  I felt more than heard her huff, but she stood. “Okay, I’ll eat. Will that make you feel better?” She shot me a glare. “Both of you?”

  “Yes,” Lily and I said at the same time.

  I pushed to my feet, not trusting her to eat properly if I wasn’t there to make sure she did. Knowing her, she would only grab a handful of junk food, and then say she ate something nourishing.

  “Keep coloring, Lily. I’m going to make Triss something to eat.”

  Relief filled her eyes. “Okay.”

  I followed Triss downstairs and found her in the pantry, eating cookies straight out of the pack. Shaking my head at her, I pulled her over to the island and down into a chair. Pulling the same fixings I had used for my own sandwich earlier, I made her one. She made a face at the food, but after the first bite, her appetite finally kicked in and she devoured it like she hadn’t eaten in days.

  I sat across from her, quietly watching as she ate.

  When the last crumb went into her mouth, she made a face at me. “Thank you.”

  “That’s why I’m here—to take care of you.” Catching her hand, I lifted it to my lips and kissed her palm. I heard her breath hitch and was thankful when she didn’t pull away. “I’m not going to leave you, Triss. I’m here for you and the girls. Understand?”

  Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, but she finally nodded her head. “Okay,” she whispered a little brokenly.

  FOURTEEN

  Triss

  I WASN’T SURE HOW I would have survived the next few days without Dom there to hold me up when all I wanted to do was fall. He took care of everything, from the details of the funeral, to getting the girls to eat three times a day. He was the shoulder all three of us cried on at night when none of us could sleep and we ended up in my bed cuddling.

  Through it all, he didn’t complain once, and I was thankful to have him standing beside me as we lowered my mother into the ground beside Derrick back in Buffalo.

  When the funeral service was over, we made the long trip back home and spent the night once again tucked into my bed. Dom slept in the middle, with me on his right side and Lily on his left, and Daisy on top of him. I knew it was crazy to let myself get used to this, but it felt so good when everything else in the world hurt so badly.

  Days past, turning into one week then two. A month past, and still Dom was there with us every day. Even when Lily went back to school after having been given extra time to grieve, he was still there with us every day. He didn’t go to work, didn’t leave the house unless it was to take Lily to school. Lily and Daisy had already started sleeping in their own beds again, but each night, he slept in mine, holding me.

  It was dangerous to let myself continue to lean on him the way I was, to rely on him for so much, but I was growing addicted to him a little more every day. My addiction was made even worse because I knew I still loved him just as strongly now as I had seven years ago. Despite having felt abandoned by him when I had thought he signed the adoption papers and that stupid check, I had still loved him. Now that I knew the truth, it was hard to fight my ever-growing feelings for him.

  After weeks of my father’s will being in probate, Amber finally let me know that all the paperwork had been finalized and had finished the probate period. The money that was transferred into my accounts felt heavy and more of a burden than anything else now. While my mother had been alive, that money had been a godsend. Now that she was gone, it felt more like a life sentence in purgatory.

  To think that it was that money that had been the reason Nancy had wanted me out of my father’s life made it feel tainted, dirty. To feel better about it, I made a trust fund for both Lily and Daisy. Then I told Amber to donate almost everything else.

  “Are you sure?” I could hear the shock in her voice.

  I was giving up a hell of a lot of money, but the truth was, I didn’t need it. Even if I didn’t take an active role in my father’s company, with my fifty-one percent, I would be able to live comfortably off the income of the stock alone. I didn’t need the money, didn’t really want it, and I was sure there were worthy charities that needed that money more than anyone else.

  Plus, I knew it was going to make Nancy explode when she found out I had given all the money away that she had been so desperate for that she had ruined my life. It might have sounded spiteful and petty, but it made me want to laugh, something I hadn’t done much of at all in the weeks since my mother’s death.

  “Yes,” I assured her. “I’m very sure. Just make sure you tell me what charities you donate to. I’d like to keep track of where the money is going. And … could you send a list of all of them, along with how much you donate, to Nancy?”

  I heard Amber bite back a chuckle. “That won’t be a problem. I might drop that off to her personally, just so I could have the pleasure of watching her eyes bug out of her head when she realizes what happened to all the money she was itching to get her greedy hands on.”

  I fought back a grin. “Take pictures.”

  “You bet.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes before Amber had to get back to work.

  “That’s a hell of a lot of money to just give away,” Dom spoke, causing me to jump.

  I had thought I was alone, having taken the call in the library so I could have privacy since Daisy was running around hyper as hell today. I was glad she was bouncing back so easily, but she was exhausting with her new energy.

  Tossing my phone onto one of the many tables around the room, I looked up at him. “It didn’t feel right taking all of that money. I don’t need it. The girls have a trust fund set up, and that’s all that really matters in the long run.”

  He thrust his hands into his pockets as he came farther into the room. “That was very generous of you, but nothing I didn’t expect. You have the kindest heart I have ever seen, baby.”

  Pink filled my cheeks as I tried to brush off his compliment. This seemed like it would be a heavy conversation if I dived into it with him, and I was nervous, needing to keep anything we talked about light. I didn’t want our current truce to stop, any more than I wanted him to walk away.

  “It’s not like I’ll be poor again, Dom. I’m still going to have the money from the stocks from my father’s company.”

  “That will give you plenty of income,” he agreed. “But, have you given any thought about working like you and Robert used to talk about?”

  “It’s crossed my mind.” Over the last week or so, it had been front and center in my mind. I needed to work, if for no other reason than to keep myself distracted. The girls were starting to put the pain of Savanna’s death behind them, as only children could do. For me, it was still as raw and painful as if it had only happened the day before.

  His brows lifted at my response, as if he could read my mind. “What’s stopping you?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have the skills or the education. I can’t just step in and start pushing my weight around. I would only screw everything up.”

  “No one said you had to go in there and start throwing your weight around, baby. You could start by simply going to board meetings, slowly diving back into it.” He took one of my hands in his, entwining his fingers with mine. “You have a good head for business, Triss. You’re brilliant and a wicked fast learner. Whatever you decide to do, I know you will be amazing.”

  “I’ll think about it, okay?” I tugged my hand free, though all I wanted to do was let him hold it fo
rever, and stepped back. “I have plenty of time to decide what I want to do.”

  Dom followed me, not letting me put any distance between us. “We should talk.”

  Here it comes. He’s going to leave.

  Not that I could blame him. Dom had put his life on hold while he had taken care of me and the girls.

  I forced a bright smile to my lips. “Sure, what’s up?”

  Don’t go. Please, don’t go.

  “About Lily.”

  I turned away from him, pain slicing my chest open, and took a seat on one of the chairs scattered around the room. “What about her?”

  “Actually, not just her. It pertains to Daisy, as well.” He wasn’t letting me get far. Following me, he pulled me up from the chair, and then sat himself down before pulling me onto his lap. With one strong hand, he caught the back of my neck, massaging it while trapping me.

  “Okay.”

  “Your mom’s will states you’re their guardian, but have you thought about adopting the girls?”

  Of all the things he could have said right then, that was not even close to what I had been expecting. When he had mentioned Lily, I thought he was going to stir things up. That he wanted to push my hand and make me tell her that she was actually my daughter, not my sister.

  Honestly, that was something that I thought about daily. I wanted her to know she was my baby. I wanted … so many things. However, I couldn’t do that to her. Not when she was just starting to get back to her old self after Savanna’s death.

  “That’s something I would need to talk to the girls about,” I said after a moment. “I’m their guardian and that doesn’t really take the place of a mother.”

  “Baby, you’ve been a mother to them for months now. Savanna told me how good you are with them. You treat both Lily and Daisy like your own.” He stroked his thumb over the pulse at the base of my throat. “They adore you, and I know you love them more than anything in the world. I think you should discuss it with them.”

  I lowered my head to his chest and nodded. “Okay. I’ll talk to them about it soon.”

  He shifted under my weight, and I felt why as soon as his cock pulsed against my hip. I shivered and pressed my thighs together, hoping to alieve some of the tension coiling deep between my legs.

  All the nights he had been sharing my bed, he hadn’t tried to touch me even once. I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t want me—he couldn’t hide how affected he was by me. I didn’t know why he hadn’t tried to take things further than just holding each other every night, but I hadn’t wanted to ask, either, for fear it would make him stop sleeping with me.

  “Triss.” My name felt like a caress on his lips as I felt him touch them to my forehead. “I love you so damn much.”

  My head jerked up, nearly head-butting him in the process. “What did you say?”

  I was dreaming. There was no way I had just heard him say those words.

  Just moments ago, I had been scared he was going to leave me, that he didn’t want to deal with me and all the craziness that came with me. And now he was telling me he loved me. It didn’t seem real, or even possible.

  His eyes were dark with the emotion swirling around in them. “I love you. I always have. Even when I had convinced myself you were responsible for Kim’s overdose—which was pure idiocy on my part—I loved you. There hasn’t been a single day in eight years that has gone by that I haven’t loved you.”

  I didn’t know if I was happy to hear his confession, or sad that it had taken so long for him to tell me.

  Tears filled my eyes. All the wasted years, all the destruction to our hearts and our lives. It hadn’t needed to happen like that, yet it had.

  “I love you, too, Dom. I always have. Even when I thought you didn’t want me or our child, I loved you. I always will.” The words spilled out of my mouth before I had even given my brain permission to speak them, but I didn’t regret them. I only regretted that it had taken so long for either of us to say them out loud.

  His face twisted in a mixture of pain and pleasure as he pulled me down to his mouth so he could kiss me. I turned on his lap until I was straddling him, feeling the evidence of how much he wanted me flexing against my sex through our layers of clothes, and kissed him back. We both knew nothing more could happen but this kiss for now since the girls were home, but we savored every moment of it.

  The kiss was passionate at first, hungry. Our hands were everywhere. As it went on, it turned tender, loving. It was the kind of kiss that stood the test of time, just as our love had. When he lifted his head, he was smiling, but it was a sad smile.

  “It kills me that I’ve wasted so much time. If I had only listened to you, we could have been married by now and Lily would have stayed ours.” His head fell back against the chair, but he was still caressing my body, almost as if he couldn’t stop himself from touching me. As if he craved constant contact.

  I kissed his chin. “We don’t know if that would have happened. There’s no way of knowing if we would have still been together now. Your mother didn’t want us together, Dom. She hated me—hates me still. She would have found a way to break us up.”

  “No,” he denied vehemently. “If I hadn’t listened to her lies, I would have asked you to marry me after our weekend together.”

  “Y-you would have?”

  “Babe, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. That hasn’t changed for me.” An emotion I had rarely seen from him filled his eyes. Doubt. “Has it changed for you?”

  “No.” My answer was without hesitation. “For a while, I tried to lie to myself and thought that I was better off without you. But this past month has shown me that I was wrong. You stepped up and took care of not just me, but the girls, too. Not many guys would do that, and I was reminded why I fell in love with you in the first place.”

  “I want us to try.”

  My heart twisted with love.

  “And I don’t want you to think this is some ploy to get closer to Lily. As much as I want to be a part of her life, I would understand if you told me to go to hell where she is concerned. It’s my fault for never checking on you myself to make sure you were okay. It’s on me for not even thinking our time together had created something remarkable.” I could read the shame, the regret, and so much more in his eyes. “If you told me to walk away right now, I would respect that, and never bother you or her again.”

  “Dom …” I began, but he shook his head.

  “I’m not asking you to tell her who we really are to her. I don’t want to upset her any more than you do after all she’s been through. I would be happy to play any role in her life you are willing to give me. But that isn’t why I want to be with you.”

  Tears filled my eyes, something they did all too often lately. This time, though, they weren’t sad.

  “I want to try, too,” I told him before kissing his chin once again. “I want you in my life, and Lily’s and Daisy’s. I want …”

  A family.

  Him.

  Us. All four of us.

  Everything that came with it and so much more.

  “You want me, even though my blood is tainted with my mother’s DNA?”

  I grimaced at the mention of Nancy. “I love you, and I don’t care whose DNA you share. I know she comes as part of the deal, but I’m okay with that as long as she leaves the girls alone and I get to be with you.”

  Dom clenched his jaw. “You don’t ever have to worry about her messing with Lily and Daisy. I’ve made sure that she knows to stay clear of them and you.”

  “What do you mean?” I knew he was upset at his mother, but I had assumed he would eventually forgive her.

  “I finally talked to her a week or so ago. Told her that, if she even breathed wrong in your direction, I would let Ash print every dark secret she’s ever tried to keep hidden.” An evil glint flashed through his eyes. “She knows not to fuck with me, because I won’t even hesitate to use whatever I have to against her. And Ash is my close
st friend. All I have to do is say the word and she will print whatever I say.”

  Holy shit. I never in a million years would have thought Dom would do something like that to Nancy. Nevertheless, I believed him when he said he would. He had threatened his mother with one of the few things she held dear—her public image. He had to know by doing that, he was cutting all ties with her.

  He picked me over his mother.

  I covered his mouth with mine, unable to hold back now that he had proven to me that I meant more to him than Nancy did. She wouldn’t be constantly in the background, and I wouldn’t be constantly wondering what shoe she would drop next. I would have put up with it for Dom’s sake, but he had made sure that I didn’t have to.

  That meant more to me than anything else he could have ever possibly done for me.

  He hungrily kissed me back, moving his hands to my hips and holding me against the hardness that pulsed between us. I wanted him, needed him. Now.

  “Take me upstairs,” I begged between kisses. “Please, make love to me.”

  “Fuck,” he groaned and stood with me in his arms.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist as he crossed the library and headed for the stairs while continuing to kiss me. I didn’t know how he got us up to the second floor without dropping me, or falling and killing us both in the process. My room was so close. I could taste the urgency of his need. I ached to feel him deep inside me.

  “Triss?”

  Lily’s voice stopped Dom in his tracks, and we both turned to find Lily and Daisy standing outside their rooms. His fingers contracted on my hips before he slowly, reluctantly lowered me to my feet.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, and I felt my cheeks fill with pink.

  “Um, Dom was just helping me.”

  He had to smoother a grunt at my hastily thought-out explanation.

  “Helping you with what?” Daisy demanded suspiciously.

  “We were kissing, sweetheart,” Dom told her when she eyed him hard. “Because we are happy.”

  “But you’re not married.” She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring up at him.