by M. S. Parker
“Dominic, you must understand—”
I shot up from the chair, glaring down at her. “Well, I don’t! I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. All I wanted to do was feel like I belonged somewhere. It was never here.” She flinched at my words and I tried to soften my voice. “I know you love me. I know you tried. Solomon never did. He never cared and he certainly never tried. He couldn’t make his disgust with me more obvious. It was almost a relief when he turned his back on me.”
“You and I both.”
At my mother’s soft words, I lifted my head, studying her. She couldn’t have caught me more off-guard if she had slapped me.
“Do you think that was easy?” She rose and moved to the small bar tucked in the corner. After she poured herself a glass of sherry, she tipped it in my direction. “Please pardon the rudeness. I realize it’s early.”
She took a sip, sighed, then tipped her head back.
I'd never seen her look more human.
“You can't know what that year did to me. But Solomon…” When she said my father’s name, her face twisted in a scowl. “He acted like nothing had happened. Oh, he put on a good show when people asked about you, when the police came around, when it was expected of him. But when I was lying in bed at night, crying, grieving, worrying? He carried on, business as usual. He told me things sometimes just weren’t meant to be and if it was that hard on me, we could always get another baby.” She laughed again, but it sounded more like a sob this time. “As if you could be replaced.”
I took a moment to process the words, to understand that my feelings of anger and abandonment towards my father were justified, that they weren't just in my head. Then I pushed it aside. I already knew what an asshole Solomon Snow was. I needed things I didn't know.
“I need to know how it worked.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and gazed at me. After a moment, she nodded. “I don’t know any details or specifics. It never occurred to me to ask. When they told me they could help me get a baby, a newborn, all I cared about was getting you.”
“Okay.” I nodded. If there was something illegal going on, they probably weren’t going to let out a bunch of information, anyway. “Who were they, what did they want, how did it happen?”
She looked away. “It was easy. They wanted five hundred thousand dollars and I paid them. Not all of it up front, of course. I wasn’t a fool. It was twenty percent up front. I offered to provide for medical care when it arose, but they said it wasn’t necessary. The girl’s family was to provide for the prenatal care. They just wanted to make sure the baby had a good home and would be loved and cared for.” She took another sip of sherry, her eyes distant. She was smiling now. “Three weeks later, they brought you to me. I spoke with several people, but there was one man who seemed to be in charge. I gave him the rest of the money. He left.” She glanced at me. “That was it. I never heard from them again.”
“That was it? Just as easy as that? What about background checks, documentation, anything?” I'd heard of people going through more to adopt a pet.
My mother shrugged. “There were some documents. I was asked never to seek information on the birth parents. As it was never my intention to do so, that was easy enough to do.”
She took a deep, shuddering sigh and then she rose. There was a credenza near the door and she went straight to it.
I was still struggling to figure out what to ask, how to get the information I knew she had to have. She had to know something. My mother was self-involved, self-absorbed, and selfish. But she wasn’t stupid. Even as I was racking my brain, she wrote something down and then turned to me.
“This is the name I have. It’s the only name.” Then she looked down at the paper, folding it as she spoke. “Whatever you find out, please don’t hate me. I only wanted a child, Dominic.”
Chapter 5
Aleena
“Is she telling the truth?”
I sat across from Dominic and a piece of paper lay on the table between us. It was elegant, the palest of ivory and the handwriting on it was a sweeping, flowery scrawl.
Dominic hadn’t answered yet. He was still staring at the name as though that alone would force it to reveal its secrets.
“Dominic?”
Slowly, he dragged his gaze away from the paper and looked at me.
He shrugged and rose from the table. I watched as he moved over to the bar and splashed some scotch into a glass. He paused, then shrugged and splashed in more. He tossed it back, grimaced and then I watched as he refilled the glass and tossed back the same healthy serving again.
When he went to repeat it a third time, I pushed back from the table. “You think getting wasted is going to help?”
“Can’t hurt.” He shrugged.
“No.” I put my hand on his wrist and caught the bottle, tugged it away. He glared at me as I put the stopper back in the bottle and wrapped my arms around his neck. “If you need to lose yourself in vice, use me instead.”
Heat flashed in his eyes. Then, with a heavy sigh, he tugged me against him, tucking my head under his chin. “Part of me wishes I’d never started looking into this,” he said softly.
I tilted my head back and kissed his chin. “You want the truth. It’s who you are.”
His hands kneaded my waist and I arched closer, rubbing my body against his like a cat. He slid one hand down my back, bringing me flush against him. My body instantly responded to his, desire and heat flooding through me.
“Let me make you feel better,” I said softly. “Let me take care of you.”
I pressed against his chest, holding him at bay as I eased back. Watching him, I went to my knees. His eyes, hooded and dark, rested on my face. Without looking away from him, I loosened his belt and undid the buckle. I lowered the zipper and pulled him free. I wrapped my hand around the base of his thick shaft and watched as it swelled.
I leaned forward and took the head between my lips. He made a sound as I swirled my tongue around the tip. He fisted a hand in my hair, my name coming out as a growl.
I hummed in the back of my throat as I took him deeper. He was only half-hard, so I was able to take all of him without any problem. He rolled his hips forward, forcing his cock deeper until he was bumping the back of my throat.
We fell into a rhythm as his cock grew, me swaying forward while he drove himself into my mouth. My breasts were full, heavy. My belly ached and my clit pulsed with each thrust of his cock against the back of my throat. I cupped his balls with one hand, balancing myself against his hip with the other hand.
He groaned and I felt his balls tighten. He was close. He fisted both his hands in my hair and pushed deep, deeper than he had before, holding himself steady.
“Relax, baby,” he said, his voice ragged, panting as he held my head in place.
I fought not to gag, fought to relax the muscles in my throat as he came. My fingers flexed against his pants as I swallowed.
A few minutes later, he held me on the couch, his face buried in my hair. His arms tightened around me. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Any time.” My voice sounded hoarse and I reached for my wine, taking another sip of it before I changed the subject. “What are you going to do?” I asked him, knowing I didn't need to elaborate as to what I was talking about.
“Give the name to Kowalski.” His breath tickled my cheek as he spoke. “That’s the investigator. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Call him now,” I suggested. I angled my head up and studied him. “You’ll feel better once you do.”
Resting my hand on his chest, I waited for him to respond.
Instead of saying anything, he shifted around, removing one arm from around my waist. From the corner of my eye, I could see him holding his phone. He used his thumb to pull up the contacts and scroll until he found a number. I listened to the one-sided conversation and then looked up when Dominic said, “Hold on. I’m not sure…” He glanced down at me. “When is my schedule free tomorrow?�
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“You don’t ask for much, do you? The sun, the moon, the stars…” I sighed and leaned forward, grabbing my own phone. After a moment, I found pretty much what I’d expected. “You’re free after five-thirty.”
“Thanks.” He started talking to the investigator again. “How about six?” Then he fired off the address to the penthouse.
I blew out a breath and tried to figure out if having an investigator over to the house was something that required dinner…or just hors d’oeuvres. Or if it required my presence at all.
He hung up a few minutes later and wrapped both arms around me. As he rested his chin on my shoulder, he answered my unasked question. “I want you there tomorrow.”
“I'll be there,” I promised. I felt some of the tension ease from his body.
After a moment, he spoke again, “I don’t think my mother knew—Jacqueline, I mean.”
“She is your mother.” I didn’t let the personal dislike of the woman show in my voice. She might be an ice-edged bitch, but she did love her son. She’d stood by him when others hadn’t and she done what she could to make him safe, to make him feel safe after a terrible trauma. For that, I could put up with a lot of shit from her. “Whether she gave birth to you or not, she’s loved you as her son for almost three decades, Dominic.”
“I know.” He kissed my shoulder. “I don’t think she knew. She’s manipulative. She can be cruel. She’s very self-centered. But she’s not self-destructive and while she’s too caught up in her own worldview to see outside of it, she wouldn’t be deliberately cruel, not like that.”
I knew where he was going with this. “You don’t think she could be party to stealing a child from his parents.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he asked, “Am I being naïve?”
“No.” I turned my face to his. He was so close, I could kiss him. So I did. “I think you’re being a son.”
***
Stanley Kowalski looked like the former cop Dominic had said he was. He had a thin, intelligent face and dark, shrewd eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. I liked him almost immediately. He sat across from me and carefully selected a canapé from the tray Francisco had put together.
The chef had graciously agreed to come in and help put together some light fare for the evening. I’d told him I’d love him forever and he had laughed, told me that I already did. He wasn’t wrong. The man was quickly becoming one of my favorite people.
“Is this something that’s going to make me nauseated if I find out what’s inside?” Kowalski asked, studying the colorful bit of food he held.
“It’s cream cheese and shrimp.” I grinned at him. “On a cracker. There’s a fancier name for it, but that’s basically all it is.”
“Okay.” He popped it into his mouth. “Good. Fancy name or no.”
I laughed and gestured toward the tray. “I’m not much for goose liver or anything like that, so if I’m eating it, I try to make sure it’s nothing revolting.”
“A woman after my own heart.” Kowalski selected another as Dominic moved to join us.
“She’s my heart, so you’ll have to find your own.” He sat down next to me and took my hand.
For a moment, I was too flustered to breathe. He’d made statements to me about how much he cared about me, but he'd never said anything so casually, as if such a declaration was common knowledge.
I shot him a look, but he was studying Kowalski, completely unaware he’d just shaken the bedrock of my world. My hand shook as I reached for my wine and took a sip.
“I heard you got a hold of a name,” Kowalski said.
Dominic nodded and passed over the sheet of paper. It was looking ragged, as though he’d handled it a great deal since yesterday.
The investigator read the name, lips pursed. It seemed to me that he took a lot of time reading that one, single name. Like he read it maybe five times over—or five hundred times. Finally, after what seemed like several minutes, he folded the slip of paper and held it up for Dominic’s perusal. “May I keep this?”
Dominic shrugged.
He nodded and tucked it inside his jacket. “Does that man's name mean anything to you?”
“No.” Dominic shook his head.
I leaned forward, drawing the investigator’s gaze my way. “Should it?”
He shifted his attention to me, those shrewd, professor’s eyes landing on my face with interest. “Well, that would depend.” He spread his hands wide and said, “It’s been a long time. News didn’t travel then the way it did now, but people in certain areas heard.”
“Heard what?”
We both spoke at the same time, leaning forward.
Kowalski pondered his response, appearing to give it a great deal of thought. Then, softly, he said, “There was a series of reports some years back. I’d just gotten my detective’s shield, was working in vice. So I didn’t hear everything. But it was a big scandal. Some twenty, twenty-five years ago. It all started with a woman. I’d have to look up her name, track down the cops involved…but she claimed she’d been pregnant, that she’d heard the baby crying. Then her mother told her the baby was born dead. She doesn’t remember the next few days, says she thought she was drugged. She woke up in her parent’s private villa in Italy. Took her two months to get back home.” He paused, shook his head. “Big scandal. She went to the cops, fussed something awful because nobody believed her.”
“Believed what?”
Kowalski smiled, but it was a tight smile. “That she believed her baby had been stolen. There was enough suspicion though, on the police department’s side that they investigated…and a whole house of cards came tumbling down. They never could find the head man.” He leaned forward, his eyes pinning Dominic. “Can you guess his name?”
Chapter 6
Aleena
Dominic's face was grim as he made his way through the kitchen and I could see him struggling with the news he'd gotten last night. It was in the way he focused on his coffee, his bagel, on anything and everything but me.
He wasn’t trying to ignore me, I knew, but he was upset and when he was like that, he got restless. He paced as he ate, constantly moving and not talking. Not even looking at me.
I knew it was how he coped with things, but I still wished he wouldn’t do that. I wanted him to let me in, to let me help him. Those were the kinds of things that we were still working on though and, for the moment, all I could do was be patient.
Still, there were things we needed to discuss that had nothing to do with Kowalski's news.
“I’m finalizing the plans with Annette for the house,” I said, breaking the silence.
He nodded. “I saw them.” Finally, a partial smile, albeit an absent one. “You put color in there, Aleena.”
“Do you have a problem with color?” I asked mildly.
His head jerked around to look at me, his eyes wide. “I didn't mean—”
I laughed. “I know you didn't. I just wanted to see if I could get your attention.”
His eyes narrowed, but there was humor in them now. I felt some of the tension in my shoulders ease.
“You always have my attention.” He took a step towards me. “Even if it doesn't seem like it, you're never far from my mind.”
I shivered, then swallowed hard. I needed to get the conversation back on track before we ended up in the bedroom. Not that I didn't want that, but we needed to talk about the house. “Do you like it? The plans for the house, I mean.”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly as though he hadn’t given it much thought. “Actually, I do. I think I like it quite a bit.”
“Good. I'll tell Annette to go ahead with it.”
The silence came back, but it was less tense. After a few minutes, he sat down and I breathed an internal sigh of relief.
He gave me a thoughtful look over his coffee. “I looked at my schedule this morning.”
I choked on my coffee. I coughed, grabbing a napkin to keep from dribbling coffee onto my good blouse
. Eyes watering, I stared at him as I tried to restore the flow of oxygen to my brain. I tried to speak, but could only manage a croaking sound. I shook my head and grabbed my water, downing half of it. Dominic was watching me, the look on his face torn between amusement and concern.
Once I could breathe again, I managed to get out actual words. “I’m sorry. I could have sworn you said that you looked at your schedule.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Very funny. I do know how to look at it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, then did it again, playing it up in the hopes of keeping the good mood, even if it was at my own expense. “I wonder if pinching myself might work.” Leaning forward, I stared at him hard and asked, “Who are you?”
His lips curved into that wicked grin that had my stomach, and other lower places, tightening.
“You keep that up and I won’t tell you about the plans I had for tonight.”
The low, smoky sound of his voice immediately erased any humor I felt. “Plans?”
“Yes.” He lowered his coffee and braced his elbows on the surface of the table. “I made plans. Which would explain why I’d checked my schedule.”
He cocked a brow, all but daring me to comment.
I held up a hand. “I’m all ears, Dominic.”
“I was thinking we could go out tonight. For a short time, at least.” He lifted a shoulder lazily, adjusted the shining cufflinks and glanced at the clock. “We have the interview with that magazine…” He paused, a distracted look on his face.
I supplied the name of the magazine and he nodded.
Come on, come on…
He seemed to sense my impatience and I could all but see him dragging it out…check the cufflinks again…smooth down the drape of his shirt. Finally, he leaned back. “Would you like to go to Olympus tonight?”
My breath lodged in my lungs, super heating until it took everything I had just to keep my breathing normal. Curling my hands around the edge of the table that sat between us, I swallowed.
“Sure.”
He could have been asking me out for coffee, a latte, a quick bite to eat at the corner deli.
