Undeniable: Dom & Gigi

by Callie Harper

  “One of these days, Dom,” Colt reflected. “If I ever take over for my father, I hope I can call on you if the need arises.”

  “You can, Colt.” I meant it. I’d do anything for Gigi, and he was her brother. Plus, I knew I was indebted to him as well. He kept talking about how he owed me, but I knew I owed him, too. He’d taken a huge mess and made it disappear like a magician. Whatever trouble he saw brewing on the horizon, I’d help him out if he needed it.

  Gigi and I talked every day, too. She was shaken to the core. She told me about the contents of the crazy text message and picture Brock had sent, plus the note he’d left on her windshield. I’d had to punch a few pillows over that. Why hadn’t she told me? She explained she hadn’t wanted me to overreact. In retrospect, a big reaction would have been a good idea.

  I’d known that boy was sick in the head. I’d known it, but I’d still nearly lost her to him. And he’d died. Maybe I was getting soft in my old age of 23. I’d seen enough dead bodies in my teens to think I’d be hardened for life, but Brock’s death struck me as a goddamned senseless waste. Deep down I knew he would have brought a world of hurt to a lot of people had he lived. But his death still felt like yet another bloodstain on my soul.

  I needed to see Gigi. I needed to hold her, feel my lips against her soft skin, get lost in her scent, her sighs. She wanted to see me, too, but we were both aware that the ground was still shaky. Five days after the attack, no one had come knocking on my door. No one knew I’d had anything to do with Brock’s death. No one knew Colt or Gigi did, either. Colt didn’t even know that there was anything between us, and if he suspected he didn’t let on.

  But it still felt like tempting fate. What if someone saw us together and wondered, remembered Brock’s jealousy over our rumored coffee date? What if some reporter started sniffing around and discovered Brock’s obsession? When I worked at the country club, of course Brock’s death was all anyone was talking about, and the speculation was rampant. Had it been a drunk driving accident? Had it been a suicide? I didn’t hear a whispered word about Gigi or me, but there was still a lot of fertile ground for someone to start suspecting.

  We agreed on one week. We’d give this a week to pass, then we’d see each other again. It still felt like too long. After the night of her 19th birthday, I’d thought we were going to be spending a lot more time together. I’d done my best to keep things cool between us, but I was human. After she’d fallen asleep that night I’d sat by her bed, watching her so peaceful and gorgeous and I’d realized I couldn’t stay away any longer. Good things like what we had between us didn’t just fall into your lap every day. They were rare, maybe once in a lifetime.

  She left for college in a few weeks. I’d planned on spending as much of it as I could with her. Then this happened, and here I was without her in my arms. Two more days, then we’d have a full week between us and that night. Then, nothing could keep me away from her.

  Friday night, I had plans with my mother. She’d talked me into having dinner with her and her boyfriend. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but Gigi had dinner plans, too, so we agreed we’d meet up afterward. I could hardly wait.

  * * *

  §

  * * *

  When I walked into the restaurant on Friday night, the first person I saw was Gigi. What a small town we were in. It was like everyone knew everyone. She looked gorgeous but shaken, pale and tense. She must still be recovering from the shock of that horrible night last weekend. No wonder, she’d never seen anything like it.

  Instead of her usual response to me, lighting up, rushing toward me like she couldn’t stand the distance between us, either, she gripped the back of the chair next to her and looked over at the people at the table with her. I followed her gaze and saw her father. And my mother.

  My brain still didn’t get it. It was already overloaded with all the recent events, like I’d been working on a 10,000 jigsaw puzzle of a clear blue sky. I looked at them standing together, Gigi’s dad’s arm resting at the small of my mother’s back. I saw her smile up at him, then look over, see me and wave in greeting. But I still didn’t get it. I wondered if maybe Gigi had seen my mom waiting for me and introduced herself and her father, but that didn’t make sense because she wouldn’t know who my mom was. They’d never met.

  “Dom!” My mom stepped around the table to give me a hug. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

  I stood stiff, as if realizing I were suddenly part of a play I very much did not want to be an actor in. “What’s happening?”

  “I want you to meet Richard.”

  Gigi’s father rounded the table, too, and stood by my side with a hand extended for a shake. “How are you, Dominic. Good to finally meet you.”

  Unfuckingbelievable. They had to be kidding me. I shook his hand and managed to sit, right next to Gigi, but I’d mostly stopped feeling my limbs. My mother was dating Gigi’s father? He was the big fish she’d reeled in? He was the one?

  “I hear you work security for the club where we’re members!” Richard’s voice boomed with the deep confidence of a billionaire CEO. “I’ll have to put in a good word for you, see if we can get you running the show over there. If half the things your mother says about you are true, you’re the man for the job.”

  I nodded and my mother filled in the silence with happy chatter about what a hard worker I was, how within a week of my having arrived in East Hampton I’d found not one but two jobs. I looked over at Gigi. She was looking down at the tablecloth like a stone statue. Woman in Shock.

  “Have you two ever met, over at the club?” my mother asked.

  I still couldn’t make words come out of my mouth. Gigi managed, “No.” It was obviously the right answer to give, but somehow it hit home even more than the rest of it. This was really happening.

  “I was lucky to meet this one.” Gigi’s father put an arm around my mom, gazing at her with obvious affection. “If I hadn’t gone to Dr. Bockman that day in May we might never have met.”

  That explained why he’d left Gigi in that big house by herself all summer. He’d been otherwise engaged. I rubbed my face and took a long swig of ice water, but it didn’t change the fact that this all was real.

  I felt like I’d stumbled into a Telenovela. I hadn’t thought about those shows in years, but they’d been a big part of my early childhood. Whoever was looking after me, the one thing they all seemed to have in common was watching those soap operas. I knew them well, the melodramatic plot twists heightened by over-the-top acting with wide eyes and fainting spells, all topped off with camera work like slow-motion or close zooms onto the shocked faces.

  But I wasn’t on the set of a TV show. This was really happening. My mother was dating my girlfriend’s father.

  9

  Gigi

  No, no, no, no. This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening. I stared down at the tablecloth in the restaurant and used all of my will to change what was going on around me. Maybe life could be like a Sci-Fi show? This could be the moment at which I discovered I had superpowers, stopping time and bending minds.

  I looked up. My father sat across the table from me, beaming at the woman sitting next to him who also happened to be sitting across the table from the man next to me. Her son, my true love, Dom.

  I was not a superpower. I was fucked.

  “And you’re about to start your sophomore year of college!” Dom’s mother practically bubbled over with enthusiasm and praise, telling me how lovely I was, how pretty and charming. All of my typical social skills failed me. I took a sip of my water.

  “Gigi, why don’t you tell Brandi about the shop where you work. I’m sure she’d like to stop by and see it some time.” My father gave me a look, the equivalent of kicking me under the table. He hadn’t raised me to sit still and dumb. He’d raised a socialite, goddamnit, who could be relied upon to keep up a patter of conversation over a dinner table regardless of context.

  “Um…” My mouth hung slightly
open and I stared at my fork, unable to stop forbidden moments from coming to mind. Dom and I at the beach. Dom in my bedroom the night I turned 19. The more I tried to stop thinking about what I shouldn’t be thinking about, the more it was all I could think about.

  “Gigi has always showed a flair for interior design.” My father gave up on me and launched in himself. He’d always been better at bragging about me than I was myself. He told some funny story about how I’d draped our entire apartment in scarves at the age of four. I didn’t even remember it, but apparently it had made an impression.

  I’d figured my father was seeing someone. The whole summer I’d barely seen him at the house or the country club, but I knew he was there in the Hamptons so it made sense. He’d never gotten serious with anyone since the divorce even though it had been over a decade, but he’d had plenty of arm candy. Sometimes I’d meet his lady friends as he called them at functions or events. But never before over a dinner like this.

  “I understand you like cars, Dominic.” Now my father turned his attention to Dom, who seemed to have exactly my set of conversation skills. Zilch. “I’ll have to have you over and show you my collection.”

  I choked on my water. His sports cars were his babies. He didn’t even like his own children poking around at them. He kept them in a separate facility like a stable for horses, not even in our garage.

  “Everything all right, Gigi?” Dad’s voice had an edge to it. I knew he was displeased with me. My brothers Ash and Heath, they were the ones who gave him a hard time. They were the ones he had to worry about not going along with the program. Ash might even go so far as to make a scene in a public place. Not me, though. I was a good girl. I always had a smile on my face, always knew just what to say to smooth things over. I was a peacemaker, Daddy’s little girl. Never ruffled, never petulant.

  But I’d had one hell of a week.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” I stood and made it over to the bathroom. I sat in the stall, head in my hands.

  My father clearly had no idea about anything. In true form—just like our father—Colt had handled everything last weekend. It was all wrapped up so tight the whole thing felt almost surreal. If I hadn’t been awakened by the shouting, I wondered if I’d ever even have known Brock had broken into our house. Probably not. It was clear my father had no idea that a young man had died or that I’d almost been attacked in his home last weekend. I kept having dreams about that knife I’d seen in Brock’s chest. The gory pool growing around him. And what he might have intended to do with that knife to me.

  And now this? Tonight was one week after the attack. This was the night Dom and I had planned to lift our self-imposed exile and start spending time together again. I needed him like I needed oxygen. I’d barely made it through the seven days without being in his arms. Now it turned out our parents were dating? What the hell?

  I told myself I just needed to make it through this dinner. Then Dom and I would work something out. My father tended to switch up girlfriends like flavors of the month. Chances were good that by September he’d be on to the next one. This dinner was probably the worst of it.

  I rejoined the table and things immediately got worse.

  “We have something we want to tell you both.” My father beamed and my stomach plummeted to the floor. I could see Dom’s hand on a napkin, squeezing it so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “We know it’s fast. But life passes fast, too. We don’t want to wait.” He paused to give Brandi a kiss, then turned to us to announce, “We’re getting married.”

  I knocked a full glass of ice water all over my dress and I didn’t even feel it.

  * * *

  §

  * * *

  The day after the dinner, Dom didn’t take my calls. They went direct to voicemail and I had to stop myself from driving all around town like a madwoman looking for him. I didn’t know what we were going to do, but we had to see each other. We needed to talk and figure this out.

  The next day, he finally picked up. “Dom, please, when can I see you?” I asked. “We need to talk.”

  “Gigi, this is fucked up.”

  “I know.” The tears I’d held back started coming at the sound of his voice. He asked me if I’d had any idea. Neither of us had had a clue.

  “I knew she was seeing someone, but…” He trailed off, and I could fill in the blank. Both of us couldn’t believe, of all the people in all the world, somehow our parents had managed to find each other. And now they were getting married. It was too much to take.

  “You know what needs to happen, Gigi.” I could hear it loud and clear before he’d even spoken the words. He was ending things.

  “Dom, wait, I need to see you.”

  “Gigi, I’m going to take off for a while. I think it’s best if I head out of town. For a bunch of reasons.” He bit back a bitter half-laugh.

  “Dom.” My voice broke. “Don’t go.”

  “Gigi, I’ve seen a lot of shit go down in my life, but this is next-level.”

  I had to agree, and I hadn’t even, as he’d put it, “seen a lot of shit go down.” But this was bad no matter how you looked at it. Dom was about to become my stepbrother. As crazy as I was about him, I knew things between us had to end. And even as that thought felt like a swift kick in the gut, the rest was worse. I’d have to keep seeing him, at holidays, when he dated, maybe married another woman. The torture would never end.

  “One last night, Dom,” I pleaded. “Come to me tonight. At least say good-bye.”

  The silence on his end of the call stretched out so long I almost wondered if he was still there. Finally he answered, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  I barely managed to get out of bed the rest of the day. I was a complete wreck. Penny thought I was upset over my father’s engagement.

  “It’s pretty random,” she sympathized. “Did you even know he was dating her?”

  “No,” I sobbed on the phone in my bedroom. She’d wanted to come over but I’d told her I wasn’t up to it.

  “And she’s…from California?” I knew what Penny was getting at. Brandi was clearly not from the elite, jet-setting crew that made up our inner circle. Brandi seemed nice enough and she was a very attractive woman who’d clearly had some work done to enhance those attributes, but just as clearly she was not a Wellesley grad like my mom.

  “I don’t know anything about her.” That was the truth. Dom didn’t like talking about his past. He’d let me know it was rough, he’d seen too much, and that was that.

  Colt called to check-in, asked if I’d heard the news about Dad. He told me he’d be down the day after tomorrow. He’d spent most of the days after the assault at the house with me, then tried to convince me to head back to the city with him and stay at his place. I’d said no, thinking I’d be spending time with Dom. Now I thought maybe I would change my answer. I couldn’t imagine staying in the Hamptons on my own, nothing but memories haunting me.

  I paced my room like a prisoner until midnight when I finally heard a tap at my window. Outside I saw Dom, who’d scaled the tower to get to his princess. It almost made me smile as I raced toward him, except I remembered it was the last time he’d do it.

  I started crying the second I was in his arms, kissing him and crying and kissing him again. He held me like he never wanted to let me go, pressing me to him, kissing my tears away even as new ones flowed. I shook against him and he took me in his lap, sitting on the bed, stroking my back, kissing me until my sobs turned into a different sort, needy and urgent. My hands wrapped in his hair, along his shoulders, pulling at him, trying to get him closer to me.

  “This has to end, Gigi,” he whispered to me, even as he dipped down to kiss my throat, licking me there like he was on death row and savoring his last meal. “Nothing can happen between us now. I’m going to go away.”

  “Where?” My heart broke as I asked. Maybe I could find him, go to him wherever he was?

  “It’s better you don’t know.”

&n
bsp; Tears streamed down my face as I buried it in his chest, inhaling him, pressing against his heat. He knew me too well. “So this is our last night together?” I asked, looking up at him.

  He looked pained, his eyes dark and guarded, but he nodded. Yes. Then, hell, I was going to make the most of it. Without another word, I slipped off his lap and took off my T-shirt and shorts. In just my lacy panties, I climbed back on, straddling his large and powerful thigh. Running my hands up his chest, I looked up at him. “Then you’d better kiss me.”

  He lips found mine, hot and needy, urgent with the passing of time. This would be the last night I had him like this. I didn’t want to waste a second. Pulling his T-shirt, I lifted it up and over his head. He was so magnificent, powerfully corded with muscle, fierce like a warrior. I covered every inch of him with kisses, licking my way along his tattoos, wishing I could brand them into my skin so I could always remember this moment, melding us together. He ran his hands along my curves, cupping my breasts, massaging and licking them, making an almost strangled sound of pain as he sucked on my hardened nipples.

  “That feels so good, Dom,” I moaned, arching my back and pushing my chest toward his mouth. He took one of my breasts in his large, rough palm and held it to his mouth as I ground my slick, throbbing pussy into his thigh. It felt so good it made me restless with desire. I needed more. I needed him to take me farther. Watching my face, he brought his teeth down and bit my stiff nipple.

  “Yes!” I screamed, feeling my pussy clench in response, wet heat pooling at my core. I needed to feel him possess me, devour me, claim me as his own as if we’d never be apart.