“Too red.” She discarded a scarlet gown with a zipper down the back.
“Too boring.” I surveyed myself in a nondescript little black dress. Gram had wanted moonlight, hadn’t she?
An hour later, Penny and I stepped out of a limo glowing with excitement over the evening stretching out before us. We’d both chosen glittering gowns, hers a burnished gold that brought out the warmth in her complexion. Mine was a shimmering silver that caught the light and made me feel like I could dance all night.
It was easy to enjoy myself at a party like we threw. I’d had a part in organizing it, along with Gram, though honestly most details were handled by an amazing event planner. She had everything choreographed down to the minute, including a performance by my rock-star brother, Ash. Of all the transformations over the last four years, his might make me the happiest. He’d gone from the drunk and pissed off adolescent at 25, trashing hotel rooms and making headlines with celebutantes, to a 29-year-old blissfully married father who still owned it up on stage, headlining sold-out stadium shows even though he was no longer powered by a rageful fuck-you-all attitude.
Best of all, Ash had re-entered the family again. Even as I missed my father, I had to acknowledge the powerful and frequently negative force he’d played in our family dynamics, making each of us feel as if we had to strive at all times for perfection. I realized I’d been one of the lucky ones. He’d made me feel like I was perfect. But Heath and Ash? He’d made them feel like failures just because they weren’t cut out of the same corporate mold as him.
“Gigi!” Ash’s wife, Ana, emerged from the throng of partygoers and gave me a big hug. It had taken a little while to get to know her. She was naturally quiet, a children’s librarian, but over time the affection between us had grown real and strong.
“Look at you!” Ana complimented my dress, my hair. She was always so nice to me, like the big sister I’d always wanted. Speaking of which, Caroline, Colt’s new wife, came over to do the same.
“Have you forgiven us?” she asked, holding my hand.
“No,” I teased her. She and Colt had recently eloped. Honestly, I thought it was terribly romantic, but I still wished I’d been able to be there to see my straight arrow, type-A CEO of a brother tie the knot.
Colt had a lot on his hands, having assumed the head of Kavanaugh Investors after our father’s death. I really didn’t know how he did it. Over the past couple years he’d instigated a lot of changes, making the company more ethical in its holdings, branching out into more sustainable real estate developments. I admired his vision, but I knew it was a bumpy road and many members of the old guard, like my father’s former COO and some of the hold-over board members, didn’t like the new direction one bit. Good thing he had Caroline to come home to.
We all caught up, enjoying the champagne and caviar but also agreeing we were looking forward to the more casual family get-together the next day with kids. I couldn’t wait to see Ash and Ana’s baby, or Declan and Kara’s little boys. That would make it really feel like Christmas. A waiter circulating with champagne gave us each some new bubbly, and we toasted to the holiday.
Then I looked up, saw Dom walk into the room and dropped my glass. People asked if I was all right and helped clean up the mess. At least it gave me something to do. Otherwise I might have stood there, stockstill, wondering if anyone else could see my heart leaping out of my chest.
I busied myself, circulating, functioning as the effervescent hostess, air-kissing distant relatives and laughing over some not-remotely-funny comment from a Kavanaugh Investors board member. But all the while, I watched Dom. I couldn’t believe he was there. Why now, over four years later? Colt had never told me what he’d been up to all this time. Then again, I’d never asked. I’d always been afraid I’d reveal too much. One question might unleash a floodtide of emotion and before I knew it, I’d be sobbing on my brother’s shoulder telling him I was deeply, hopelessly in love with Dom and always would be.
“Gigi.” I heard his deep, rough voice behind me. My eyes closed briefly at the sound of it, so low and intimate. I’d seen him talking with my brother, meeting Caroline, but then he’d made his way over to me. I hadn’t heard that voice in over four years, but I’d know it anywhere. I turned to Dom, but didn’t meet his eyes. It felt too intimate.
“How are you?” He stood close to me in the midst of the crowded room. We were surrounded by a few hundred people, but it suddenly felt like we were all alone. Had he grown larger, or had I not remembered his massive bulk? He looked like a superhero barely constrained in a tux, like he might rip it off his broad chest at a moment’s notice. Or I could rip it off.
“Oh fine!” I answered bright and cheery. Not thinking about ripping off your clothes, certainly not that. I sipped the glass of water someone had put into my hand after I’d dropped the champagne, obviously concluding I’d had a few too many. I suddenly felt that way, all tipsy and unsteady on my feet.
Dom reached out and grazed my hand with his. I couldn’t ignore that. I looked up into his eyes, the ones I’d dreamed about for years now, so dark and yet the more you looked into them the more depth you could see, shades and hints of light.
“How are you?” he asked again.
I returned his gaze, all pretense instantly gone. Stripped naked, bare for him, all my emotion in my eyes. How was I? I was still in love with him. Deeply, madly, irrevocably. That’s how I was.
I drew a shaky breath. And then a friend intervened, a party girl, one of New York society’s finest.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” she asked, flashing him a seductive smile. His eyes never left mine.
“Of course!” I fluttered, shifting easily into social-butterfly mode. “Samantha, Dominic. Do you know the two of you are both from California? I’m sorry, please excuse me. There’s someone I have to say hello to.”
And just like that I extracted myself from the situation. I knew I was running away, but it felt like too much. I’d tamped all that emotion down deep. Seeing him felt like opening an old wound.
Dominic. Back in New York. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined he’d return tonight. All right, in my wildest dreams he’d done a lot more than find me at a party and say hello. I needed some air. I headed out to find a restroom, and not the one closest to the party. Walking down a hallway, then another, I found one farther away from the crowd.
When I walked out, Dom was there in the hallway waiting for me. “I’m heading out, Gigi. I wanted to say good-bye.”
I nodded, like it was no big deal. None of this was. I was fine, totally fine.
“I see there’s no ring on your finger?” His voice sounded casual and slightly teasing, but I couldn’t find a suitably light answer. I shook my head.
“Where have you been?” I asked instead, bringing my eyes up to his torso. It was easier than meeting his eyes. Only his chest was too damn broad and fine and I wanted to reach out and touch it instead of just look.
“I joined the army.” So that explained the brawn. I wondered where he’d been, what he’d done, what he thought of it all. But that was the problem with conversation, you’d start it and then when did it stop? I’d devoted a lot of time and energy to stopping the floodgate of emotion I felt for this man. I couldn’t just open the dam. It was too risky. Think of the mess it might make.
“Do you live in New York now?” Funny, Dom was the one carrying the conversation, punctuating my awkward silences. I was always the one who could converse with a brick wall and make it look like a sparkling wit. I nodded yes.
“This is the place for you,” he agreed. “You’re like the jewel in the city’s crown.”
Why would he say something like that? What did that even mean? Was he trying to be funny? I looked up and met his eyes, searching. That was a mistake. He wanted to say much more than that platitude, I could see it all over his face. He had a lot to say to me.
But he’d left without a trace years ago. And when I’d needed him,
when my father had died, where had he been? He hadn’t reached out, not once. I’d had to bear it all myself.
“Where have you been?” I repeated, emotion creeping into my voice, my eyes feeling hot. I bit my lip and looked down again.
“Gigi.” He took a step forward, his voice low. I saw his hand move by his side, as if he wanted to touch me. But then it fell down again.
“Are you back now?” I whispered, but now it was his turn to fall silent. Gazing up into his eyes, I couldn’t help but tell him. “I’ve missed you.” I ached for him, had every day he’d been gone.
“No.” He spoke the word flat and hard. “You shouldn’t. I’m not back. I’m only on leave for a couple weeks.”
OK then. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I was not the 19-year-old who’d cried herself to sleep for months after he’d left. I’d toughened up, hardened, and I’d show him how much. Straightening out my shoulders, I flicked my hair back and gave him a perfectly polished and polite smile.
“Thank you so much for coming to our holiday party.” I extended my hand to shake his, as if he were a colleague of my brother’s. “So good to see you.”
Heat burned in his eyes. He reached out and took my hand all right, but he pulled it to his chest, crushing me against him with his other arm, his lips down to claim mine. It felt like molten lava, raining down from him, bubbling up from inside of me, exploding together as we kissed each other in the hallway. Until he pushed me away, straightening the lapels on his tux that I’d grabbed and pulled.
Then he nodded at me. “Have a good Christmas, Gigi.” And he strode right out of the hotel.
* * *
§
* * *
The following week I walked around in a state. Technically, I made it where I needed to be. I attended holiday parties and a church service and a Christmas dinner. I even spent time with Colt’s new wife, Caroline, and her friend Hannah out visiting from Oregon.
But I couldn’t focus. I felt alternately dazed and jittery, dreamy and then paranoid like someone was watching me. It was possible I was losing my mind.
Had I actually seen Dom at the party? It almost seemed surreal. Would I ever see him again? Was he gone now for good? And holy hell, why could I still feel his kiss searing my lips, making me tingle for days afterward?
Something had gone haywire inside me. I swear, it was like that kiss shook something loose. I’d never been paranoid before, even during that summer in the Hamptons when I probably should have felt paranoid around Brock. But I swear, I started feeling like someone was watching me. It felt like I was being followed, as if I’d seen the same man several times, and the same cars. Out to lunch with Caroline and Hannah I saw a shady-looking man lurking in the shadows and staring at me. But when I looked back over again, he was gone.
Seeing Dom again must have thrown me all out of whack. I’d kept so much inside of me for so long it was now all coming out, all those suppressed emotions smashing to the surface. Because the craziest thing about it all was the fact that what I wanted, more than anything, wasn’t for that strange sensation of being watched to go away. It was for it to be Dom doing the watching. Dom following me. Dom somehow about to step into my life once again, this time for good and never letting me go.
12
Dom
The day after the holiday party, I flew back down to Asheville. I had to get out of New York before I did something stupid. Kissing Gigi in the middle of her family’s holiday party was bad enough. I hadn’t meant to kiss her. I swear, all I’d meant to do was say good-bye, but she was standing so close and I could smell her and see her trembling slightly. But it was when she’d tried to pull away that the beast in me had risen. She’d tried to dismiss me with a handshake? Not after everything we’d been through. Not when I could still feel her coming on my fingers, taste her arousal on my tongue as if it were yesterday.
I’d drawn her to me, and it was like the world fucking exploded. She kissed me like she always had, like I was her savior and she’d been waiting her whole life for me to come rescue her. She got me so crazy I even thought about how we were in a hotel and maybe we could see if they had a room free. Then a guy in a tux had rounded the corner and I’d realized that could have been Colt or any other of Gigi’s brothers. I didn’t have a sister, but if I did and I saw a guy like me kissing her like I was, I’d knock him out no questions asked.
Somehow I’d straightened up and walked out of there, then put several hundred miles between us. I knew it wouldn’t change the way I felt or the direction of my thoughts, but it would at least stop me from reaching out and grabbing. It was the best I could do.
A buddy of mine from my battalion had a sweet house on a few acres in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sitting on Mike’s porch, it felt like he was out in the middle of nowhere, but he could still get to downtown Asheville in 25 minutes. He’d bought it when he’d gotten married a couple of years ago. For now, it was just his wife and baby holding down the fort when he was away, but they had big plans. They’d bought themselves a five-bedroom home and planned on filling every one. This Christmas, he invited me and all the other strays on leave or on base with nowhere else to go for the holidays. We stayed up late and drank his homebrew and I had to say, I felt my friend Mike had bought himself a piece of all right.
“Some house you got here,” I told him, sitting out late one afternoon on the porch. Half of it was screened, the other half glass so you could sit out in that part year-round. Up on a ridge, the sun was starting to set in the blue mountain haze.
“You should get one yourself, brother.” He tapped my beer bottle, settling down beside me in a chair. “Marry yourself one of Susie’s friends. They’ve all got their eyes on you.”
“Is that right?” I took a swig and nodded, disinterested in the friends. The idea of a house, though, and settling down nearby? Having a few kids of my own, with strawberry blonde hair like their mother? That I could picture so clearly it took me a second to swallow.
“What’s her name?”
“Huh?”
“Who’re you stuck on? I’ve never seen you give a rat’s ass about any girl who’s thrown herself at you. And there’s been more than a few.”
I sipped my beer again. “What makes you think I’m not into dudes?”
Mike chuckled. “If you were, all the time we’ve spent together? You couldn’t have resisted this.” He gestured to his torso, muscled up like we all were. I shook my head. His ego would fill the state of North Carolina.
“So you’re not going to tell me about your mystery woman?” he tried again.
“Nope.”
“See, I knew it.” He slapped the arm of his chair. “There is someone.”
I shook my head again and took a swig of my beer. I was not having this heart-to-heart. There was no point to it. “Not gonna happen,” I summed it up.
“Why? She with someone else?”
“Who’s with someone else?” Another guy came out and joined us. I started to stand up, but Mike had my back. He steered the conversation in another direction and before long we were sitting around sharing stories about the friend we’d lost. We all missed Hank. He would have had us laughing hard out on that deck, and up all night doing it.
Around one o’clock I headed to bed, thinking about how I now had another reason on my list to stay away from Gigi. Serving in the Special Forces meant risking my life all the time. Hank had just left a wife without a husband and a baby without a father. Gigi needed a white-collar guy whose biggest risks were extreme sports like parasailing or hang gliding, not facing hostile raids or checkpoints with suicide bombers.
Not that I needed any more reasons to stay away from her. I already had a long list. First, it had started with her youth and innocence. Then, our parents. Now, we still lived in completely different worlds. I wasn’t naïve enough to think Gigi would want to take her walk on the wild side all the way down the aisle and for the rest of her life. Women who sipped Krystal for breakfast o
n their private mega yachts might enjoy a ride on the back of a motorcycle. But after a while, they’d miss the comforts of home.
Deep down, I knew I was too much for Gigi. She felt attracted to me like a moth to a flame, but I wasn’t good for her. I wanted to burn her up, consume her, mark her flesh. I wanted to ravage her, steal her away into a dark dungeon where I could tie her up and force her to love it, sobbing and coming and begging like a sub for her master. That wasn’t a nice way to think about such an eligible young Manhattan socialite.
* * *
§
* * *
A few days after Christmas, I got a phone call from Colt. I’d expected I’d hear from him. He’d said as much when I’d seen him last.
It wasn’t late, maybe only around ten o’clock, and I’d been awake lying in bed and thinking about Gigi. At that party she’d looked like a fucking beam of sunlight struck down through a crack in the ceiling in that shimmering silver dress with her soft, creamy skin and gleaming waves of strawberry blond hair. All the times I’d dreamed of her, envisioned her like a talisman of hope in the middle of my darkest hours, I’d tried to convince myself that I’d exaggerated. I must have embellished the truth over the years. No one could be that staggeringly beautiful.
Then I saw her again and realized my fantasies hadn’t even done her justice. Her full lips, her petite frame. The way she held herself, graceful and light. The way she couldn’t meet my eyes. Then how she’d looked when she finally did, gazing up at me with her dark blue eyes wide and brimming with unspoken emotion. I saw a mixed-up brew of confusion there. And maybe longing? I might have seen a hint of that. Late at night, I sure hoped I had.
But then my phone rang, her brother on the line.
Undeniable: Dom & Gigi Page 14
