Part of the Family

by Cristina Grenier

  Even though she didn’t want too, Kayla remembered. She remembered all the sleepless nights she spent wondering if she was going to be awakened by a painful beating. Remembered all but running out of her house every morning, away from the hell that was her personal life. She remembered how she’d felt when she was finally, finally free of the home that had tried so desperately to crush her ambition - and she remembered how much further she had to go to reach her goals.

  “Yes.” She answered without hesitation, even as she wondered how the hell she was going to contend with being on the arm of the only man who had ever made her belly heat in anticipation. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 5 - Acclimation

  It was times like this that Dominic was truly grateful for his connections - a word with the airport director and he was allowed past security to wait for Makayla, instead of having to brave the people and cameras stalking him outside.

  He had never been one for media attention - in fact, he would say that he was one of the best he knew at avoiding detection. Every once in awhile, someone would snap a candid photo of him, or grab an image of him with some woman on his arm - but he mostly stayed out of the tabloids - a boon for which he was very grateful.

  Of course, that was all about to change today.

  For the first time in his life, Dom had called the media to a location. He wanted them to see him coming out of security with Makayla - in fact, it was vital that they did. It would be the backbone to the narrative that he hoped to create.

  As long as the woman had actually gotten on the plane, that was.

  She was a surprisingly shy, skittish thing, truth be told. From a woman with curves like hers, part of him had expected some kind of sultry seductress. She’d certainly looked like one the last time he saw her. The tight black dress she wore emphasized her chest and her minute waist as well as revealing legs that went on forever. He wanted to reach out and undo the bun she wore to free her curls - to run his hands through her hair and taste that ridiculously full, rosy mouth of hers.

  But he would do none of that.

  Their relationship would just be a cover to throw off those who came sniffing after him - and they had three months before they would have to fool his mother. Compared to her, everything else would be easy.

  But, first, he had to make sure that his trump card had even arrived.

  This entire scenario was slightly surreal - but Dominic knew enough to know nervousness when he saw it - and Makayla Price was nervous as hell about packing up her entire life and moving to the east coast to pretend with him. So nervous, in fact, that he feared she might have panicked and dropped out at the last second.

  But his fears were soon assuaged.

  Ten minutes after the plane landed, she came around the corner, a part of the disembarking crowd.

  But Dominic could never have missed her - even dressed as she was in a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt. Though he could imagine, quite easily, the wonders a designer dress would do her lovely form, he could also appreciate her casual, natural beauty. Her curls were loose today, haloing her head and dropping halfway down her back in a riotous mess that begged to be pet and tugged upon. She wore no makeup, but, in his opinion, that only enhanced the beauty of her eyes and her soft facial features. Despite the casual look she was aiming for, however, nothing could hide the ample swell of her bosom and the curve of her behind.

  As she approached him, Dom had to remind himself - quite fragrantly, in fact - that there would be no sex involved here. He couldn’t touch her - per her request.

  Though it was probably going to be easier said than done.

  When she saw him, her eyes widened and she stopped in her tracks for a good five seconds, her cheeks flushing. It was cute, how easily he flustered her, but they would have to work on that. After she recovered, however, Makayla raised her chin and strode determinedly in his direction, stopping just feet from him.

  “Nice flight?” He arched a brow as he tried mightily not to gaze down at her breasts.

  She frowned slightly. “I’ve...never flown before. It was a little intimidating.”

  Dominic did his best to keep from showing his shock. Never flown before? Ever? “And they kept feeding me. A lot. And trying to get me to drink!”

  At that, he smirked. First class could do that to you. “You don’t drink?”

  “Well, yes,” her cheeks reddened once more as she broke his gaze. “But not that much. They were trying to feed me the whole damn bottle!”

  “So I take it you’re not hungry then?” He assumed, looking her over. For her first flight, she seemed no worse for wear. She had apparently taken it like a champ - and that he admired.

  “God, no. Just tired. I want to sleep.”

  “We’ll get to it. We have a few errands to run first.” With that, he reached down to take the handle of her rolling bag before claiming her hand. He caught her sharp exhalation of breath and his lips twitched. “This is your first taste of life with me, Makayla. There are a number of reporters outside security, and they’re going to be all over us. I intend to plough right through and have your things sent to the house. All I need you to do is concentrate on me and don’t let go of my hand. Can you do that?”

  Makayla visibly paled. It was a lot to dump on her the moment she arrived, but Dominic figured that trial by fire was the best way to initiate her into the hectic whirlwind of his life. When the dark-skinned woman nodded, he graced her with a small smile of approval. “Good. Let’s go.”

  She clung to his fingers as if they were her lifeline and didn’t so much follow him as she allowed herself to be tugged along in his wake. Her carry on weighed little, and Dominic wondered how many things she’d brought with her, and how he was going to accommodate her in the penthouse.

  Of course, all those thoughts fled his mind the moment he was confronted by the gaggle of media waiting beyond security. There were more of them, even, than he’d expected, and he did his best to put on a winning smile. At his side, Makayla tripped over her own feet, her grip on his hand tightening to near punishing levels. “Relax.” He growled out of the corner of his mouth, “They’re just cameras.”

  It felt slightly hypocritical to tell her this when he himself had never been any great fan of reporters. But now, they were both going to have to suck it up if this was going to work.

  The only thing that held the reporters back was the security line - and then they were past it, assaulted with flashing cameras and at least ten people asking a thousand questions. Dominic just smiled at them as he all but propelled Makayla forward through the crowd, his support keeping her from losing her footing.

  It seemed like it took an eternity for them to get through the crowd, but eventually, they came out of the airport and Dominic looked for his Rolls at the curb. Stephen might be proud to know that he had asked Brett to drive it, just this once, to make things easier.

  The middle-aged man was waiting, his expression carefully neutral, and he opened the door quickly the moment he spotted Dominic. Within moments, he and Kayla were clambering into the car, slamming the door mercifully shut behind themselves.

  Brett was off the moment they were seated, and as they pulled away from the airport curb, Kayla stared back at the gaggle of people gathered at the curb with her mouth still open in shock.

  Dominic couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled from his throat at her dazed expression. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  The young woman stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head. “You must be joking.”

  She was relatively quiet on the short trip to the city. Instead of speaking with him, Makayla merely pressed her nose to the window and stared at the clutch of skyscrapers that announced the city beyond. Dominic remembered the first time he had ever seen the city - how determined he had been to make it here.

  It was as impressive as it was intimidating.

  He leaned back against the plush leather seat, watching her with amusement from beneath half-lidded eyes. Here she w
as, a full grown woman, looking much like a kid tossed into a candy store. This was an entirely new world for her.

  He vaguely wondered why she had never travelled before. He knew she wasn’t very moneyed, but hadn’t her parents ever taken her anywhere? These days, almost every kid went to Disneyland before they could talk.

  Come to think of it, he didn’t know much about her past. While many of the other women on the website had waxed poetic about how they’d grown up and the values instilled in them, Makayla remained oddly mum about anything up until the age of seventeen, when she’d left home.

  A curious part of him wondered why that was.

  Very soon, they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and headed into the heart of the city. His apartment was on Fifth Avenue and Fifty Fourth Street. Brett promised to take care of Makayla’s bag so he would be free to show her around the apartment.

  The agreement she had signed - with no small amount of reluctance, he might add - stipulated a one year agreement. One year of her living with him, being seen with him, and being his significant other in ways most women had only ever dreamed off.

  All except for one.

  “So here we are.” When they stepped from the elevator, he showed her into the space. To him, it had been home for almost seven years, but Makayla only gazed around the living room as if she were about to bolt.

  Dominic had chosen this particular apartment for its breathtaking view of the park and the city beyond. He was on the twenty fourth floor, and from this vantage point, a row of floor-to-ceiling windows opened out onto the city below. Though it was hardly cool enough for it, a fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and Dominic gestured towards certain aspects of the apartment as he spoke. “Kitchen is over there - if you like to cook, speak to Sophia. She runs things in that department. There’s a small bathroom there,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards a small hallway. “That serves the home gym. If you’ll come this way…” He left the main living area, heading down a wider hall and past a closed door. “My office. Knock before entering, always. Here’s a guest bedroom.” He showed her a lofty-ceilinged room with an elegantly made bed done in colors of cream and gray. “You can store any of your things that don’t fit in the master in here.”

  There was a rooftop deck that he showed her with a jacuzzi that he barely used, along with another spare bedroom and bathroom, and then, finally, he reached his domain - the master suite.

  Only it wouldn’t be just his anymore, would it?

  “This is where you’ll be sleeping.” He pushed open the door to reveal an immense room with an equally immense bed draped with black silk bedclothes. His furniture was relatively sparse - he liked to keep his decorating minimal. “Bathroom’s through here,” he showed her the large, marble-walled bathroom with its walk-in shower and deep, sunken tub. “Closet’s here, there should be plenty of room for your things.” There was a walk-in closet that he had never managed to even half-fill, “and you can feel free to store any books and supplies you might have in my study - I’ve no problem sharing it as long as there’s no excessive noise.”

  Now that the tour was done, he turned to face her, wondering how she was taking all of this in. “Any questions?”

  Makayla was gazing around the room, wide-eyed. “Your bedroom is bigger than our entire apartment in Cali.”

  Dominic couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Well then, you’ll have plenty of space to run away from me, won’t you?”

  She stiffened, her cheeks coloring. “Why would I run away from you? I signed the agreement!”

  “I’m only joking, Makayla.” He provided lowly with a smirk. “You won’t be doing much running if we’re sleeping in the same bed.”

  If she had been blushing before, now the young woman was the color of a cherry. “It’s...well, it’s plenty big, isn’t it? I’ll keep on my side.”

  Dominic advanced on her until she backed against the edge of the bed and her knees buckled. The young woman sat heavily, with a small sound of dismay as he towered over her. She looked damn delectable in his bed. If it wasn’t for that ridiculous agreement they’d made, Dominic might have seen fit to consummate their new relationship right then and there.

  “Seeing as how it’s all my side, Makayla, we’ll have to see how you do with that.” The dark-skinned woman stared up at him, her lips slightly parted - moist and inviting. For a moment, Dominic could have sworn he saw something like desire flicker in those entrancing eyes of hers before she looked away embarrassedly.

  “Sir?” The moment was broken when Brett poked his head into the room pre-cursorily. “Miss Price’s things have arrived.”

  “Thank you, Brett.” Grateful to have something else to concentrate on, he turned from the sight of Makayla in his bed to smile gratefully at his butler. “Come on, Makayla. Let’s see to this.”

  “It’s Kayla.” He stopped short when she corrected him, turning back to look at her in inquiry. Toying with one of her curls, she looked determinedly in the other direction. “No one calls me by my full name. Just Kayla is fine.”

  “Kayla,” his tongue slithered over the syllables, “Shall we get your things?”

  “Yes.” She managed, edging past him until she could dart from the room and down the hall. Once she’d left, Dom caught Brett’s eye. When he told the man that a young woman was coming to live with him, and why she was coming to live with him, he expected even the steadfastly judgmental butler to arch a brow in inquiry. But Brett had done no such thing, merely asking if there were any special preparations that needed to be made. Now, he met Dominic’s eye steadily.

  “Nervous, is she?”

  “What tipped you off?” The younger man returned dryly, before making to follow her.

  She’s hardly been here half an hour, and he could already tell this was going to be a trial in patience - not to mention a stretch for his long-repressed libido.

  **

  Her first week in New York passed in a whirlwind. There were times where Kayla was sure she didn’t know which was up, and she was convinced she was going to get lost. Either that, or have a mini-breakdown in an alley somewhere, completely overwhelmed with what she was going through.

  Probably the easiest thing she faced was registration at Columbia. When she finally arrived at the hallowed halls of the Medical School she’d wanted to attend for so long, all her fear and trepidation seemed to melt away.

  This was what she’d come for. This was what she was made for.

  Of course, it was a lot of information to take in - where her classes would be, what her pre-requisites were, who she had to speak with to make sure she got the right courses for her field. There were some processes that were more complicated than others, but Kayla relished the whole experience because it made her dream real. She could hardly wait to sit in her first class and soak up all the information like a sponge.

  The Columbia campus was absolutely breathtaking in the early fall. The trees were just beginning to change color, and against the background of the bustling city, they painted one of the prettiest pictures she’d ever seen - and she came from rural California. It would be easy to just lose herself in the vastness of the city - to explore until her feet hurt and she had chosen a million different places to try.

  But she could never forget about how she’d come to be there for very long.

  Registration lasted for three days, and at the end of each of them, Dominic West’s ostentatious, gleaming black car pulled up at the curb to take her home. By day three, in fact, she was facing her own small gaggle of reporters, each of them asking who she was, where she’d come from, and how she’d bagged one of the most eligible bachelors in the world.

  Of course, Dominic had already told her how to handle this. For the time being, she was only to smile and wave. That, in and of itself, was hard enough. She could only imagine what it would be like if she ever had to do more.

  While she could forget the agreement she had with the man while on campus, Makayla certainly couldn’t forget it in
the man’s home. She was lucky enough to see little of him during her first few days - the man kept a very strict schedule that often had him up before dawn and in bed long after her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t constantly haunted by his presence - and reminded of who (and what) she was supposed to be.

  Makayla had never had a credit card in her life - she was always worried that she would never be able to afford the payments.

  Now she had three - all stamped with her name and waiting in her wallet like time bombs ready to go off at any moment. When Dominic had strode into the kitchen while she was having breakfast - smelling like heaven and looking even better - to present them to her, she had almost fallen out of her chair. One, he told her, was for food and any other expenses she might have day to day. One was for clothes, which he fully expected her to buy, seeing the pitifully small amount of clothing she’d brought with her - none of it winter worthy. The third was for anything she might buy on trips. Trips plural. For a girl who had hardly ever left California, the prospect of multiple international vacations was enough to make her hyperventilate.

  But none of that had happened - yet. The only thing that had happened was her lying awake at night, pretending to be asleep but wide awake when Dominic came in from working. Her eyes tightly shut, Kayla listened to him enter the bathroom. Listened to him shower, and tried not to wonder what he might look like naked. If he had a home gym, she could only imagine that he worked out quite a lot - which meant that…

  Jesus, she didn’t want to think about what it meant.

  It was hard enough to keep breathing when he lay down in bed beside her. On the opposite end of the bed, of course, but still in the same bed as her. Kayla had never felt self-conscious of the baggy t-shirts and sweatpants she wore to bed until she was sleeping with the most attractive man she’d ever encountered - all the while, wondering why the hell he picked her when there had to be more attractive women on the website.

  On her first weekend in the penthouse, Makayla was sitting at the bar in the kitchen after another relatively sleepless night. How was she supposed to sleep when Dominic was literally two feet away from her? When Sophia put her coffee in front of her, Makayla all but pounced on it, taking large gulps of the black liquid so fast she almost burned her tongue.