And he didn’t know how to tell her how strange those words felt in his mouth. My mother. Bitter and sweet. Awkward. Unreal. My mother was a dream he’d tortured himself with as a boy. Not a real person. Not a real woman with a life, hopes and dreams and possibly even reasons.
It had never occurred to him that his anger was a gift. Take that away and he had nothing but the urge to find compassion in him somewhere...and how was a man meant to build his life on that?
“I did know her,” Lauren said. “A little.”
“Was she...?”
But he didn’t know what to ask. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers.
“I couldn’t possibly be a good judge.” Lauren was choosing her words carefully. And Dominik didn’t know when he’d become so delicate that she might imagine he needed special handling. “I worked for her son, so we were never more than distantly polite the few times we met. I don’t know that any impression I gleaned of her would be the least bit worthwhile.”
“It is better than no impressions, which is what I have.”
Lauren nodded at that. “She was very beautiful.”
“That tells me very little about her character, as I think you know.”
“She could be impatient. She could be funny.” Lauren thought a moment. “I think she was very conscious of her position.”
“Meaning she was a terrible snob.”
“No, I don’t think so. Not the way you mean it. I never saw her treat anyone badly. But she had certain standards that she expected to have met.” She smiled. “If she was a man, people would say she knew her own mind, that’s all.”
“I’ve read about her.” And he had, though he had found it impossible to see anything of him in the impossibly glamorous creature who’d laughed and pouted for the cameras, and inspired so many articles about her style, which Dominik suspected was a way to talk about a high-class woman’s looks without causing offense. “She seemed entirely defined by her love affairs and scandals.”
“My abiding impression of her was that she had learned how to be pretty. And how to use that prettiness to live up to the promise of both the grand families she was a part of. But I don’t think it ever occurred to her that she could be happy.”
“Could she?” Dominik asked, sardonic straight through. “I didn’t realize that was on offer.”
“It should always be on offer,” Lauren replied with a certain quiet conviction that Dominik refused to admit got to him. Because it shouldn’t have. “Isn’t that the point?”
“The point of what, exactly?”
“Everything, Dominik.”
“You sound like an American advertisement,” Dominik said after a moment, from between his teeth. “No one is owed happiness. And certainly, precious few find it.”
He hadn’t meant to move from the windows, but he had. And he was suddenly standing in front of that sofa, looking down at Lauren.
Who gazed straight back at him, that same softness on her face. It connected directly to that knot inside him he’d been carrying for weeks now. That ache. That infernal clamoring on the inside of his ribs that demanded he leave, yet wouldn’t let him go.
“Maybe if we anticipated happiness we might find a little along the way.” Her voice was like honey, and he knew it boded ill. He knew it was bad for him. Because he had no defenses against that kind of sweetness. Caramel eyes and honey voice—and he was a goner. “Why not try?”
“I had no idea that our shabby little marriage of convenience would turn so swiftly into an encounter group,” he heard himself growl. When she didn’t blanch at that the way he’d expected she would, he pushed on. “So-called happiness is the last refuge and resort of the dim-witted. And those who don’t know any better, which I suppose is redundant. I think you’ll find the real world is a little too complicated for platitudes and whistling as you work.”
Lauren lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. “I don’t believe that.”
And it was the way she said it that seemed to punch holes straight through Dominik’s chest. There was no defiant tilt to her chin. There was no angry flash of temper in her lovely eyes. It was a simple statement, more powerful somehow for its softness than for any attempt at a show of strength.
And there was no reason he should feel it shake in him like a storm.
“You don’t believe that the world is a terrible place, as complicated as it is harsh, desperate people careening about from greed to self-interest and back again? Ignoring their children or abandoning them in orphanages as they see fit?”
“The fact that people can be awful and scared only means that when we happen upon it, we should cling to what happiness we can.”
“Let me guess. You think I should be more grateful that after all this time, the woman who clearly knew where I was all along told others where to find me. But only after her death, so they could tell me sad stories about how she might have given me away against her will. You want me to conclude that I ended up here all the same, so why dwell on what was lost in the interim? You will have to forgive me if I do not see all this as the gift you do.”
“The world won’t end if you allow the faintest little gleam of optimism into your life,” Lauren said with that same soft conviction that got to him in ways he couldn’t explain. And didn’t particularly want to analyze. “And who knows? You could even allow yourself to hope for something. Anything. It’s not dim-witted and it’s not because a person doesn’t see the world as it is.” Her gaze was locked to his. “Hope takes strength, Dominik. Happiness takes work. And I choose to believe it’s worth it.”
“What do you know of either?” he demanded. “You, who locked yourself away from the world and convinced yourself you disliked basic human needs. You are the poster child for happiness?”
“I know because of you.”
The words were so simple.
And they might as well have been a tornado, tearing him up.
“Me.” He shook his head as if he didn’t understand the word. As if she’d used it to bludgeon him. “If I bring you happiness, little red, I fear you’ve gone and lost yourself in a deep, dark woods from which you will never return.”
She stood up then, and he was seized with the need to stop her somehow. As if he knew what she was going to say when of course, he couldn’t know. He refused to know.
He should have left before this happened.
He should have left.
His gaze moved over her, and it struck him that while he’d certainly paid close attention to her, he hadn’t truly looked at her since they’d arrived here weeks ago. Not while she was dressed. She wasn’t wearing the same sharp, pointedly professional clothing any longer—and he couldn’t recall the last time she had. Today she wore a pair of trousers he knew were soft like butter, and as sweetly easy to remove. She wore a flowing sort of top that drooped down over one shoulder, which he liked primarily because it gave him access to the lushness beneath.
Both of those things were clues, but he ignored them.
It was the hair that was impossible to pretend hadn’t changed.
Gone was the sleek ponytail, all that blond silk ruthlessly tamed and controlled. She wore it loose now, tumbling around her shoulders, because he liked his hands in it.
Had he not been paying attention? Or had he not wanted to see?
“Yes, you,” she said, answering the question he’d asked, and all the ones he hadn’t. “You make me happy, Dominik. And hopeful. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.”
She kept her gaze trained on his, and he didn’t know what astounded him more. That she kept saying these terrible, impossible things. Or that she looked so fearless as she did it, despite the color in her cheeks.
He wanted to tell her to stop, but he couldn’t seem to move.
And she kept right on going. “I thought I knew myself, but I didn’t. I t
hought I knew what I needed, but I had no idea. I asked you to teach me and I meant very specifically about sex. And you did that, but you taught me so much more. You taught me everything.” She smiled then, a smile he’d never seen before, so tremulous and full of hope—and it actually hurt him. “I think you made me whole, Dominik, and I had no idea I wasn’t already.”
If she had thrust a sword into the center of his chest, then slammed it home, he could not have felt more betrayed.
“I did none of those things,” he managed to grit out. “Sex is not happiness. It is not hope. And it is certainly no way to go looking for yourself, Lauren.”
“And yet that’s who I found.” And she was still aiming that smile at him, clearly unaware that she was killing him. “Follow the bread crumbs long enough, even into a terrible forest teeming with scary creatures and wolves like men, and there’s no telling what you’ll find at the other end.”
“I know exactly what you’ll find on the other end. Nothing. Because there’s no witch in a gingerbread house. There’s no Big Bad Wolf. You were sent to find me by a man who was executing a duty, nothing more. And I came along with you because—”
“Because why, exactly?” Again, it was the very softness and certainty in her voice that hit him like a gut punch. “You certainly didn’t have to invite me into your cabin. But you did.”
“Something I will be questioning for some time to come, I imagine.” Dominik slashed a hand through the air, but he didn’t know if it was aimed at her—or him. “But this is over, Lauren. You had your experiment and now it’s done.”
“Because I like it too much?” She had the audacity to laugh. “Surely, you’ve done this before, Dominik. Surely, you knew the risks. If you open someone up, chances are, they’re going to like it. Isn’t that what you wanted? Me to fall head over heels in love with you like every virgin cliché ever? Why else would you have dedicated yourself to my experiment the way you did?”
He actually backed away from her then. As if the word she’d used was poison. Worse than that. A toxic bomb that could block out the sun.
It felt as if she’d blinded him already.
“There is no risk whatsoever of anyone falling in love with me,” he told her harshly.
“I think you know that isn’t true.” She studied him as if he’d disappointed her, as if he was currently letting her down, right there in full view of all the smug volumes of fancy books he’d never read and never would. “I assumed that was why you stayed all this time.”
“I stayed all this time because that was the deal we made.”
“The deal we made was for a wedding night, Dominik. Maybe a day or so after. It’s been nearly two months.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. It doesn’t matter why. I’m glad that you decided you can feel all these emotions.” But he wasn’t glad. He was something far, far away from glad. “But I don’t. I won’t.”
“But you do.” And that was the worst yet. Another betrayal, another weapon. Because it was so matter-of-fact. Because she stared right back at him as if she knew things about him he didn’t, and that was unbearable. Dominik had never been known. He wanted nothing to do with it. “I think you do.”
And Dominik never knew what he might have said to that—how he might have raged or, more terrifying, how he might not have—because the doors to the library were pushed open then, and one of Combe Manor’s quietly competent staff members stood there, frowning.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, looking back and forth between them. “But something’s happened, I’m afraid.” She gestured in the direction of the long drive out front. “There are reporters. Everywhere. Cameras, microphones and shouting.”
The maid’s eyes moved to Dominik, and he thought she looked apologetic. When all he could feel was that emptiness inside him that had always been there and always would. Even if now, thanks to Lauren, it ached.
The maid cleared her throat. “They’re calling for you, sir. By name.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IN THE END, Lauren was forced to call the Yorkshire Police to encourage the paparazzi to move off the property, down to the bottom of the long drive that led to Combe Manor from the village proper and away from the front of the house itself.
But the damage was done. The will had been leaked, as Lauren had known it would be eventually, and Dominik had been identified. That he had quietly married his half brother’s longtime personal assistant had made the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
She quickly discovered that she was nothing but a shameless gold digger. There was arch speculation that Matteo had dispatched her to corral Dominik, marry him under false pretenses and then...work him to Matteo’s advantage somehow.
It was both close to the truth and nothing like the truth at all, but any impulse she might have had to laugh at it dissipated in the face of Dominik’s response.
Which was to disappear.
First, he disappeared without actually going anywhere. It was like looking into a void. One moment she’d been having a conversation—admittedly, not the most pleasant conversation—with him. The next, it was as if the Dominik she’d come to know was gone and a stranger had taken his place.
A dark, brooding stranger, who looked at her with icy disinterest. And as far as she could tell, viewed the paparazzi outside the same. He didn’t call her little red again, and she would have said she didn’t even like the nickname.
But she liked it even less when he stopped using it.
Her mobile rang and rang, but she ignored the calls. From unknown numbers she assumed meant more reporters. From Pia, who had likely discovered that she had another brother from the news, which made Lauren feel guilty for not insisting Matteo tell her earlier. And from the various members of the Combe Industries Board of Directors, which she was more than happy to send straight to voice mail.
“It’s Mr. Combe,” she said when it rang another time. “At last.”
“You must take that, of course,” Dominik said, standing at the windows again, glaring off into the distance. “Heaven forfend you do not leap to attention the moment your master summons you.”
And Lauren couldn’t say she liked the way he said that. But she didn’t know what to do about it, either.
“We always knew this day would come,” she told him, briskly, when she’d finished having a quick damage control conversation with Matteo. “It’s actually surprising that didn’t happen sooner.”
“We have been gilding this lily for weeks now,” Dominik replied, his voice that dark growl that made everything in her shiver—and not entirely from delight. “We have played every possible Pygmalion game there is. There is nothing more to be accomplished here.”
“Where would you like to go instead?” She had opened up the cabinet and turned on the television earlier, so they could watch the breathless news reports and the endless scroll of accusation and speculation at the bottom of the screen. Now she turned the volume up again so she could hear what they were saying. About her. “I suppose we should plan some kind of function to introduce you to—”
“No.”
“No? No, you don’t want to be introduced to society? Or no, you don’t want—”
“You fulfilled your role perfectly, Lauren.” But the way he said it was no compliment. It was... dangerous. “Your Mr. Combe will be so proud, I am sure. You have acted as my jailer. My babysitter. And you have kept me out of public view for very nearly two months, which must be longer than any of you thought possible. You have my congratulations. I very nearly forgot your purpose in this.”
His voice didn’t change when he said that. And he didn’t actually reach out and strike her.
But it felt as if he did.
“I thought this would happen sooner, as a matter of fact,” Lauren managed to say, her heart beating much too wildly in her chest. Her head spinning a little from the hit tha
t hadn’t happened. “And my brief was to give you a little polish and a whole lot of history, Dominik. That’s all. I found a hermit in a hut. All Mr. Combe asked me to do was make you a San Giacomo.”
“And now I am as useless as any one of them. You’ve done your job well. You are clearly worth every penny he pays you.”
It was harder to keep her cool than it should have been. Because she knew too much now. He was acting like a stranger, but her body still wanted him the way it always did. He had woken her this morning by surging deep inside her, catapulting her from dreams tinged with the things he did to her straight into the delirious reality.
She didn’t know how to handle this. The distance between them. The fury in his dark gaze. The harsh undercurrent to everything he said, and the way he looked at her as if she had been the enemy all along.
She should have known that the price of tasting happiness—of imagining she could—meant that the lack of it would hurt her.
More than hurt her. Looking at him and seeing a stranger made her feel a whole lot closer to broken.
She should have known better than to let herself feel.
“I know this feels like a personal attack,” she said, carefully, though she rather thought she’d been the one personally attacked. “But this is about how the San Giacomo and Combe families are perceived. And more, how Matteo and his sister have been portrayed in the press in the wake of their father’s death. No one wanted you to be caught up in that.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Dominik. Please. This is just damage control. That’s the only reason Mr. Combe didn’t proclaim your existence far and wide the moment he knew of you.”
That gaze of his swung to her and held. Hard, like another blow. It made her want to cry—but she knew, somehow, that would only make it worse.
“You cannot control damage, Lauren. I would think you, of all people, would know this. You can only do your best to survive it.”
And she had no time to recover from that.
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