7. Jade
Dominik has a car waiting for us outside his apartment.
Why he’s decided to make this the mountain he wants to die on, I have no clue. But if a few minutes of shopping will get me back to Oklahoma, so be it.
We’re both still dressed for dinner, Dominik in smart black pants, leather shoes, and a white shirt. I’m in my black Vera Wang silk gown and heels. We look like we’re on our way to a restaurant or a night out, not to go shopping.
It’s gotten a lot cooler since we were last out. I hide my shiver as Dominik leads the way out of the lobby and across the busy streets to the parked car.
I try not to show my wariness at being back on the street where anyone could be a threat.
Dad’s words are so ingrained in me, I don’t know when—or even if—I’ll ever truly be comfortable in crowds.
Dominik’s hand hovers at the base of my spine, the way it has since we stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby. Every time I move away, his hand follows.
The driver, a man in all black, holds open the door of a sedan with tinted windows. He doesn’t say a word, merely nods and steps aside as Dominik waits for me to climb into the back seat. Dominik soon follows, sitting far too close.
The driver slams the door shut and seconds later, we take off.
“Is this shopping trip really necessary?” I turn to ask Dominik, using it as an excuse to scoot away from him and open up a bit more space between us.
I’d thought he would be on his phone or peering out of his window. He isn’t. He’s reclining in his seat and all his focus is squarely on me.
I want to move away from the hungry look in his eyes. Or maybe it’s the way my body is responding to that hungry stare.
“You need clothes. I need clothes…” He lifts one shoulder in a negligent shrug.
“But you have clothes.”
“For New York, yes,” he says. “Not for Oklahoma.”
His lip curls as he says Oklahoma. He was literally pretending to be feral a couple of days ago. Now he’s a snob.
I look away as I process this new change in him. He was a different person then. One I made a mistake in trusting. Now I know better.
“Clothes are clothes no matter where you are.” The masses of people packed on the streets are so overwhelming I have to turn away. “I don’t really care what I’m wearing. Shep let me borrow one of his T-shirts before, and I’m sure he would again.”
His lips tighten. “Shep?”
I ignore the hard note in his voice. “Yes. Shep, one of the men who risked their lives trying to save you. What I wear isn’t important. I just want to know my dad is okay. Did you see him at all?”
“No.”
One word delivered so blankly, and I’m angry all over again.
“Right. You were too busy kidnapping me and running away at the time.” The back of my eyelids prickle when I think of Dad dying.
Once again, my eyes settle on the heaving New York streets, and once again, it’s almost too much to take in. But if I keep looking at Dominik, I’m tempted to strangle him.
Where are all these people going in a hurry?
“Jade?” A finger glides along the back of my shoulder.
I scoot away from him, to the point I’m practically hugging the door. “Don’t touch me.”
“I did what was best, Jade.”
“For you,” I say. “You did what was best for you.”
We continue the—thankfully—short drive in silence.
In minutes, the car slows in front of a glass fronted boutique. There’s no sign outside. Apparently, a store so fancy that it doesn’t even need a name.
A woman with sleek blonde hair in a low bun and a white pencil dress pops into sight as the driver opens my door.
I step out and nearly climb back in again when floral perfume, spicy meat from a food truck, and the rancid scent of something rotting in a nearby sewer batters me from all sides.
I’m used to Chicago.
No. I’m used to the silence and the isolation of an attic. Before that, the apartment I shared with Dad.
I back up.
Dominik’s palm flattens on the base of my spine. “No one will touch you.”
I look up at him. “You are touching me.”
“To keep you safe.”
Seemingly without effort, he says something that makes me want to kick him, distracting me from a world that still terrifies me.
Thanks, Dad, if you’re still alive, for a fear I don’t know if I’ll ever overcome.
“Who will keep me safe from you?” I ask.
A gust of wind makes me shiver.
Dominik sweeps his coat off his shoulder and around mine before guiding me forward. “You have me. You need no one else.”
He leads the way into the blindingly white store with its silver garment racks lining the perimeter of the room. I hadn’t believed expensive had a smell. This store does. It smells clean, and a little like fresh leather.
The woman closes the door behind us immediately, as if she’s afraid someone else will follow us in. She even locks the door to ensure that won’t happen. It looks like we’ll be the only ones shopping tonight. “Mr. Alarik. A pleasure.”
Twenty years playing a feral man in a collector’s cell, and there’s not a hint or trace of it in Dominik’s crisply delivered orders.
“She needs clothing for every occasion. Shoes, undergarments, bags, everything.”
The woman’s eyes slide toward me. “And will there be a budget, Mr. Alarik?”
“No budget.” The hand on my lower back doesn’t move, even when I take a small step to the side. It is a persistent thing. Almost as persistent as the man who rakes his eyes over the rails and nods at a white couch in the dressing room. “You can bring me something to drink while my wife tries the clothes on.”
There’s that word again. Wife. Does he think if he repeats it often enough that I will accept it? I bristle. “I am not your?—”
“This dress would look beautiful on you.” Dominik talks right over me as he walks away to pull a silver sequin dress from a rack.
It’s beautiful, but I think he’s already forgotten the purpose of this shopping trip.
“We’re going to rescue my dad, not go to a cocktail party,” I mutter.
“You need a full wardrobe, Jade.” Dominik looks at me. “And I intend to spoil you. Let me.”
The boutique assistant isn’t even trying to hide her jealousy. If I thought Dominik would listen, I’d suggest she could take my place.
“I don’t need?—”
“Why don’t you bring the first of the outfits?” Dominik talks over me again as he steers me to the dressing rooms at the back of the store. “And Jade will try on that dress. I didn’t see one in her size.”
I dig in my heels. “How do you even know what size I am?”
“I’m observant.” Dominik propels me along as if he doesn’t even notice.
He escorts me into an all-white dressing room with silver hooks and a wooden bench, a space big enough to be someone’s bedroom.
Dominik stares down at me with an intensity that makes me inch away. Something jabs me at the back of my neck and I wince. Probably a clothing hook.
“You are my wife. You will let me do this for you.”
“I am not?—”
He brushes my throat with his finger, right over the spot he bit me. “This says you are.”
I push his hand away. “That is something you forced on me, and I don’t know that I will ever forgive you for it.”
The boutique assistant’s heels click loudly toward us, and I wonder why I even agreed to this shopping trip. I’d be alone in New York if I ran, and I don’t like the thought of being in such a crowded city on my own. But I’d be a step closer to getting back to Dad instead of wasting time in a fancy Manhattan boutique.
Dominik must read my mounting frustration for him to say, “The plane will take us to Oklahoma in the morning.”
I search his expression. “You mean it?”
“I do.”
When he reaches toward me, I lean away.
His lips quirk into a half smile. “My jacket.”
Embarrassed, I shrug out of the jacket he slipped over my shoulders and hand it to him. “Thanks.”
I don’t know what I thought he was going to do to me, but for the foreseeable future, I’d rather he kept his hands to himself.
I give the hovering assistant a quick peek, and almost wish I hadn’t when I see the armload of clothes she’s cradling.
Nothing looks practical. Everything looks expensive. And colorful. I’d expected this would be a few minutes of shopping. I have a feeling this visit is going to be significantly longer than a few minutes.
Dominik walks out of the dressing room. On his way to a white couch beside a wall-sized mirror he says to an assistant, “You can begin.”
It begins all right. An endless barrage of clothes the assistant thrusts at me.
I put up with it by telling myself there’s no point in arguing. That the plane leaves tomorrow morning and this is the price I’m paying to see my dad.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve had enough.
After failing to find the dress I arrived in amid the clothes all around me, I fling the door open.
Dominik is reclining on a white boucle couch opposite. He slowly lowers his champagne flute from his lips.
“That’s it. No more. I’m not doing this anymore,” I announce.
His eyes are on the blue silk cocktail dress overlaid with lace and delicate capped sleeves.
“Dominik?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Dominik?”
Nothing. It’s like he’s in a weird, unblinking trance.
Fed up, I turn to leave. If I have to walk to Oklahoma, I will walk.
“Bag up what I’ve selected and this dress. We’ll wait in the car.”
I stop, peering over my shoulder.
Dominik approaches with the suit jacket he took back, throwing it over my shoulder as he leads me out. “It’s cold and you’re wearing silk.”
I struggle to make sense of this man.
He kidnaps me. Literally. Locks me in his hoard. Notices when I’m quietly panicking because I don’t like crowds.
And he cares whether I’m cold.
The streets are a little quieter than they were before. The surrounding storefronts are dark, the source of the brightest light coming from the only store open behind us.
We weave around the few people on the streets and I slip into the backseat of the car Dominik holds open for me.
I sit, staring straight ahead, conscious he’s looking at me again. Maybe five minutes later, the assistant, accompanied by a guard, carries bag after bag out of the store and the driver puts them in the trunk.
“You look beautiful,” Dominik says quietly.
I tamp down my ridiculous burst of pleasure at his softly spoken compliment.
“Buying me expensive clothes and calling me beautiful won’t convince me to trust you.” No compliment in the world is going to change what he did.
“We will see,” he murmurs.
He’s quiet on the drive back to his apartment. So am I. As I climb out of the car, his hand hovers at the small of my back as he leads the way back through the lobby to the elevator. Along the way, he tells the doorman to have the concierge send our bags up.
He guides me back to the same room I woke in before. “This is your room.”
“And the plane to Oklahoma?” I ask after scanning the room. While we were out, someone made up the bed and covered the windows. Twenty years away, and he still has staff on hand to keep an eye on things for him.
“We’ll leave early,” Dominik says. “I can wake you.”
“No need. I’ll be ready,” I say, wondering what he’s waiting for. Me to invite him inside the bedroom?
He’ll be waiting an eternity for that to happen. I don’t know if this apartment has another bedroom. If not, he can sleep on the couch.
I grip the doorknob. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
And I close the door.