Chapter 30
Dominic
I’d been kicked in the gut exactly one time in my life.
It’d knocked the wind out of me, smeared bruised shadows over my vision, and made me double over with instant crippling nausea. And I could say with full confidence that I would take a thousand cleats to the stomach if it meant never experiencing this feeling again.
I wasn’t breathing.
My burning lungs were threatening to collapse from overuse, my mouth was dry from all the excess air being shoved in and out of it, and my borderline hysteria was echoing off the walls of the fucking altar of worship I’d accidentally built for her, but I was not breathing.
And Robert wasn’t picking up his phone.
Sweat gathered at the back of my neck, the speed of my pulse jumping from one end of the spectrum to the other while I blindly thumbed the redial button, trying to reorient myself after being hit by a freight train.
Nine unread texts, fourteen missed calls, and three unreturned voicemails later, he finally picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s me. We need to talk.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Dominic.”
“Which one?”
I wasn’t in the mood. “Can you meet up?”
“You’re a robot, aren’t you? One of those AI voices my grandson was telling me about. I knew I shouldn’t have given my number to Prickly & Pedantic, but who can say no to a 5 percent discount on their sweater vest subscription? In this economy?”
“Robert. Focus.”
“How the hell do you know my name? Who is this?”
Jesus fucking Christ. This was exactly where Alice got it from. Her humor was more polished and biting, but the bloodsucking frustration it inspired was nearly identical. “It’s Dominic Crawford.”
“That’s not possible. Dominic’s dead.”
To him.
The joke was that I was dead to him.
“We need to talk. About Alice.”
“Which one?”
I shut my eyes, inhaled, and counted to three, swallowing around the clump of broken glass stuck in my throat. I could practically hear him smirking with satisfaction.
“Okay, listen. I know you’re pissed, and I’m sorry I’ve been a little hard to reach, but we… It wasn’t Alice, was it? She wasn’t the one who took the picture.”
It couldn’t have been. The time and date reflected on the dashboard of the car overlapped with the time and date on her smartwatch when she’d tucked her hair behind her ear.
It was a difference of two minutes, and I’d double-checked the metadata of the video to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. It couldn’t have been her.
He left me hanging for a full minute. Then, finally, “If you are who you say you are, come meet me for afternoon tea at my regular spot. Then we can talk.”
“Pretty sure I’m banned from setting foot anywhere near one of your hotels, courtesy of the current CEO—”
He hung up.
“Well, well, well. I guess it wasn’t a robot after all.”
“Are birds allowed in here?”
Maxwell, who was comfortably settled on Robert’s shoulder, perked up when he saw me approach, his wings and tail fanning, his head starting to bob in an excited little dance.
Robert gave a soft snort, adding a sugar cube to his tea. “It’s my hotel. Who’s gonna stop me?”
“The health department, to start.”
Maxwell gave a long whistle that drew the amused attention of the family seated at a nearby table. One of the kids jolted and ducked when he took flight, but it was me he was after.
“Hey, Maxi.” I gave the side of his neck a gentle scratch when he landed on my shoulder, a reluctant smile tugging at my mouth. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t missed the little terror. For the longest time, we’d been united in our complicated feelings for our shared nemesis.
“Hello, Fruitloop. You’re a fruitloop.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about this morning,” I chided him lightly. “We made a pact that you were allowed to ‘accidentally’ shit on one person and one person only, remember?” And it wasn’t me.
“Don’t be mad, okay? You’re being a bad boy, Maxi. It’s time for a mango treat.”
I took a seat across the booth from Robert. “He’s lost weight,” I said, offering Maxwell a slice of cucumber from the small bowl of vegetables and fruit I assumed had been ordered just for him.
Robert clicked his tongue. “The little adrenaline junkie hasn’t had anyone threaten him with a good spit roasting since Alice moved out. He’s not interested in stealing food now that the thrill of imminent death is gone.”
A small pang hit me in the chest. “He misses her.”
Gampy considered me for a long minute. “He missed you more.”
Guilt knifed through me, and I dropped my gaze as Maxwell hopped onto the table, picked a small blackberry out of his bowl, and placed it in front of me. “Good boy want a mango treat?”
I didn’t know what gutted me more, the gesture itself or the flash of sadness that crossed Robert’s expression.
Confused by my reluctance to accept such a delicious and generous offering, Maxwell nudged the berry closer with his beak, then tilted his head tentatively to look up at me.
“Good boy gets a mango treat. See you after school, Fruitloop.”
“Thanks, buddy,” I murmured before picking up the berry. I popped it in my mouth, even though my throat had shut, making it impossible to swallow.
Maxwell hopped back to his bowl, picked up another berry, and placed it in front of me. “See you after school, Fruitloop.” He whistled, raising to his full height.
I accepted the gift. “Thank you, Maxi.”
He rose higher, watching me, waiting.
“He wants you to say it,” Robert supplied.
I was aware. He wanted assurance that I’d come “home,” but that wasn’t going to happen. Forcing myself to swallow, I gave him another little scratch. “I tried to tell him I was leaving.”
“But the rest of us hadn’t earned the same courtesy.”
“You accused my mother of theft, Robert. It was the biggest betrayal—”
“Oh, save it,” he scoffed. “No one, not a single person in our household, thought your mother took the jewelry. There were no accusations made, and you’d know that had you picked up the damn phone.”
The resistance in my gut grew darker, more bitter. But for once, I acknowledged it for what it was: a mask for the underlying fear. He was right. I was so deep in this hole that I couldn’t see the opening anymore. I had no idea how to get out.
I dragged my teeth over my upper lip as Robert strategically let the silence stretch.
Once I’d gathered my thoughts, I reached for my wallet.
My copy of the picture was bent around the edges and had a jagged white line running down one side, having served as a nearly daily visual reminder over the last eight years as to why I needed to keep going.
Keep building. Keep collecting. Stay angry.
I placed it on the table.
“I really thought it was her,” I eventually said, unsurprised by the subdued tone of my voice.
Robert reached for the photo, adjusting his glasses. “It wasn’t, but she sure as shit wasn’t all that quick to correct me or her parents when we assumed.”
I rubbed at my chin. “Any idea why?”
Maxwell, now done with his snacking, hopped onto my forearm and began climbing up my sleeve.
“No, but it might have something to do with the fact that whoever did take the photo was inside your mother’s car—and potentially driving it—without permission, and Alice didn’t want them to get into trouble, so she took the bullet.
Unless Rosie kept a communal set of keys for the vehicle we didn’t know about. ”
She hadn’t. The only person who’d ever driven that car was my mom, which was what made it the perfect place to stash a bunch of “stolen” jewelry if you were going to frame her.
“You know who it was,” I said. Maxwell had started grooming my hair and whistling happily about good boys staying still during bath time.
The edges of Robert’s mouth ticked down. “I’ve made an educated guess. Same as you.”
There was only one other common denominator, and while I was sure Robert was thinking the same thing, I had a feeling Alice would rather toss herself into a den of vipers than believe it.
The theory wasn’t going to land well, especially if I was the one delivering it. I needed to make sure we were right before I acted on anything.
But even if I had all the evidence in the world, how was I supposed to tell her that her best friend—who’d been there when Alice had broken down and told me she wanted me gone—had looked me dead in the eyes and cried about how she’d tried to stop Alice from doing it, going on and on about how she’d begged her not to break into my mom’s car and take the picture.
“But she wouldn’t listen, and I don’t think…
she wants you gone so badly that she’s not acting rationally.
She knew it would be your mom’s word against hers.
And she knew who her family would believe when push came to shove. ”
I clamped my jaw shut, afraid of what I’d say and at what volume.
Robert picked up a finger sandwich. “I would offer a few words of consolation if I thought you deserved it, but I’m also quite bitter over what you did to Adrien, who, so far as I’m aware, had nothing to do with any of this.
” He sipped his tea with the unhurried energy of someone who didn’t have a care in the world.
“And speaking of messing with my grandchildren. I knew you and Alice enjoyed teasing each other, but it always came across as more playful than callous. I didn’t realize you were in the business of orchestrating such elaborate and cruel pranks, Dominic.
You even had me convinced, what with coming to me for advice on how your friend should go about revealing his feelings to a girl he was sure wanted him dead half the time. ”
I wanted to flip the table. “Why didn’t you tell her it wasn’t a prank?”
He swatted at the air dismissively. “You know how I don’t like to meddle.”
This was said with a straight face.
The fact that my teeth hadn’t turned into dust in my mouth was nothing short of a miracle.
“I knew something had happened during those last few weeks with how the two of you were acting,” Robert went on.
“The house was too quiet. There was no teasing or bickering or violent threats being thrown over gaming consoles. But I made the mistake of leaving it alone, trusting that you’d both eventually figure it out. ”
“You could have still told her when you found out she’d been misled.”
“And say what?” he challenged. “What would I have told her, without definitive proof, that wouldn’t have sent her free-falling again? You weren’t there, Dominic. You didn’t see what it did to her. Best I could do was listen and try my darnedest not to make it any worse.”
He’d finally lost his cool, his blotched face twitching in several spots. I felt sick.
“You know what’s funny?” he went on. “She’d had no interest—had given no indication whatsoever—that she wanted to move back to Ontario, let alone cut herself off from her inherited fortune for the sake of ‘financial independence,’ until you reappeared, agreeing to do an in-person interview for some magazine, opened up about your personal life, and went on the record saying that if you were to get married, it would be to someone who’d ‘made it’ on their own like you had.
That you couldn’t stand nepotism, having grown up around rich kids who had every opportunity handed to them on a silver platter.
And that nothing gave you the ick like someone who was too spoiled to do anything for themselves. ”
My mouth had turned sour.
I remembered that interview. I’d only said it out of bitter resentment because I was still angry. Still heartbroken. Still not over her.
And I’d hated myself for it.
“One week later, she mentioned in passing that it was time for her to move out. Two weeks after that, she’d informed Adrien that she’d changed her mind about working at Cloutier hotels, cut up her credit cards, and was conspiring with Ria and Jamie on getting a job in an industry that lay outside of her parents’ influence, with a boss who couldn’t care less about her last name.
“And I don’t know what happened, Dominic. I don’t know whether you found her, or she finally found you, but mark my words, kid, I’ll be six feet under before I let you take away her light again.” He paused briefly, letting the promise sink in. “And believe you me, I ain’t the only one.”
I gave a stiff nod, my gaze lowering. “I get it.”
“Good.” He leaned back, giving himself a minute to calm back down as Maxwell switched from grooming me to cuddling closer for a nap. Eventually, he said, “Is it my turn now? To ask questions?”
I shoved a hand through my hair, knowing he’d make me regret saying yes. But I at least owed him this much. “What do you want to know?”
He poured us both a fresh cup of tea, then sat back, folding his hands over his stomach. “To start, whatever it is you don’t want to tell me about your mother.”