Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
D OM WAS FEELING prickly and keyed up as he and Eve were driven from the private airfield to his sister’s villa.
He wasn’t one to navel-gaze and fret about conflict. It was the state he’d grown up in. His father had had a hair-trigger temper, always ready to become combative. Dom had learned to navigate those rough waters the way an experienced kayaker went through the rapids in a chasm. Sometimes you got bumped or bruised, but you always survived it.
So his argument with Eve this morning shouldn’t have grated on him, filling him with a sense of this is bad . The argument shouldn’t have happened at all. He shouldn’t have risen to the bait of her dismissing their relationship as “just sex” and snapped at her over it.
What did they have other than sex, though? What did he want from her? He’d been raised to expect very little from those who were close to him. At least, he’d found that was the best way to avoid being disappointed so he typically clung to that strategy, but with her—
“Dom?”
Her small voice dragged his attention to her crinkled brow and the wiggle of her fingers in his too-tight grip.
He didn’t remember picking up her hand. He released her.
“Are you worried about my meeting your sister?” she asked.
“No,” he said with a dismissive scoff. Astrid was a people-pleaser by nature. He suspected the only reason she’d invited them was because it was the polite thing to do. Either that or Ingrid had asked her to.
The car turned through a pair of open gates and the villa came into view. Dom had never been here so he leaned to admire its architecture of glass and stucco arranged like building blocks that were stacked and fanned out to take advantage of the views offered by its private beach.
Dom came around to help Eve from the car and kept her hand as they walked past a water feature to the double doors.
“Astrid’s husband, Jevaun, is a music producer. His father is a development banker, but the rest of his family are in the music industry. His mother is a famous folk singer here.”
Jevaun opened the door to them himself. He was dressed casually in a T-shirt and board shorts, feet bare, brown head shaved bald and black beard shaved down to a narrow chinstrap. He held their youngest, Adio, who was slumped against his shoulder.
“Dom.” Jevaun thrust out his hand. “Good to see you. Congratulations.”
Dom liked Jevaun. He was ambitious, but not in a showy way. His clients were A-list superstars, but Dom only knew that from perusing the awards Jevaun had won. He was far more likely to brag about his kid’s new tooth than any of the songs he’d launched to the top of the charts.
“This is Eve—I almost said ‘Visconti.’ Eve Blackwood. My wife.” Damn, that was satisfying.
“Nice to meet you.” Eve shook Jevaun’s hand.
“Adio.” Jevaun nodded at the boy whose head of short, tight curls was heavy on his shoulder. “I need to put him down. Astrid and the kids are outside.”
Dom usually only saw his sisters on occasions like weddings or, perhaps, a birthday where he might make a point of taking one out to dinner. He’d seen them more often when his father had been alive, crossing paths with them in the six-story limestone mansion that Ingrid still occupied on the Upper East Side of New York.
He rarely visited their homes so this great room littered with children’s toys and small clothes in bright colors was also new to him.
Dom’s father never would have allowed so much disarray. Children were to be seen and not heard. If they were seen, they were clean, neatly dressed and stayed in one spot. They didn’t run at you wearing paint and glitter, shouting, “Uncle Dom!”
Jayden’s wide grin revealed front teeth that were too big for his six-year-old face. The top of his hair was in an intricate pattern of cornrows, the sides shaved up in a fade. His sister, Maya, was four. Her hair was in long braids with neon-colored beads swinging off the ends.
“Mama said we could go in the pool when you got here,” Maya said, all big dark pleading eyes. “Will you come in with us? Please? ”
“And throw me like you did before?” Jayden asked. “Please, please, please?”
“You remember that?” Dom hadn’t been in a pool with these kids in well over a year.
“Jay. Maya. Can we please say hello properly first? This is your new Auntie Eve.” Astrid came up behind the children, blond hair in a ponytail, freckled face clean of makeup. She wore a loose sundress that billowed over her baby bump. “Hi, I’m Astrid.” She shook hands with Eve, eyeing her with open curiosity. “This was unexpected news. Congratulations, Dom.”
She hugged him.
Dom honestly couldn’t remember that ever happening and stiffened in surprise.
Astrid’s smile faltered as she stepped back before he’d even thought to return her embrace. He caught the flicker of something across Eve’s expression, but Astrid spoke again.
“I said we would see about swimming,” she reminded the children while setting a quieting hand on her bouncing son’s shoulder. “Jevaun’s parents said they’d take them if we want adult time. Jevaun can drive them over.”
“I don’t mind. We brought our suits.” Dom glanced at Eve.
She nodded.
“Wash up first,” Astrid told the excited children, pointing them to the outdoor shower. “Uncle Dom doesn’t want to come out of our pool looking like a unicorn. Jevaun will come in with you, but can I persuade you to visit with me in the shade, Eve?” Astrid waved at a pair of comfortable loungers placed in the shadow of the gazebo. “I’m dying to put my feet up. We have a housekeeper come in for a few hours every morning while we’re here, but mostly we try to simply be a family. It’s relaxed and messy and makes me appreciate the nanny, let me tell you,” she added in a rueful aside. “Let’s get some drinks for everyone, first.”
Eve started to follow Astrid inside, but flicked a glance at Dom that was vaguely amused, as though she was conveying that she expected an interrogation and was willing to be a sport about it.
Dom watched her go, protective hackles raised, but also something more possessive. A voice in his head protested, Evie is mine . He didn’t know where it came from. A lifetime of being on the periphery, he supposed.
Which was where he liked to be, he reminded himself, but that exclusion didn’t sit as well this time. It was so disconcerting, he made himself move into the pool house to get changed.
“This invitation probably feels like a setup,” Astrid said once she and Eve were settled on the loungers watching the men play with the children in the pool. “It is a little. When my sister called to tell me Dom was married, and to who, and that you were honeymooning here, she said, ‘You have to invite them over and get the scoop.’”
Eve couldn’t help her wistful smile. “I always wanted sisters. I love my brothers, but they’re so much older, they’ve never really felt like confidantes.”
“I used to think brothers were just harder to be close to, then I met Jevaun’s family. You don’t realize how dysfunctional your own family is until you meet one that works. They’re so tightly knit, it makes me wish...”
Her troubled gaze fixed on Dom. He was helping Jayden balance on his shoulders before he stood up, launching the boy into deeper water.
Eve waited, but Astrid only reached for the glass of lemonade on the table between them.
“So what is the scoop?” Astrid asked. “Obviously, you two met in Australia. We’ve all read about that.”
“I’m not pregnant. I’ll quash that rumor before it starts,” Eve said drily.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Astrid smoothed her sundress over her bump. “I was hoping for more cousins in our mob.”
“It really doesn’t bother you, that I’m a Visconti?”
“Oh, I had to place an emergency call to my therapist, believe me.” She grinned cheekily. “But it was more about me and my relationship with our father. How is your father taking it?”
“I’ll let you know when he starts talking to me again.” She grimaced, wishing she was joking.
Astrid made a face of sympathy. “Mom is pretty upset, too. But—Did Dom tell you how Dad reacted when Freda came home pregnant at sixteen?”
“She’s the one who is a lawyer? He only told me she has a son.”
“Yeah, he’s great. I love that little man to bits, but it was a whole thing. Dad threw her out and wouldn’t let any of us talk to her, but Dom found her a place to live—a nice place—and bought her groceries and paid her doctor bills and yelled at Dad until he came around. But that took years. I was kind of shoved into the eldest sister role and there were so many expectations on me.” Her brow furrowed with anguish. “I was genuinely terrified Dad would rather ruin Jevaun than let me marry him so I introduced him to Dom and Dom told Dad that he could keep driving his daughters out of the house or he could smarten up. That’s his version. I have no idea how it actually went. All I know is that we had a beautiful wedding and Freda was there. So I absolutely support Dom marrying whoever he wants, but I also know that if Dad were still alive, things would be really hard right now.”
“I know,” Eve said pensively. “And I won’t pretend my family are a bunch of innocent victims. My dad and brothers have fueled the fire at different times, but Dom said your father never really got over losing his brother. That it made him bitter and looking for someone to blame.”
“That’s such an understatement.” A sheen came into Astrid eyes as she looked to the pool again. “Dad was so proud of the fact that he had never hit us. That was his bar of good parenting because his father used to give them the belt. But the way he talked to us and things that he did, they were still abusive. Mom was totally codependent, feeding his moods and opinions so he wouldn’t turn on her. I’ve had eight years of Jevaun and counselling and I was still a nervous wreck that Dom was coming over.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because he looks and sounds so much like Dad,” Astrid admitted in a pained whisper. “But look at him. My kids think he’s the cat’s pajamas. They hardly ever see him, but they were so excited he was coming.”
Dom was on the diving board, holding Maya’s feet so she could do a handstand before toppling backward into the water. He waited while Jevaun boosted her out of the way before he did a flip, making her scream with laughter as his splash swamped her as she clung to the ledge.
“If you’re not pregnant, why did you marry him?” Astrid asked. “Is it really just to end the feud? Or something more? Love at first sight? I’m a romantic. Don’t hate me.”
“I couldn’t hate you,” Eve said truthfully. Astrid was far too earnest and nice.
But she couldn’t look at her, either. All she could see was Dom, four years ago, walking into a club and looking straight at her.
He glanced over now as he came up against the edge of the pool. She felt the same hot arrow pierce her chest.
Yes , she thought. I think that’s what it was. For her, at least.
“Okay?” Dom skimmed closer, maybe reading the conflicted joy that was closing around her like a fist.
Eve nodded and worked up a brave smile. “I’m just explaining to Astrid that being trapped on that island forced us to talk about how the feud was only causing pain on both sides. I suppose we could have tried matching one of your sisters to one of my brothers...” She was joking to deflect from deeper, trickier explanations around why she had agreed to marry him.
Because I love him.
Astrid seemed to find the idea of her sisters with a Visconti highly amusing. Her laughter pealed out and the conversation moved to other things.
“That was a fun day,” Eve said sincerely as the tender motored them through the dark from Grand Cayman back to the yacht.
“It was,” Dom agreed, sounding introspective.
“I was going to arrange a lunch with your mom and mine, to talk about the reception. Astrid suggested I do something similar with Ingrid, so she feels included in the arrangements. She thought that might help smooth the way with her. I wish Dad would get back to me.”
Her father’s silence, screaming of his sense of betrayal, was eating holes into her gut, especially now that Eve was realizing she’d been in love with Dom for years.
It sounded ridiculous even in her own head. She hadn’t known anything about him when they’d met, not even his name. Maybe chemistry was what some called love at first sight, but her intense emotional feelings toward Dom were the reason he’d been able to hurt her so deeply by walking away that morning in Budapest. She’d felt loss . It had been amplified by the belief they would never have a chance. Ever.
However nascent and illogical that initial infatuation had been, she was learning it had underpinnings of deeper regard. As she came to know him better, she was learning why she loved him: because he was patient with children and stood up for his sisters and had overcome what sounded like a really difficult childhood.
She wanted to ask him about that, but a wave of compassion rose in her, one that wanted to hug the boy he’d been—shunted aside and living with the anger of a man his sister was still afraid of. Eve closed her hot eyes, looping her arm across his chest as she savored the weight of his arm across her shoulders. He tightened his hold, snugging her safe and warm against his side while her heart expanded too big for her chest. It hurt to swallow, her emotions were so sharp inside her.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did this morning,” he said in a low voice. “It’s been bothering me all day. It’s something my father would have done, trying to put someone in their place by saying something ugly. I don’t want that feud between us, Eve. I want it gone .”
“Me, too,” she assured him. “I want us to be like Astrid and Jevaun.”
“In what way?” His arm loosened and he looked down at her, expression shuttering.
In love. That’s what she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to set herself up for a stiff dose of reality so she described the love she’d seen between them.
“They’re affectionate and trust each other to have their back. They’re a team, especially where the kids are concerned. They make each other laugh.”
She heard the rumble of acknowledgment in his chest. A frown of consideration settled on his face.
Was she watching him take a prescription for what she wanted out of their marriage and weigh whether he could deliver it?
She didn’t know how she felt about that. It fell somewhere between pandering and endearing and made her wonder if he even knew what love was ?
“Astrid said—” She glanced at the driver of their boat, who seemed far enough away not to hear them over the engine. “She said something about how dysfunctional she thought your family was.” Eve didn’t know if Dom knew that his sister saw a therapist so she skipped mentioning it. “Is that something you believe, too?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
“Like who? Astrid?”
“Or a professional?”
“There’s no point. You can’t change history.”
“But you can reframe how you think and feel about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about my feelings. I don’t want to feel them.” He didn’t sound disparaging or even self-deprecating, only resolved. “This is what I’m doing about the past.” He gave her another squeeze. “That history is over. We’re moving forward from here.”
In what way exactly? she wanted to ask, but they arrived at the yacht. And, because it had been several hours since they’d done so, they went directly to their stateroom to make love.