Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
W HEN AN HOUR had passed and Eve was still pounding the treadmill as though she was carrying a message from the battlefield, Dom made her stop.
“Shower, then come eat,” he urged her. He didn’t have much appetite himself so he wasn’t surprised when she only picked at the beautiful meal she’d arranged for her parents.
“Eve,” he tried again as he topped up her wineglass.
“I don’t want to talk.” Her hollow-eyed gaze met his. “I’m going to pull a Dom and ignore my emotions, okay?”
He prided himself on keeping his emotions on the surface, rarely feeling anything at a deep level, but that rang through him with the agony of a broken bone.
He kept hearing her say, I love Dom. I have since the first time we met.
That seemed impossible. It made him angry because... He didn’t know why it tripped his wires. Guilt? Because it made him feel as though he fell short? Or because he didn’t believe her?
Evie didn’t lie to him.
But she couldn’t love him. Why would she? His heart was as empty as his father’s and his father’s father. If he was lovable, his life would have been different.
Wouldn’t it?
When Eve went to bed, he came into the bedroom with her.
“Not tonight, okay?” Eve flashed him a glance as she hurried to put on silk pajamas. “I—”
“I just want to hold you, Evie.” It was the rawest, most needy thing he’d ever said.
After a charged moment, she nodded jerkily.
A few minutes later, they were in the dark, under the covers. She curled into his chest as he drew her into him. He felt all her hurt radiate out of her and soak into him. It was hellish, especially when he realized the small shudders rolling through her were sobs.
Every breath he took burned his lungs. He had never felt so helpless in his life, but he cuddled and coddled her, so damned grateful that she let him pet her and kiss her hair, and said, “Shh. We’ll get through this. I promise.”
He didn’t know how, though. That kept him wide awake most of the night, long after she finally relaxed into sleep.
He lurched awake when he realized she was up and dressed in skinny jeans and a cable-knit pullover. She was brushing her hair and fastening it into a low ponytail.
“Where are you going?” He came up on an elbow.
“To sit with Mom at the hospital,” she reminded him.
“Eve—I know you don’t want to talk. I don’t know what to say,” he admitted, sitting up. “I hope you know that I care about you. I don’t want to disappoint you. I want you to be happy in this marriage.”
“I know. It’s okay, Dom. It really is.” She sat on the bench at the foot of the bed with her back to him as she zipped knee-high boots over her jeans. “I just find it hypocritical of Dad to worry about whether you love me when he and Mom didn’t marry for love. They care about each other a lot, I know they do. It’s the same way you care about my well-being so Dad knows that’s not a bad reason to marry. It has served them really well and gave us a stable, privileged upbringing. I don’t have anything to complain about. I’m lucky to have what they have. I know that.”
Was she trying to convince herself? Because he felt sick at how bland that sounded. It sounded as though he was forcing her to settle when one of the things that made Evie the amazing woman she was, was her belief in herself and her own worth.
“You said yourself that I want to believe love is magic and can cure anything. You’re right. I do. And I know that’s unrealistic. I don’t expect you to love me, Dom. I don’t expect anything more from you than what we already have.” She rose.
“I’ll come have breakfast with you.” He started to throw off the covers.
“I’ll get something later. And you have that meeting with the London team. I’ll text you once I have news.”
By the time he was dressed and down the stairs, she was already gone.
Damn it.
He was pacing restlessly, wondering if he should go to the hospital, when his doorman rang to say that Astrid was downstairs.
“Is everything all right?” he asked as she came off the elevator with Adio in her arms. They both wore speckles of rain and big smiles.
Astrid’s cheerfulness quickly faded. “Is this a bad time? I was going to text from the pediatrician’s, to make sure Eve still wanted to have coffee, but—”
“She probably forgot.” Dom took the baby because he was kicking off his boots. He set the boy on his socked feet and took his wet jacket, following him as he took off into the lounge. “Eve’s parents are back from their trip and her father had a procedure at the hospital today. She’s gone to sit with her mother, to wait for news.”
“Why aren’t you with her?” Astrid asked, pausing in hanging up her own coat.
“She’s angry with me. I didn’t think she’d want me there.”
“Dom.” She clunked the hanger onto the rung. “You go anyway. That’s how she knows it doesn’t matter if she’s angry, you’ll always be there for her. What happened?”
“I—”
Don’t want to talk about it.
He didn’t. But he kind of did.
Adio had found the piano and was walking his hands across the keys, releasing discordant notes.
“Evie said you said our childhood was dysfunctional.”
“Am I wrong?” she asked.
“Honestly, Astrid? How the hell would I know?” he asked with latent frustration. Maybe some unrecognized pain. “I wasn’t there.” He moved a vase of flowers off the coffee table and set it where Adio couldn’t reach it. “My childhood didn’t look that different from the rest of the boys at school. Plenty of them had parents who were divorced so...”
“My parents were married,” she said gently. “It was still a train wreck.”
“I know.” He scratched his eyebrow. “Have you ever talked to anyone about it? Like, a professional?”
“Weekly, for the last eight years.” Her tone was blunt as a hammer. “Do you want her number?”
“Maybe.” He wanted to be more for Evie. Not just that weak sauce version of a marriage where he gave her stability and a few babies. He wanted—“Eve wants us to be like you and Jevaun.”
He half expected her to laugh at him, but her brow crinkled in concern. “Do you love her?”
That sense of being on a diving board hit him again, only this time he was on the edge of a towering cliff, waves crashing into razor-sharp rocks below.
He drew a breath that felt like fire. “I don’t even know what love is.”
“Yes, you do,” she said with a throb of despondency in her voice. “It’s that thing we wanted from Dad and never got. That sense that it’s okay to be vulnerable. I know it’s scary to feel that way, Dom. But how do you think she feels if you don’t love her? She’s carrying around that same sense of not measuring up.”
The pain that hit his chest was so visceral and sharp, Dom tried to rub it away with the heel of his hand. He couldn’t stand for Eve to feel that cold and hollow. He would do anything to spare her. Anything.
“Pool?” Adio said, stretching to try to reach the latch.
Dom absently picked him up and said, “It’s too cold for swimming.” He opened the door so the wind gusted into their faces.
Adio cuddled into his shoulder. “Brr.”
“Brr,” Dom repeated. “That’s right.” He closed the door and rubbed the boy’s narrow back. “Come visit when it’s summer. Then we’ll swim. Right now, I have to go see Auntie Evie.”
“Abby Ebie.”
“Exactly. Go put your boots on.” He set the boy on his feet and Adio toddled to his boots.
“Thanks, Astrid.” He could hardly look at her, finding that expression on her face too knowing, as though she saw all the way through him.
“Oh, you.” She hurried across and hugged him.
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed, compressing the abraded sensations in his chest, but when he released her, they weren’t as bad as they’d been.
“It’s like hugging a balloon animal,” he said to cover how thin-skinned he felt.
“I dare you to say that to Eve once she’s pregnant.”
A stab of wistfulness pierced his chest. Would she still want that? Now that he understood how badly he’d hurt her, he didn’t know how he’d make it up to her.
“I really like her, you know,” Astrid said as she helped Adio with his jacket. “I can’t help thinking you two were supposed to happen. Like it was fate or something.”
“You know you sound like a hippie when you talk like that?” He held her coat for her. “But I think that’s one of your most lovable qualities,” he added, squeezing her shoulders.
“Nice save.” She turned to face him. “Let me know how it goes, okay?”
“I will.” Then he did the unthinkable and took the initiative to hug her again.
“What are you doing here?” Eve’s heart lurched as Dom walked into the private waiting lounge at the hospital. “I thought you had a video chat with the team in London this morning?”
“I rescheduled. And brought brunch.” He began unpacking the two cloth bags onto the small dining table, setting out pastries, yogurt parfaits and egg sandwiches.
“That was thoughtful of you.” Ginny took a parfait and a spoon. “Thank you.”
“I’ll have one in a little while, thanks,” Eve said, shaking her head when he offered one. She didn’t mention there were ample meals available at the press of a button. This hospital catered to very wealthy patients. They ensured the comfort of families and caregivers during times of duress. “You don’t have to stay,” she added as he took off his overcoat. “It will be at least another hour, maybe two.”
“I’d like to.” He left his coat on a hook by the door. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t?” His expression shuttered.
“No, you can if you want to. It’s just that...” She hadn’t expected this of him. She was incredibly touched and searched his eyes, wondering what had prompted this. Basic decency? Or something more?
The longer she looked into his whiskey-colored eyes, the more her heart felt pinched.
“Oh. Right.” She remembered as Jackson walked in and came up short at the sight of Dom. “My brothers are coming.”
“Traffic was terrible,” Nico said as he came in behind Jackson and stepped around him. He nodded at them, then asked their mother, “Any news?”
“Not yet. Where’s Christo?” Ginny set aside her parfait and stood.
“Chatting up a nurse, where do you think?” Nico kissed her cheek then came to peruse the food.
Jackson hadn’t moved or spoken. In looks, he was a clone of Nico with more polish and style. Where Nico stuck to never-fail basics like a well-tailored, three-piece suit, Jackson wore things like striped trousers and chunky cardigans over a blue pullover and a winter scarf. They all would have teased him endlessly over his love of fashion if he didn’t always look so effortlessly sophisticated.
He was still holding Dom’s stare. Dom hadn’t moved, either. Not one blink.
“Jackson.” Ginny approached him. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too, Mom.” He had to break the stare first to kiss her cheek, then lifted his head to say to Dom, “Let’s go outside and talk.”
“Oh, grow up,” Eve muttered. “I married Dom to end the feud, not start a fresh one.”
Christo came in wearing a fawn-colored coat over a black turtleneck and jeans. He frowned at Dom. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s being a supportive husband.” Eve was embarrassed by how rude they were.
“Is that what you’re calling him? I thought this was a strategic alliance.” Jackson curled his lip at Nico, apparently not confining his disgust to Dom and Eve.
“Maybe that is all I am to him,” Eve said starkly, stepping forward to get in Jackson’s face. “That’s better than being his enemy. And maybe one of you could have ‘made a strategic alliance’ by now, instead of clinging to bachelorhood like you’re Peter Pan and don’t have any responsibilities to this family yourself.”
They all had the grace to look away while Ginny said, “Eve, please. Can we have some peace while we’re here?”
“Eve is more than a strategic alliance to me.” Dom set the weight of his hands on her shoulders. His steady presence became a bolstering wall at her back. “If you want to hate me for marrying her, go ahead, but don’t take it out on her. Not when Eve is creating peace for all of us. For me.”
He squeezed her shoulders and she looked up, moved by the depth of emotion she found in his eyes. His expression was so tender, her heart swooped.
“When I’m with you, the battle stops. Everything inside me settles. That’s worth everything to me.”
Because he felt safe? Loved? The pinch in her heart clenched harder, but it felt oddly good, too. It wasn’t being compressed. It was breaking past a thin shell, opening like a flower.
She covered one of the hands on her shoulder.
“You’re acting like I’m asking you to surrender.” Dom lifted his gaze to her brothers. “This marriage is a truce. Accept it.”
“I have,” Nico said gravely. “And I appreciate what you’ve done, Lina. Really. We all appreciate it,” he said with a significant glower at her brothers.
Christo rolled his eyes and Jackson gave a discontented shrug as they both offered their hands.
“Congratulations on your marriage,” Christo said.
“Look after her,” Jackson added.
“I intend to,” Dom vowed with such sincerity, hot tears of hope pressed behind her eyes.
“Dad was upset he didn’t get to walk me down the aisle,” Eve told Dom when they arrived back at the penthouse. “At least, that’s what he said. He was pretty loopy from the anesthetic, but I think it was true.”
She hoped it was also true that he loved her and only wanted her to be happy. She’d shed tears of relief all the way home because she thought he must be speaking from the heart, without his normal filter, and it gave her so much hope.
Dom took her coat, not saying anything.
Her glow of optimism dimmed. With her father’s procedure successful and out of the way, their conflict from last night returned to sit between them like a coiled rattlesnake.
“Eve—”
“No, Dom, look. I’m fine. Honestly. I was upset last night because of the way Dad reacted. You’ve never lied to me about how you feel and—”
“You said you loved me from the first time we met,” he interjected. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did you tell your father instead of me?”
“Because—Because I didn’t want to push you into saying something you don’t feel. And because you make me feel raw and naked and like I’m waiting for you to notice me and want me and like me. Thank you for saying what you did at the hospital. It goes a long way, it really does, but can you at least show me a little pity? It’s hard to love you.”
He drew a sharp breath, head jerking back.
“Not because you’re hard to love,” she rushed to clarify. “You’re so easy to love, Dom. You deserve to be loved. That’s something I knew in here before I knew up here.” She tapped her chest, then her temple. “I was so caught up in the feud, I didn’t know I was falling for you. I only knew I shouldn’t feel anything toward you except hatred. I knew that’s all you felt toward me and that hurt, Dom. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone who resents you and—”
“Do I not?” he shot back. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was so powerful, she felt it like thunder in her chest.
“W-what?”
“I didn’t know what it was, either. How could I? I’ve never felt it. Yes, there was some weak version of it from my mother and my sisters, but it was drowned out by my father’s nastiness and Ingrid’s spite. All I knew was that I’d met a woman who was some kind of supercharged metal and I was a magnet that couldn’t stay away. God, Evie.” He ran his hand down his face. “It was hell to be apart from you. When I left you in Australia, I thought I was going to be sick. I tried to hate you, I did, but I couldn’t even work up hatred for your family anymore. I just wanted you, damn it. I need you. I know that doesn’t make sense, but...”
“It makes sense. I feel that way, too. So what is the ‘but’?” She came close enough to pick up his hands. She held them close in the nook of her neck while she searched the tortured amber of his eyes. “I’m not trying to hurt you by making you say anything you don’t feel, Dom. But I want to show you that it’s okay. That I’m right here and it’s safe. We have each other’s back. We don’t lie to each other. If you say it, I’m going to believe you and we are going to be stronger than we ever thought possible.”
Her lips were quivering so hard, it was hard to talk. This was a huge chance on her part to say that. She was reaching for the thing she had always wanted and clenched her hands tighter on his, feeling as though she might shatter if this didn’t go the way she hoped. But she needed all of him. Not the muffled, opaque shell, but the man inside. His heart.
“How is it so terrifying to say when it doesn’t even express what I feel? I do love you, Evie.” He flinched as though bracing for a blow, but a sudden brightness entered his gaze. His expression turned tender and a slow smile began to pull at his lips. “I didn’t know it would feel like that. I love you so hard I’m afraid I’ll break you with it.”
“Impossible.” She released his hands and stepped into his arms, lifting her lips. “Our love is the healing kind. The kind that ends wars and builds kingdoms and changes history.”
“You’re changing me ,” he said as his mouth found hers. “I feel good. Hopeful.”
“Loved?”
“Yes.” His damp gaze met hers very briefly before he closed his eyes.
She cradled his face, allowing that small shield because this was new and delicate and deserved to be treated gently. She pressed her mouth to his, whispering, “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk right now. We can show each other how we feel.”
He groaned and pulled her into a strong embrace. His kiss deepened, but stayed reverent and so imbued with emotion, she felt tears dampen her lashes.
They shed their clothes between kisses on the way to their bedroom, sliding between the sheets while gray skies hung low and fall rains gusted against the windows. They sheltered each other and warmed skin with hot kisses and kindled passion with the brush of thigh to thigh, belly to belly, chest to chest. They kissed soft and sweet and long and deep and then the flames caught for real, the way they always did, engulfing them in a bonfire that would burn them to ashes so they could arise anew.
When his body joined with hers, they both groaned in relief and stared in wonder at the other. She caressed his cheek and he brushed her hair off her brow and set a tender kiss there.
“Do you think we were destined to meet?” she asked him.
“Maybe it was just a very lucky coincidence. More than one.”
“Despite the odds.”
“Exactly.” He withdrew and returned, making them both shake.
“It’s so good.”
“I know. Always.” He did it again and her eyelids fluttered in pleasure.
He made a gratified noise. “Are you going to shatter for me, Evie? And let me watch you and feel it and know I give you this?”
A latent pang of exposure struck, but it faded as quickly as it arrived. She had no need to feel threatened by him. By this. Of all the places in the world, she was safest when she was in his arms.
“Yes,” she said on a languid groan, nibbling his chin. “I have no secrets from you. No defenses left.”
Emotions flickered across his face—satisfaction and tenderness and acknowledgment of the daunting power he held over her.
He slid his fingertip along her bottom lip and said, “Then you’ll do the same to me, because you’re my perfect match in every way, aren’t you?”
“I am and I will,” she promised as she ran her hand into his hair and brought his mouth down to his, urging him with the tilt of her hips to take her to paradise.
He did.