15. Tatiana
15
Tatiana
I jolt awake to the sound of something shattering.
For a disoriented moment, I have no idea where I am. This doesn’t look like my apartment...
Then it hits me. The guest bedroom in Dom’s penthouse. My temporary prison. Sorry, my temporary marital home .
I’m still getting used to waking up here.
The digital clock on the nightstand glows 2:14 AM in bright green numbers. Great. I was having the best sleep I’ve had in days, probably because I was exhausted from poring over investor documents until midnight.
Go back to sleep, Tatiana. Whatever broke, someone on Dom’s payroll will clean it up tomorrow.
But my ears pick up another sound. Not breaking glass this time, but something softer.
A voice?
Music?
I can’t tell.
I should ignore it. I should roll over, pull the plush duvet up to my chin, and drift back into blissful unconsciousness. That would be the sensible thing to do.
Instead, I find myself slipping out of bed, bare feet meeting the cool hardwood floor. I grab my silk robe, which is another recent splurge from my billionaire blow-job fund, and tie it securely around my waist.
You’re not his wife, not really. You don’t need to investigate strange noises in the night. That’s what the security team is for.
But curiosity wins out over common sense. Story of my life lately.
I ease the bedroom door open, wincing when the hinges give a traitorous squeak. The hallway is dimly lit by recessed lighting, set to nighttime mode. The penthouse feels different at this hour. Like it’s somehow larger, emptier, with shadows pooling in the corners where the light doesn’t reach.
Another sound draws me toward the main living area. It’s a voice, low and rough.
Dom’s voice.
But not like I’ve ever heard it before.
I slow my approach, suddenly feeling like an intruder. The living room is mostly dark, but the floor-to-ceiling windows frame the glittering Manhattan skyline, casting the space in a silver-blue glow.
Dom stands at the windows, his back to me, a solitary silhouette against the city lights. He’s wearing only pajama bottoms, his muscular upper body bare and tense. One hand is braced against the glass; the other holds what looks like a tumbler of amber liquid.
“I should have been there,” he mutters, so quietly I barely catch it. “Should have protected him.”
My breath catches. The words aren’t meant for me.
They’re not meant for anyone.
They sound like a confession to the night sky.
I take a half-step backward, suddenly aware I’m witnessing something intensely private. My foot connects with a decorative side table, causing the metal to give a soft tink against the wall.
Dom’s head snaps around, his eyes finding me in the shadows. For a moment, he looks like a stranger, his features raw, unguarded, and carved with lines of what can only be described as grief.
“Sorry,” I whisper, feeling my face flush hot with embarrassment. “I heard a noise. I thought something broke.”
He turns back to the window, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. “I knocked over a bottle. It’s nothing.”
I should leave. I should retreat to my room and pretend this never happened. Instead, I take a tentative step forward.
“Are you okay?”
What a stupid question, Tatiana. Does he look okay?
“Fine,” he says curtly, still not looking at me. “Go back to sleep.”
The dismissal should be a relief. But something about his posture, that whole painful rigidity of his spine, the white-knuckled grip on the whiskey glass, keeps me rooted in place.
This isn’t the Dom I know... the arrogant billionaire who inserted a blow job clause into our contract, the chaos freak who deliberately messed up my desk, or even the grudgingly impressed business partner from dinner last night.
This is someone else entirely.
I move closer, drawn by a curiosity I can’t explain and probably shouldn’t indulge.
“That whiskey looks untouched,” I observe quietly.
His laugh is hollow, devoid of humor. “Ironic, isn’t it? I poured it an hour ago thinking it would help. It never does.”
The skyline stretches before us, a glittering tapestry of lights and shadows. From this height, the city looks peaceful, orderly.
A beautiful lie.
“Help with what?” I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
He turns to look at me then, his eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light. For a moment, I think he might actually answer.
Instead, he sets the untouched whiskey on a nearby table and runs a hand through his hair.
“Nothing that concerns our arrangement,” he says finally, voice clipped and professional again. The wall is back.
Whatever glimpse I caught of the real Dom is gone, locked away again.
Our arrangement. Right. He’s not going to reveal his deepest, darkest secrets to someone he’s never going to see again.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how thin my silk robe is, how intimate this darkened room feels. We’re twenty floors above the city, surrounded by glass and night sky, and despite the space between us, it feels too close. Too real.
“I heard you say something,” I venture, knowing I’m pushing boundaries I probably shouldn’t. “About protecting someone.”
His jaw tightens visibly. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop, Tatiana.”
“I wasn’t. I just—”
“Go back to bed,” he cuts me off, turning away again. “Please.”
The “please” surprises me. It’s not a word Dom uses often, at least not with me. It sounds almost like a request rather than a command. Almost like he needs to be alone more than he needs to be obeyed.
I nod, even though he can’t see me, and take a step back. But something makes me pause.
“Whatever it is,” I say softly, “whatever happened... torturing yourself at two in the morning won’t change it.”
Look at you, giving life advice to a billionaire.
I suppose my interactions with Christopher have emboldened me.
Unsurprisingly, Dom doesn’t respond.
Well done, Tatiana. Who appointed you therapist of the year?
I notice his shoulders drop slightly. Maybe my words made a difference after all, then. He’s not relaxed, but maybe he’s a fraction less tense.
I retreat quietly, padding back down the hallway to my room.
The encounter felt so surreal, like I glimpsed something I wasn’t supposed to see. Not just Dom’s bare torso (impressive as it was), but something far more private.
A wound.
A vulnerability.
Back in bed, I stare at the ceiling, sleep now impossible. My mind replays the scene, analyzing it from every angle like a particularly complex contract clause.
“Should have protected him.” The words echo in my head. Who was Dom talking about? A friend? A family member? And protected from what?
The man I found tonight doesn’t fit with the image of Dominic Rossi I’ve constructed. The arrogant billionaire, demanding and controlling, pursuing his resort dream with ruthless determination and at any cost. This Dom seemed... haunted. Carrying something heavy I can’t even begin to understand.
Well, if there’s anything my two years as Christopher Blackwell’s personal gatekeeper has taught me, it’s that billionaires are just as screwed up as the rest of us mere mortals. Maybe more so. Their emotional baggage doesn’t disappear, it just gets upgraded to custom Louis Vuitton and shipped via private jet.
I roll onto my side, pulling the covers up higher. The clock now reads 2:21 AM. In less than seven hours, I’ll need to be up, dressed, and back in my perfectly competent PA persona at Christopher’s office. I should be focusing on sleep, not on Dom’s mysterious midnight slips.
But I can’t shake the image of him silhouetted against the city lights, whiskey untouched, shoulders bearing some invisible weight. Or the raw pain in his voice when he muttered those words, thinking himself alone.
Don’t you dare feel sorry for him, Tatiana. Don’t you dare get curious about his pain. That’s exactly how women like you end up falling for men like him.
It’s a warning I desperately need to heed. Because despite everything... the contractual nature of our relationship, the temporary timeline, the way he’s treated me like a transaction... tonight showed me a glimpse of something else. Something that makes Dominic Rossi more complex, more human, and infinitely more dangerous to my carefully guarded heart.
I close my eyes, willing sleep to come, trying to forget the vulnerability I witnessed. But one thought persists, circling like a restless shark:
What happened to Dominic Rossi? What ghost haunts him in the darkest hours of the night? And why do I suddenly, inexplicably, want to know?
Twenty-five more days, Tatiana. Just twenty-five more days, and none of this will be your problem anymore.
But somewhere deep down, in a place I refuse to acknowledge, I’m no longer entirely convinced that’s a good thing.