Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ANGEL
Two weeks of waiting.
Two weeks of trusting a man who doesn’t deserve it.
Not to mention two weeks of dodging paparazzi who know where we’re going to be before we do. It’s gotten so bad we haven’t left Dominic’s house in three days.
Well, until today, that is.
Day fourteen.
I count my steps as I pace the perimeter of BTN’s empty office, pausing every fifth step to glare at Dominic, hand shoved in his hair and hunched over his desk behind the glass walls of his office.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
My steps falter as my dream invades my thoughts again. Just like it’s done every day for the past two weeks. I smell pennies. The words echo in my ears when I’m awake and haunt me when I sleep.
“It’s time to go, little one. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life . ”
On my fifth time around the office, Milly glances up from filing her nails and swings a jean-clad leg out in front of me. “Would you sit down? You’re starting to stress me out.”
“Were you with Dominic when he got that tattoo on his hand?”
She pauses mid-file, her fingers tightening around the plastic handle. “What?”
I shake my head. “Never mind.” An uncomfortable silence falls around us as Milly goes back to her manicure. My eyes shift back to Dominic, still at his desk, one hand gripping his phone, the other palming the back of his neck. Sighing, I nod toward his office. “What’s he doing in there?”
Milly follows my gaze. “Hard to say. Normally, I’d say running an international news empire.” Puffing out her cheeks, she blows a steady breath across her hand, sending a cloud of nail dust into the air. “But since you occupy every portion of his brain these days, I assume he’s playing the role of your press secretary, Miss Romanov.”
The sarcasm in her voice is so thick I almost choke on it.
“Look, you don’t like me. I get it. It’s obvious you two are close.” She arches an eyebrow, because she’s no idiot. There’s a “but” attached to this ego stroke. “But in being close, you also know this whole thing was his idea. He came to me .”
A smirk curls Milly’s lip as she stretches her legs across the top of the desk. “And what are the odds he stumbled upon the one girl who has every reason to hold a grudge against him?”
I bristle at her jab. “Let’s be honest, lots of people have a grudge against him.”
“Let’s be honest, only one has gotten close enough to see it through. ”
Steeling my jaw, I hold her accusatory stare. Hell yeah, I have a grudge. Any half-sane person in my position would. A year of poverty and shame isn’t something you just let go of because the villain in your story unties you from the train tracks and slaps a crown on your head.
Even if he makes you crave his kiss almost as much as fear it.
Tossing the nail file over her shoulder, Milly swings her legs around and straightens her glasses. “Look, Dom hasn’t had the easiest life. Everything he has, he’s fought for with blood and sacrifice. So am I protective of him? Yeah, you’re damn right, I am.” She punctuates each word with a jab of her finger. “And until I’m satisfied you’re not hiding some ulterior motive, I’ll question everything that comes out of that pretty little mouth.”
This is the kind of information I tried to get out of Dominic two weeks ago. Which obviously never happened. I bared pieces of my soul, and he drowned them in whiskey. Since then, our conversations have been limited to Alexandra Romanov’s past, appropriate press answers, and take-out options.
It’s like living with a robot.
Milly isn’t my biggest fan, but at this point I’m willing to try anything. I left the group home because I wanted control over my life. Dominic took that away once when he forced me out of Hollywood. Now, a year later, it’s déjà vu all over again. He has all the power while I shoulder all the risk.
It’s time to even the playing field.
“Is his so-called sacrifice why this place is so empty?” I ask, cocking a hip. “To be such an international news source, you’d think BTN would be more than a two-person operation.”
“Are you kidding me right now? ”
“What?”
“Six months ago, Beyond the News employed over forty people. This place was a perpetual hub of chaos.” She waves a hand around the bullpen. “Cameramen, reporters, copywriters, technical advisors—hell, we had our own paparazzi buzzing around.”
Whoa, back up.
“Dominic hates paparazzi. They’ve camped out on his lawn for weeks.”
“Oh, really?” She chuckles, that smirk spreading across her face again. “And have they shown up every place you’ve gone? Gotten there before you did?” She rolls her eyes. “Come on, girl, it’s not blind luck. You have to build an army of leeches to battle one.”
Son of a bitch. He tipped them off.
What better way to control the story than to write it yourself.
Part of me wants to crash through Dominic’s glass fortress and demand answers. But two weeks of sharing space with that man taught me you don’t confront Dominic McCallum.
You combat him.
Milly’s eyes narrow as I hop up on the desk beside her. She’s suspicious, as well she should be. I’m about to go fishing and drop the mother of all hooks. “Dominic mentioned he’d pissed off the wrong person, and they’d retaliated. After I refused to go along with this whole scheme, he admitted it was his last resort before he lost everything.” I motion around the silent office. “BTN, his house, his life…all of it.”
Her jaw drops. “He told you that?”
I nod. “More or less.”
Mostly less.
There’s a brief silence as she nibbles on the bait. I can tell she wants to take it, but she’s hesitant. Finally, she lets out a resigned sigh. “Dominic was never interested in Hollywood gossip. He started BTN for one reason.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Money?”
“Revenge,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “When I said Dominic didn’t have the easiest life, I wasn’t kidding. He grew up on the streets of West Hollywood with holes in his shoes, a newspaper roof, and a vendetta against Hollywood heavyweights with open-leg obligations attached to their open-door policies. It’s why he’s so damn determined to destroy their lives, even at the risk of his own.”
Then it hits me. “Paulo Bellini.”
She nods stiffly. “For starters. Bellini was just a surrogate for the man he was really after.”
My brain digs through files of industry gossip, and one name spoken across a front lawn comes barreling back like a freight train. At the time I didn’t think I heard it. All I knew was that Dominic reacted violently and shoved the baseball hat guy in the chest.
But now…
Now I remember exactly what he said.
“How do you feel about McCallum’s feud with Greg Rosten?”
“Greg Rosten,” I whisper, the words stuck in my throat.
The seething hatred in Milly’s eyes says everything. “Dom drove the nail a little too deep. Rosten retaliated and sued him for libel.”
“And he won.” It’s not a question.
“At least Rosten kept the lawsuit quiet. To save his own ass from more bad press, of course. Dom had to let everyone go and even took out a second mortgage on his house.” She shakes her head, swallowing hard. “It doesn’t matter. It’s still not enough. ”
I cock my chin. “You’re still here.”
“Because he trusts me,” she snaps. “Which is more than I can say for—”
“Milly!”
We both spin around to find Dominic standing in front of us, arms crossed, nostrils flared, and a glare in his eyes I’ve never seen.
Milly shrinks under the weight of his hard stare. “Hey, boss. Any updates?”
He doesn’t answer her. Instead, he moves until he’s standing right in front of me. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” I answer softly, terrified he overheard us. “Why? What’s going on?”
He draws in a slow, steady breath, his pale eyes never leaving mine. “I just got off the phone with Wrenn’s secretary.” Without thinking, I jump off the desk, all but propelling myself into his chest. Dominic catches my stumble, his grip tight on my shoulders. “He’s on his way.”
My heart does a backflip into my throat, and I lock eyes with him, that familiar electrical current sizzling in the small space between us. “Does that mean…?”
He smiles with the leer of a poisonous snake about to strike. “Yes, with the DNA results. And unless something unexpected happened, a check for a million bucks.”
Pandemonium.
That’s the only word that comes close to describing the last forty-eight hours. Even then, it doesn’t come close to painting a picture of the chaos my life has become.
Or Alexandra’s life. Which is now my life.
I lean against the glass and close my eyes. God, my head hurts .
“Get away from the window,” Dominic growls, a cell phone attached to each ear.
Flinching, I step away, letting the curtain fall, much to the irritation of the disgruntled press on our front lawn. After Wrenn arrived at BTN two days ago with the positive DNA test and a cashier’s check for a million dollars, our lives exploded. Not only was my claim validated, Arroyo, Tate, and Wrenn issued a statement on behalf of the Romanov estate confirming the results.
I’m officially Alexandra Romanov. A billionaire heiress with more money than God.
Wandering across the living room, I lean against the back of the couch watching as Dominic carries on two conversations at once. We have matching dark circles under our eyes, but where I roam around in a daze, he’s operating in hyper-speed, thriving on the anarchy.
“Yes, I’ve got it, Wrenn. She’ll be there to sign the papers. Ten o’clock. Of course, a.m., I’m not fucking stupid.” Glancing at me, he rolls his eyes. “Gotta go. Time’s money.” Disconnecting the call, he pockets that phone, turning his attention toward the other before hitting the unmute button. “Michaela, talk to me, baby.”
My fingers dig into the couch leather.
Who the hell is Michaela?
Dominic’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, we didn’t expect that to happen so quickly, but yes, of course. Tomorrow? I suppose—” He abruptly cuts off, that stone look rolling across his face again. “Is that really necessary? Considering all the change she’s faced, I really don’t think—” He breaks off again, his jaw clenching so hard, I’m afraid it might snap. “Fine,” he growls. “Take care of it.” Disconnecting the call, he tosses the phone onto the couch.
I clear my throat. “Do I want to know?”
“Good news,” he announces. “You’re moving. ”
Obviously, I heard him wrong. “I’m what?”
“The estate has already transferred the Bel Air mansion under your name. You’re going home, Alexandra Romanov.”
This is a joke. It has to be a joke.
“To a crime scene ?”
“Look at it as owning a slice of history.”
I fly off the couch, pacing in front of him like a wild animal. “Then you move there. Enjoy your thirty-eight thousand square feet of blood-soaked bullshit.”
He grabs my arm, swinging me around to face him. “Well, you can’t live here. The world is watching. Shacking up with the guy who found you doesn’t exactly feed the fairy tale, now does it?”
“I have money now.” I try to jerk away, but he pulls me even closer. “Why can’t I buy my own place?”
“Because that’s not what they want. Alexandra Romanov has been gone from the public eye for fifteen years along with the keys to California’s version of Camelot. The people are hard up for a happy ending, and I’m giving it to them if it kills us. So, you’ll move into that goddamn house, and you’ll do it with a smile on your face.”
I want to yell. I want to scream. I want to punch him in the face.
But I don’t. What do I do?
I say the most juvenile thing possible. “Who’s Michaela?”
The hard lines in Dominic’s face ease into the barest hint of a smile. “Green’s one hell of a color on you, rook.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss. “I’m not jealous.” I am so jealous. “I’m invested. The conversation was about me, was it not?”
His smile fades, and he releases me to massage his thumb against his temple. “You’re throwing a party.”
“I’m what ? ”
“Michaela is the public relations director for the Romanov estate,” he explains, like I give a shit anymore. That train left the station thirty seconds ago.
“So?”
His hand stills, and he stares up at me through his spread fingers. “So, apparently a big party celebrating your return to Hollywood was a stipulation attached to the reward.”
“Why did you seem so angry about it?”
“I’m not angry about the party. I’m angry about—” He never finishes his thought because as usual, the doorbell rings. And if it’s not the doorbell, it’s a telephone call, or a text chime, or a camera flash. It’s a never-ending communications shit parade stomping all over our privacy.
I sigh. “It’s probably another reporter. Maybe People magazine? Time ?” Spinning around, I toss him an exaggerated smirk. “Oh, how about Maxim ? That might be fun.”
Dominic pins me with a fiery glare, growling as he reaches for the doorknob. “Over my dead body.”
I’m too tired to decode what that means, so I tuck it away for later and turn to head down the hallway when I hear an unfamiliar baritone voice filtering through the living room.
“Mr. McCallum?”
“Who wants to know?”
Something in Dominic’s voice stops me cold, but it’s the man’s response that paralyzes me.
“I’m Detective Javier Rubio with the LAPD. Is Miss Romanov here?”