Chapter 24
Emily
“D, ouchie,” Peach says with a pouty lip as she climbs on his lap and leans in to place a soft kiss on his hand. “I kiss better.”
It’s a move her uncle has obviously done to her in the past, and my flattened palm instantly rises to rest on my chest. I swear, this kid is the cutest.
Dominic’s gaze slides from my face to my hand, and he rolls his eyes, unimpressed with my swooning.
“Can I take these bandages off now?” he grumbles. “I feel stupid.”
“No,” I reply, taking a bite of my French toast.
He cocks an eyebrow, but I see the scowl on his face soften.
“Some of those cuts were deep enough that they probably require stitches, so the way I see it is you have two choices.”
He rears back slightly, but I see a slight grin curve his lips. “Do I now? And what two choices do I have?”
“Either you let me tend to your wounds, or we go to the hospital and have the doctors do it.”
Dominic huffs out a laugh—more air than sound—as if he can’t quite decide whether to be annoyed or amused. Peach stays perched on his thigh like a little queen, still cradling his injured hand between her tiny fingers.
“I’m fine, kid,” he grumbles, leaning down to place a soft kiss on her hair, and my insides turn to mush.
His explanation seems to be enough because she reaches over and picks up a piece of bacon from his plate, bringing it to her mouth.
“What are your plans today?” I ask him.
He lifts one shoulder. “Nothing yet, why?”
“I was thinking about going out for a while and wanted to make sure you’d be here for Peach.”
His eyes narrow. “Where are you planning on going?”
“Job hunting.”
“You have a job … two actually.”
“Two?”
“Yes. La Riviera and looking after Peach.”
“I’m barred from La Riviera for now, and I never agreed to be Lil’ Peach’s nanny. I said I’d watch her when I was home, but I need money, Dom.”
He sets down his fork, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out his wallet. He places a small pile of hundred-dollar notes on the table and nudges them towards me, before saying, “Here.”
I push them right back. “I don’t want your money, Dominic. I’m not a freeloader. I like to pay my own way.”
“It’s money you earned for looking after Peach yesterday,” he states, nudging it back towards me.
I purse my lips. “I already owe you so much. I haven’t contributed anything since I moved in.”
“You cook for us every day.”
I roll my eyes. “Big deal.”
“It’s a huge fucking deal, Emily,” he growls.
“Language,” I mutter, nodding towards his niece.
“You have no idea how good it is to eat real home-cooked food every day. That alone is worth its weight in gold for me … and for Lil’ Peach.” His eyes drop to her. “We love Em’s cooking, don’t we, baby girl?”
Baby girl.
God, this man is a walking, talking aphrodisiac.
Peach nods as she reaches for another slice of bacon. “I baker,” she murmurs.
A deep chuckle rumbles in Dominic’s throat. “See that? You’re teaching her things I never could. You give her the softness I’m incapable of giving.”
I open my mouth to argue, and he must sense it, because he lifts his bandaged hand in warning. “If you even think about saying I’m capable of soft, or you think I’m cute or sweet, I’m going to lose my shit.”
I press my lips together to hide my smile. Just because I don’t say it, it doesn’t change the fact that he has moments when he’s all of the above.
The basket of wet washing is tucked under my arm as I push open the screen door and head down the stairs towards the clothesline.
While I was in my room collecting my dirty clothes, I noticed the pile of hundred-dollar bills I had refused to take earlier was sitting on my dresser. I placed them back on the table on my way to the laundry because it didn’t feel right to enter Dominic’s bedroom.
He came outside a while ago, supposedly to hit the garage and work out, but when I spot the garden hose stretched across the lawn and hear the water running, I set the basket down on the concrete path and follow the trail.
It leads me behind the garage, and what I’m not expecting to see is Dominic watering potted plants … my potted plants. The ones I kept on the front porch when I lived with Mick.
How the hell did they get here? And why am I only finding out now?
“Those are my plants,” I say over a gasp, and when Dominic hears my voice, his head snaps up with guilt clearly written all over his face.
He uses his free hand to rub the back of his neck. “I’ve been watering them for you to keep them alive.”
“How long have they been here?” I ask, stepping closer.
“Around the time you moved in.”
My eyes widen. “How did they get here?”
“In the back of my car.”
“Why?”
“Because you walked away from that shithole with a suitcase and nothing else. I thought you might want these.”
“Mick let you have them?”
“I didn’t ask him. I just took them. They belong to you, don’t they?”
“Yes,” I answer, still struggling to process it all.
Was Mick already missing when he went there? Or is he the reason he hasn’t been seen since?
Dominic never confirmed or denied that he had something to do with Mick’s disappearance.
He said some things were better off not knowing, but the trouble with that is the mind doesn’t listen.
It keeps digging, filling in the blanks with its own stories.
And more often than not, it doesn’t settle on the comforting ones; it drifts towards the worst possibilities.
“So you just took them?” I ask, trying to understand.
He nods slowly. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would make you happy.”
There’s a lot to unpack in those words, but there’s something important I need to ask first. “Did you see him?” The question feels heavy in my mouth.
I point towards the plants. “When you went to get them?” His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t reply.
When he turns his face away from me, I think I have my answer.
I take a step back, followed by another.
“Did you make him disappear?” My voice is so soft, I’m not even sure if he heard me.
His gaze snaps back to me. “Remember what I said to you last night?”
I frown. “You said a lot of things.”
“About not asking questions you won’t like the answer to?”
My stomach tightens. “I remember,” I say, even though I wish I didn’t. His words settle in my mind, like a warning that finally makes sense.
Dominic watches me carefully. There’s something in his eyes that looks nothing like guilt or innocence. It’s something in between, something I’ve never seen on him before. Something that scares me.
“So which is it?” I ask. “Is there an answer I won’t like, or are you just trying to scare me into dropping it?”
He takes a step towards me, so I retreat another. “I’m trying to protect you,” he deflects.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give you right now,” he grumbles, and when he blows out a frustrated breath and turns his back on me, it feels like I’ve been dismissed.
Heat stings behind my eyes, because the truth is I don’t really know this man. Not really. Am I so blinded by the nice things he’s done for me that I refuse to see him for who he really is?
I look down at the plants he’s been tending to, the same ones I used to fuss over daily. My little pots are full of bright, cheerful flowers. Pink geraniums, yellow marigolds, purple petunias, and pansies that always seem to face the sun.
His words echo through me. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would make you happy.”
And the awful part is that it does … it does make me happy.
Seeing them here, alive and thriving, pulls something warm and familiar into my chest. I used to hide on the front porch with them when Mick was in one of his moods.
They became my safe place. The one thing that brought me real joy.
The one thing in that house that could never hurt or betray me.
But the fact that Dominic saved my plants to please me doesn’t erase the cold, hard truth. It doesn’t make the possibility that he killed Mick any easier to swallow, or that he might have done the same thing to the bikies who came to La Riviera and threatened me.
Have I made the biggest mistake of my life by coming here? Mick did some pretty shit things to me, but as far as I know, he never ended someone’s life. That thought sends a chill down my spine.
Sometimes the devil you know is easier to sit with than the one you can’t even name.
I’m sitting on the sofa with Lil’ Peach curled up beside me when Dominic comes back into the house. He’s been outside for over an hour.
I’m dressed and ready to go, but I didn’t want to leave Peach alone for too long, and confronting him while feeling like this wasn’t a choice. I need space, time to think, and a paying job so I have options going forward.
It feels like I’m at his mercy, just like I was with Mick, but I’m not going to be a doormat this time. I’m taking my power back.
I lean down and kiss Peach’s hair before standing and slinging my bag over my shoulder.
Dominic’s eyebrows pinch together as his gaze moves from my handbag to my face. “Going somewhere?”
“I’m going out,” I say as I turn and start towards the door. “Your lunch is in the fridge. Peach and I already ate.”
“Where are you going?”
“I told you this morning. I’m going to find another job.”
“Em,” he says, and my name sounds more like a plea than anything else. I pause, but instead of saying more, I hear him exhale a long breath.
I open the wooden door, and the chill outside brushes my face.
When he still doesn’t speak, I glance at him over my shoulder, and the confusion I see on his face tugs at my heart.
“You shouldn’t go out alone.”
“You can’t keep me locked inside forever. I’m not a little kid.”
He shoves his balled-up fists into the pockets of his jeans. “Nobody is keeping you locked up anywhere, Em.”
I look away. “It feels that way,” I admit.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe. Don’t confuse that for control. I’m not him.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Peach’s big brown eyes flicker between us, so I close it again. I’m not getting into this in front of her.
“I’ll drive you,” he says, stepping closer. “Wherever you need to go. I’ll take you.”
I swallow hard. Part of me wants to refuse, to insist I can manage, but another part—the part that’s been scrambling to hold everything together—knows he’s right.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I blow out a frustrated breath as I slide back into the passenger seat of Dominic’s vehicle.
“No luck?” he asks as he reaches for the ignition.
“No. And none of them are hiring either.”
I’ve been to six different businesses this morning and haven’t managed to secure so much as an interview.
After I click my seat belt into place, I glance into the rear of the vehicle. Peach is out cold in her booster seat, her head tipped at that weird angle kids seem totally fine with. It makes me feel guilty for dragging them out with me. She should be curled up in her own bed right now.
Dominic’s been so patient, driving me anywhere I need to go, even tossing out a few suggestions along the way. Mick never did anything like this for me.
When I first moved back and needed to find work, I asked him to drop me off in town. His answer? “There’s a bus stop at the end of the street.”
“What kind of work were you doing before you moved here?” Dominic asks as he pulls out into the traffic.
“I was working part-time as a dance teacher during the day, and at night—”
“You’re a dancer?”
I lift one shoulder. “In my past life, yes.”
“What kind of dancing?”
“Ballet.”
“You worked nights as well?”
I nod. “At a club. That’s how I reconnected with Mick. He and his bikie friends came in one night.”
Dominic’s eyes leave the road long enough to give me a frown. “You danced at a club? Stripping?” The words come out more like a growl than a question.
My eyes widen. Is he serious? “God, no,” I say, clutching my non-existent pearls. “It wasn’t that kind of club. I worked behind the bar.”
His lips thin as he turns his attention back to the road. “When you say reconnected, what do you mean by that? You dated him before?”
I nod again. “Yeah, in high school.”
“And you didn’t realise he was a piece of shit back then? You thought going back for a second round was a good idea?”
“He was a little wild back then, but he never showed signs of being abusive.”
“Yet he went to juvenile detention at the tender age of eleven for beating his stepmother with a baseball bat.”
I gasp. “Oh, my God.” So the rumours about him going to juvie were true. I asked him once, and he told me not to believe everything I hear about him.
“You didn’t know that?”
“Of course not.”
“The guy had a rap sheet longer than my arm, Emily.”
Had? Was that just a slip, or was that confirmation that something actually happened to Mick? My stomach twists at the thought, but I don’t say anything. Dominic’s right, there are some things I’m better off not knowing.
“Where do you want to go now?” he asks.
“You know what? I think I’ll call it a day,” I reply, rubbing the pressure points on my temples. “I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
He frowns, that quiet, thoughtful kind. “I’ll get you home, then.”
He flicks on the indicator and turns down a side street leading out of town. We don’t speak the entire drive home, but I don’t mind. I just watch the scenery slip by, sinking back into my own thoughts.
When we reach the house, I unlock the front door and hold it open while he carries a still-sleeping Peach to her room.
I’m in the kitchen, staring out the window, when I hear him enter. In the reflection, I see him open a cupboard and take something down.
He grabs a glass, steps beside me, and fills it with water. When he turns and holds it out, I blink up at him, thrown.
“For your headache,” he says.
I look at the two paracetamol resting in his palm. It’s such a small thing, barely anything at all, yet it catches me completely off guard. I’m not used to anyone paying attention and noticing the little details without needing to be told.
I take the tablets and the glass, my fingers brushing his. “Thanks,” I murmur, quieter than I meant to.
As I swallow them, I notice him watching. Not hovering or fussing, just making sure I’m okay. And the realisation settles somewhere deep inside me. He actually cares. Not out of duty. Not because he feels he should. Simply because he does.
And somehow, that leaves me more shaken than everything else that happened today.