Chapter 35
Rayna
“Rayna, my love. Look at me.”
She ignored him, kept her back to him, and scrunched the edge of her pillow even tighter. Her heart throbbed from how hard it was trying to run out of her chest.
“Darling, please.”
She screwed her eyes shut, trying and failing to block out the pain in his voice.
“Say something. I beg of you. Your silence is destroying me.”
A gritted sound broke through the barrier of her teeth as her lashes flew up. “Dominic,” she bit out, but it wasn’t harsh. She sounded fearful.
Of course, she was fearful. The man from the past, who didn’t belong in the present, had told her he loved her, that he wanted to be her husband, spend the rest of his life with her.
Dominic had told her everything Rayna had never wanted to hear.
And yet she hadn’t been able to tell him she didn’t want it.
She’d pulled away from him in the library, dazed and silent. She’d disassociated in the car as she’d focused on getting them home safely. She’d been trapped in her own frantic thoughts as they’d eaten dinner without a word spoken between them.
Now she was sharing a bed with him, lying wide awake and stiff on her side, as far from him as she could get—just like a wife who’d fallen out with her husband.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. In fact, it just made her wonder even more.
How did this happen?
How had Dominic fallen in love with her? How had he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? How hadn’t she seen it?
Why had she ignored it?
Because if she was being honest with herself, the signs had always been there.
His words. His touches. The way he looked at her. His possessiveness and jealousy. His husband and dating comments. His “If a man came along” speech.
He hadn’t hidden it. He never had.
Rather, she’d ignored it instead of shutting him down.
No. She hadn’t ignored it. She’d played house with him. She’d enjoyed it.
Why? What had she been thinking? Why had she let this happen? Why had she encouraged it?
Why, amongst the suffocating noise of panic, was there a more hopeful voice?
What if they let him stay? Could he? Could I be with him?
And that was the scariest part of it all.
She was imagining. Picturing the idea of him staying with her.
Her. Rayna. The one who’d sworn she would never give a man a permanent place in her life. The one who laughed when someone asked her if she had a boyfriend. She had her “Marriage sucks” speech memorised off by heart, she’d spoken it so many times.
So why? What the fuck had Dominic done to her?
What spell had he cast on her that the thought was even there in the first place?
It was paralysing her. She was supposed to run, but she was stuck in place, wondering if maybe she wanted to turn to face him instead.
But then what would she say? There were no words to express the mess in her head and heart.
“Rayna,” he whispered, settling his hand on her hip. Her pulse flinched. “Talk to me.”
He was going to coax her to face him. She knew he was. She couldn’t, not yet, so she kicked the blanket off her knees and sat up at the edge of the mattress.
Dominic’s movements rustled the cool linen sheets.
She got up with her back still to him and walked to the middle of their room.
More rustles. Then the faint pad of footsteps on the carpet followed. And stopped.
The AC hummed in the background as she took slow, deep breaths for a long minute, while Dominic’s presence remained heavy but patient behind her.
Her heart hadn’t settled. Neither had her thoughts, but at some point, she found herself turning.
He was at the end of the bed, a distance of two metres between them.
She was thankful for the space, but the twist of agony above his pleading eyes and on his mouth speared her through the sternum.
He was leaning towards her, his shoulders curled forward, trying to make himself appear small, unassuming, non-threatening. It was fucking laughable.
He was the biggest threat to everything she had ever known.
“I told you we were just having fun,” she muttered. “That this was temporary.”
The apple of his throat bobbed. “I know.”
“I told you I didn’t want to marry. I told you I didn’t believe in love.”
He gave the faintest nod.
“So why did you fall in love with me?”
“How could I not?” he said thickly, his smile so earnest and heartbreaking.
“You are brilliant. Strong, intelligent, capable, wonderful, beautiful. Breathtakingly so. Every part of you, all your stubbornness and temper too.” He shook his head.
“My heart never stood a chance. It was lost to you immediately, and I did not wish for it back. Not when it felt as if I had finally found the person whose name was engraved on it. It was always yours to have, Rayna.”
She shook her head rapidly, denying it, refusing it. “It can’t be mine.”
“It is.”
“It’s not. You were never meant to meet me.”
“But I did.” He stood tall and confident. “And now I do not wish to be parted from you.”
Rayna couldn’t decide if she wanted to yank her hair out or yank her heart out so it would stop responding to him.
“You can’t stay, Dominic. How many times do I have to say it? No one has ever been allowed to stay. They won’t let you.”
“Why not? I understand that I could not remain entirely in the future. My family and title are in the past. But why can I not have both with you? I could lead a life then and have one here too. With you.”
“For fuck’s sake, you can’t have both,” she snapped. “You have to live the life already dictated for you.”
He slashed a hand between them. “My life has not been dictated for me! It is mine to choose what to do with it. And I choose you.”
“Well, don’t choose me!”
He jerked a step towards her. “I do, and I will, dammit. So history will have to change itself, for I will go nowhere you are not.”
“History can’t be changed. You can’t permanently be taken out of it.
” She threw a hand towards the door. “That’s why you have to go back.
That’s why they’ll make you go back. They’ll wipe your memories of the last few months and send you back like they do with every Study.
To make sure history happens the way it was meant to. ”
“They will wipe my memories?” he echoed, frozen and shocked.
Rayna shouldn’t have told him that. But she’d already done so much she shouldn’t have with him, so what was the point of hiding one more thing? It wasn’t as if she’d have a job at the lab after word got out about the mess she’d created with Dominic. They’d fire her instantly.
She was waiting for a roaring battalion of anger to rise against him for ruining what she’d asked him not to. But either it was lost in the fog of panic, or it was taking its time building its forces, because it wasn’t yet surfacing with any real strength.
“Yes,” she said evenly.
His brows crashed down over thundering eyes. “You did not inform me of this.”
“You’re not supposed to know. That’s the point.
Because what Study would willingly give up the memories of the future?
They’d want to keep them. But what if they used them to change their lives?
That could mess with the timeline, so your memories will be wiped.
” Her heart squeezed out a painful throb. “You won’t remember me.”
But of course, the stupidly stubborn man said, “I will.”
“Dominic,” she said in tired frustration and swung away from him.
Rayna pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, trying to find the words that would make him see how impossible what he wanted was. A gentle hand snaked around one of her wrists, rotating her back towards him. His eyes bore into hers as he nudged her chin higher.
“I could not forget you, my love,” he said, so damn sure of himself. “My heart would know what it had lost. But it will not come to that. We shall find a way for this to work. For I do not believe it is impossible. Mr Griffin would have warned me to give up immediately if it were.”
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. “You told Uncle Declan?”
“I did not tell him as such, no. He overheard me talking to Beast and inferred the rest of it. But I was honest with him about my feelings.”
Her head pounded as she tried to understand what he was saying, but dread was making her thoughts spin.
Because if Declan knew, then he would have told Victor.
Which meant Victor knew how badly she’d broken his trust. And that made her feel sick.
Rayna tore away from Dominic. “No one was supposed to know.”
“I know.” He lowered his hands to his sides. “And I apologise for that, but he offered his support—”
“Of course he would. Uncle Declan and V, they’ll always put family first. But I don’t want them to. I don’t want them to lose their jobs because of me. Why don’t you see that?”
His hands came up to her jaw. “I do. Of course I do, my love. I understand. But it does not have to come to that.”
“You keep saying that, but you don’t actually have a plan, Dominic!”
Silence.
Rayna sucked in a breath when she realised what she’d said. “No, I don’t mean—”
“Do you want me to stay?” he whispered.
“Dominic—”
“I am not asking you to tell me you love me, only assure me you would like me to stay. That you can picture a life with me.” He stroked his thumbs through the hollows of her cheeks. “That is all I wish to hear. Then we shall work together to find a way to make it possible. I promise.”
“I don’t know, dammit,” she admitted. “I don’t fucking know.” She shook him, hissing out a broken sound. “This was never supposed to happen. I was never supposed to want you. So how am I supposed to know—”
He shut her up with his mouth, pressing it hard and heavy over hers.
She didn’t respond immediately, but when she did, she pulled at his neckline and kissed him back, furious with how he’d ruined everything.
The problem was, it felt so fucking good.
It made her heart thump in a way it never had before. It filled her head with thoughts of him. Made her body burn and throb and ache and clench and whine, so starved of touch—
“Fuck me,” she panted against his swollen lips, her legs wrapped around his waist.
The beautiful man gritted his teeth over a groan and shook his head. “No. I will not.”
She reared back. “Why not?”
“Because I wish to make love to you, knowing you are mine. But I cannot if you are not certain of what you want from me. So I won’t.
“I will give you time to decide first.”