Chapter Eleven #2
Dominic drank from his iced tea. To give himself time to think? Or plan evasive action? ‘I see where you’re going. Let’s see if we can make it work.’
Andie settled back in the chair. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved there was a small table between her and Dominic.
She would not be averse to his thigh nudged against hers—at the same time, it would undoubtedly be distracting.
‘Okay. I’ll start. My Question Number One is: How did you get from street kid to billionaire? ’
Dominic took his time to put his glass back down on the table. ‘Before I reply, let’s get one thing straight.’ His gaze was direct. ‘My answers are for you and you alone. What I tell you is to go no further.’
‘Agreed,’ she said, meeting his gaze full-on. ‘Can we get another thing straight? You can trust me.’
‘Just so long as we know where we stand.’
‘I’m surprised you’re not making me sign a contract.’ She said the words half in jest but the expression that flashed across his face in response made her pause. She sat forward in her seat. ‘You thought about a contract, didn’t you?’
With Dominic back in his immaculate dark business suit, clean-shaven, hair perfectly groomed, she didn’t feel as confident with him as she had this morning.
‘I did think of a contract and quickly dismissed it,’ he said. ‘I do trust you, Andie.’
Surely he must be aware that she would not jeopardise Timothy’s treatment in any way? ‘I’m glad to hear that, Dominic, because this won’t work if we don’t trust each other—it goes both ways. Let’s start. C’mon—answer my question.’
He still didn’t answer. She waited, aware of the palm leaves above rustling in the same slight breeze that ruffled the aquamarine surface of the pool, the distant barking of a neighbour’s dog.
‘You know I hate this?’ he said finally.
‘I kind of get that,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t “marry” a man whose past remained a dark secret to me.’
Even after the question-and-answer session, she suspected big chunks of his past might remain a secret from her. Maybe from anyone.
He dragged in a deep breath as if to prepare himself for something unpleasant.
‘As I have already mentioned, at age seventeen, I was homeless. I was living in an underground car park on the site of an abandoned shopping centre project in one of the roughest areas of Brisbane. The buildings had only got to the foundation stage. The car park was...well, you can imagine what an underground car park that had never been completed was like. It was a labyrinth of unfinished service areas and elevator shafts. No lights, pools of water whenever it rained, riddled with rats and cockroaches.’
‘And human vermin too, I’ll bet.’ Andie shuddered. ‘What a scary place for a teenager to be living—and dangerous.’
He had come from such a dark place. She could gush with sympathy and pity. But she knew instinctively that was not what he wanted to hear. Show how deeply moved she was at the thought of seventeen-year-old Dominic living such a perilous life and he would clam up. And she wanted to hear more.
Dominic’s eyes assumed a dark, faraway look as though he was going back somewhere in his mind he had no desire to revisit.
‘It was dangerous and smelly and seemed like hell. But it was also somewhere safer to sleep than on the actual streets. Darkness meant shadows you could hide in, and feel safe even if it was only an illusion of safety.’
She reached out and took the glass from his hand; he seemed unaware he was gripping it so tightly he might break it. ‘Your home life must have been kind of hellish too for you to have preferred that over living with your aunt.’
‘Hell? You could say that.’ The grim set of his mouth let her know that no more would be forthcoming on that subject.
‘Your life on the streets must have been...terrifying.’
‘I toughened up pretty quick. One thing I had in my favour was I was big—the same height I am now and strong from playing football at school. It was a rough-around-the-edges kind of school, and I’d had my share of sorting out bullies there.
’ He raised his fists into a fighting position in a gesture she thought was unconscious.
So scratch the elite private school. She realised now that Dominic was a self-made man. And his story of triumph over adversity fascinated her. ‘So you could defend yourself against thugs and...and predators.’
Her heart went out to him. At seventeen she’d had all the security of a loving family and comfortable home.
But she knew first-hand from her foster sisters that not all young people were that fortunate.
It seemed that the young Dominic had started off with loving parents and a secure life but had spiralled downwards from then on.
What the heck was wrong with the aunt to have let that happen?
She reached over the table and trailed her fingers across his scarred knuckles. ‘That’s how you got these?’ It was amazing the familiarity a fake engagement allowed.
‘I got in a lot of fights,’ he said.
‘And this?’ She traced the fine scar at the side of his mouth.
‘Another fight,’ he said.
She dropped her hands to her sides, again overwhelmed by that urge to comfort him. ‘You were angry and frightened.’
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘All that.’
‘But then you ended up with this.’ She waved her hand to encompass the immaculate art deco pool, the expensively landscaped gardens, the superb house. It was an oasis of beauty and luxury.
‘My fighting brought me to the attention of the police. I was charged with assault,’ he said bluntly.
She’d thought his tough exterior was for real—had sensed the undercurrents of suppressed rage.
‘Believe me, the other guy deserved it,’ he said with an expression of grim satisfaction. ‘He was drug-dealing scum.’
‘What happened? With the police, I mean.’ He’d been seventeen—still a kid. All she’d been fighting at that age was schoolgirl drama.
‘I got lucky. The first piece of luck was that I was under eighteen and not charged as an adult. The second piece of luck was I was referred to a government social worker—Jim, his name was. Poor man, having to deal with the sullen, unhappy kid I was then couldn’t have been easy.
Jim was truly one of the good guys—still is.
He won my confidence and got me away from that squat, to the guidance of another social worker friend of his down the Queensland Gold Coast.’
‘Sun, surf and sand,’ she said. She knew it sounded flippant but Dominic would not want her to pity his young self.
‘And a booming real estate market. The social worker down there was a good guy too. He got me a job as a gofer in a real estate agency. I was paid a pittance but it was a start and I liked it there. To cut a long story short, I was soon promoted to the sales team. I discovered I was good at selling the lifestyle dream, not just the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. I became adept at gauging what was important to the client.’
‘Because you were observant,’ she said. And tough and resilient and utterly admirable.
‘That’s important. Especially when I realised the role the woman played in a residential sale. Win her over and you more than likely closed the sale.’
Andie could see how those good looks, along with intuition and charm and the toughness to back it up, could have accelerated him ahead.
‘Fascinating. And incredible how you’ve kept all the details away from the public.
Surely people must have tried to research you, would have wanted to know your story? ’
‘As a juvenile, my record is sealed. I’ve never spoken about it. It’s a time of my life I want well behind me. Without Jim the social worker, I might have gone the other way.’
‘You mean you could have ended up as a violent thug or a drug dealer? I don’t believe that for a second.’
He shrugged those broad street-fighter shoulders. ‘I appreciate your faith in me. But, like so many of my fellow runaways, I could so easily have ended up...broken.’
Andie struggled to find an answer to that. ‘It...it’s a testament to your strength of character that you didn’t.’
‘If you say,’ he said. But he looked pleased. ‘Once I’d made enough money to have my own place and a car—nowhere as good as your hatchback, I might add—I started university part-time. I got lucky again.’
‘You passed with honours?’ She hadn’t seen a university degree anywhere in her research on him but there was no harm in asking.
‘No. I soon realised I knew more about making money and how business operated than some of the teachers in my commerce degree. I dropped out after eighteen months. But in a statistics class I met Jake Marlow. He was a brilliant, misunderstood geek. Socially, I still considered myself an outcast. We became friends.’
‘And business partners, you said.’ He was four years older than she was, and yet had lived a lifetime more. And had overcome terrible odds to get where he had.
‘He was playing with the concept of ground-breaking online business software tools but no bank would loan him the money to develop them. I was riding high on commissions. We set up a partnership. I put in the money he needed. I could smell my first million.’
‘Let me guess—it was an amazing success?’
‘That software is used by thousands of businesses around the world to manage their digital workflow. We made a lot of money very quickly. Jake is still developing successful new software.’ His obvious pride in his friend warmed his words.
‘And you’re still business partners.’
He nodded. ‘The success of our venture gave me the investment dollars I needed to also spin off into my own separate business developing undervalued homemaker centres. We call them bulky goods centres—furnishing, white goods, electricals.’
‘I guess the Gold Coast got too small for you.’ That part she’d been able to research.
‘I moved to Sydney. You know the rest.’