Chapter 15
ROSE
Lookie there! I think I broke the grump, I thought to myself when Dominic smiled at me sweetly.
My heart gave a hard jolt before it did cartwheels in my chest, and I wanted to gather him in my arms and keep kissing him until that sweet smile got branded on his face.
It was way better than the bitterness I’d seen earlier.
I didn’t know what it was about that picture, but seeing it had sent Dom into a dark, unhappy place.
Not something you’d associate with an innocent childhood picture.
Maybe it had to do with his father. I didn’t know much about him or Dom’s relationship with him, but my mom had once said that losing his father when he was just ten was probably the best thing that happened to Dom and Anthea.
She refused to tell me why she’d said something so horrible, since it wasn’t her story to tell, but she gave me the impression that he wasn’t a very nice person.
I remembered that fact when Dom was at the pool, and I decided to make him some lasagna.
To comfort him and to thank him for everything he’d done for me.
Ever since I lost my mom, Dom had always shown up whenever I needed help. I hadn’t always welcomed his help, but he knew just when I needed him the most. And for that, I would always be grateful.
I was only six when Henry Carlisle died, and since then, Anthea and Dom had come to our place for dinner once a week.
Until he went off to university. Anthea had carried on that tradition even after my mother passed away, and the menu for the meal was always the same.
My mother’s lasagna. I tried telling her that I did know how to cook something other than pasta.
But Anthea wanted to hold onto that comforting connection to my mother, the sister of her soul.
Dominic waved his hand in my face, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Are you okay, babe?” he asked, and I studied him carefully.
“Are you?” I asked in return.
He thought for a moment and then nodded.
“I think I am. And even if I’m not completely okay, I’m sure your lasagna will help. Unless that greedy monster has got it all,” he exclaimed, half rising from the couch.
“Okay, new rule. No lasagna for people who say mean things about my cat,” I said firmly. “Now, clean this mess up while I dish up our dinner.”
When he returned to the living room, I was just plating up the pasta, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Sweetpea’s bowl next to mine at the kitchen island.
“That’s…odd,” he murmured when Sweetpea climbed onto the barstool in front of his bowl and waited patiently.
“Well, eating alone feels very lonely sometimes, and I also got tired of swatting his paw off my plate. I realised that if I gave Sweetpea a small portion of my dinner in his own bowl, and allowed him to eat with me, he left my plate alone. He wasn’t attacking my food out of greed.
He just wanted to be part of my daily ritual.
So, now, we eat dinner together like a family.
Which means that I have now fully transformed into a crazy cat lady,” I said ruefully.
Dominic couldn’t stop laughing as he stared at the way my cat waited patiently for his pasta to cool down before he scarfed it down.
“He’s like a little gentleman,” he commented. “But only with you. For the rest of us, he’s our worst nightmare come true.”
Dinner that night was a merry affair, with Trevor joining us for ice cream afterwards.
“I thought you had a hot date,” said Dominic, and Trevor shook his head sadly.
“It went downhill as soon as he opened his mouth. The halitosis almost took me out,” he cried. “That’s it! I’m deleting my Tinder account. It’s the old-fashioned way for me from now on. Say, would the town mafia find me a husband?”
“You’ll have to check with Grammy Cora, although knowing her, she probably already knows the perfect man for you,” I replied with a laugh. “Just don’t be too surprised if it is someone you never dreamed of marrying.”
“Sometimes I think they just pull random names out of a box,” said Dominic, licking the last bit of rum and raisin off his spoon.
“Maybe we should both ask them to find us husbands, babe,” suggested Trevor, with a quick glance at Dom to see his reaction. “After you end your fake relationship with the boss, that is.”
I could sense the air in the room change as Dominic set his bowl down on the kitchen island and rose from his stool.
“See you guys tomorrow,” he said coldly, and I gave him a questioning glance.
“It’s only eight pm,” I said hesitantly.
“I like to read in bed before I fall asleep,” he insisted and walked away without a backward glance at me.
I turned and shot an exasperated glance at Trevor.
“You’re such a little shit-starter,” I accused, and he shrugged in acknowledgement of that fact.
“Testify,” he said, raising his hand. “But…if your relationship is as fake as he claims, why did it bother him to hear about you looking for a husband after all this ends?”
“I don’t think it bothered him. You just made it awkward for both of us.”
“Sure! I believe you when you say this relationship is really fake. That’s why I found him practically licking ice cream off your hand when I walked into the room,” he scoffed.
“Dom didn’t do anything of the sort,” I protested. “He merely scooped it off my hand with his finger and licked his finger.”
Which was true. It was also true that by that point in the evening, I would have let him lick anything he liked.
I went to bed feeling very disgruntled and frustrated, and woke up feeling even worse. Dominic had started to take over my dreams completely, leaving me feeling unfulfilled and miserable when I woke up. I didn’t know how long I could go on like this. Joe’s phone was still switched off.
“Do you think he’s hidden the stash in my house?” I asked Trevor. “Is that why he was trying to break in the other day?”
“Already thought of that,” he replied gloomily, as he stirred four sugars into his cup of coffee. “Logan’s team searched your cottage from top to bottom, but they couldn’t find anything. If only we had access to a drug-sniffing dog, we’d find the damn thing by now.”
“Well, I know where you can find one,” I exclaimed. “The Maplewood PD has two K9 officers. I’m sure they will lend us one if we ask nicely.”
“Sure! Involve the cops and make our problem with the cartel even worse,” said Trevor snidely.
“What’s your problem?” I snapped. “You’re being so moody today.”
“Blame your boyfriend,” groaned Trevor. “He’s been riding me hard since morning. Stop! I heard it. Gosh, I’m too tired to even make a thing out of it.”
“Fake boyfriend,” I corrected primly. “And what’s wrong with him?”
“Probably needs to get laid,” said Trevor, and I threw a grape at his head.
Dominic came out of his study and made straight for the cupboard over my head.
He held my gaze as he stretched an arm over my head and pulled out his coffee mug.
I tried not to shiver at his nearness, but the scent of his cologne mixed with something that was uniquely him made me almost melt into a puddle at his feet.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and walked back into his study without a word to either of us.
“Definitely needs to get laid,” said Trevor with a smirk, and I beaned him with another grape. “And since when does he pour his own coffee when he has me to do it for him?”
“He knows you might spit in it today,” I retorted.
“Yeah, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you seem to have grabbed sole custody of the coffee pot. You’ve reduced the ruthless billionaire to running his own errands just for a sight of you, you minx,” he teased, and I wondered if I could just chuck the whole charcuterie board at him.
Over the next couple of days, it felt as if the precious and fragile truce Dom and I had negotiated over lasagna and ice cream had vanished into thin air. We were at each other’s throats constantly. Like when I asked him if Logan’s men had found any sign of Joe.
“Missing him so much, are you?” he snapped, as he took off his tie and threw it on the kitchen island. He had just returned from a business dinner and looked grumpier than I’d ever seen him.
“What’s your problem?” I snapped back. “All I did was ask a question.”
“My problem is that you seem to shed glitter wherever you go! Are you making it within your body?”
“What’s your issue with glitter?” I demanded, and he let out an angry laugh.
“I have no issue with it except when it makes me feel like I’m living in a strip club. Tell me why my best tie is coated in glitter and cat fur.”
“Ugh! I’m sorry. Sweetpea must have rolled over one of my notebooks and then gotten into your closet,” I said apologetically, but it only made him angrier.
“Why is your cat even getting into my closet? Isn’t the rest of the apartment enough for him? Can’t you keep him out of my room?”
“I’m trying my best, Dominic. But he’s a fucking cat, and they always like to go exactly where they shouldn’t. I don’t know why, but he has a thing for your closet.”
“That little asshole is trying to assert his dominance over me by putting his fur all over my stuff,” accused Dom, and I tried not to laugh at his paranoia.
“I really don’t think he’s capable of so much critical thinking. He’s just a cat,” I pointed out.
“A demon cat,” insisted Dom. “Well, you tell him if I find even one strand of his fur on my clothes again, I’m shaving him bald.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I snarled, crossing my arms over my chest and tapping one foot angrily.
“Don’t try my patience, Rose,” warned Dom.
“Or what?” I hissed, getting in his face.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and for one wild moment, I thought he was going to kiss me, but the bastard seemed to have an iron control over his willpower. He merely snorted in disgust and walked out of the room.
As if it were so easy to control Sweetpea. Short of keeping him in a crate all day, there was no way I could keep him out of Dom’s room. I didn’t know how he got in and out of any part of this house. But Houdini was nothing on my cat. He was the ultimate breakout artist.
I did a load of laundry and was putting it away when I found one odd pink sock. What was odd wasn’t that it was just one pink sock, but the fact that it wasn’t mine. It looked like it belonged to a giant. And the only giant in these parts was a grumpasaurus that could breathe fire.
Ugh! I really didn’t want to fess up to Dom that I had dyed his sock pink.
I mean, what was it even doing in my laundry basket?
I decided to go on the offensive this time.
If he thought he could sneak in pieces of his laundry into my basket and make me do it for him, he had another think coming, I decided, as I marched out of my room in search of him.
I finally ran him to ground on one of the terraces where he had a home gym set up.
As if the gym two floors down wasn’t good enough for him.
Hmph! Did he have to look so hot doing pull-ups on the bar?
And why couldn’t he put on a shirt while he was at it?
There was a very impressionable cat around the house, and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
One look at his deliciously bare torso, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I flung the pink sock at his chest.