Chapter 19
ROSE
After I ended the call, I examined my house critically and had to admit that Dom’s housekeeping team had worked miracles on the place. It was as clean now as it used to be when my mom was still alive. She was quite house proud, unlike me.
I caught sight of myself in my gothic-style floor-length mirror and was taken aback at the change in me.
On the outside, I still looked the same, if a more polished version of myself.
But on the inside, I felt like a completely different person.
Sure, I was more confident in some ways, but I was also aware that I was now irrevocably tied to Dominic, mind, body, and soul.
My well-being depended entirely on his, as did my happiness.
It felt like a very dangerous situation, because what if he didn’t feel the same?
What if I was weaving this whole narrative in my head while he was just waiting for me to leave so his life could get back to normal?
I pushed these thoughts out of my head because I was a woman on a mission right now.
I had to find Joe’s stash before I went back to Dom’s house, and I didn’t have a lot of time left before he realised I wasn’t at the salon.
I began by searching each room. The living room was the most difficult because I had a lot of shelves and drawers to go through.
By the time I got to my bedroom, I was exhausted and hungry.
I made myself a bowl of instant ramen and went back to work after I’d slurped it down.
I wished I’d asked Mara to help me search, but she would have spent all our time together grilling me about my relationship with Dom, and I didn’t want to talk about it to anybody right now.
Not when I didn’t know where we were going, either.
I wandered into my bedroom and noticed that things had been moved from their original places, and I began to tidy them absently, as I tried to map the room in grids to carry out a more efficient search.
I dragged Sweetpea’s cat bed over to the corner by the window, and noticed that one of his favourite toys had fallen behind the radiator.
It was a large purple dragon, which was the only toy he hadn’t mauled to bits because he liked to cuddle it while he slept. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing when I packed the rest of his toys for our stay at Dom’s place.
I pulled the dragon out and dusted him off before I placed him back in Sweetpea’s bed. Just then, the door to my bedroom slammed open, and Dominic ran into the room to pull me away from the window. He threw me to the floor just as the window shattered.
I saw him lurch and I realised he was hurt. I was getting to my feet when he pushed me down again.
“Stay down,” he snarled as he crouched over me. “Gunman.”
“Ohmigod! Are you shot?” I cried as I ran my eyes over him.
My heart stopped when I saw a streak of red spreading over his sleeve.
“Dom, you’re shot,” I screamed, and he grabbed my shoulder to keep me low.
“It’s just a graze, Rose. I’m fine. Stay down, please.”
“Who’s shooting at us?” I demanded angrily.
“We’ll know in a minute. Don’t move,” he warned, as he forced me to stay put.
In a few minutes, a tall, burly man poked his head around the door.
“All clear, boss,” he said.
“He’s been shot. Dom’s been shot,” I cried, and he leaped across the floor to check on Dom.
“I’m fine, Logan. It’s just a graze. Did you guys get the sniper?”
“Unfortunately, he managed to escape before we got to him. He was in a tree across the road. From what we could gather, he’d been watching the cottage for a while and waited until he got the perfect shot at Miss Murphy.”
“Do you mean to say he was trying to kill me?” I squawked as Logan applied pressure to the wound.