Chapter 24
DOMINIC
She let out another little sob and flew into my arms.
I set the paper bag and Scary Mary’s carrier down hastily and wrapped my arms around Rosie. My Rosie Posie.
“You already knew what was going down this evening,” she guessed.
“Of course,” I admitted, and was rewarded by a little pinch on my chest. “Commissioner MacNeil called me as soon as you set up the ambush. Besides, Logan’s team has been tailing you since you left the apartment. But it would have been nice to get a heads-up from you, Rose.”
“I didn’t want you barging in to rescue me,” she said. “It was high time I rescued myself, Dom. And I needed to know you’d come to me even when I didn’t need you just because you couldn’t stay away.”
“Well, here I am,” I promised. “All yours. Forever. If you want me, that is.”
“Of course, I want you, you idiot,” she snapped, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Well, that was romantic. Now, let’s put this away before Beelzy lets Scary Mary out of the carrier and they attack it,” I said, picking up the paper bag and handing it to her just as her cat stalked across the room towards it with his evil intentions plastered all over his face.
“What is it?” she asked, wiping her eyes on my ochre-cloured tie.
“Hey, that’s the last one I have that doesn’t have glitter on it. Now, it’s got makeup all over it,” I complained. “And glittery makeup at that!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, a little glitter won’t make you melt, ya big baby,” she growled, taking the paper bag from me. “What is this?”
Her head shot up, and her eyes went wide in shock as she sniffed carefully at the bag.
“Is this…? Did you…? Did you make lasagna?” she yelped.
“Not just any lasagna. It’s my famous ‘marry-me-lasagna’,” I said smugly.
She tossed her head disdainfully.
“Oh, please! You can’t just claim that title for your first attempt,” she informed me loftily.
“Try it,” I dared.
Rose took the lasagna from my hand and headed to the kitchen, while I shut the front door before I released Scary Mary from her carrier. She came to me for a quick, reassuring pat before she trotted over to skippity-pap Sweetpea for leaving her without so much as a kiss goodbye.
I followed Rose into the kitchen and found her setting the little round table for two people.
“Allow me,” I said, taking the knife from her and cutting into the pasta before I placed some of it on her plate. She waited until I had served myself before she picked up her fork. I held my breath, dying to see what she thought of it.
She tried to cut a piece and frowned when her fork hit something hard. She dug around a bit more and then clapped a hand to her mouth as she pulled out the object I’d hidden in the pasta - a gorgeous sapphire and diamond ring.
When she looked up, I was on one knee in front of her.
“Marry me, Rosie Posie?” I asked gently, taking the ring from her hand and holding it out.
She nodded vigorously and smiled through the tears streaming down her face.
“And that’s how you make marry-me lasagna on your first attempt,” I said with a smug smile.
She began to laugh, even as more tears streamed down her face.
I pulled her forward and kissed her hard, as if I was worried she’d disappear.
Which was true. I had never been as frightened as I was when Trevor told me she’d moved back to the cottage.
I thought I’d waited too long, and I’d lost her.
But her text gave me hope. She had left a tiny window open for me to find her if I wanted to. And that was the real test, I realised.
Rose wanted to know if I had the courage to reach for love. If I dared to claim her.
“I didn’t believe in love, Rosie,” I blurted before I could lose the courage.
“I grew up seeing a very bad example of it in my own home. My father used to hit my mother and justify it in the name of love. And my mother held on to that failed marriage, also in the name of love. I was convinced love was a scam designed to make people suffer. And I wanted nothing to do with it. But I fell in love with you without knowing how it came about, and it taught me that love can also be kind and beautiful, and it gives you the courage to go after what you want. So for what it’s worth, I love you, Rosie Posie. ”
“I love you too, Dom,” she breathed softly. “And I’ll do so with the last breath in my body, and even after that.”
“I love you,” I repeated. “Demon cat and all.”
“Okay, maybe I don’t love you after all,” she replied with a mock glare.
“Nice try,” came a voice from outside her back door, and Trevor showed his irreverent face at the window. “We heard you say it, and you can’t un-say it now.”
“Can too,” argued Rose.
“Nuh-uh,” said Mara, appearing next to him with a bottle in her hands. “We’ve brought champagne to celebrate the grand event, and it’s the expensive kind, not the pig slop you like to drink. So no taking it back until we’ve popped this baby.”
“Do you think we should let them in?” asked Rose, and I shrugged.
“Can’t let the champagne go to waste. Or my lasagna,” I replied, and she laughed as she unlocked the back door and her friends trooped in.
“Where’s Beelzy?” asked Trevor. “I haven’t heard his angry yowls all day, and I think I missed it.”
“He’s probably showing Scary Mary around the house,” I replied. “Sweetpea, want some lasagna?”
As soon as I said the magic word, he raced into the room, with Scary Mary on his heels.
They were both holding onto something and refusing to let go.
On closer inspection, it turned out to be the purple dragon.
Scary Mary tried to take it from him, and Sweetpea resolutely refused to share.
Before I could break up the fight, they both tried running to opposite ends of the room, and the poor dragon came apart in the middle.
But instead of stuffing, packets of white powder spilled from its middle.
Mara and Trevor scooped up the cats and locked them out of the kitchen while Dom and I stared at what was clearly the stash of cocaine that Joe had hidden in my house.
“Sonofabitch,” growled Dominic. “He didn’t even think about how he was putting our Beelzy at risk. What if he’d ripped the toy apart and broken open the packets? He’d be dead by now.”
“I hope the cops find Joe’s prints all over the toy. I can testify that he had no reason to ever touch it until he stuffed the drugs inside it. There’s enough cocaine in here to send him to jail for a long time,” I said viciously.
But as it turned out, I didn’t have to testify after all. When Joe realised he was going to prison, he sang like a canary and ratted on all his associates to get a good plea deal.
Meanwhile, Dom bought two identical dragons for both the cats and didn’t even react when I decorated them with a bit of glitter. Sweetpea and I moved into his apartment while he had my mother’s cottage restored to its original glory for us to use as a weekend home.
Grammy Cora was very pleased to get her heart’s desire, although we refused to set a date so soon.
“We’ve only just got together, Gran,” argued Dominic. “And the next person to pester us about setting a date is not invited to the wedding.”