27. Dominic
Dominic
“You haven’t swiped to a new page in four minutes,” I point out, my thumbs pressing into the sensitive indentation behind her left knee.
She shifts the iPad on her lap and lets out an exaggerated huff. “I’m reviewing a highly complex merger clause, Dominic. It requires meticulous analysis.”
“Is that right?” I slide my hands higher, my palms sweeping up the warm, smooth expanse of her thighs. She’s wearing one of my tailored button-downs and absolutely nothing else—an executive decision I fully endorsed. “Quote the last sentence back to me, then.”
Her jaw tightens. A faint flush creeps up her neck, completely betraying her stoic expression. “It stipulates that all subsidiary assets must be seamlessly consolidated.”
“Liar.” I lean forward, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee. “You were watching my hands.”
“I was monitoring a potential distraction in my peripheral vision.” She shifts her glasses down her nose, giving me a look that is ninety percent corporate reprimand and ten percent absolute surrender.
“As your husband, I feel obligated to inform you that your peripheral vision is about to become your direct line of sight.” My fingers slide under the hem of the cotton shirt, grazing the hypersensitive skin of her upper thigh.
Her breath catches, the iPad tipping dangerously to the side. I’m exactly two seconds away from completely dismantling her merger clause when a harsh, syncopated ringtone shatters the quiet of the bedroom.
My phone vibrates aggressively against the nightstand.
I freeze, letting my forehead drop against her knee with a heavy sigh.
“Talk about bad timing,” Jenna whispers, though her voice is notably unsteady.
I reach back blindly, snatching the device. “I’m ignoring it,” I grumble, until my thumb brushes the screen and the caller ID illuminates the dim space.
Madre.
The playful heat lingering in my blood cools instantly, replaced by the sharp, familiar pull of responsibility. It’s 9:40 on a Tuesday. My mother doesn’t call at this hour just to chat; she calls because she needs something fixed, or because she’s decided my boundaries are merely suggestions.
Jenna senses the energy shift immediately. She sets the iPad aside, the teasing light in her hazel eyes sharpening. “Take it,” she says softly, pulling the shirt down over her thighs.
I force an easy grin, burying the sudden tension behind my teeth. “I’m sure everything’s fine.” I swipe the green icon and bring the phone to my ear, my voice slipping into its practiced rhythm. “Hola, Mamá. What’s the emergency?”
Helena Cruz in crisis is a jumble of English, Spanish, tears, and half-finished prayers arriving over the phone in no useful order, with my father booming somewhere behind her.
“Mamá, respira,” I say, already on my feet. “Breathe. Is anyone hurt?”
“No, mi amor, but—”
“Is anyone in jail?”
“No.”
My heart, which has apparently been attempting to leave my body through my ribs, returns to its assigned station.
“All right,” I say. “Now tell me what happened.”
What happened, after three more false starts, two invocations of the Virgin Mary, and my father shouting, “It is a classic car, Helena, not a toy!” from somewhere too close to the receiver, is this:
Dustin took Dad’s convertible.
Not just any convertible. The red ’62 SL.
The car I fixed up for my father and gifted him a couple of years ago.
He loves that car with the deep, unreasonable devotion most men reserve for firstborn sons and baseball teams. Dustin waited until everyone was occupied with Round Hill’s family-day setup, found the keys, and took his girlfriend for a drive.
Eleven blocks.
That’s how far they made it.
Eleven blocks with the top down, Hannah’s scarf in her hair, my forty-one-year-old brother apparently having the time of his life and driving with such reverent caution that a Greenwich patrol officer pulled them over for doing ten in a twenty-five with a line of furious luxury SUVs forming behind them.
The plate check was inevitable after that. Even in Greenwich, a stolen vintage Mercedes creeping down the street like part of a royal procession attracts attention.
“No charges?” I ask.
“No charges,” Mom says, then starts crying harder, because apparently we are now crying about avoided charges too.
The officer knew our family. Of course he knew our family.
Everyone in Greenwich either knows my father, owes my father money, has been fed and/or educated by my mother, or has sat behind Dustin at a Mets game and learned more about pitching rotations than they asked for.
Dad isn’t pressing charges, because Dad would sooner set fire to his own hair than let Dustin get booked over the Mercedes.
So legally, it’s nothing.
A citation. A tow fee. A lecture Dustin has absolutely not absorbed.
Emotionally, the house is on fire.
Because Hannah’s parents are upset.
Not upset in the normal my daughter was joyriding in a stolen vintage Mercedes way, which would be fair. I would accept that. I would personally contribute to the apology basket.
No. According to my mother, they are “questioning whether the relationship is appropriate.”
I’m livid.
Appropriate. Safe. Supervised—words people use when they want to sound careful instead of condescending.
Hannah and Dustin live at Round Hill under the same supported-independence program, which means there are staff, care plans, family contacts, incident reports, and entirely too many people with clipboards capable of turning an overly cautious joyride into a policy conversation about whether two adults are allowed to keep choosing each other.
“They said that?” I ask, my voice going flat.
My mother stops crying for half a second. She knows that tone.
“They’re coming Thursday,” she says. “Her parents, the program director, maybe Hannah’s case manager. They want to discuss boundaries. Transportation privileges. Whether Dustin and Hannah should have separate activity schedules for a while.”
“That’s not happening.”
“I hope not. Dustin heard the word ‘separate,’ and now he’s upstairs and he won’t come down, and your father is—Esteban, stop yelling at the oven—”
In the background, my father shouts, “I am not yelling at the oven. I am yelling near the oven.”
Excellent. Everyone is thriving.
I close my eyes and release a steady breath.
“I’m on my way,” I say.
My mother exhales like I’ve offered to hold up the roof.
“Thank you, mijo.”
“Tell Dad I’ll be there in”—I look at my watch—“about five hours. Is Dustin staying with you tonight?”
“Yes. He’s very upset.”
“OK. Tell him I’m coming.”
We disconnect and I toss the phone onto the mattress, dragging a heavy hand down my face.
“I have to go to Greenwich,” I say, the words tasting like ash after the promise of the evening we just had. “Right now.”
Jenna is already moving. The seductive, relaxed woman from two minutes ago vanishes, replaced instantly by the hyper-efficient executive I married. She slides off the bed, adjusting my shirt around her thighs, and heads straight for the closet.
“OK. Family emergency,” she says, pulling my leather duffel from the top shelf before smoothly retrieving her own weekender bag. “Let’s get moving. I caught a little from the phone call, but you can fill me in on the details on the way.”
I blink, my brain stalling as she immediately starts transferring underwear and socks from her newly claimed drawer into her bag. “Whoa, hold on. Jenna, you don’t have to come.”
She doesn’t even pause her packing. “Do you need a suit, or will casual wear suffice for middle-of-the-night crisis management?”
“Jenna.” I step into the closet, catching her wrist before she can turn back to the drawers.
“Seriously. It’s Dustin. He’s OK, but he took my dad’s vintage Mercedes for a joyride, the cops got involved, and now Hannah’s parents are threatening to separate them.
My dad is currently yelling at kitchen appliances, and my mother is practically speaking in tongues. ”
She processes this for a fraction of a second. “Understood. Casual wear, then.”
“No, you’re not listening,” I say, my chest tightening with that familiar, heavy instinct to shield her.
“I’m going to be doing nonstop damage control.
Managing my father’s blood pressure, talking Hannah’s parents off a ledge, and putting Dustin back together.
It’s going to be a disaster. I don’t want you having to deal with my family mess. ”
She turns fully to face me and crosses her arms, my oversized shirt riding up her thighs, as she pins me with a stare that brooks absolutely no opposition.
“Dominic,” she says, her tone crisp. “Isn’t this exactly what married people do?
Your mess is my mess. You’re going to Connecticut to support everyone else.
I’m going to Connecticut to support you.
Didn’t you fly to New York and sit in an apartment for six hours just in case I called?
You’ve been there for me every single time, before I even knew how to want you there.
Let me be there for you. Now, let go of my wrist so I can finish packing for us. ”
I drop her wrist, but only so I can slide both of my hands around her waist, hauling her flush against my chest. She lets out a soft, surprised breath as I bury my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of bergamot and the lingering heat of my own bed.
I’ve spent my entire life being the fixer—the guy who absorbs the impact so no one else has to. The idea of someone willingly stepping into a Cruz family meltdown just to make sure I don’t face it alone completely wrecks me.
“You’re going to severely regret this,” I murmur against her collarbone.
“By hour three, when my father is aggressively explaining the intricacies of 1960s German engineering to you while my mother tries to force-feed you her fourth batch of stress-empanadas, you’re going to wish you stayed in Chicago. ”
She loops her arms around my neck, her fingers threading into the short hair at my nape. “I regularly negotiate with venture capitalists who throw tantrums over decimal points, Dominic. I can survive your parents.”
I pull back just enough to look into those fiercely determined eyes. A slow, helpless smile spreads across my face. “God, I love you,” I say, knowing she gets awkward whenever I say it, but unable to keep it in. “You terrifying, magnificent menace.”
“I know,” she says primly, though her lips curve into a devastating smile. “Now grab your boots. We have a flight to catch, and I need to let Bennett know I’m working remotely for a couple of days.”