Chapter 32
Alice
I was frozen in place, afraid to breathe or say a word in case it shattered the dream.
“I’m sorry.”
Dominic had moved, closing the distance between us. He was hovering just outside the open elevator doors, still holding a bouquet, still looking at me with a soft, almost grieving look in his golden-brown eyes, waiting for my reaction.
“You already said that,” I eventually muttered, relieved when it didn’t immediately pull me out of the dream.
He held my gaze for a few heart-stuttering beats. “Was it enough?” When I didn’t answer, he asked, “If I said it a thousand more times, would it be enough?”
“Enough for what?”
A permanent truce? A friendship? Or something else entirely?
I didn’t know what he wanted from me.
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted from him.
In lieu of an answer, he offered me the elegantly wrapped roses. “For you.”
I accepted, offering him my perfume in return. “And for you.”
His lips quirked. “I didn’t bring the hoodie with me. You’ll have to come to my place and spray it.” He held out a palm. “Shall we?”
I eyed the giant balloon and its three handlers, all of whom were doing their best to blend into the background. “How many laws would we be breaking if we rode that thing across the city?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “A dozen at most.”
“How did you even get it here?” It wasn’t like you could steer the things. They went up, down, and wherever else the wind decided to take them; hence why they were restricted to being flown over wide-open spaces and not densely populated urban areas.
“It’s a prototype. There’s a couple of engines tucked along the basket, and the balloon’s been programmed to automatically steer itself toward the landing dock of our choosing.” He paused for dramatic effect. Then, “Almost like a magnet.”
My lips parted. “You invented our invention?”
“Oh, no. A company called Airiem Floats invented it.”
Swallowing back a small smile, I tilted my head. “And who told them it was a good idea to waste all that money on such a niche, unprofitable thing?”
He cleared his throat, failing to suppress his amusement. “Come on. I had to sign my life away to get last-minute clearance to do this, and there are time restrictions. The pilot won’t be able to take us up if we make him wait much longer.”
“You expect me to believe you were able to get clearance to fly this thing over the city. At night.”
He shrugged. “It has lights.”
“Oh, well, then, problem solved.” I brushed a handful of leaves and petals to the side and started shoving at the Close Door button. But it was no use.
Dominic laughed, grabbing my arm so he could gently lead me toward inevitable death.
Surprisingly enough, the experience didn’t lead to any fatalities.
The ride was as smooth as it was mesmerizing, the lack of wind allowing us to glide through the clear, starry skies with uninterrupted ease.
I was so entranced by the glowing beauty of the city skyline that I didn’t notice the buttery cashmere blanket wrapped around my shoulders until a tingle of awareness pulled my attention to my right.
Dominic’s gaze snapped away, and he straightened, but it was a half second too late. I suppressed a smile, bending forward to rest my forearms on the bulky lip of the basket. “This is pretty incredible, I’ll admit.”
He mirrored my lean, and a sparkling warmth skimmed down my back when his arm brushed my sleeve. “Might have even been worth the headache.”
We settled back into a peaceful silence, drinking in the view as the balloon floated over twinkling streetlights, cars, and familiar buildings.
By the time we started our smooth descent onto a sizeable, open patch of grass on Dominic’s estate, I was in a state of pure Zen.
Not too wired, not too tired. I felt… good. Balanced. Calm.
Even when we’d drawn close enough for the concentrated cluster of glinting specs near Rosie’s garden to take shape, I felt no surprise. Only warm, comfortable goo sloshing lazily through my veins.
He’d flown me over the city in a smart hot-air balloon. The glowing, lavishly decorated open tent was almost quaint in comparison. A perfectly cozy way to end the night.
“Cute,” I mumbled as he helped me down from the basket. There were lanterns and flowers peppered all around a plump, doughy-looking couch within the tent, two freshly poured glasses of my favorite champagne waiting for us on a small coffee table, fruits, chocolates, and a large projection screen.
I didn’t think I had the stamina to make it through a full movie, but he’d gone through all this trouble, and the couch looked so comfortable… “What are we watching?”
He eyed me as I sank into the marshmallow-soft cushions, clearly wondering whether my uncharacteristic agreeableness was some sort of trap or if his plan had actually worked.
“I’m too tired and mellowed out to put up a fight,” I said. “Well done.”
While Dominic was a night owl, my mental sharpness started to dull at around eight in the evening, and I had a strong inkling his choice of timing and transportation wasn’t all that accidental. He wanted me calm and amiable heading into whatever we were about to watch.
He swiped his palms over his jeans before sitting down. “Champagne?”
He wanted me calm, amiable, and buzzed? This was going to be good.
I plucked the offered flute out of his hand, noting the subtle sheen of sweat gathering above his dark eyebrows despite the prickly chill of the night air.
I’d brushed off his silence while we’d been on the balloon, chalking it up to him enjoying the view.
But there’d been a small handful of moments when I’d felt him shift beside me like he was going to say something, only to back down.
I tapped the dainty rim of my slim glass against his and took a sip.
“You were right,” he started, straightening a bit as he forced himself to meet my gaze. “What you said about us not communicating. I was never really good at that with you, and I’m not going to sit here and make excuses as to why, but I… sometimes you let things go unsaid for so long, they become…”
“What?”
“It wasn’t a prank. Rachel lied.”
He said it with such flat, unwavering conviction that, for a second, I didn’t have a choice but to believe him. But then my brain caught up, and the skepticism hit full force, snapping me out of the lazy, satisfied stupor I’d been lured into.
A flicker of anger nipped at my chest, igniting an immediate sense of protectiveness over Rachel. “Excuse me?”
“The letter wasn’t fake, Alice. There was no prank or ulterior motive. I was an eighteen-year-old kid who didn’t have the balls to tell you how I felt in person, so I wrote it down instead.”
My heartbeat had slowed to an uncomfortable, drowsy clank. It was making me lightheaded. “You expect me to believe—”
“No, I don’t,” he answered. “I don’t expect you to believe a single word that comes out of my mouth ever again. I can, however, prove it.”
Color and light flared over the projector screen, snagging my attention. Whatever objections I may have had about our conversation being interrupted dissolved the instant the image registered.
My breath caught in my throat as the woman in the grainy video shot the camera a wide, toothy smile. She waved enthusiastically with one hand, the other preoccupied with a futile attempt at taming the wild curls of the grumpy hellraiser she’d birthed.
Rosie.
“Who’s excited for their first day of grade six?” My mom’s cheery voice floated through the tent just as Rosie finally gave up, letting the preteen gremlin’s cowlick swoop whichever way it wanted as she shuffled back to the stove.
Dominic and I were sitting at the island in my parents’ old kitchen, too preoccupied to pay my mother or her camera any attention.
“You have drool on your cheek,” eleven-year-old me informed eleven-year-old Dominic, having already caught on by that age that the early morning hours were the best time to annoy him.
“Who cares,” he grumbled, wiping at it with the pressed sleeve of his new uniform.
I smoothed out my perfectly sleek ponytail. “Mmm, guess you’re right. You’ve already got a face only Rosie could love. Getting rid of the drool won’t fix it.”
“And you have a personality no one could love,” he snarled back. “Gonna be real annoying when we’re both old and Mom makes me marry you so you don’t feel left out. It’ll be Valentine’s Day all over again.”
Instead of reprimanding him, Rosie chuckled and retrieved a sheet of freshly baked biscuits from the oven.
“No one said you had to give me that stupid Valentine’s card!” I exclaimed, twisting on my stool.
“That’s not true. Mom did. Because she was worried you’d feel left out.”
“Yeah, because not receiving a drool-stained card with defaced hearts and your chicken-scratch ‘I’m writing this against my will’ note would have been a heartbreaking travesty.
” I rightened in my seat again, sitting up straight.
“Plus, I already know who I’m gonna marry, and it’s definitely not you. ”
The video angle shifted as my mother presumably placed the camera down, turning to provide a full view of the kitchen. Then she was in the frame, hurrying to help Rosie plate our breakfast.
The two of them exchanged amused looks that we missed, cheeks sucked in as they tried not to laugh.
“You can’t marry Cristiano Ronaldo,” Dominic retorted after a thorough roll of his eyes. “He’s too old for you, and there’ll be a language barrier, I bet.”
“I can learn Spanish.”
“It’s Portuguese, dumbass. And you barely have a grasp on English.”
Rosie stopped what she was doing and fixed him with a warning look, no longer smiling. “Apologize. Now.”
He did so under his breath. Then repeated himself, louder this time, until she turned back to her work, satisfied.
“How would you even meet him?”
I shrugged. “I’ll ask my dad to buy whatever team he’s on for my birthday when I’m eighteen. Samira’s parents just bought a hockey team, so it can’t be that hard.”