Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
RACHEL
The street outside the restaurant glowed softly, lamplight pooling over cobblestones still warm from the day.
Voices drifted from cafés, laughter threaded with music, the air scented with wine and summer and something indulgent I couldn’t quite name.
Dominic stepped beside me like he belonged there—like he belonged with me—and I hated how easily the city seemed to agree.
He took the dessert box from the waiter with a satisfied nod, then glanced at me, eyes bright. “Shall we?”
I nodded, telling myself it was just a walk. Just Paris. Just dinner stretched a little longer than planned.
We fell into step easily, too easily. His shoulder brushed mine now and then, not accidental enough to be innocent, not deliberate enough to call out. The contact sent little sparks up my arm, my spine, places I had no business thinking about.
“This part of the city suits you,” he said after a moment, voice casual, observant. “You look… alive.”
I snorted softly. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone who’s trying very hard not to make reckless choices.”
He glanced over at me, grin slow and knowing. “You say that like reckless is a bad thing.”
“It is,” I said. “For me.”
“For you,” he echoed. “Or for the version of you you’re trying to protect?”
I shot him a look. “Do you ever stop reading people like they’re on the stand?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Occupational hazard.”
We walked in companionable silence for a block, the rhythm of our footsteps syncing despite myself.
I told myself to focus on the city—the glow of shop windows, the sound of a violin somewhere nearby, the way Paris seemed to hum after dark.
But my attention kept drifting back to him.
To the way he carried himself. To how present he was, how tuned in.
Dangerous.
“This is a bad idea,” I said suddenly, more to the night than to him.
Dominic didn’t stop walking. “Funny,” he said. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I am,” I insisted. “Very.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “Because from where I’m standing, you look like someone who’s wondering why she’s been resisting at all.”
That made my pulse jump. I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again, because the truth hovered too close to the surface. I had been wondering. A lot. Wondering if all my rules were just fear dressed up as discipline. Wondering if distance really meant strength.
We stopped at a crosswalk, red light holding us in place. Dominic turned toward me fully then, close enough that I could smell his cologne—clean, subtle, unmistakably him.
“I’m not trying to derail you,” he said quietly. No teasing this time. Just honesty. “I see what you’re building here. I admire it. I just… don’t believe living has to mean doing it alone.”
I looked away, throat tight. The light changed, and we crossed, his hand hovering near my back without quite touching. The restraint was somehow worse than contact.
By the time the hotel came into view, my resolve was in tatters. The city had softened me. Dominic had undone me with words and patience and that infuriating ability to make desire feel reasonable.
This was a bad idea, I told myself again.
But as I followed him toward the entrance, dessert in hand, laughter still echoing behind us, I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe—just maybe—I’d come to Paris to learn more than I’d planned.
But was Dominic even a part of it? He was supposed to be the past. A dangerous little slice of the past, but the past. So why the hell was I following him to his hotel?
Two years earlier…
I told myself we’d won the day. Frankie and me.
The last place she’d wanted to be was that precinct, answering questions about the car accident—if you could call your cunt of a mother sabotaging your boyfriend’s car to kill him, an accident—that nearly killed her.
Each time I recalled the way the wreckage looked, my heart raced and fear rippled over my skin.
Frankie could have died. That single, inescapable thought haunted me.
When we walked out of that precinct, I’d been riding high on adrenaline and righteous indignation.
That both had been accompanied with the absolute certainty that Dominic Walsh was trouble wrapped in a tailored suit was apropos of nothing, surely.
He was smug. Too young. Too sharp. Entirely too amused by me.
Which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue.
He called me that night.
Not Frankie. Me.
Sprawled on my dorm bed, shoes kicked off, half a slice of cold pizza balanced on my stomach and reading, I almost ignored the unfamiliar number lighting up my phone.
Almost. Robo calling. Spam callers. Scam callers. They all irritated me. Sometimes they were good for a laugh. And sometimes… Well, when I had résumés and portfolios out there shopping to try and get work, I got calls from numbers I didn’t know.
“Rachel Manning,” I said, flat, answering like a challenge.
“Dominic Walsh,” he replied, voice warm, unhurried. Smiling—I could hear it. Weirdly, it lifted his words and gave them an almost shivery quality. “You threatened to throw me into a pond today. I figured I should check in before you escalate.”
A laugh escaped me at the wholly unexpected response. Amusement still curving through me, I said, “You survived your opening argument. Congratulations.”
“High praise,” he said. “I was hoping to earn more.”
“Oh?” I pushed upward, sliding my digital reader to the side and saving the slice from tumbling to the floor. “Why would you be hoping for anything from me?”
It was his turn to chuckle. “Because you, Rachel—you don’t mind if I call you Rachel, do you?
” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “I hope you don’t, it would save us the time I would have to spend convincing you to let me call you Rachel and I’d rather just spend that time with you than on a compelling argument. ”
Honestly, that shouldn’t have been funny, but I was smiling despite myself. “I don’t know, it almost sounds enticing to see what you would do to get my permission.”
He laughed, low and pleased, like I’d just thrown him a bone he intended to worry to death. “Oh, trust me,” he said, “you don’t actually want to see that. I’m very persuasive when motivated.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“More like a promise,” he countered easily. “But let’s start smaller. Pizza.”
I frowned at the phone. “Pizza.”
“Yes. Fresh. Hot. Real pizza. None of this tragic, congealed nonsense you’re abusing yourself with right now.”
I glanced down at the sad, desiccated slice sitting on the paper towel next to me. “Hey. This pizza has feelings.”
“It shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s already dead.”
I huffed a laugh before I could stop myself. “You called me to insult my dinner?”
“I called,” he said smoothly, “to offer you better options.”
“And what makes you think I want them?”
A beat. Then, softer, deliberate. “Because today was a mess. Because you took care of your friend when it counted. And because you deserve something good at the end of it.”
That gave me pause. Not enough to let him win—but enough to slow me down.
“Fine,” I said. “Hypothetically. If I wanted pizza.”
“Excellent,” he said immediately. “From anywhere you want.”
I smiled, already planning the trap. “Even if the pizza I want can only be found in Brooklyn?”
There it was—the hesitation I expected. But instead of being defeated by it, he said, “Absolutely.”
I blinked. “You didn’t even ask where.”
“I don’t need to,” he replied. “Brooklyn pizza people always say that like it’s a test.”
“It is a test.”
“And I passed.” Confidence wreathed those three words. No doubt existed within him.
I pulled my legs into a criss cross on the bed. “Do you have any idea how long that would take?”
“Yes,” he said cheerfully. “Which is why I’m going to need you to stay up late enough for me to get there and back.”
“That’s a big ask.”
“Well,” he added, casual but precise, “unless you want to come with me.”
I scoffed. “You just met me.”
“Yet,” he said, his voice dropping to the silkiest of whispers, “you’re still on the phone.”
I opened my mouth to argue and found myself… stalled.
“Let me guess,” he went on, resuming his normal volume, and his rich baritone stroked over me like a caress. “You’re about to tell me this is a bad idea.”
“I was.”
“And that you don’t do things like this.”
Correct. “Hmm-hmm.”
“And that I’m reckless, arrogant, and entirely too confident for my own good.”
Also correct, but I didn’t give him a verbal cue on that one. He paused just long enough for the corner of my mouth to lift.
“Still,” he said, “you’re wondering what it would be like.”
A shudder danced down my spine and my nipples went taut. Because I had absolutely been wondering just that. Rather than make that telling confession. I exhaled slowly. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“I’m very interested in you,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
I sat up fully now, abandoning the miserable slice of pizza to the garbage can. It was dead anyway. “You realize I could hang up.”
“You could,” he agreed. “But then you’d still be hungry. And curious.”
Silence stretched between us, charged and dangerous and entirely my fault.
“You’re persistent,” I said finally.
“Only when something’s worth it.”
I closed my eyes for half a second, then sighed. “If—and this is a big if—you’re bringing pizza from Brooklyn, you’d better not show up with something mediocre.”
He laughed, delighted. “Rachel Manning, I would never insult you like that.”
“You’re also not staying any later than it takes to eat the pizza.”
“Of course not.”
Lips pursed because he was being far too agreeable. “And this is not a date.”
“Naturally.”
“If you’re not back before midnight—” What? I’d turn into a pumpkin?
“I’ll text you updates like a responsible adult.”
I shook my head, smiling despite every instinct screaming at me not to. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yet,” he said gently, “you’re still inviting me.”