Chapter 17
Dominic
Dominic took back what he said about detesting museums.
It had been rather enjoyable watching Rayna converse with Cassie, Matt, and Hania so animatedly about something she was passionate about. It had made him want to cradle her in his lap and listen to her chatter away about historical events he couldn’t have cared less about.
But also, the idea of learning what the four of them knew of his time while sharing his own knowledge as if he’d studied it rather than lived it was intriguing.
While he wouldn’t do so until the following week, Dominic thankfully didn’t have to wait long for his next trip out into the world of the future.
Though he had to admit, his first impression wasn’t great when he got out of the car in the dungeon of lined-up, parked vehicles underneath the store Rayna had called a “supermarket.”
He got a lungful of a distasteful smell that had a strong undertone of urine. It wasn’t anywhere near the worst smell he’d experienced, but for a second it transported him to the backstreets of the West End in his own time.
Breathing through his mouth, Dominic waited by the end of the car as Rayna locked it with a press of a button and came around to him.
“You do not need your bag, sweetheart,” he said casually as she adjusted the chain strap to sit between her generous breasts.
She glanced up with a sarcastic smirk. “Nice try. But I’ve already told you I’m paying, so stop trying to find a way around it.”
Irritation cracked his innocent facade immediately. “This is absolutely ridiculous, and you are very well aware of that, Rayna,” he grumbled. “I am a man. I ought to be paying for whatever we buy, and it is infuriating that you are trying to forbid it.”
“It’s not as if it’s coming out of my own pocket. I’m using my company card.” She patted his arm twice as if she were mockingly soothing him. “Come on. We need a trolley.”
She stepped past him. He rotated and followed by her side down the row of cars. “Do not patronise me, woman. And if you are paying with your company card, then what difference would it make if I paid with mine?”
“Exactly.” She arched an audacious brow. “What difference does it make if I use mine instead of yours if it’s the same thing?”
He clenched his jaw, annoyed she’d caught him in his own trap. “It is not the same.”
Rayna scoffed. “Yeah, because one satisfies your ego and the other doesn’t.”
Dominic gaped and stumbled over incoherent syllables. “How dare you suggest this is about my ego.”
“It’s not?” she asked in a dull voice that said she believed otherwise.
“Of course it isn’t, you maddening witch.”
He wanted to care for her. He wanted to provide her with everything she needed and more. Whatever she wanted.
It was already frustrating enough that he didn’t have access to his own finances in order to give her that, leaving him relying on the credit card he’d been provided with.
But if that was all he had, then that was what he’d use.
It didn’t matter that the money she was using came from the same source.
It was about his principles, responsibility, and affection for her.
But, of course, that was completely incomprehensible to the stubborn woman.
Was that an issue only with her, or with all women of the future?
“I wish to care for you. That is what this is about,” he said as they stopped by two rows of metal carts with tall, wheeled legs and pram-like handlebars all tucked into one another.
She scoffed and began pulling out a so-called “trolley” with a few wiggles and clangs. “You can keep wishing, but it’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
He took the trolley by the handle away from her. He’d be damned if he let her push it around on top of being forced to let her pay. That would be adding far too much insult to injury.
She scowled, hands hovering in the air, until she lowered her curling fists to her sides. He tightened his grip around the handle, silently daring her to try to take it back.
“Because people will think we’re a couple, and we’re not,” she said sharply.
“Will they not also assume so if you pay?”
Her jaw visibly clenched as she went mute. He realised rather satisfyingly that this time he’d trapped her in her own web.
“Walk. Now.” She pointed across herself towards the wall of clouded glass at the other end. “Or I’m going to leave you in the car and go shopping by myself.”
Dominic pushed the trolley forward with a lopsided smirk. He bent into her as she matched his slow stride. “You threaten me only because I have pointed out a flaw in your argument.”
“That doesn’t make your argument right either.”
“Perhaps.” They stopped to let a car turn into the lane. “But this is not the lab nor the museum. What does it matter if my paying convinces someone I am your husband?”
Rayna whirled to look up at him so quickly, he could’ve sworn he heard her neck crack. “Husband?”
Dominic very nearly faltered in his step.
Now, why on Neves did she say it like that?
He bristled with a roll of his shoulders. “Yes. Husband. Is that so shocking? I do not believe I would make such a distasteful husband for you to act so horrified.”
She whipped her head away on a breathy laugh. “It is shocking when it’s so far from the bloody truth, Dominic. And only you would be offended by that.”
“Why is it so far from the truth? I would make a good husband. Or do you not think so?”
She opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. “I never said I didn’t think—”
“Have I done something to suggest to you that I would not? I believe I have shown I am trustworthy and respectful. I may not be a handsome beau, but I am wealthy, I am not riddled with disease, and I have all my teeth—”
Her eyes widened. “Why are you getting so upset?”
“I am not upset,” he snapped as they walked through a set of glass doors that slid open by themselves.
H sounded very much like he was upset. Probably because she had, in fact, wounded him. And fighting blindly with the trolley to turn it in the direction Rayna was steering her steps was making him ever more frustrated. Why was the damn thing so difficult to manoeuvre?
“I simply wish to know,” he continued, “what about me has suggested to you that I could not possibly be a good—bloody woods, what the deuces is that?”
Dominic slowed to a stop and gawked aghast at the two moving metal ramps with black bars on either side. One was carrying a few people up, while the other brought a man with a trolley down towards them.
His heart forgot all offenses committed by Rayna as it cowered like a young soldier facing a frightful obstacle.
“Not so bloody loud,” she hissed, urging him forward with a hand on his back. “It’ll be fine—”
“You did not warn me there would be another elevator,” he hissed back, throwing a glare across his shoulder.
“Escalator,” she corrected. “But this isn’t an escalator either.”
“Whatever the damned thing is called. How am I to step on it? There are no stairs. I am bound to fall. This is an accident waiting to happen.”
He’d had a hard time comprehending the moving stairs he’d witnessed in the museum, and Rayna had warned him about them prior to that.
Still, actually facing them had been painfully daunting, and that had only been once too.
The rest of the time, they’d used the lift box that moved up and down between the floors.
But had Rayna not held his wrist in a death grip against her back, forcing him to stride with her, Dominic doubted he would have managed to step onto the moving stairs by himself.
But this! This death trap of a ramp was on another scale of stupidity entirely.
“You’ll be fine,” Rayna said with a soft flutter of laughter, shifting behind him and nudging him with firm hands.
“This is not a laughing matter—”
“Walk, Dominic. I’ll stay right behind you. I promise.”
Her gentle vow caressed up the back of his neck, encouraging him to contemplate trusting her over the warning signs his dread was planting in his head.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, he began moving in slow, stilted steps, hoping and cursing that he didn’t fall over and embarrass himself in front of Rayna. With every whispered word she spoke to his back, it became slightly easier to head towards his demise.
“Like I said with the escalator, just step and don’t think too hard about it. Keep hold of the trolley. It’s magnetic, so the wheels will stick to the ramp. And lean forward if you feel like you’re going to tip backwards. But I’m right behind you, Dominic. I won’t let you fall.”
He let her soothing voice wrap around him in a protective blanket and braced it tightly against himself when the front wheels of the trolley clicked in place on the metal floor.
“And…step.”
He moved to Rayna’s instruction and mounted the ramp with a wobble.
She was right there as she’d promised. Firmly against his back, keeping him balanced.
“That’s it. I’ve got you. You’re fine. Just lean forward a bit.”
He did as she said, and she gradually eased the pressure of her hands, allowing him to test his weight distribution with shuffling steps.
And well…maybe he’d been a little dramatic. It hadn’t been so difficult after all. Which led to the realisation he might have let Rayna see him behave rather unmanly for no reason.
Mortification pinched at his cheeks as he straightened his spine and cleared his throat. She appeared slightly to his side with a soft smile that lacked any judgement and a hand still resting against his back.
“How was that?”
“Fine,” he muttered stiffly. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“Though I wasn’t frightened,” he blurted.
Knowing amusement waltzed around in her charcoal irises as she smirked. “Mm-hmm.”
“I wasn’t.”
She chuckled at his expense, but even then, the sound landed a sweet kiss on the sore spot of his pride. “Okay, I believe you.”
“No, you do not. You are mocking me again.”
“There, there. It’s okay.” She tapped his back as if she were coddling a crying child.
“Why you—” he rumbled as she threw her head back and laughed.
Gritting his teeth, he grabbed her arm and pulled it out from around his back. She sank against his side as she wobbled through her chuckles and put up no fight when he clasped her palm in his and placed their entwined hands on the trolley’s handlebar.
“You are an infuriating little witch,” he said gruffly.
“So you’ve said. Multiple times.”
Bloody woods, he couldn’t remain irritated. It was impossible. His humiliated frustration was blowing away like dry sand in the wind under the gorgeous, audacious twinkle in her eyes.
He stared down at her, his glare wavering and mouth reluctantly lifting. She grinned back, a softness melting her teasing expression.
In the background, he could hear the mechanical voice of a woman warning them they were close to the end of the ramp, but he couldn’t focus on anything other than his Rayna.
Swallowing slowly, her lashes dipped, and her slim fingers shifted around his. Then she raised her gaze again and carefully extracted her hand from his, though he was reluctant to let her go.
She stepped past the trolley and off the edge of the ramp just as the wheels clunked against the speckled flooring. “No more husband jokes, by the way,” she threw over her shoulder.
Dominic’s hands locked around the handlebar as the chains precariously wrapped across his caged feelings rattled in disagreement. They tried noisily to convince him to pull her around and tell her she was wrong.
It hadn’t been a joke.
In fact, the blurred ghost of a person his heart dreamed of seeing in the petal-pink lace of a wedding dress was beginning to look a lot like Rayna.
No matter how impossible he logically knew it was.