Dominic looks around. Then he turns to me. I shrug. “It’s just eighty thousand dollars.”
He mutters something I don’t really catch. But I hear “princess” and get the basic gist of it. Finally, he sighs heavily. “Fine.”
Jimmy and Teri smile. “Well, that’s good to hear, son. I truly hope I never see that eighty—”
“Stop selling it,” Dominic grunts. He stands, grabs the cash, and strolls out of the room. I stand too, smile widely at Teri, and then follow him out. I chase after him through the tiny chapel as he heads for the front door.
“So, now what?” I call after him.
Dominic stops at the door and turns. “What?”
“Now what? I mean what do we do now?”
“We don’t tell a fucking soul about this goddamn trip. We keep our heads down. And in a week, we fly back here and get this shit dealt with.”
“Well gee, Dominic. Make a girl feel special.”
He glares at me. “Is this a game to you? Is this amusement?”
“No, it’s just…” I shrug and grin. “Okay, maybe slightly?” He growls, and I wave my hands. “Okay, okay, not really. But I just mean, when does this seriously ever happen? I mean outside of a stupid RomCom movie? You don’t think this is at all funny?”
“No,” he snaps with zero hesitation. “No, I don’t. Now let’s go. We need to pack up at the hotel to get to the airport in time.” He turns for the door, but I clear my throat.
“Ahem?”
Dominic groans and turns back. “Yes?”
“Well?”
He growls under his breath. “Well, what, Lucia.”
“Aren’t you going to carry me out again?”
Dominic’s jaw ticks. I grin widely.
“Okay, okay, that was in poor—”
“I’m not going to touch you, Lucia,” he snaps. The sharpness in his voice rankles me. I glare at him and smile thinly.
“Well, it’s a little late for that now, isn’t it?”
Dominic turns and storms out of the chapel.
7
Dominic
God fucking damnit. I swirl my drink and look into it. The hotel bar hums around me. But I don’t hear a thing. Just my thoughts. Mostly, I’m trying to put the pieces together. I’m trying to replay last night and get even a glimpse of the gaps. But it’s all a hazy blur.
I take a sip of the whiskey. Packing was easy. We actually had more than two hours to kill before heading to the airport. So, here I am. Lucia is still packing upstairs. But I scrunch my eyes closed and try not to think about her at all. It doesn’t work for shit.
“Mind if I join?”
I almost choke on my drink. Lucia slips into the barstool next to me. For a girl who woke up with the biggest hangover of her life, she looks amazing.
“And if I do mind?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, but you don’t.”
I chuckle. Lucia reaches for my glass. She picks it up and takes a sip before I can say a thing.
“Help yourself,” I grunt. She turns and smiles at me.
“What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine. Right, honey?”
“Stop it,” I growl.
Lucia smiles sweetly at me. “Stop what?”
“Stop it,” I hiss again. I grab her wrist and look her hard in the eye. “No fucking games. This is serious, Lucia.”
“Believe me, I get it,” she snaps.
I laugh coldly. “No, I don’t think you do. Do you have any idea what your grandfather—”
“To you!?” she hisses. “What about me?!”
“I sincerely doubt they’re the same stakes, dear.”
“You don’t know that!”
I roll my eyes. “I can put two and two together, princess.”
Lucia glares at me. I glare right back. But then I sigh. “Want a drink?”
“God, yes.”
I grin and nod at the bartender.
“Ma’am?”
“What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey, neat.”
“Me too,” she says to the bartender. When he brings it back over, she raises her glass. Cheers.”
“To marriage,” I grunt.
Lucia blushes and rolls her eyes. “Too soon.”
We say nothing. We finish our drinks pretty fast. She looks at me with her lip between her teeth.
“One more?”
No, terrible idea. The last time I drank with Lucia, I woke up naked in her bed and married to her.
“Sure.”
She grins. Two more drinks arrive, and she raises another toast. “To marriage and annulments.”
I grin and tap her glass with mine. “Cheers.”
“So…” Lucia blushes. “So, we’re married.”
“Just on paper,” I grunt. “And just for one week.”
Lucia looks into her glass. She says nothing and looks totally inside her own head. But then she looks up at me with a curious expression on her face.
“Did we…” she blushes. But I know she’s asking what happened with us being naked in bed together last night.
“I honestly don’t know.” I frown. “But I don’t think we did.”
A big part of me hopes we did. It might be bad to think that. It’s not just that she’s my job to protect and my boss’s boss’s granddaughter. She’s also twenty-fucking-one years old. I’m ten years older than this girl. It’s not like she’s in high school or anything like that. But still.
And yet, I don’t care. I look at the gorgeous girl sitting next to me at the bar. And hell, I wish to God that we had.
Suddenly though, I freeze. I need to stop drinking. It’s making me look at her. It’s giving me thoughts I shouldn’t have. I’m feeling warm and drawn to her.
“There really is someone else, you know,” Lucia suddenly blurts out. She frowns. “Well, there was.”
My brow furrows. “Sorry.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, well…”
“Same here, actually.”
She looks up at me sharply. “There’s a girl?”
I nod. “Yeah, sort of. It’s complicated.”
Lucia’s lips twist. “Sorry,” she mumbles.
“Eh, it is what it is.”
“Is she gonna be pissed you got married?”
I grin. “What do you think?”
Lucia smirks. “I’d probably be more than a little annoyed.”
The hotel bar sound system suddenly switches tracks. The Beatles song that was just on changes up to a slow, older Nora Jones tune. Lucia’s ears perk up. She frowns slightly.
“Was this playing last night somewhere?”
I think about it for a second, and then I nod. “Yeah, actually, I think I remember hearing this.”
She blushes. “I think we danced.”
I chuckle and take a sip of my drink. “Now you’re definitely remembering things wrong. I don’t dance.”
“No… no, I think you did. Which means, you do.”
“Yeah, but I don’t though.”
I don’t. I definitely do not fucking dance. Especially not to slow sappy shit like Nora Jones. Okay, there’s a chance I know how to dance. I just don’t exercise that know-how. Not ever.