Because before the advent of Sebastian, the only person in Dominic’s life who would have offered the comfort of their arms—or wanted his own—was his baby sister.
Jesus. His fucking parents.
He didn’t need to voice the obvious inference, but he added, still curtly, “Thanks to Sebastian, I left the worst of it behind a long time ago. But engrained instinct is hard to shake completely.” And buried pain periodically raised its head; Sylvie knew that. “Outside of purely casual or sexual touch, and unless there’s significant inherent trust, my brain can still throw up a barricade in that respect.”
Exhaling, Sylvie gestured at the table surface where their hands had rested, entwined. “A few times recently, I—we . . .” Heat was pressing back into her own cheeks. “Does it make you uncomfortable when I . . .”
Seemed to be increasingly drawn to reach out to him—and with nothing casual about it.
Abruptly, he rescued her from the pit of awkwardness. “No.” Then, more slowly, with a frown in his eyes, as if he were acknowledging something to himself tonight, as well, “It doesn’t.”
They were both silent again until Dominic said tersely, “Pet was upset today. She thinks I want her to leave.” One brow lifted. “What did you once call me? A human ice block?” She grimaced, hard. “I looked at her and just for a moment, I was back in that house and I couldn’t move. It’s been twenty-five fucking years. Her parents are dead, Sebastian’s passed on as well, and if I’m an ice block, Lorraine could have single-handedly sunk the Titanic. Pet’s a family-oriented person with, to all intents and purposes, no family. I’m not what she’s obviously looking for and needs.”
That comment caused a tiny, deep-buried personal pang, but every instinct in her mind and body was focused outward right then. She leaned forward. “Dominic. At thirteen years old, you loved that girl enough to take her and run. A child and a baby, all the way to London, with only a few pounds in your pocket. Everybody should have someone in their life who cares that much.”
It was some time before he spoke again. “I tried to see her a number of times when I was a teenager, but Gerald blocked contact. I finally managed a meeting when she was eighteen, but she wanted nothing to do with me then. He’d probably been feeding her God knows what poison.” He shook his head. “She asked me not to contact her, so I respected her wishes, and mentally closed a final door on that side of my family. In retrospect, though, she was profoundly uncomfortable that day. Shutting anyone out, it’s not in Pet’s nature. Even when it should be.”
Tiredly, Dominic rubbed his hand over the dark shadow on his jaw. “She started tentatively reaching out a few years ago, just showing up at the bakery for ten minutes at a time, making phone calls on some weak pretense. And then she installed herself as a full-time fixture. At least temporarily.”
“Maybe temporarily in your workplace. In your life, the plan is obviously to become a permanent fixture.” Sylvie hesitated. “And underneath, it sounds like that’s what you want, too.”
The only sounds were the continuing pad-pad of the raindrops and the occasional birdcall.
“Sylvie.”
“Yes?”
“I think I might have hurt you when I said Pet needed a family and doesn’t have one. I’m sorry.”
He caught her so off guard that an unexpected wash of vulnerability made her vision misty.
Feeling like a Beatrix Potter character scuttling back to hide in her burrow, she returned to the cauldron, stirring with extreme concentration. If she didn’t have hips, boobs, and a fairly large head, she might have just climbed on in.
He was still watching her levelly, but with something very unsettling in that usually saturnine face.
It shook something loose. “I’m not alone,” she said, with just the tiniest hint of a wobble. She stopped to steady her voice. Continued. “I still have family—I have my friends. Particularly Jay. I couldn’t love him more. Even Mabel, as horrified as she would be, I think of as a sister. Or a really irascible grandma. Depends on the day. And I have the business.”
Dominic was very quiet, all his attention focused on her. Even his body was angled toward her, his muscles tense and tight.
Keeping one hand on the stirring stick, Sylvie pointed. His gaze traveled to a little ceramic pot, in pride of place on the shelves. It was painted with the simple words: YOU MAKE MY WORLD A BETTER PLACE. “Mallory was a beautiful glass artist, but she dabbled in pottery. She made me that. Not for any special occasion. Just one afternoon, on a Wednesday. She really loved me. I’ll live my entire existence knowing someone loved me that much. The way Sebastian loved you. Death is not the end of love. In any and all of its forms.” She stared blindly into the sparkling pot. “I’m not alone,” she repeated. The sugar solution moved in waves and curls, an iridescent sunset shimmer. “But every so often, just for a second or two, I’ll be in my flat or standing on a busy street surrounded by strangers, and I feel so alone my heart hurts.”
She reached for the smallest size of blowpipe and dipped it in the mixture. “I still have Mallory’s phone. I keep it charged so I can look at her photos. Sometimes, if there’s something I really want her to know and I can’t get to the cemetery, I send her a text message. And once I texted myself from her phone. Just to see a new message from her on my birthday.” Her mouth twisted. “How pathetic is that?”
“It’s not pathetic at all.” Straightforward, implacable.
She stood still and silent, then placed the blowpipe to her lips and drew up a little of the mixture, carefully exhaled. An iridescent sphere slipped effortlessly from the pipe and floated toward Dominic, caught by the faux breeze that rustled the Dark Forest leaves.
His eyes never left hers as he raised a hand and let the bubble come to rest on his palm. This was a finer solution than the Sorceress bubbles, would never stand up to a filling, but it was much hardier than a soap bubble.
He ran his thumb over it, so carefully. “Pretty.”
“Small pockets of beauty, everywhere you look. I hope it’s much more beautiful wherever Mallory is now, but this world has a lot to offer.” Sylvie wasn’t aware of moving, but suddenly she was standing in front of him, touching a fingertip to the bubble.
She had the fleeting thought that they probably looked like a pair of fortune-tellers, hovering over a crystal ball. Looking for portents of the future.
Dominic lightly tossed the bubble back into the air, and they watched it turn and bob in a peaceful current.
Her pulse was a rapid flutter in her throat, a darker thrum low in her abdomen. Nerves, and—not really arousal, her emotions were still too torn on the surface, but that disquieting wanting that kept creeping up on her.
The rise and fall of his chest had quickened. On the table, their fingertips brushed, and they both looked down, Sylvie’s breath catching as his index finger ran, so lightly, along hers.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze back to his. He was close enough that she could see the finest of the lines around his eyes, whispering away from short, incredibly thick lashes. Those eyes were locked on hers, intent, shadowed, growing darker as she watched.
Without breaking that contact, they both moved, crossing a distance both tiny and significant. Their lips touched. Soft. Gentle. Coming apart just long enough that she drew in a shaky breath and felt his fingers tighten on hers, before their mouths were sliding back together, as surprisingly easily as interlocking a puzzle piece.