“Sir, with all due respect,” Dominic begins, “I understand that. But I want to be transparent with you. There are things about me that you might not know, and I . . . I don’t want any secrets. Before I ask your daughter to forgive all the things I said and implied, I wanted to come to you and lay all this out there. I don’t want it coming back to bite me in the ass later.”
“Language, Dominic,” Mom grins.
His eyes go wide. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Lincoln sighs. “I get it all the time.”
“Let’s hope Dominic is more fearful of me than you are.”
“Being that you sign my birthday cards ‘Mommy,’ there’s probably a good chance.”
We laugh again, but my eyes are on Dominic.
“I know a lot about you. I knew of your father years back,” Dad says, alluding to the accident but not bringing it specifically. “I know of the infamous loan that was paid back,” he says, emphasizing the last part and looking at Graham. “I also know you’re related to Nolan, and for that, I give you my deepest sympathies.”
Dom smiles. “And that’s all okay with you? If I can get this fixed, I would like to know, for both of us, that we’re solid here.”
Dad pats him on the back, taking Dom by surprise. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I like you. It took a lot of balls to come in here and say what you said. Whether Camilla takes you back or not, that’s up to her. And make no mistake about it, I will always side with my baby girl.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But I do like you. Ford was talking to me yesterday about maybe hiring you on at Landry Security. I think you’d be a good fit.”
I look at Ford who smiles sheepishly back at me. “What’s Dad talking about?” I ask Sienna.
“I guess Ford offered Dom a job.”
“He did what?”
Ford bites his lip and watches me warily.
“So they didn’t tell you Ford and Graham went to the fight . . .” She makes a face and scoots away from me.
Ford now looks away, a mischievous smile on his face. Graham won’t look at me either, but my anger evaporates when Dominic is suddenly standing in front of me. He holds out his large, calloused hand.
“Want to take a walk?”
Looking up at his handsome face, I see the man I’ve been falling in love with for months, even if I was scared to admit it to myself. And seeing him here, after everything, is enough to make me fall in love all over again.
“Yes, please.”
Camilla
THE SUN IS BRIGHT ON my face as we take the path off the side of the house and head towards the tree line. My hand is tucked in Dom’s and he’s holding it like it’s his lifeline.
“There’s a picnic table just beyond those trees,” I say. “We can sit there.”
“Okay.”
We walk quietly until we’re through the trees and at the little wooden table. It has all of our initials carved in it. I sit on one side, Dom sits on the other.
“How do you feel?”
“Better today. How are you?”
“Sad.”
He runs his hands down his face. “Cam, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorr—”
“No, baby, listen to me. I’m sorry. For a lot of things.”
“I went and was told not to. I see why now. I got you hurt. That’s really hard to live with.”
“Let’s forget about that night, okay? If we’re going back with twenty-twenty vision, I shouldn’t have fought. I was hurt as fuck to start with and was being hard-headed about doing it. It was like I was proving to myself I could. I don’t know. It was stupid.”
“It was stupid.”
He takes my hand and holds it in the center of the table. “Fact of the matter is this: I shouldn’t have pushed you away like I did. I was mad. Maybe that was valid. But . . . I’ve never had someone treat me like you do. With respect. With loyalty. You showing up there to support me just blew my mind. I thought I could tell you to stay home and you would. No one has ever cared about me like that.”
“Of course I do, Dom. It hurts me when I’m not a part of something you’re doing. Like I can’t be a part of your life because it’s off-limits to me. But then I see Red and she certainly can, and I don’t mean to bring her up because I know she’s nothing to you, but it makes me jealous that she can have that part of you in any way at all and I can’t.”
“I guess I always thought you shouldn’t or wouldn’t really want a part of it. It’s a dirty, nasty world. Why would you want to be in it?”
“Because you’re in it. And I want to be wherever you are. Don’t you see that?”
He rubs a small circle on the back of my hand, a sexy smile drifting across his face. “Come here.”
My favorite words fall on my ears, causing a spatter of goosebumps to dot my skin. I stand and walk around the table to him, sitting next to him but facing the other way.
He takes my hand and laces our fingers together, resting them on his thigh. “Let’s do this. For real this time,” Dom says. “And by that I mean no excuses. We’re all in. If you don’t think I’m good enough for you, tell me now. Because once you commit, I’m holding you to it.”
“Hold me to it, please.” I look at our hands. “And if you think I’m too much of a liability to you, tell me now. Because once I commit, I’m definitely holding you to it.”
“Please do.”
We exchange smiles, like we used to before the fight, and I feel my insides melt. He leans forward, his lips hovering over mine. His breath is hot and spicy and I can taste the desire in the air.
“Cam?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you one more thing?” he asks, brushing the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Yeah.”
“Make it two.”
Laughing, I pull away, squeezing my legs together to dull my pulsing core. “What is it?”
“I cleaned out my locker today at Percy’s. I told him I wouldn’t be back in, at least not for a long time.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him.
“I did. It’s time to find other coping mechanisms for things. Guess it might have to be your body,” he shrugs.
“Oh, darn,” I deadpan.
Laughing, he looks at me with that killer smile. “The other thing?”
“Yes?”
He takes a deep breath, the smile on his face the widest I’ve ever seen it. “I love you, Cam.”
“I love you too, Dom.”
One month later . . .
Camilla
“DO YOU HAVE TO GO?” I hold my sister in my arms. We’ve done this before, said goodbye as she heads out on a new adventure, but this time feels different. “Stay here. Please.”
“Oh, stop it,” Sienna laughs, pulling away. “You can come visit me anytime. The next time Dominic turns into an ass, just hop a plane and come to Illinois.”
“I still don’t get the whole Illinois thing,” Lincoln says. “What do they know about fashion there? Isn’t it like cornfields or something?”