Seeing Emily with my niece yesterday—how patient she was, how she did her hair and let her help in the kitchen—must’ve brought that on. Because in my dream, Violet was the mother she should’ve been when Peach was born, loving and nurturing, not strung out and absent.
“You do?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I nod, shifting my weight. “I grew up in a small, crowded and noisy orphanage with a dozen other kids. Privacy wasn’t really a thing, and quiet definitely wasn’t. So I learned to wake up early, before everyone else. It was the only time the world ever felt … still.”
Emily gasps as her eyes widen. “You grew up in an orphanage?”
“Mostly. I moved between there and too many foster homes.”
“Oh, Dom,” she whispers. “How old were you?”
I clear my throat. “I was eight when I woke to a blood-curdling scream, followed by the slamming of the front door. When I looked out the window, I saw my dad get into his car and drive away. Ten minutes later, I found my mother floating facedown in the pool.” I’m not even sure why I’m telling her, but the words come pouring out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“Dom,” she murmurs as she takes a step closer and moves her flattened palm to rest over her breastbone. “I?—”
I lift a hand, stopping her before she can come any closer or say another word. I don’t need her pity. I don’t want it. “It is what it is. Violet and I …” I pause and run my hand over my buzzed hair. “Let’s just say things were never the same after that.”
“Who’s Violet?”
“My sister,” I say quietly. “She was five when we entered the system.”
“Peach’s mother?”
I nod because I don’t trust myself to talk about this with her. I don’t know what’ll come out of my mouth if I keep talking. Anger, regret, or worse. It’s something I don’t want Emily to see. So instead of elaborating, I keep my jaw tight and let the silence speak for me.
The room falls awkwardly quiet, and I’m hoping this is the last of our conversation, but when Emily follows up with another question, it takes everything in me not to throw back my head and groan. “What happened to her?”
My nostrils flare as I pinch the bridge of my nose and think carefully about my answer, but there’s no sugar coating this. “She’s an addict,” I grumble. “She lost custody of Lil’ Peach the moment her daughter was born with drugs in her system.”
Fuck, even now, three years on, it still eats at me.
“Oh my goodness.”
“That’s why she’s with me. I didn’t want my niece growing up the way we did. She deserves better.”That’s why you’re here with us, too, I almost say, but I swallow it down. I’ve already said too much. She doesn’t need to know how close I came to losing it at the thought of her ending up like my mother.
Emily parts her lips, like she’s about to respond, but I can’t go there with her. Not now.
I push off the kitchen counter and stalk past her, leaving before she can give me that soft, sympathetic look. I feel like an arsehole as I head straight for my room and slam the door harder than I intended.
It has nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. I hate feeling this exposed. This raw … this hollow inside.
Chapter 21
Emily
It’s been four days since I moved into Dominic’s house, and today is my first shift back at work. The bruises on my face are still visible, but the edges are starting to yellow. Thankfully, makeup hides the worst of them.
When I entered the kitchen dressed in my uniform this morning, Dominic frowned as he eyed me from head to toe.“Do you think it’s a good idea to go back to work so soon?”he asked, but I just shrugged.
I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t keep sponging off him. The last thing I wanted was for him to start resenting me the way I resented Mick.
“I need the money,”I’d told him.
“I have plenty of that to go around,”he’d countered, but I ignored that comment.
I’ve always stood on my own two feet and paid my way, so I hate feeling like a charity case.
More furniture showed up over the past couple of days. A new lounge, a dining table, more barstools, all top quality, the kind of things that only someone with money could afford, just like my bedroom suite.
