Dominic’s eyes leave the road long enough to give me a frown. “You danced at a club? Stripping?” The words come out more like a growl than a question.
My eyes widen. Is he serious? “God, no,” I say, clutching my non-existent pearls. “It wasn’t that kind of club. I worked behind the bar.”
His lips thin as he turns his attention back to the road. “When you say reconnected, what do you mean by that? You dated him before?”
I nod again. “Yeah, in high school.”
“And you didn’t realise he was a piece of shit back then? You thought going back for a second round was a good idea?”
“He was a little wild back then, but he never showed signs of being abusive.”
“Yet he went to juvenile detention at the tender age of eleven for beating his stepmother with a baseball bat.”
I gasp. “Oh, my God.” So the rumours about him going to juvie were true. I asked him once, and he told me not to believe everything I hear about him.
“You didn’t know that?”
“Of course not.”
“The guy had a rap sheet longer than my arm, Emily.”
Had?Was that just a slip, or was that confirmation that something actually happened to Mick? My stomach twists at the thought, but I don’t say anything. Dominic’s right, there are some things I’m better off not knowing.
“Where do you want to go now?” he asks.
“You know what? I think I’ll call it a day,” I reply, rubbing the pressure points on my temples. “I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
He frowns, that quiet, thoughtful kind. “I’ll get you home, then.”
He flicks on the indicator and turns down a side street leading out of town. We don’t speak the entire drive home, but I don’t mind. I just watch the scenery slip by, sinking back into my own thoughts.
When we reach the house, I unlock the front door and hold it open while he carries a still-sleeping Peach to her room.
I’m in the kitchen, staring out the window, when I hearhim enter. In the reflection, I see him open a cupboard and take something down.
He grabs a glass, steps beside me, and fills it with water. When he turns and holds it out, I blink up at him, thrown.
“For your headache,” he says.
I look at the two paracetamol resting in his palm. It’s such a small thing, barely anything at all, yet it catches me completely off guard. I’m not used to anyone paying attention and noticing the little details without needing to be told.
I take the tablets and the glass, my fingers brushing his. “Thanks,” I murmur, quieter than I meant to.
As I swallow them, I notice him watching. Not hovering or fussing, just making sure I’m okay. And the realisation settles somewhere deep inside me. He actually cares. Not out of duty. Not because he feels he should. Simply because he does.
And somehow, that leaves me more shaken than everything else that happened today.
Chapter 25
Dominic
Iswitch off the lawnmower when I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Pulling it out, I glance down at the screen and see it’s a message from Dante.
Punching in the encrypted code to unscramble it, a crease forms between my eyebrows when I read what it says.
Dante: We have a problem, meeting at my place in an hour.
I glance at the time and see it’s just after 9 am.
