Page 51 of Between Love & Ruin

I brush the hair that wasn’t even bothering her out of her face and tuck it behind her ear. Her skin is warm underneath my fingers, and she shivers ever so slightly when I linger on her face for just one more minute.

“I will. You never have to worry with me, Sienna. I promise.”

She smiles slightly, and that sight alone eases the tightness in my chest.

“You didn’t cause any trouble in my life, Dom,” she says, looking down as if finding the courage to say what’s next, and that makes my heart beat like crazy against my ribcage.

I can’t believe a woman younger than me has that effect on me.

“Instead you brought back a version of me I had lost a long time ago,” she smiles, looking back at my face. “And I will forever be grateful for that. For our…friendship.”

Before I can say or do anything, a knock on the door interrupts us, and Sienna pulls back from my hold on her.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Sienna Hayes

She did interrupt something.

While I have met Myra before, I don’t think I could say I know her. I find reading Dominic easier than Myra, which is saying something considering how reserved he is with people at first.

Except for me, I have realized in recent times.

I feel like Myra and I didn’t start out on the strongest foot, considering how she keeps throwing daggers at me whenever I am around.

Like right now when she sits on the couch in Dominic’s office. I don’t think this is necessary, but I can’t interfere too much in Dominic’s space.

I need to keep some boundaries if I want to avoid following through with what Laura and Summer suggested.

But I hate to admit it, I was actually feeling good with Dominic. In fact, for a moment, I had forgotten about everything. The photos, the press outside my hotel, Mark’s “I-knew-it” texts, Summer and Laura’s worried calls, and, more than anything, the anger that had been coursing through my veins all morning.

I forgot about all of it the moment Dominic touched my face.

It feels almost forbidden to even say it out loud, but his touch felt safe. Like something I had been missing from my life without even realizing it. The softness of his touch, the way he looked at me in that moment.

It all felt like something straight out of my favorite novel.

And to make himself even more perfect in my eyes, he said he would take care of everything.

And I believed him.

That’s the strange part. I’ve done everything on my own my entire life. I’ve always taken care of things myself, which has made it difficult for me to trust someone else to do it for me.

But all he had to do was say it once, and I believed him.

Maybe it was because of the way he has taken care of even the smallest things for me until now. Or maybe it was the conviction in his voice and his eyes when he said it.

Either way, I believed him.

Whatever it was, it was going amazing till Myra interrupted.

And I hate that.

More so, I hate the feeling that I hate that.

“I have had a word with Reyansh on the progress of this project,” he says, pulling my attention from the screen in front of me. I choose to work on my tablet rather than share a monitor with him in the presence of someone else. And the way he got pissed at that felt way too good for me to admit.

I quirk a brow as my heart beat increases.