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“I’ll handle our parents. Blanca, if you don’t love banking, then don’t do it. You’ll never succeed if you don’t love it.”
Dom’s words surprise me, and I lean back, sipping my wine.
“Easy for you to say. You love a lucrative career.” The corners of her lips tip down in a way that reminds me of her brother when I’ve said something he doesn’t like.
He shrugs. “Yeah, but money is the driving force for me. It’s different.”
That doesn’t surprise me. Why he always felt the need to make so much money, I never understood.
“Don’t we know it.” Blanca rolls her eyes at me.
“Let’s remember who loaned you money before you found your job.” Dom scoops up the silverware and brings it over to the dining table.
Blanca nods and looks down. “It’s just such a risk.”
“Let me tell you about starting a non-lucrative career,” I say.
Blanca turns to me while Dom takes the three plates to the table. He says, “Come and eat while you tell us the story of Valentina Daniella Cavallo.”
I stick my tongue out at him for using the running joke about my name from our childhood and he chuckles, heading over to the sofa to grab his wine. We all settle around the table and Blanca waits for me to speak.
“I wanted to be a dancer, and I was in my last year of college. I had a few leads to be in a chorus on Broadway, but I became pregnant with Ryder.”
Blanca nods because everyone in Carroll Gardens knows my story. How I married the wrong man after getting knocked up. What an embarrassment it was to my parents.
“After I had him, I knew there was no way I’d be able to dance again. Dancers keep strange hours and I had no one to watch Ryder. Your body changes after a baby and I didn’t have the time to dedicate to keeping in shape the way I needed to. By the time he was three, I decided I had to do something in dance, even if I wasn’t dancing myself. So Max agreed to fund my first studio.”
Dom’s knife slides on his plate, and a huge screech reverberates around his condo.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“I had so much to learn. I had never taught small kids before and I had to figure out how to keep the books and what to charge to make sure I was in the black. How to schedule classes and keep the parents happy. How to make sure I was hiring employees who would represent the studio in a good way. There were some hard years but look at my business now. I have three locations, and though I’m not making a name for myself as a dancer, I am as a dance director. Sometimes you have to alter your plans, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing.”
She pokes her fork into the vegetables. “Who taught you all that? The business side of things.”
I eye Dom because he did help me until we realized we couldn’t be around one another. It was a brief month of meetings during his lunch hour or after hours. I’d have Ryder with me, and to this day, I hate that I hid it from Max. Nothing inappropriate ever happened, but the energy between us was palpable, and I think we both knew that if we continued spending so much time with each other, the outcome wouldn’t be good.
“Just books and stuff.” I shrug.
“Dom would’ve totally helped you, I bet. He helped me do a budget after I got my job. Set me up with how to save and…”
I’m sure he did—because she’s his sister. I was the woman he wanted in his bed, but back then, I wore another man’s ring.
“Just do it, Blanca. I’ll help you if you need it,” Dom says.
“You’re young. Don’t waste your future on something you don’t really care for. It won’t end well.” I feel like a fraud for giving her advice without telling her Dom and I are acting.
But she nods, and we leave it at that. We fill the rest of the meal with talk about Luca’s wedding and how happy Maria was to show off the women her boys have found love with.
At the end of the evening, Blanca hugs me goodbye. Then she rises on her tiptoes and hugs Dom, whispering something I can’t hear. She leaves with directions from Dom to text him when she makes it home. When the door shuts, Dom pulls me to him, his fingers threading through my hair and his lips locking on mine.
Once we come up for air, he rests his forehead against mine. “I’ve waited all day for that.”
At times like this, I wonder how good of an actor Dom is, because he seems like he desperately means the words, but there were no hidden touches or longing gazes over dinner.
“Six days and counting. Let’s make the most of them,” I say.
He flips the lock and turns off the lights before carrying me to his bedroom.
I’ll face reality in six days. But who’s counting?
