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She gave Dom the side-eye. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to help herself first chance she got.
He pressed a hand on her waist so hard she nearly cried out, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt her. A man like him obviously lived on causing others pain.
He dragged her through the terminal and pushed her out the front doors. When a car stopped along the curb, he ushered her inside it. The driver of the rideshare smiled and nodded a greeting to them. Trinny attempted to convey her situation through her eyes, but he didn’t get the memo and just drove to their destination, which was her childhood home.
Seeing the big old trees that had been planted a hundred years ago in a line along the front of the property filled her with nostalgia. But the house itself wasn’t a place that felt like home now. Even that bed she’d longed for, she couldn’t care less about now.
Her home had been hotels and apartments in foreign cities.
Thinking harder about that, she realized the first place she’d felt totally at home at in years and years…was the lodge with Jaren.
It wasn’t even the four walls and the luxuries—it washim. If they lived in a tent clinging to the edge of the mountainside, she would still be perfectly happy because they were together.
Please come, Jaren. Please be on your way.
As soon as Dom reached the front door and unlocked it using the correct code, her anger resurfaced, hot and bright with a tang of blood.
“I’m surprised you aren’t breaking down the door this time.”
He gave her a snide glance. “I know this house. I practically lived here with your mother for months. Why do you think she never wanted you to come home?”
“I didn’t want to be here anyway.” She sniffed in nonchalance but his words stung.
They entered the enormous house filled with treasures she cared nothing about. It smelled stuffy and needed aired out. She looked around. “The staff?”
“I dismissed them.”
“I didn’t know they took orders from you now.”
A glimmer came into his eyes. “Everyone I meet takes orders from me. Including your mommy.”
“Which is how you managed to swindle money out of her. What did you do with it all? That CD she withdrew from was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.” She stopped in the middle of the grand foyer that was two stories tall with a balcony at the top overlooking the intricate pattern of the floor tile below. She hoped Dom would go up there so she could shove him off it.
His face darkened as if he could read her thoughts. A sliver of ice hit her stomach before she realized that wasn’t possible—he was using fear tactics on her.
“Working for your mother was just a cover for my own business.”
She squared up with him and looked him in the eye. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
His lips slanted in an evil smile. “I have an empire of people scattered around the world doing my bidding. Let’s just say my people get things for people.”
“And what do you plan to get from me?”
“Right now, I need what’s in that safe deposit box.”
She couldn’t imagine what her mother kept in the local bank’s box. She got the feeling he wouldn’t tell her even if she demanded to know. But now she was starting to question if what her mother wrote in that photo album would incriminate him.
She pivoted and strode to the staircase. “Fine. We’ll go as soon as the bank opens. Until then, I’ll be in my room. With the doorlocked.”
As she ascended the stairs, she didn’t look back but felt his stare burning through her.
When she reached the top, his voice echoed up to her. “Oh and Trinny—don’t think about trying to call your bodyguard boyfriend. I have control of every phone.”
She met his black gaze over the railing. “And if I try anyway?”
“Let’s just say you won’t like that side of me.”
She spun away. “I don’t like this side of you either,” she muttered under her breath.
