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He was here. That was all that mattered. And I intended to drink in every single moment of our time together.
When I had dried off and dressed, I poured myself a glass of red wine and headed out to the balcony, wearing one of Dornan’s shirts. It was like a dress on me, but I liked the way it wrapped me up in him, even when he wasn’t with me. It was late afternoon, and the sun was just reaching that low point in the sky where it shone directly into the apartment. I closed my eyes, basking in the golden rays, warm against my face as I listened to the waves crash onto the shore below.
I sensed him behind me before I saw him. I turned my head and opened my eyes to see him standing there in a pair of jeans, no shirt. Even in his forties, and despite the fact that I’d seen him like this countless times over the years, the man was still fucking irresistible.
He reached a hand behind my ear and then opened his palm in front of my face, a mischievous grin plastered on his face as he held out a coin. ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ he joked.
I laughed, taking the quarter. ‘I was just thinking.’
He stood beside me and I turned back to the ocean, the breeze whipping my hair around my face.
‘Thinking happy thoughts?’
‘You make me happy,’ I said plainly, taking one of his hands between mine and playing with his fingers. They were warm and rough, a working man’s hands.
Dornan glanced sideways at me, the breeze picking up his hair and making it dance. ‘Are you? Happy?’
I swallowed thickly as he took his hand away, feeling the smile die on my face as I looked out to the water. I wasn’t happy and I was. Stolen moments, away from everyone else and their demands. In those, I was happy. Outside of that? The nothingness was a yawning chasm. It hurt. It ached.
‘I’m happy when I’m with you,’ I said finally. I reached out again and took his large hand in mine, squeezing it tightly.
‘You did good with the kid,’ he said, pulling me under his arm.
It felt safe, here. I felt loved.
‘That girl needs a mother, not that fucking thing that pretends to be one,’ Dornan added.
I shrugged. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said softly, enjoying the sting of the salt breeze on my bare arms. ‘She wouldn’t even talk to me. I don’t think children like me, somehow.’
‘You’d be a good mother,’ Dornan said seriously, drawing me closer.
And I didn’t mean to, but I froze. I felt my mouth open a little as I screamed inwardly. The mask slipped, just for a second. And in that moment, the man I loved? I hated him.
‘What?’ Dornan asked, turning me so we were facing each other, the ocean ebbing and flowing below us, just like it had done for countless years, just like it would keep doing long after we were both bones and ash. In that moment, I felt so inconsequential, so unnecessary, so deprived. Because I was somebody’s mother. And it wasn’t fucking fair.
It wasn’t Dornan’s fault. He didn’t know. And I would never tell him, not unless Emilio was dead and buried and we were free. The problem was I didn’t even know if Dornan wanted to be free. There were some things we wouldn’t talk about, and his father was one of those things.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, feeling my chest tighten.
You’d be a good mother. He didn’t know the significance of those words, how deep they cut into me, leaving bloodied ribbons of my soul in their wake.
I had been somebody’s mother, once upon a time. And now, I was nothing. A piece of property. A mistress. A money launderer. A whore.
‘Hey,’ he said, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turning my gaze towards his.
I saw the haunted look in his eyes, like a deer in headlights, about to be slammed. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said softly, gripping his wrist tightly. ‘You worry about your kids, okay? I’ll be fine. I’ll be right here.’
It wasn’t fair of me to ask anything more of him than I already had. He’d already saved my life, kept me alive, kept me safe. All this time. And he’d saved me from myself on the darkest nights, without even realising it.
‘I’ll leave her,’ Dornan blurted out. ‘When they’re grown up. When she can’t control them. I’ll leave her.’
I stiffened. He’d never said anything remotely like that before. I was his mistress, and nothing more. I knew he loved me. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all he’d ever had to give me, and I had taken it gratefully. Every time I thought of the alternative, I remembered that, even though I felt trapped and smothered, it could always be worse. So. Much. Worse. Emilio could have sold me at that auction nine years ago. And, as Murphy had so chillingly assured me, nobody made it out of that shit alive. If I’d been bought, and used, and raped, I’d be dead by now.
‘You don’t have to say that,’ I protested, breaking eye contact. ‘You don’t have to make promises to me, Dornan. I don’t expect them.’
I thought more about that, turning his words over in my mind. When she can’t control them. An admission of vulnerability from a man like Dornan Ross was a shattering revelation. Was he meaning to say that there was someone even more powerful than the all-powerful Gypsy Brothers and Il Sangue Cartel royalty?
I fingered the collar on his shirt. ‘Did you love Celia? When you got married?’
