Page 38 of Loss and Damages
Jemma
“He’s on a rampage.”
“Hmmm?” I look up from the coffeemaker, the slow drip of the black liquid mesmerizing me.
I haven’t been sleeping well.
“Dominic Milano. He’s on a rampage,” Gloria says, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. She steps into my cottage holding a copy of the Hollow Lake newspaper.
It’s been a week since Dominic kissed my forehead in this very room and took off on a thin excuse. No, not an excuse. A lie.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s still buying property in Oakdale Square.
The business owners can’t sign on the dotted line fast enough.
They’ll never get a deal like the one he’s offering them for their land.
Do you know what he’s going to do with it all?
” She drops the newspaper onto the breakfast bar, the headline screaming BILLIONAIRE BASTARD SET ON OAKDALE SQUARE.
The article was circulated by the Associated Press and lists the properties Milano Management and Development has purchased in the last two weeks.
Liquor stores, a dry cleaning service that was rumored to launder more than just shirts and pants, a DVD rental store that lent out more porn than anything else, a strip club called the Scarlet Wing.
The questionable nursing home along the river.
Even a rundown daycare center that had a history of child abuse the state couldn’t prove and couldn’t shut down.
The article speculates the trailer park is next, and being that the mobile homes are rentals, Dominic can buy the entire property and evict every tenant.
“I don’t. I haven’t spoken with him in a while. Not since the night those two ass—” I cut off. I don’t want to swear in front of her. “Idiots broke into the gallery.”
She tilts her head. “You’re not seeing him anymore?”
I look at her sharply, but compassion crinkles the skin around her eyes and she’s frowning in sympathy. The day she barged into my kitchen, she saw more than just me kissing him.
“Nope. It’s okay. He wasn’t Leo.”
No, he wasn’t Leo. I can’t say he was a better person than Dominic is, but Dominic.
.. Leo grew up happy, secure in his mother’s love.
He was like a cat, lying in the sun, his belly full, content.
Dominic didn’t have that luxury, fighting for any amount of love his mother would toss his way.
It turned him into a starving lion, abused, wary, and untrusting, and I felt it, every time he looked at me.
He’ll never be happy, with me or with anyone. Not even with his father, or what he had would already be enough. It’s not, and I’m not.
“He was more, wasn’t he, Jemma?” she asks, reminding me that she’s not just a nosey woman who happens to be my mother’s best friend. Reminding me that underneath the wrinkles and the pounds and the greying hair, she’s a woman who has a heart, who has fallen in love and has been loved in return.
“Yeah, he was.” I force a smile and pour coffee. “I’m going to box up the paintings of Leo’s I have here and run into St. Charlotte and look at the ripped ones the Tattered Canvas fixed for me. They said they turned out lovely, but I want to see them before I have them shipped to Dominic’s.”
“You’re not keeping any?” she asks, accepting the coffee mug I offer her.
“I have the one he painted for me, and that will be enough. Dominic didn’t seem too surprised his brother was an artist. It fit Leo’s personality...maybe he suspected something.”
“Maybe because you’re an artist too, and you had that in common?” Gloria raises an eyebrow and sips her coffee.
For the first time since Dominic left, I laugh. It doesn’t feel good, but it feels like it could feel good. If that makes sense. “Maybe that’s what it was. Anyway, back to the same old, same old, only without Leo driving out every day.”
“No, but there’s someone else who’s been driving around here lately. I can’t bike down this road without seeing his car.”
“I’m not ready to date, and he knows that.”
Nick’s been driving past the gallery as often as he possibly can, sometimes stopping and popping his head into the store if his schedule allows.
Since the break-in, all the cops in Hollow Lake have been watching the gallery and my cottage, and Nick was here when a company from St. Charlotte installed the security system.
If anyone tries to break into the gallery, or my cottage, they’ll be met with a squealing so loud they’ll go deaf before the cops can get here.
“I think he’ll wait.”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
He’s said as much. He also mentioned that while he’s been watching to make sure those jerks don’t come back, he’s been keeping an eye out for Dominic whom he caught skulking around my yard one evening. Nick threatened to arrest him if he didn’t stay away from me.
After that, I couldn’t get Dominic out of my head, the lonely man who doesn’t know what he’s searching for.
If Nick thought he was endearing himself to me, it had the opposite effect.
I wanted to tell him to leave Dominic alone, that he’d never hurt me, but of course he has and Nick knows it.
Wisely, I kept my mouth shut, and when Nick asked me out, I declined saying I needed to paint.
Which was true then and it’s true now. I haven’t gotten so much painting done as I have this past week.
It’s a relief to focus my mind and heart on something else.
Gloria rinses out her mug and leaves it in the tiny strainer to dry. “I better get to the store. Is Ashley helping you today?”
“Yes. I won’t be here tonight when you go home. I’m driving into the city to run errands, and after I’m done, I’m going to have dinner with Mom and Dad, Jeremy, Tara, and Maya. Everyone has been so protective of me since the break-in. I appreciate it, but I’m glad I live in Hollow Lake.”
The corner of her mouth lifts up, and she opens the door letting Coco, who’d been snoozing in the sun on my living room floor, outside.
“Some people can only dream of the support network you have, young lady, Dominic Milano included. Don’t take us for granted.
” She winks to soften her words and lets the screen door slap shut behind her.
The family I have is a blessing. So are Ashley, Nick, Gloria, and the other shop owners in Hollow Lake who are my friends.
If Dominic doesn’t want to be part of my circle, he doesn’t have to be. I can’t force him to be, but somehow, I can let him know there will always be a seat open for him at my table.
Maybe, and that’s a big maybe, but maybe, one day he’ll join me.
He knows I have plenty of wine.