Page 21 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

Billy popped a can of Coke and handed it to me. I straightened from bending over, but I was still feeling queasy. “Do you mind driving?”

“Not at all.”

When we were back on the road, I asked, “Would you come with me if I wanted to start over somewhere else?”

He hesitated before answering. “That’s gonna be hard.”

“You have to stop owing Grigori money. Do you still?”

“Nope. I was doing well in Florida, so I’m surprised he called me back. So yeah, I’m getting tired of this fuckery. It’s like damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

My stomach roiled again but for a different reason. It was looking more and more that Grigori was using Billy, deliberately making him fuck up so I would owe them. I was the target.

“Are you still using?”

He cast me an annoyed glance. “I’ve been sleeping on your couch for over a week. Have you seen me using or needing to use?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s up with you anyway, sis?” He was staring straight ahead. “You seem…subdued.”

“I’m about to become a nurse, yet I work for the mob.”

“Feeling like a hypocrite?”

“It’s just a weight inside me.” But the weight wasn’t only my moral compass.

I missed Dom with an ache hollowing my rib cage and I wondered if my stubborn independence finally made him see the light that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

Would it be so bad to be kept safe while he needed to do what he needed to do for his family?

I went over this in my head with the time-out we’d given each other.

It wasn’t just my independence. If I were honest with myself, I was starting to want more.

I was starting to resent him when he took other women to events. Events I had no desire to be at.

Resentment was a poisonous thing, so I pushed him away instead.

The thing was, it was the same as cutting my nose off to spite my face.

Maybe I should give in a bit more. Total silence from him after five months of daily texting and regular, fiery hookups was like cutting out an essential organ to live.

Our stolen moments were frequently cathartic.

A respite from my busy and tension-filled life.

He was a bad habit. He wasn’t good for me because I was using him as a crutch.

But the sex-only affair was a lie. Feelings for him slithered under my skin and it was too late to expunge them.

I missed Dom in two weeks more than I missed my brother in four months.

I gripped Billy’s arm and pointed to the turn. “Make a right here.”

“That leads to Manhattan.”

“There’s something I need to check out.”

“You’re the boss.”

After another twenty minutes, I told Billy to slow down in front of the Venezia Tower.

My eyes bugged out. It wasn’t a new building but had the charm of the New Georgian architecture, typical of the 1940s.

I couldn’t imagine parking my clunker of a van inside that building.

I couldn’t imagine walking through the entrance that had a doorman in my coveralls or scrubs.

Okay, maybe scrubs wouldn’t be so bad. The residents might think I was a doctor.

“Is that Dominic De Lucci?”

Startled by my brother’s question and as though my imagination had conjured him up, Dom suddenly appeared at the side of the building.

He was stalking after a tall, drop-dead-gorgeous woman with voluminous blonde hair wearing a hot-pink spring coat that probably cost ten times the rent of my apartment.

“I think so,” I croaked.

“Looks like he’s in the doghouse,” Billy commented, idly amused and unaware that my heart had iced over before shattering inside my chest. Shards that shredded my vocal cords, making it difficult to respond.

I could only watch the incoming train wreck in agonizing slow motion.

Dom caught up with the mystery woman and gripped her shoulders, gritting words into her face. I found myself raising my phone and taking several pictures of the fighting couple. Then the woman freed herself from his hold and ran into the building, leaving him standing there frustrated.

I was so familiar with the set of his shoulders when he was out of patience.

I was more familiar with the way he raked his hand over his face.

The familiar deep exhale that followed.

Then he pursued her into the building.

“What are you doing?” Billy asked.

“Taking pictures for Bianca. She said Dom’s been secretive about a woman.” Not exactly a lie, although Bianca was too wrapped up in Sandro’s problems to worry.

“You’re done? Should we go home?”

Home. What a joke. I lived with my brother and a cat.

“Hey, how about we pick up dinner and pay Harriet a visit?” Billy suggested.

That lifted my spirits a little. “Shawarma?”

“Sounds good.”

After placing the order, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to know where I stood with Dom, so I texted him.

Me

Can we talk?

I waited for a couple of minutes. When there was no response, I pocketed the phone in my coveralls’ thigh pocket.

Later, Billy and I were in the assisted living home, having a comfortable dinner with Harriet. It reminded me of old times after Mom died and she was the one who looked out for us. Still, I couldn’t help feeling edgy with Dom’s lack of response.

He finally texted me two hours later.

Dom

Now is not a good time.

I waited for him to elaborate. He did not.

“What’s wrong?” Harriet asked with her probing eyes.

Billy was oblivious, his attention on a game Harriet and I had no interest in watching.

“Shift change,” I lied.

She smiled and patted my hand. “You’re almost done.”

Somehow, the sympathy on her face only made me want to dissolve into tears.

I exhaled a shuddering breath.

I should move on, because clearly, Dom had.