Page 30 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

His chest flattened my breasts while his hands cradled my face.

I glared at him. “I was just taking a swim.”

A muscle pulsed at his jaw, and his gaze studied me. I discerned a softening in his eyes and the shuddering of his body before his forehead dropped to mine. “Thank God.”

“Get off me,” I snapped.

He raised his head to look at me, regret etched on his face. “I’m sorry, Sloane.”

I wasn’t even going to pretend not to know what he was sorry about. He obviously found out I never betrayed him. “If I give you blanket forgiveness for all the nasty shit you said to me, will you leave me alone?”

He sighed and rolled off me to stand up. He extended his arm to give me a hand up, but I ignored it and pushed to my feet on my own. I grabbed the sarong and tied it around my waist as I started for the house.

“That right there says you’re lying,” he said, following me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I worried about the deal with that woman.

It wasn’t any written contract, but the fact that Grigori gave me up to her meant she could return me to Grigori any time.

And the efficiency at how she got me medical help, took care of Harriet, and transported me while unconscious told me everything I needed to know.

She was a pro at relocating people. Maybe she was a branch of witness protection.

Did I break our unwritten contract if it was Dom who followed me here? I didn’t even question how he found me.

“What do you think?” he responded as if him being here was the most natural thing in the world.

I walked briskly to put distance between us, but his long easy gait kept pace with me.

When we reached the white picket fence of the house, I spun on him. “You’re not coming inside.”

His gaze shot to the beach cottage behind me and then shifted to rest on my face with a longing that made me squirm with the first hint that this was once a man I was strongly attracted to.

But he cut me off so ruthlessly when I asked for his help.

My eyes swept him from head to toe. His shirt and shorts were plastered to his body as if he hadn’t been expecting to take a dip in the ocean. They also revealed how he seemed to have lost weight. The blades of his cheekbones were starker as was the hollow within them. “Have you been watching me?”

“Maybe.”

“Dom!”

His lids slammed shut and his body shuddered with his inhale and exhale as if he was a man given oxygen after being starved of it. But when he opened his eyes, anguish flooded the darkness within its irises. “I missed my name on your lips.”

“What are you doing to me?” My voice cracked out of fear.

Because I couldn’t go through what I did with him again, but Dom was the mafia.

What would stop him from taking me from here by force?

So I appealed to whatever empathy was within him.

“I’m doing fine. If I ever meant something to you at all, you will leave me in my peace. ”

He took a step forward. “I can’t.”

“Why? Because you feel guilty?”

“Because I don’t think I can survive without you.” He said those words without blinking, staring straight at me as if he believed them.

But I’d lost belief in everyone including myself. Dom was not good for my recovery. He didn’t directly cause my problems, but he couldn’t upend my life again if I had any hope of moving on with it.

“That’s just guilt,” I scoffed. “You have a need to take care of everyone. Remember what you once told me…you don’t have room to worry about me too. Well, I absolve you of all responsibility.”

He took another step. I took three steps back.

“Don’t run away, please.” His throat bobbed. I had never seen Dominic De Lucci this vulnerable. Despite my enmity toward him, it was uncomfortable to see him this way. This was not him. Dom was self-assured and in control. This reiterated just how bad we were for each other.

“I’ve said some awful shit to you and I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to rush you, but I was terrified when you went into the water.”

“How long have you been watching me?” My eyes flared. “And don’t deny it.”

His eyes dropped to the ground before looking at the beach house to the right. My jaw dropped. I stared at him, and then at the property beside mine. “Do you live there?” I pointed to it.

“I’m renting it,” he mumbled.

“Unbelievable.”

I spun around and ran to the door. When I reached the top of the stoop, Dom called out, “I know about the pregnancy.”

My stomach dropped. I was unprepared to discuss it.

Even my therapist didn’t know about it yet.

I’d skirted around my miscarriage because I’d known I was pregnant only for a fleeting moment.

But maybe I was lying to myself. The signs were there.

I avoided confirming the pregnancy because I had no business bringing a baby into the world, but if I had taken the test sooner, maybe I would have made different choices.

I turned around. “I didn’t know I was pregnant.” My voice came out eerily calm. “If I did, I would have told you.”

“I’m not accusing you of keeping?—”

“I know you’re not,” I cut him off. “Because it’s my baby I lost.”

“Sloane…please…can I come in?” I couldn’t stand the longing in his eyes any longer. The bleakness in them was threatening to shatter me inside.

“No. We’re over.”

I ran into the house, shut the door, and leaned against it. Dom wasn’t one to go away easily, but I didn’t know the Dominic De Lucci I just witnessed. I couldn’t allow myself to believe he was as broken as I was. He was simply feeling guilt for treating me unfairly.

I peeked through the window and saw him staring at the house, but he hadn’t taken one step farther than where I’d left him.

I reminded myself that he didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt.

That he accused me of being a rat. That hurt the most. Everything that followed resulted from my choices.

I didn’t blame him for Billy’s death. I didn’t blame him for Anton hurting me.

I was finding out I wasn’t blaming him at all for the miscarriage.

But an old festering wound from my past was bleeding on my present, on the people who were innocent of inflicting that damage.

You’re nothing but trash.

I thought I’d buried it. Apparently not. What happened with Dom only amplified my delusion that I’d moved on from it.

I rifled through my drawer of things, looking up briefly to see Dom walking back to the beach house.

I found the notebook of phone numbers. Two weeks after I’d healed enough, I drove to my storage unit on the outskirts of New Jersey and grabbed my trunk of things.

In it were my passport, money, a spare burner, and phone numbers stored the old-fashioned way—in a little Moleskine book.

Technically, I violated my agreement with the woman.

I have no doubt she was tracking either me or my car, but so far, no one had come after me.

I entered Bianca’s number and called it.

The first call went to voicemail and I left a message.

“Hey, it’s Sloane. Answer the next time if you forgive me for disappearing.”

Walking to the window, I watched Dom’s figure recede in the distance. The nerve. The utter nerve of him. Didn’t he have a criminal empire to run?

My phone started ringing. It startled me because it was the first time in months someone had called me.

I barely said hello when Bianca started shrieking. “Omigod, Sloane, omigod. Where have you been?”

“Dom didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? Wait…is this the reason he’s taken a leave of absence?”

At this, I laughed. “What? I didn’t know bosses could take leaves of absence.”

“Well, he did,” Bianca told me. “From the company . He put Sonny in charge. I can tell you Aunt Lottie is fuming.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“Two weeks and…I’m confused. I thought he was with you?”

“No, he’s not. He’s renting the beach house beside me, and I need for you to fetch your cousin. Bring your scary husband if you must.”

“Oh thank God,” Bianca rushed out. “I wasn’t sure if I was glad or mad that you forgave him so quickly.”

I laughed again, the tightness in my chest easing. Maybe I was ready to see my friends and rebuild bridges. I might not step foot in Manhattan again, but I was sure there was a workaround.

“Dom told you about our affair?”

“Yes, and that he fucked up.”

I could argue that I wasn’t totally innocent, but our short time together was a long story to relay over the phone.

That was why when Bianca asked, “Where are you?”

I responded, “Outer Banks.”

“I’ll be there this evening. Drop me the location.”

I didn’t say no.