Page 51 of Scorned Beauty

“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 avan 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.