Chapter 12 - THE BOY WHO CARRIED ME THROUGH THE FIRE
Memory is strange.
Sometimes it disappears.
Sometimes one sentence brings back an entire room.
Smoke.
A red Christmas sweater.
Glass breaking.
My mother shouting.
And someone carrying me.
I stared at Dominic.
“You were there.”
He said nothing.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly I remembered his younger face.
No scar.
Blood on his shirt.
His arms around me as he carried me through the rear garden.
I had been twelve.
Mom brought me to Montrose because my babysitter canceled.
When the attack began, she hid me in a pantry.
Smoke reached the kitchen.
Dominic found me.
“You carried me outside.”
“Yes.”
“And the window?”
“Broke while I was going back for Grace.”
My eyes burned.
“You never told me.”
“You didn’t remember.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“No.”
He looked down.
“I was afraid knowing would make you feel obligated to me.”
That stopped my anger.
“What?”
“I don’t want gratitude from you, Elena.”
His voice lowered.
“Not for that.”
The silence between us changed.
This terrifying man had spent days trying to control every danger around me.
Yet he had kept the one secret that might have made me feel indebted to him.
“Why did you never find me after Mom died?”
“I tried.”
“My records were changed.”
“Yes.”
“By Matteo?”
“We believe so.”
He had made me legally disappear from the paper trail because he feared I possessed my mother’s evidence.
Dominic eventually stopped searching because he believed I had been relocated under a different identity.
Then, seventeen years later, Matteo deliberately sent me back to Montrose.
He wanted me to unknowingly lead him to whatever Grace had hidden.
Instead, I found Dominic.
And eggs.
And apparently destroyed seventeen years of planning with one skillet.
“That’s almost funny,” I whispered.
“Almost.”
We were standing in my apartment when I finally touched his scar deliberately.
Dominic went still.
My fingertips traced the edge near his temple.
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“You hate when people touch it?”
“Yes.”
I immediately withdrew my hand.
He caught it.
“But not you.”
My pulse stumbled.
“Dominic.”
“Elena.”
“Are you about to do something stupid?”
“Probably.”
“Good. I hate being the only one.”
He kissed me.
Slowly at first.
Like he was giving me time to change my mind.
I didn’t.
When we finally separated, I rested my forehead against his chest.
“This is inconvenient.”
“Very.”
“You’re still controlling.”
“You’re still impossible.”
“I prefer adaptable.”
His phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
Julian.
Dominic answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Then he looked at me.
“Matteo’s records led investigators to several legitimate properties my father bought with stolen money.”
“Okay.”
“One of them is your agency building.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
Dominic continued:
“According to the original deed, half of that property never belonged to my father.”
He handed me the document Julian had sent.
May you like
The other owner’s name was Grace Brooks.
My mother had left me half a building in Manhattan.
