I smirk so he knows I’m teasing him.
“Protectingwoman. Don’t forget I brought you here to keep you safe. This isn’t a kidnapping… this is me keeping you safe.”
“From who?” I cock a knowing eyebrow. “Until you tell me that, it’s hard for me to know what you’re talking about. It’s hard to know if you’re telling the truth.”
He tosses his head back and laughs. “Yeah, okay. Maybe you’re right. I haven’t told you anything.”
But even as he says that, he doesn’t continue and give me the answers I so desperately need.
It’s so frustrating.
“What about you?” Dominic turns the spotlight around. “Tell me about your life, aside from the torment you got from your brothers, of course.”
“Well, it wasn’t all the time. Sometimes my brothers were nice. They definitely wanted to protect me. Especially my oldest brother. He was always a lot.”
“Oh yeah?” Dominic chuckles. “I bet he would hate me then.”
I let out a little laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Only because of the kidnapping, though. I think if you’d met under other circumstances, everything would be fine.”
He says nothing, which makes me wonder if he’s panicking. I need to say something quickly to make things better.
“But my brother, Fionn, is a lot younger and a lot more understanding. I think you would get along well with him.”
This is fun, but it’s also reminding me that it will never happen.
Dominic will never get to meet my family, obviously.
I shouldn’t care. Even with everything that’s been happening, I shouldn’t.
But I do.
I do care more than I should.
“I really wish the one person you could meet is my mom, but she died when I was younger.”
“Oh my… that must have been really hard.”
Hearing that from Dominic means a lot because from what he’s told me, he can understand. He doesn’t have his parents either.
“Yeah, it was hard. Even harder now with my father beingsodetermined that I marry Risty Falesco Junior, even if I hate the guy and have said that like, a million times.”
“Risty Falesco Junior?”
Shit.
As soon as Dominic repeats after me, I realize that I’ve gotten so carried away with talking to him that I didn’t realize I was giving away the name without thinking about it.
I have no more leverage.
“Erm, yeah. Do you know him?”
Dominic shakes his head hard, but I don’t think he’s being truthful with me.
I think he does know Risty and he doesn’t like what he knows about him.
I’d also kinda like to think that it’s a bit of jealousy as well, but I might be projecting here.
He just might hate Risty, and I get that.
“So, Risty Falesco Junior is the arranged marriage.” I don’t know if he’s talking to me, or muttering to himself, but I’m not able to answer him either way. “Your father wants you to marrythat manto solidify mob bonds. That’s…”
He clucks his tongue and turns away from me, but he isn’t hiding the energy shift. The whole room is flooded with iciness, and I feel like I’m totally to blame for it. I don’t know what I did wrong.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”
“Huh?”
I heard him, but I need to see his face as he says this.
I can’t explain why Ineedto see his face, but I do.
“I know this is what your father wants,” he tells me as he finally meets my eyes. “But you don’t always have to do what other people tell you. You can make your own choices.”
“Ha, and there was me thinking that you’d met my father before.” I give him a pointed look. “He doesn’t easily take ‘no’ for an answer. I’ve tried. I’ve told him over and over again that I don’t want to marry a man who’s all wrong for me. I grew up with him and Mom, who were eternally in love with one another. They showed their love every single day, and that’s what I want.” I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “How can he not think that’s what I want.”
It’s honestly really frustrating.
I hate the fact that I don’t seem to have a voice in my family. It’s always been that way.
“You are a grown ass woman, Isabella. I wouldn’t want to see you forced into anything.”
I offer him a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, I don’t think I have any option really. I’ve been running and hiding as much asI can, but I can’t do it forever. I can’t always run… I can’t always hide especially when I don’t want to give up my family forever. They might not be the easiest people in the world, but that doesn’t mean I want to live a life without them.”
Finally saying that out loud hits me hard.
It makes me realize how true that statement is.
I’vebeenrunning, I’ve been avoiding them and it’s got me nowhere.
I still want them in my life. I already lost my mother, I don’t want to lose the rest of them as well.
But how can I have it all?
“Isabella, youdohave a choice. You always have a choice.”
“But how?”
It’s hard to keep my frustration inside.
This has been bubbling up for years.
Decades.
Maybe for as long as I have been alive. Especially ever since my mother passed away. I’ve felt pretty much alone since then.
“There is always a choice. There will always be someone out there who’s better for you than Risty Falesco Junior. Someone who will care for you and treat you right. Someone who will love you in the way that you deserve to be loved.”
I stare at him with wide open eyes. What the hell is he talking about now?
“Do you think there’s some knight in shining armor about to come and sweep me off my feet? Someone that’s so great my family will be happy to put off the wedding to Risty fucking Falesco when it’s going to help my father with territory or whatever? I don’t see that ever happening. At this point, I don’t think my father will ever change his mind.”
“Well, I don’t know about all of that,” he admits, making my heart sink further. “But there is always one option… me.”
My jaw slackens, my mouth hangs open.
Did he just say what I think he did?
Am I losing my mind here?
Did Dominic just offer himself as an option? As in, he likes me, and he would marry me?
This must be a dream. There’s no way this could be real.
Even if I wish it was.