My reward is the looping of her arms around my shoulders and the nuzzle of her face against my neck. And it’s perfect.
Chapter Sixteen
?Nicolas?
Supper is sandwiches. Shredded chunks of meat stuffed between layers of thick bread and topped with crisp lettuce, tomatoes and strips of bacon. We huddle together on the sofa, feet stretched towards the fire as the room continues to shimmer around us.
None of us have spoken for several minutes. Each of us, content watching the flames snap and bite at the logs. Isla sits between us, head lolled to the side, resting on my shoulder.
I know she’s sleeping before Dom slips her plate off her lap and sets it on the coffee table. Her quiet protest is shushed as he scoops her up into his arms and carries her from the room.
I’m gathering our dishes and taking them to the sink when he returns.
“She in bed?” I ask, knowing she is.
He nods. “Tucked her in.” He moves to the counter and watches as I rinse the plates and set them to dry. “You want to tell me what all that was earlier?”
I prolong answering by twisting a dishtowel around my damp fingers.
“I saw Isla’s phone,” I mumble, lifting my gaze to his. “She went to the bathroom and it wouldn’t stop buzzing on the counter. I ignored it the first few times, but…” I give my head a shake and roll my eyes. “I was going to turn the sound off.”
His eyes narrow. “What was it?”
Rather than tell him, I dig my own phone from my pocket and slide it over to him.
“Under photos,” I tell him, stepping back until the edge of the counter comes up against my back.
He says nothing when picking the device up and finding the proper folder. He doesn’t need to when his face is a billboard in the middle of Time Square. It’s a neon sign. A blinking hazard, warning those around him to stay away. There is murder in his eyes and a fierce violence in his grip that almost makes me worry for my phone.
“What the fuck is this?” he snarls, attention tearing off the screen just long enough to find mine. “Is this a joke?”
I don’t answer because we both know it’s not. Plus, he’s gone back to flipping and scrolling, and reading. Finger almost a blur.
“Give me the keys.”
“You’re not driving back like this in the middle of the night... without me,” I add softly. “But we can’t leave Isla alone after promising we wouldn’t.”
“Those mother fucking pieces of fucking shit.” He tosses my phone across the counter. Hard enough that I know there will be a crack, but neither of us care. “I’m going to kill them.”
“I’ll help you.”
He shoves ten fingers back through his hair, frustration flaring his nostrils. “Our poor baby. She never should have had to deal with this alone.”
I nod slowly. “It’s my fault.”
Dom freezes. Dark eyes flick up to my face. “What are you talking about?”
Ashamed of my hand in the pain Isla suffered, I drop my gaze to the floor between my feet. “You wanted to bring her home with us since day one. I’m the one who kept dragging my feet. I kept saying not now. If I had listened to you, she wouldhave already been ours and none of this would have happened. I fucked up.”
He doesn’t scoff or roll his eyes. There’s a gentle patience in his eyes when he rounds to my side of the island and gently frames my face between his hands.
“That’s bullshit, baby. There is no way either of us could have known. If we did, we never would have let it happen.”
“I don’t think that makes it better,” I mumble. “It just means we’re oblivious and self-absorbed.”
His chest rises and falls with his deep inhale. “We were, but we can’t fix the past. We can only make sure we never let that happen again. That we protect her. It’s going to take some adjustment. A lot more communicating. We’ll figure it out like we do everything else, right?”
I draw in a breath and will myself to nod.
