Chapter 5 - An Offer She Can't Refuse
The silence in the private dining room stretched until it felt as though the crystal chandelier above might shatter from the tension.
“Your home,” Claire repeated, the words tasting completely absurd on her tongue. “You want me—a woman you met fourteen hours ago—to move into your house with a five-year-old child.”
“I do,” Dominic said without blinking.
“Dominic, that is completely insane!” Claire stood up so fast her chair screeched against the hardwood. “We don't know each other! You are… you’re involved in things I don't even want to name out loud! I have a life. I have responsibilities. I am not some helpless damsel you can tuck away in an ivory tower!”
Margaret cleared her throat, rising gracefully from her chair and picking up her leather handbag. “Well, that is my cue to leave. When the shouting starts, the matchmaker’s job is officially done.”
“Aunt Margaret, don't you dare leave me here with him,” Claire pleaded.
Margaret walked over, placing a gentle, perfumed hand on Claire’s shoulder. Her expression softened, the teasing demeanor vanishing into genuine maternal concern.
“Claire, sweetheart,” Margaret said quietly. “My nephew is a stubborn, ruthless, terrifying man to anyone who crosses him. But he has never, in forty-three years, broken a promise to someone under his roof. If Dominic says you are in danger, you are in danger. And if he offers you his home, it is because he would tear this city apart before he let anyone touch a hair on your head. Think about Rosie. Pride is very expensive, darling. Don't pay for it with her safety.”
Margaret gave her cheek a gentle pat, offered Dominic a stern, warning look, and slipped out of the room, followed silently by Raymond.
The heavy doors clicked shut.
Claire stood alone with Dominic. Her breath came in shallow, ragged bursts. She felt cornered, not by malice, but by the undeniable, terrifying truth of her reality. Marcus had found her. If Marcus could find her, Sal Moretti’s killers could find her twice as fast. And if they took Rosie…
A cold tear spilled over her lashes, tracking down her cheek.
Dominic didn't crowd her. He didn't step forward to take advantage of her vulnerability. He simply stood there, a mountain of quiet strength, waiting.
“Why are you doing this?” Claire whispered, wiping the tear away with the back of her hand, hating how small she sounded. “You don't owe me anything. You don't owe Margaret anything. Why put yourself in the middle of my family’s disaster?”
Dominic was quiet for a long moment. He looked down at the blush-pink rose sitting in the crystal vase, his scarred brow furrowing slightly as if searching for words he rarely had occasion to use.
“Last night,” Dominic said slowly, “you walked into that restaurant thirty minutes late, terrified, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You didn't make excuses. You didn't complain about your sister. You sat down, you made sure that little girl was fed, and you smiled.”
He looked up, meeting Claire’s gaze with a fierce, burning sincerity that stole the breath from her lungs.
“I have spent my whole life surrounded by people who take,” Dominic murmured, his voice thick with raw emotion. “Men who take territory, women who take money, politicians who take power. I have never met someone who just… gives. You give everything you have to keep that child safe, Claire. You shouldn't have to carry that alone. Let me carry it for a while.”
The sheer honesty in his words hit Claire like a physical blow. For five years, ever since Lily had handed her a screaming, red-faced infant and vanished for the first time, Claire had been the sole pillar of her world. She paid the rent. She bought the groceries. She took the extra shifts. She fixed the leaky sink. She was always the strong one, always the protector, always the rock.
Nobody had ever offered to carry it for her.
She looked at Dominic—at the power, the darkness, and the strange, fierce nobility wrapped up inside him.
“Rosie has school on Monday,” Claire whispered, her voice trembling, yielding the first inch of ground. “She has art class. She loves her teacher.”
A faint, victorious warmth flared in Dominic’s dark eyes. “Raymond will drive her. In an armored vehicle with two guards trailing behind. She won't miss a day.”
“And my job?”
“You work whenever you want,” Dominic said. “I’ll have security placed at every entrance of this hotel. You are not a prisoner, Claire. You are my guest.”
Claire swallowed hard. “And what do you expect from me in return?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened slightly, a flicker of insult crossing his features before he smoothed it away. He stepped closer, closing the distance between them until Claire could feel the heat radiating from his chest.
“I expect you to keep making your cinnamon rolls,” Dominic said softly, his voice dropping into an intimate murmur that made her heart race. “And perhaps… I expect you to have dinner with me again. Without the pirate questions.”
A wet laugh escaped Claire’s lips. She shook her head, feeling as though she were stepping off the edge of a cliff into an unknown abyss.
“You’re insane, Dominic Vale.”
May you like
“Probably,” he murmured, the ghost of a smile curving his lips. “Pack your bags, Claire. We’re going home.”
***
