Abby raised a hand to caress his cheek.
“Thank you for apologizing, Dominic. It would have eaten at me if
we had left things on bad terms, but you know as well as I do that
this can’t work. We’re too different.”
His features tightened painfully and urgency
filled his voice. “I’m not taking you back to Boston.”
Abby placed a sad finger across his lips. “I
can’t do this, Dominic. I thought just being with you would be
enough, but it isn’t. Let’s not make this harder than it needs to
be. Losing you is already going to hurt enough.”
Dominic took her hand in his. “It doesn’t
have to. I want to marry you.”
With a sad final squeeze, Abby pulled her
hand away from his. “And then what, Dominic? Will you keep me in a
big house in the Hamptons and visit me between business deals? I
need more than that. I want the whole package: the house, the kids,
a few dogs and a husband who shares that dream. I want the kind of
partnership my parents had. Don’t ask me to settle for less than
that, Dominic. It would crush me.”
Dominic bent to look eye to eye with her. “I
want the same things, Abby. Give me a chance and I’ll spend the
rest of my life proving that to you.”
“Don’t,” Abby said with a sob. Understanding
that in the heat of the moment he might say anything, but that in
the end it would prove nothing. “Don’t talk like that. It’s hard
enough for me to leave you as it is. Don’t give me more to
regret.”
Dominic pulled her closer and said, “How can
I convince you? What can I do to make you believe me?”
Abby turned away, partially burying her face
back in the pillow. She said miserably, “Turn the plane around,
bring me back to Boston and walk away. Show me that what I want is
more important to you than winning.”
He was silent for a moment before asking,
“That’s what you really want? Boston?”
“Yes,” she mumbled.
“And I walk away? Just like that?” She heard
the pain in his voice, but refused to let it move her. What would
happen if she weakened? Would she be just another trophy to be on
display in one of his many homes? That wasn’t the life she
wanted.
“Yes,” she whispered. “you walk away.”
He sat motionless beside her for what seemed
like an eternity. “Ok,” he said simply and stood.
Abby’s head spun in surprise. “Ok?”
The hand he held the doorknob with was white
knuckled, but his response was oddly devoid of emotion. “Ok, I’ll
bring you back to Boston. I’ll make arrangements for a limousine to
pick you up from the airport.”
When Dominic opened the door to leave, Abby
bit her lip to stop from crying out for him not to go. His
turbulent gray eyes settled on her as he said, “But I do love you
and I have changed because of you. You’d see that if you gave me a
chance. Say the word, and I’ll leave my company behind and we can
start fresh. We’ll build a new life. Together. Partners in whatever
we decide to take on. I don’t care about the money. You are what
matters to me now. ”
His words knocked the air clean out of Abby’s
chest. He closed the door softly before she had recovered.
He hadn’t meant it.
He couldn’t have meant
it.
Within moments Abby felt the plane bank to
the right to adjust its flight route. She’d be back in her own home
in less than a day. This was for the best. A confusing mixture of
relief and misery settled over Abby.
Abby moved to sit by a window. She watched
the clouds rush by beneath and began to worry that she might have
misjudged Dominic. If he really was a self-absorbed, domineering
ass, why was the plane headed back to Boston? A man like his father
would not have offered to change so much as his shirt to please his
wife, but Dominic had offered to change his entire lifestyle for
her.
What if he did mean it?
Hadn’t she decided back in Beijing that she
was willing to fight to get him back? And yet, there he was,
offering to throw everything he’d worked for aside if she stayed
with him, and she was cowering in the bedroom instead of throwing
herself triumphantly into his arms.
How long was she willing to let fear rule her
life? He’d said that he loved her and that he wanted to spend the
rest of his life proving it to her. What more did she want? No
relationship came with a guarantee.
He loved her enough to let her go. Now the
pressure was on her. Did she love him enough to stay?
Yes
rang through her heart, through
her mind, and straight out her mouth.
She hopped off the bench and flew across the
room. With all of the enthusiasm of a woman who’d just realized
that her man not only loved her back but was dumb enough to listen
to her when she told him to leave her, she swung the door open.
And practically crashed into Dominic who was
standing just outside her room.
He quickly pocketed his cell phone.
She said hurriedly, “I don’t want to go to
Boston and I don’t want you to walk away from your life. I just
want you to share it with me. I love you, Dominic.”
He swept her up into his arms and kissed her
hungrily. Their hands explored each other with the fervor of lovers
reunited. He broke the kiss off and buried his face in her neck.
She felt him smile against her skin. “So, should I call Scott back
and tell him that he’s going to have to find another way to win
back my business? He was amazingly willing to help me spirit you
away to some safe house if I wasn’t able to convince you to stay
before we landed.”
Abby pulled back and put an indignant hand on
one hip. “You were going to kidnap me again?”
He gathered her up, settling her flush
against him and joked, “Is it again if I never actually let you
go?”
It was difficult to stay angry with Dominic
when he held her so close. Abby felt that familiar responding
quiver of anticipation deep in her stomach. Still, he had to know
that things were not always going to go his way. “This is not
funny. What happened to proving that you love me by letting me
go?”
A sheepish smile flit across his face,
disappearing almost as quickly as it had formed. “I never agreed to
that. All I said was that I would fly you to Boston. Letting you go
was never an option.”
Abby smacked him in the chest with the back
of her hand. “I came out here because I thought you loved me enough
to never see me again.”
He took her hands in his and said, “I don’t
love you that much.” She gasped in shock, but his explanation
quickly warmed her heart. “I love you more than that. Ask me to
give up my company, move to Boston and become a nine to five man
and I’ll do that for you. I love you that much. But don’t ask me to
just walk away. I can’t walk away. I need you.”
With a cry of happiness, Abby launched
herself into his arms. Tears of happiness were flowing down her
cheeks. “I don’t know what I would have done if you had listened to
me and ended it.”
He held her at arm’s length for a moment and
said, “And you’ll never find out, because I’m not going anywhere
and neither are you. Marry me, Abby.”
Most women would have shouted yes, but
Dominic hadn’t chosen any of them. He’d chosen Abby; a woman who
considered raising his blood pressure an enticing form of foreplay.
“Will you?” she asked ambiguously.
Her answer threw him for a moment. His head
cocked to one side. “Will I what?”
With a voice as prim as a librarian’s, Abby
said, “A proposal is generally worded as a question and not a
command.” In response to his blank stare, she supplied the entire
phrase. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes, I will. Thank you for asking. I can’t
wait to tell our future children that you are the one who
proposed.” Dominic laughed and didn’t even attempt to hide his glee
at having outmaneuvered her.
“I did not just propose!” Abby said trying to
keep the laughter out of her own voice. She swatted at his
shoulder, but he only laughed more. “Take it back.”
He sidled closer to her, pulling her back
into his arms. “Take back my yes?”
No matter that it sounded irrational, Abby
said, “Yes. You are not telling our children that I proposed to you
on the flight back to Boston after you kidnapped me.”
Dominic encircled her face with his hands and
kissed her lightly, chuckling against her lips. “Does it really
matter who asked as long as the result is the same?”
Absolutely.
Her rebuttal was a simple
narrowing of her eyes. She hoped her man was intelligent enough to
correctly interpret it.
He stopped laughing and cupped her shoulders
gently. “Abigail Dartley will you marry me?”
This time she decided to forego any teasing
and threw herself back into his arms, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Between kisses, he asked, “Do you still want
to see my island?”
“Now?” Abby asked breathlessly. “Can we do
that?”
Lips slightly pursed with the irony of it,
Dominic said, “Yes, all it would take is for me to inform the
captain that I’d like to change course – again.”
“Poor Dominic,” Abby laughed up at him,
imagining the scene in her head. “He’ll think you’ve lost your
mind.”
Dominic said in his deep, velvet soft growl,
“I can think of a few ways for you to make it up to me. It’s a good
thing this will be such a long flight.” He went to the phone in the
bedroom and called the cockpit. After issuing the new flight plan,
Dominic turned back to Abby and said, “Now, where were we? Oh, yes,
you were going to do something to make me feel better about the
whole world knowing I’m stupid in love with you.”
Abby crossed the room slowly, dropping
clothing as she went. “Not stupid…impulsive perhaps.”
“Is that what you call having my security men
escort you forcibly to the plane? I couldn’t let you go. I
panicked. I hope it didn’t scare you.” His voice went up an octave
in surprise when a naked Abby yanked his shirt out of his pants.
His eyes widened with pleasure at the boldness of her actions.
“Do I look scared?” she said as she pulled
him closer by his belt and began to undo it.
“No,” he said huskily, a telltale sexual
smile spreading across his face.
Thoroughly enjoying his bemusement, she slid
his pants and boxers down his legs with a deliberately slow pace,
enjoying his shiver of pleasure when he felt her breath against his
thighs. “I have a confession. I thought the whole kidnapping thing
was sexy. That conquering warrior tone is a real turn on and being
whisked away to your private island had me imagining all kinds of
wicked fantasies.”
“Really?” he said. His heightened interest
was obvious in his eyes and the way he instantly hardened within
her eager hands. He quickly shed his shirt and bent to effortlessly
lift her before him. His tongue made a tantalizing path from her
abdomen to circle one of her nipples lightly. It tightened and
puckered beneath his attention. “So when I was angry, you were
picturing me doing this?”
He slid her down the front of him, enjoying
the feel of her hardened nipples against his chest. Abby arched
backwards and sighed with pleasure when he reached down and slid a
finger inside her already excited folds. She shuddered and
whispered, somewhat shyly, “When you came back to the plane and
threw me on the bed, I wanted to pull you down on top of me.”
He plundered her mouth while maintaining a
firm rhythm with his hand, a rhythm that had her bucking against
his gifted thumb and tightening her inner muscles around his
finger. His voice was thick with passion. “You should have.”
“What would you have done?” she asked
breathlessly, hanging on to her last shreds of coherent thought as
waves of warm pleasure spread through her.
Dominic carried her to the bed and poised
himself above her. His tip teased, entering then withdrawing, until
she was grasping at his shoulders with need. “What all conquering
warriors want to do,” he said with satisfaction and buried himself
deep within her, taking them both to a place where further
conversation was impossible.
Chapter Seventeen
Isola Santos, Dominic’s private island, rose
out of the sea about seventy miles off the coast of Naples like a
rocky fortress. His immense steel and glass mega mansion which
dominated a quarter of the nearly hundred acre island looked like
it would have fit better in a business district of any major city
rather than overlooking the 18th century stone structures Dominic
said he planned to one day remove.
Like so many of his other possessions, it
made no effort to blend into its surroundings. The compound
screamed money and power. Its massive main entrance foyer was three
floors of glass and polished chrome which branched out into a large
rectangular structure that encircled gardens, Olympic sized pools,
and even a small stable like some modern fort.
During the tour, Abby lost count of the
number of bedrooms. She loved the private movie theatre, but
stopped at the sight of a set of sliding chrome doors. Hand on hip,
she turned to Dominic and asked, “Really? An elevator? Was that
necessary?”
Dominic flushed slightly. “Too much?”
Abby shook her head in confusion as the tour
led out a back door and onto an enormous veranda that overlooked
one entire side of the island. There was no denying the cold beauty
of the modern paradise he had crafted for himself, but it didn’t
fit the man she knew any more than it did the island itself. “Dom,
don’t get me wrong. This place is beautiful…”
Dominic wrapped his arms around her waist
from behind and breathed in the scent of his lover’s hair, sighing
with contentment. “I hear a but in your voice.”
Abby hugged his arms into her stomach. “It
doesn’t seem like you. And if this is you, could you have actually
left it for Boston? What if I had asked you to?”
Hugging her closer, Dominic said, “A month
ago, I couldn’t have. This house, like so much of what I own, was
built out of some compulsion to prove to my father that I was
better than him. Sad, isn’t it? To waste so much time and money on
things that aren’t important.”