Chapter 1
PART 2: The Secret He Had Been Hiding 027
“Then Dominic leaned toward me and said, “I’ve been trying not to kiss you since the first night I saw you.”
The charcoal slipped from my fingers.
For one suspended second, the city seemed to go silent.
The fireworks continued blooming beyond the rooftop, pale gold and silver above the black shape of Lake Michigan.
Somewhere below us, music thudded through the hotel walls.
People were laughing, raising glasses, counting down to a new year none of them could predict.
But all I could hear was Dominic’s confession.
I stared at him.
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
His expression didn’t change, but something vulnerable flickered behind his eyes.
“I know.”
“You’ve ignored me for three years.”
“I know that too.”
“You walked past me at Thanksgiving and asked Vanessa if I was finished using the bathroom.”
“That was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“You looked directly at me while you said it.”
“I was nervous.”
I almost laughed.
“You?
Nervous?”
“Yes.”
The answer was so simple that it stole my sarcasm.
Dominic King didn’t seem like a man who admitted nervousness.
He was built from controlled movements and quiet authority.
He made other people hesitate with nothing more than a glance, yet he was sitting on a frozen rooftop, confessing that I made him nervous.
I pulled my coat tighter around myself.
“Why?”
His gaze moved toward the fireworks.
“Because I noticed you immediately.”
The cold pressed against my cheeks, but my face felt warm.
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“It explains everything.”
“No, it really doesn’t.”
He turned back to me.
“You were the only person in that house who didn’t pretend.”
I thought of the King mansion: its enormous windows, polished floors, quiet staff, and conversations that stopped whenever someone unexpected entered a room.
Vanessa had grown up inside it, and I had spent three years trying to understand the invisible rules.
Dominic had always seemed like the person who wrote those rules.
“I pretended all the time,” I said.
“I pretended I wasn’t intimidated.
I pretended I didn’t understand half the conversations happening around me.
I pretended I wasn’t curious about why everyone went silent whenever your father entered a room.”
“My father has been dead for six years.”
“I know.”
“And you still watched him?”
“People leave impressions.”
His mouth tightened, not quite with anger.
More like discomfort.