Chapter 3 - The Dark Side of the Skyline
The autumn air outside the Sterling Hotel was sharp, smelling of wet asphalt and Lake Michigan’s distant, restless tide. A sleek, matte-black Bentley Continental was already idling at the curb, its hazard lights blinking softly against the rain-slicked pavement.
A driver in a dark suit opened the rear door instantly as Dominic and Vivian approached.
“Get in,” Dominic instructed, gesturing toward the plush leather interior.
Vivian stopped at the edge of the curb, the cold wind catching the loose strands of her brown hair. She looked at the car, then up at Dominic’s carved, unreadable face. The adrenaline that had carried her through the ballroom was beginning to fade, leaving a hollow, jittery ache in her chest.
“I didn't ask for a bodyguard, Mr. Bellardi,” she said, her arms crossing defensively over her chest. “I asked you to kiss me to make my fiancé jealous. You turned it into a hostile corporate takeover.”
Dominic paused, one hand resting on the open door of the Bentley. A faint, humorless smile touched the corner of his mouth, the silver scar across his eyebrow twitching slightly.
“You asked for fire, Miss Blake,” Dominic said quietly. “Don’t complain about the smoke just because the house burned down faster than you expected.”
“You ruined him,” she whispered, the gravity of what had just happened finally sinking in. “Wexler Vine & Trade employs four hundred people in this county. If you pull the note—”
“I didn't pull the note. I purchased it to protect my own interests,” Dominic interrupted, his tone shifting into something harder, more pragmatic. “Nathan’s father was leveraging Syndicate-backed shipping routes to smuggle counterfeit labels out of Europe. The federal task force has been circling Wexler for six months. By stepping in, I just prevented your name from ending up on a federal subpoena when the indictments drop next Tuesday.”
Vivian stared at him, her breath catching in her throat. “Indictments? Federal…?”
“Get in the car, Vivian,” he said, using her first name for the first time, the word sounding less like a request and more like an ordinance. “It’s starting to rain, and you’re standing in a fifty-thousand-dollar dress that’s about to get ruined.”
She hesitated for three seconds—three long seconds where she weighed the danger of walking away into the Chicago night alone versus the terrifying, magnetic gravity of the man holding the door.
She slid into the back seat.
Dominic followed her in, closing the door with a solid, reassuring thud that shut out the noise of the city. The interior smelled of aged leather, cedarwood, and expensive bourbon.
As the car pulled smoothly away from the curb, merging into the wet downtown traffic, Vivian turned to him. “Why did you do it? Really. You don’t care about Nathan’s father, and you certainly don’t care about my engagement.”
Dominic turned his head, his dark eyes reflecting the passing amber streetlights of Michigan Avenue.
“My mother was a baker in the West Loop,” Dominic said softly, his voice devoid of its usual clinical chill. “She spent forty years working sixteen-hour days so I could go to law school. When she died, a man like Nathan’s grandfather—wearing an expensive suit and holding a folded contract—swindled her out of her storefront with a signature she couldn't read.”
May you like
He leaned back against the leather seat, his gaze fixed on hers.
“I don't like men who break things that don't belong to them,” Dominic said. “And I especially don't like men who make women like you stand in a ballroom pretending their hearts aren't breaking.”
