Chapter 5 - The Only Thing That Matters
Ten minutes later, the executive suite was empty.
The board members had fled like rats from a sinking ship, muttering hurried apologies about scheduling conflicts. The state investigators had packed up their files and left to process the arrest warrant for Marcus Thorne.
Only Claire and Dominic remained in the sprawling, quiet boardroom.
Claire stood near the window, looking out over the glittering lights of Chicago as they reflected off the dark waters of Lake Michigan. Her heart was still pounding against her ribs, the adrenaline of the past hour slowly beginning to fade into a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
Footsteps approached softly across the carpet.
Dominic stopped beside her. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket anymore; his white shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark, clean lines of ink beneath his skin.
“You handled that well downstairs,” Dominic said quietly.
Claire let out a shaky, half-hysterical laugh, turning her head to look at him. “Handled it? Dominic, I almost went to prison for three point six million dollars because of a dress!”
“You didn’t go to prison,” he pointed out reasonably.
“Only because you happened to remember how many buttons were on the back of it.”
Dominic was silent for a moment. He turned toward her, his gray eyes searching her face in the dim light of the penthouse. The hard, untouchable kingpin of Chicago vanished for a moment, replaced by the man who had answered her call on the second ring when she was in a panic over silk fasteners.
“I didn’t just remember the buttons, Claire,” he said softly.
She held her breath. “What do you mean?”
“I knew you were innocent before I even looked at the server logs,” Dominic confessed, his voice dropping into a register so intimate it made the room feel smaller. “Because I know you better than anyone else in this city. And because the moment you called me to help you get dressed on Saturday night... I realized something terrifying.”
Claire’s pulse skipped a beat. “What?”
“I realized that I’ve spent two years pretending to be your boss just to keep you close enough to protect,” Dominic said, stepping closer until she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. “And if I had let them take you tonight, my entire empire wouldn’t have been worth a damn thing.”
Claire looked up at him, her chest tightening with a feeling that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the future.
“So,” she whispered, a faint smile touching the corners of her lips. “Does this mean I get a raise?”
Dominic finally smiled—a slow, genuine, devastating expression that rarely appeared in public. He reached out, his warm fingers gently brushing against the nape of her neck, right where the twenty-fourth pearl button rested.
“You get a promotion,” he murmured, leaning down. “And dinner. Anywhere you want in Chicago.”
May you like
“As long as there are no buttons involved,” Claire whispered.
“Agreed,” Dominic said, before pulling her close and kissing her in the quiet penthouse overlooking the city they both owned.
