Chapter 8 - The Return to Manhattan
The drive back to New York was shrouded in a heavy, suffocating silence.
Lily was asleep in the back seat again, exhausted from the wedding cake and the long hours. Sophia sat in the front passenger seat, staring straight ahead at the wet highway wipers sweeping back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm.
"My father cornered you," Sophia said quietly, breaking ten miles of silence.
"He did," Dominic replied without taking his eyes off the road.
"What did he say?"
"He figured out I'm not an investment broker." Dominic’s voice was neutral, devoid of panic. "He thinks I'm laundering money or using you as leverage."
Sophia closed her eyes, a wave of bitter exhaustion washing over her. "I'm sorry. I told you he’d ruin it. I told you he doesn't know how to accept anything good without trying to tear it apart."
"He didn't ruin anything, Sophia," Dominic said firmly, steering the car into the fast lane to pass a sluggish semi-truck. "Your mother smiled through the entire ceremony. She saw you holding my hand. She believed it. That's all that matters."
"And what about you?" Sophia turned to look at him, her heart aching. "What happens now that we're going back? Does the boyfriend contract expire the second we cross the city line?"
Dominic’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He glanced sideways at her, his amber eyes burning with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Do you want it to expire, Sophia?"
She opened her mouth to say yes. She wanted to retreat to her safe, invisible life as a waitress. She wanted to protect her heart from a man who lived in the crosshairs of federal investigations and mafia wars. But the words wouldn't come.
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"I don't know how to live in your world, Dominic," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I'm a working mother with a stack of bills and a cracked phone screen. You're... you're a king."
"I don't need a queen from a high-society family, Sophia," Dominic said, pulling the car off the highway ramp as the glittering skyline of Manhattan rose before them in the dusk. "I need someone who isn't afraid of the dark. And for the record—the contract only ends when you tell me to leave."
