Page 52 of My Big, Fat, Accidental Billionaire Husband

I slow my approach, suddenly feeling like an intruder. The living room is mostly dark, but the floor-to-ceiling windows frame the glittering Manhattan skyline, casting the space in a silver-blue glow.

Dom stands at the windows, his back to me, a solitary silhouette against the city lights. He’s wearing only pajama bottoms, his muscular upper body bare and tense. One hand is braced against the glass; the other holds what looks like a tumbler of amber liquid.

“I should have been there,” he mutters, so quietly I barely catch it. “Should have protected him.”

My breath catches. The words aren’t meant for me.

They’re not meant for anyone.

They sound like a confession to the night sky.

I take a half-step backward, suddenly aware I’m witnessing something intensely private. My foot connects with a decorative side table, causing the metal to give a softtinkagainst the wall.

Dom’s head snaps around, his eyes finding me in the shadows. For a moment, he looks like a stranger, his features raw, unguarded, and carved with lines of what can only be described as grief.

“Sorry,” I whisper, feeling my face flush hot with embarrassment. “I heard a noise. I thought something broke.”

He turns back to the window, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. “I knocked over a bottle. It’s nothing.”

I should leave. I should retreat to my room and pretend this never happened. Instead, I take a tentative step forward.

“Are you okay?”

What a stupid question, Tatiana. Does he look okay?

“Fine,” he says curtly, still not looking at me. “Go back to sleep.”

The dismissal should be a relief. But something about his posture, that whole painful rigidity of his spine, the white-knuckled grip on the whiskey glass, keeps me rooted in place.

This isn’t the Dom I know... the arrogant billionaire who inserted a blow job clause into our contract, the chaos freak who deliberately messed up my desk, or even the grudgingly impressed business partner from dinner last night.

This is someone else entirely.

I move closer, drawn by a curiosity I can’t explain and probably shouldn’t indulge.

“That whiskey looks untouched,” I observe quietly.

His laugh is hollow, devoid of humor. “Ironic, isn’t it? I poured it an hour ago thinking it would help. It never does.”

The skyline stretches before us, a glittering tapestry of lights and shadows. From this height, the city looks peaceful, orderly.

A beautiful lie.

“Help with what?” I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them.

He turns to look at me then, his eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light. For a moment, I think he might actually answer.

Instead, he sets the untouched whiskey on a nearby table and runs a hand through his hair.

“Nothing that concerns our arrangement,” he says finally, voice clipped and professional again. The wall is back.

Whatever glimpse I caught of the real Dom is gone, locked away again.

Our arrangement. Right. He’s not going to reveal his deepest, darkest secrets to someone he’s never going to see again.

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how thin my silk robe is, how intimate this darkened room feels. We’re twenty floors above the city, surrounded by glass and night sky, and despite the space between us, it feels too close. Too real.

“I heard you say something,” I venture, knowing I’m pushing boundaries I probably shouldn’t. “About protecting someone.”

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