Page 192 of Love Among the Ruins
“We’re going our separate ways, Dominic.” Her voice was a whisper.Please let me treasure the memories we made.
“Which makes it even more important.” There was a pleading in his eyes. She relented with a shrug.
“Everything changed when your friend told me you were the girlfriend of the man who had been killed in that fatal accident. Your boyfriend’s death didn’t impact my family directly, yes, it was our yacht and those were our guests and they deserved to be punished but—”
“Punished,” she scoffed bitterly. “People like you don’t ever get punished.” Those people hadn’t done any time in jail—they had the money to buy themselves that outcome—but they’d paid a huge sum to Jonas’ family.
Dominic lifted his hands to her face, framing it tenderly, as if she were a priceless painting. “It shook my family to the core. I know that means nothing. Who are we, after all? We weren’t affected. We were able to move on.”
She tried to look away, away from his intense gaze, and couldn’t.
“I’m sorry. I’msosorry for your loss, for what you had, for what you might have had, for the future that was stolen from you. I read about your boyfriend. I saw his picture, I could put a face tohisname, but everyone else was forgotten, as if they’re not important. But the truth is, the pain for the families and friends and loved ones is unbearable. It’s unsurmountable. These people, people like you, they suffer the most.” His voice wavered. “You don’t get to see the damage done to the lives of the people left behind, of the broken and shattered remnants of what might have been, but when Stefanos told me, I realized who you were. I knew I could do something to make things as right as was possible. I wanted to do something. I couldn’t bring your boyfriend back, but I was determined to do everything in my power to make things better for you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb. “I have spent the last few months trying to do just that.” He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. His warm skin, his scent, his hold on her reassuring. Something she could get used to. “I wanted to make things right.” His sweet breath kissed her ear and she fell into him, then. Buried her face in his chest, pressed against that wall of steel and heard his heartbeat.
They stayed like that, connecting, reclaiming, getting back together, until she pulled back a little, as much as his arms around her waist would let her, and looked up into his eyes. “That’s all I wanted to do. To make your life better in every way I could. I just didn't expect to fall in love with you in the process. And yet, how could I not? I’ve never met anyone like you before. Funny, and brave, and smart, and … there aren’t enough words to describe how I see you.”
Her heart swelled because this man had taken all her bitterness and erased it with his love.
She hadn't known it then, she'd just taken it all for granted, often feeling surprised that this man of steel who had been so hard on everyone else, had been so good to her.
It was as clear as dew on a fresh spring morning; how he had made it his mission, almost, to put things right.
Somehow he'd swallowed up the empty space between them, and now was a few inches from her, close enough that she could feel his skin, could sense that low thrum of electricity passing between them. His hands slid around her waist, his eyes boring into hers, daring her to tell him to stop.
Which she would never do.
Because the lies he'd told had been white lies; because he’d wanted to help her. If she’d known who he was, she would never have allowed herself to go near him. She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him but there was no way on earth she could have avoided it.
They had crash landed together.
Two continents apart.
Two different worlds.
And yet, they weren’t so different, after all.
Fated.
As if it was meant to be.
She could not imagine her life without Dominic, not now that he had gone and told her all of this. She who had been prepared to walk away, could no longer do that because a love like his was as rare as it was priceless. In a life where she had hungered to feel loved and to belong, she’d found her knight in shiny aviators, even though she had despised him on first sight. Even though she hadn’t been looking for him.
“Jonas was the first man to love me, to really love me. He made up for the love I hadn’t really gotten from my mother. I’ve never known my father. But Jonas filled all my emptiness. When he died, a part of me died. I have the most beautiful memories of us, but I couldn’t find it in me to love again. I never thought I would. My mother said I was silly, crying all the time. ‘Stupid young love,’ she called it. ‘A love that ruins you.’ But she’s a bitter woman, shewasa bitter woman and it’s only now that I understand why. She said I couldn’t grieve for him forever, and I don’t now, not anymore. My heart was still in lockdown, until you came along.”
He looked at her with eyes bright and shiny, and full of hope. “Me?”
“Yes. You.” She paused, examining the starbursts in his eyes as if they were a new wonder of the world. Dominic was such a wonderful man, and he loved her. She’d heard it with her own ears. “I’m in love with you, Dominic.”
“Yeah?” he asked, all playful, displaying his rare side. He nuzzled her lips as if he were too scared to do anything more, but then his tongue rolled over her lower lip, teasing, playing, slowly starting to drive her insane. He deepened the kiss, gently angling her face just so, his tongue sweeping her mouth and making her forget everything but this. He was demanding, controlling, urgent with need, and his tell-tale hardness a reminder of what was to come.
All he had to do was kiss her and she was gone. Her body turned into an inferno, a raging heat consuming her. She was deluding herself if she thought she could walk away from him, from this.
To what? An empty life, bereft of the passion he'd made her feel?
No.
She did not want to go back to that again.
