Page 32 of Impulse Control
By the time the hotel came into view, my resolve was in tatters. The city had softened me. Dominic had undone me with words and patience and that infuriating ability to make desire feel reasonable.
This was a bad idea, I told myself again.
But as I followed him toward the entrance, dessert in hand, laughter still echoing behind us, I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe—just maybe—I’d come to Paris to learn more than I’d planned. But was Dominic even a part of it? He was supposed to be the past. A dangerous little slice of the past, but the past. So why the hell was I following him to his hotel?
Two years earlier…
I told myself we’d won the day. Frankie and me. The last place she’d wanted to be was that precinct, answering questions about the car accident—if you could call your cunt of a mother sabotaging your boyfriend’s car to kill him, an accident—that nearly killed her. Each time I recalled the way the wreckage looked, my heart raced and fear rippled over my skin.
Frankie could have died. That single, inescapable thought haunted me. When we walked out of that precinct, I’d been riding high on adrenaline and righteous indignation. That both had been accompanied with the absolute certainty thatDominic Walsh was trouble wrapped in a tailored suit was apropos of nothing, surely. He was smug. Too young. Too sharp. Entirely too amused by me.
Which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue.
He called me that night.
Not Frankie. Me.
Sprawled on my dorm bed, shoes kicked off, half a slice of cold pizza balanced on my stomach and reading, I almost ignored the unfamiliar number lighting up my phone.
Almost. Robo calling. Spam callers. Scam callers. They all irritated me. Sometimes they were good for a laugh. And sometimes… Well, when I had résumés and portfolios out there shopping to try and get work, I got calls from numbers I didn’t know.
“Rachel Manning,” I said, flat, answering like a challenge.
“Dominic Walsh,” he replied, voice warm, unhurried. Smiling—I could hear it. Weirdly, it lifted his words and gave them an almost shivery quality. “You threatened to throw me into a pond today. I figured I should check in before you escalate.”
A laugh escaped me at the wholly unexpected response. Amusement still curving through me, I said, “You survived your opening argument. Congratulations.”
“High praise,” he said. “I was hoping to earn more.”
“Oh?” I pushed upward, sliding my digital reader to the side and saving the slice from tumbling to the floor. “Why would you be hoping for anything from me?”
It was his turn to chuckle. “Because you, Rachel—you don’t mind if I call you Rachel, do you?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “I hope you don’t, it would save us the time I would have to spend convincing you to let me call you Rachel and I’d rather just spend that time with you than on a compelling argument.”
Honestly, that shouldn’t have been funny, but I was smiling despite myself. “I don’t know, it almost sounds enticing to see what you would do to get my permission.”
He laughed, low and pleased, like I’d just thrown him a bone he intended to worry to death. “Oh, trust me,” he said, “you don’t actually want to see that. I’m very persuasive when motivated.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“More like a promise,” he countered easily. “But let’s start smaller. Pizza.”
I frowned at the phone. “Pizza.”
“Yes. Fresh. Hot. Real pizza. None of this tragic, congealed nonsense you’re abusing yourself with right now.”
I glanced down at the sad, desiccated slice sitting on the paper towel next to me. “Hey. This pizza has feelings.”
“It shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s already dead.”
I huffed a laugh before I could stop myself. “You called me to insult my dinner?”
“I called,” he said smoothly, “to offer you better options.”
“And what makes you think I want them?”
A beat. Then, softer, deliberate. “Because today was a mess. Because you took care of your friend when it counted. And because you deserve something good at the end of it.”
That gave me pause. Not enough to let him win—but enough to slow me down.
