Page 77 of Devotion
Dominic nodded, like he’d expected that.
Before I stood to leave, he said one more thing. “Christopher has changed a lot since the marriage. Eleanor says so. I can see it, too, the few times I’ve seen him.” He looked at me with an expression that was gentle and entirely sincere. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”
My phone rang again as I was gathering my things. Christopher’s name on the screen.
I let it ring.
Outside, the sky had changed. The afternoon sun was gone, replaced by the low gray ceiling that Miami gets before a storm. The humidity pressed down, dense and warm, and as I walked toward the curb to find a cab, the first raindrop hit my arm.
Then another. Then three at once.
“Mrs. Vale?”
A driver in a black car was idling at the curb. One of Dominic’s men. He stepped out and opened the back door.
“Mr. Dominic asked me to make sure you got home safely.”
I hesitated. The rain was picking up. Fat drops hitting the sidewalk, the smell of wet pavement rising. I didn’t have my car. I hadn’t brought an umbrella. And the alternative was standing on a street corner in a downpour waiting for a cab that might take twenty minutes.
“Thank you,” I said, and got in.
The drive was twenty minutes through rain that got heavier with every block. I sat in the back and watched the city drift past the wet windows and thought about Dominic’s face when he talked about Christopher. The regret in it.
It felt real.
I thought about Seraphina. Even though I didn’t want to, but she was there now. A name with a shape, a woman Christopher had desired and Dominic had betrayed him with. One night, Dominic said. Not an affair. One drunk, reckless, catastrophicnight that demolished the only relationship Christopher had ever let himself build.
I wonder what was so special about her?
The rain hammered against the car roof. The storm was getting worse.
By the time we reached Christopher’s house, it was a relentless storm. Wind bending the palm trees sideways. Water running in streams along the curb. Lightning in the distance, brief and white, illuminating the sky for half a second before the dark swallowed it back. The driver pulled through the gate and I ran to the front door with my jacket over my head, making it inside looking like I’d been thrown into a pool.
I was standing in the foyer, dripping, pushing wet hair off my face, when I realized the living room light was on.
Christopher was in the armchair. Sitting. Waiting. For how long, I didn’t know. But the bourbon bottle on the side table was empty.
His eyes found mine across the room. I was soaked, my jacket plastered to my shoulders, my hair dripping onto the marble, water pooling around my shoes.
“Christopher…” His name slipped out in a whisper.
“Where did you go?” His voice was low.
CHAPTER 20
Miley
“I went to see Dominic.”
I said it plainly. Standing in the foyer, dripping rainwater onto marble, looking at a man whose expression was already closing like a door being pulled shut. I said it because I’d never been good at lying anyway. My face was an open book. Always had been. Anna said I had the poker face of a golden retriever.
But more than anything,I didn't wanna lie to him. He deserved the truth, even if it changed things.
Christopher didn’t move. He stayed in the armchair, hands on the armrests, his eyes holding mine with a force that made it hard to breathe. The warmth I’d grown used to over the past weeks, the warmth from the ice cream shop and the office kiss, all of it was gone, replaced by an emotion that was older and lived deeper than anger.
“Dominic reached out,” I continued. I stepped further into the living room, leaving wet footprints on the floor. “He had things to say. About the family. About the past. Things you deserve to hear, Christopher.”
“Are you finished?” His voice was strained.
