"You're booking a ticket?" he asked, his voice sounding confused.
I quickly ended the call, turning around with a blank expression. "Yeah, there's a restaurant nearby that's impossible to get into," I lied smoothly. "You have to reserve days in advance if you want to try the menu."
Dominic didn't press the matter any further. Something in his posture shifted, though. Not suspicion exactly. Something closer to the instinct of a man who controls territory for a living sensing that ground was moving beneath him.
He just pulled me along to a nearby hotel, one of the Sloane-affiliated properties where the staff knew his face and his preferences and the particular discretion required when he arrived with a woman. He booked us a suite without asking if I wanted one.
He quickly got to work on his laptop, handling some urgent business. A shipment delayed at the port. Numbers that needed reconciling before a call with associates overseas. There was a wordless understanding between us as we worked side by side until the early morning. This was what we'd always been best at. Not love. Work. The machinery of the Sloane empire had always been our most fluent shared language, and even now, with my severance letter signed and folded in my bag, my fingers moved across the spreadsheets with the competence of a woman who'd kept these books for seven years.
Eventually, I couldn't fight off the exhaustion any longer and fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke up in bed, surprised to find myself tucked in. The sheets had been pulled to my chin with a precision that suggested hands more accustomed to violence than tenderness.
Dominic sat beside me, casually leaning against the headboard, flipping through the financial section of the newspaper. The silver lighter rested on the nightstand beside him, catching the morning light. He glanced at me as I stirred.
"Breakfast's on its way," he said, already picking up his phone to call room service.
Halfway through breakfast, Dominic suddenly asked, "Why'd you change your phone password?"
I didn't even look up from my plate. "Felt like changing it," I replied casually.
The truth was, the old password was a combination of our birthdays. Since I was planning to leave, it didn't make sense to keep it. Every trace of him needed to be excised, digit by digit, habit by habit.
I heard him set down his knife and fork, his tone shifting. "You were always asking me to go to the movies with you, weren't you? There's a theater nearby."
I knew there wasn't an option to say no, not with the Don skipping his obligations for the day. When Dominic Sloane decided to give you his time, refusing it was its own kind of insult, and I didn't need the complication. So I just nodded.
Sitting in the quiet, almost empty theater, the image I'd once dreamed of played out before me. The two of us, snuggled close, sharing popcorn while watching a rom-com. A normal couple doing a normal thing. The kind of afternoon that civilians took for granted and women like me spent years begging for.
It was a scene that had once felt so romantic to me.
But when it was already happening for real, I was struggling to stay awake, yawning every few minutes. The romance had arrived seven years too late, and my body knew it even if my mind was still processing the paperwork.
Dominic must've noticed. "This is the movie you picked," he said. "You don't like it?"
"It's fine. It's good," I said, not even bothering to fake enthusiasm.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, clearly not convinced. Just as he was about to say something, his phone buzzed.
Without a word to me, he stood up and walked out of the theater.
The movie ended, and Dominic still hadn't returned.
Annoyed, I was about to call him when I heard a familiar, sickly sweet voice from a distance.
"Oh, Dominic! You're so amazing!" Penelope squealed.
I turned and saw her practically bouncing up and down, clutching a massive stuffed toy as she leaped into Dominic's arms, planting a kiss on his cheek. He held her by the legs, laughing softly, and the sound of that laugh was something I hadn't heard directed at me in years. Maybe ever. But the moment his eyes landed on me, his smile vanished.
The laugh died like a switch had been thrown.
"Olivia! I didn't know you were here too," Penelope exclaimed, wide-eyed and pretending to be innocent. A few seconds later, she gasped dramatically, covering her mouth. "Oh no! Don't get the wrong idea! I just got a little excited, that's all…"
Dominic lightly tapped her on the nose, his tone playful. "What are you apologizing for?" he said, then turned to me, acting as if nothing was wrong. "The movie's already over?"
Before I could respond, the shrill sound of a fire alarm rang through the building.
In an instant, panic spread as people rushed toward the exits. The crowd surged, bodies pressing toward doors, the particular chaos of civilians who've never had to evacuate under real threat.
