Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 113

Chapter 113

The bed faced the door, positioned closer to it than any room I had ever slept in, close enough that anyone standing in the doorway would have an unobstructed view of whoever was on it. The door itself was heavy, solid metal, and in its center was a large square opening, cut cleanly through the door at eye

level.

Dominic locked the door and put the key in the drawer of the nightstand.

I was about to ask about the setup when he spoke.

“It is arranged according to what you wanted,” he said. “You wanted Julian to see us. He will.”

He showed me the opening in the door. Anyone standing outside could see directly into the room through it, the bed positioned perfectly in its line of sight.

Then he picked up a small remote from the nightstand and pressed a button.

A metal sheet attached to the bottom of the door sprang upward smoothly and sealed the opening completely. One press. Closed. He pressed it again and it retracted, leaving the opening clear.

“My guards have strict instructions,” he said. “They will not enter the house without my direct authorization. When Julian arrives, they will let him reach the door. What he sees through it is what he

sees.”

I looked at the opening in the door. Then at the bed positioned directly in its sightline. Then at Dominic, who was watching me with that steady patience.

The engineering of it was almost funny. The man had arranged the furniture specifically so my husband could watch through a hole in a door.

“Come,” he said.

He led me to the balcony.

We stood there together in the cooling evening air, looking out over the quiet street below. Some of his guards were visible near the gate, positioned with the deliberate casualness of men who were very good at not looking like they were doing anything. The street beyond was empty and still.

I stood beside him and felt the warmth of him at my shoulder and watched the gate and tried to think about what I was supposed to be thinking about, which was Julian, the plan, the endgame.

What I was actually thinking about was how this felt. Standing here with him like this. The ordinariness of it underneath everything else.

He was quiet. More quiet than usual, which was saying something, and I wondered what was going on behind those eyes that he was not saying.

Then a car appeared at the end of the street.

1/3

+15 Bonus

I recognized it immediately. Julian’s car. The one he drove when he was not trying to impress anyone, just moving from one place to another with the confidence of a man who believed every space he entered was his by right.

My heart rate climbed.

I turned from the balcony and looked at Dominic at the same moment he turned and looked at me, and for one suspended second we just looked at each other, and then his hands came up to frame my face and his lips came down on mine.

The kiss started slow. Deliberately, achingly slow, his mouth moving against mine with the patience of a man who had decided this moment was worth the full weight of his attention. His hands cradled my face like something he was holding carefully, his thumbs tracing the line of my jaw, and I felt my hands find the lapels of his jacket and grip without deciding to.

Then it deepened.

His tongue found mine and the kiss went from slow to consuming in the space of a breath, full of everything that had been accumulating between us since the plan that was never supposed to feel like anything more than revenge began. His hands moved from my face to my waist, pulling me closer, and I stopped thinking about Julian’s car and the door and the square opening and the plan and all of it, because his mouth was on mine and his hands were warm and certain on my body and nothing else was

real.

I kissed him back with everything I had.

Because this might be the last time.

The kiss went on and I let it. I let it be slow and messy and deep and entirely present, the way it always was with him, the way nothing else in my life had ever quite managed to be.

“Celeste!”

Julian’s voice.

Sharp and shocked from outside.

I did not pull away immediately.

Dominic did not pull away either.

We stayed exactly where we were for one more breath, his forehead against mine, both of us breathing,

the sound of Julian’s voice hanging in the air between us.

2/3

+15 Bonus