Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 17

Chapter 017

CELESTE

I stared at the document in my hand.

Then I stared at him Dominic.

He crossed the room and took it from me, looked at it, and smiled. Not the smirk from the stage. Something quieter than that.

“We are still married,” he said. “But not for much longer.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “She signed divorce documents and you are still married?”

He set the document on the desk and leaned against the edge, crossing his arms.

“When I first found out about her affair with Julian, I was furious,” he said. “I wanted it done immediately.

I drafted the documents that same week, signed my portion, and went to find her.”

He paused.

“She was getting ready to go out. In a rush, distracted, already halfway out of her own mind. I told her I had something for her to sign. I told her I had already signed it and it only needed her signature.”

“You didn’t tell her what it was?”

“I wanted her to read it.” His jaw shifted slightly. “I wanted her to see the words right there in front of her and question me about it. And I would have told her exactly why. Right then and there.”

I waited.

“She didn’t read it.” He let out a short, humorless laugh. “She didn’t even look at it. She said she was meeting an old friend, flipped it open, signed the empty space, and walked out the door.”

I stared at him.

“She signed divorce documents without reading them.”

“Without reading a single word.” He picked up the document and looked at it again. “I found out later that the old friend she was in such a hurry to meet was your husband.”

The room was quiet for a moment.

“So I kept the documents,” he said. “She is out there right now believing she is the wife of a billionaire. Very soon, I will have this processed and make sure she receives her copy.”

“And the settlement?”

“There is no settlement. She gets nothing.” His voice was flat and final. “She doesn’t deserve a single penny

He set the document aside.

“I have already moved out of the house we share. She has no idea. The lease runs out in a year. She can enjoy it until then.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

“Wow,” I said. “You are quite swift and efficient.”

I picked up the iPad from the desk. On the screen, the lobby feed showed Seraphine still in the waiting area, her posture rigid, her foot tapping, her jaw tight with the effort of waiting for a man who had already decided she did not exist.

I shook my head slowly.

“But then again,” I said, “in this day and age, who signs a document without reading it? Her excitement level must have been at an all time high.”

He chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

I set the iPad down. “She would have signed it even if she had read it. She always acted like she was doing you a favor by being with you.” I paused. “She must have been really blind.”

“And why do you say that?” he asked.

I looked at him. My eyes traveled over him the way they always did when I thought he was not paying attention, which was never, because he was always paying attention.

“Have you looked at yourself?” I asked.

He moved toward me, slow and deliberate, stopping with his lips almost brushing mine.

“What about me?” he said, his voice low. “Do you find me irresistible?”

I bit my lip.

“You are definitely in that category,” I said.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to pull him back to the desk and demand a repeat of everything that had happened minutes ago, and the fact that I wanted that so badly was exactly why I stepped back and reached for my jacket instead.

I began to get dressed.

What was wrong with me? It was as though Dominic had unlocked something deep inside me, something I had never known was there. Was this what it meant to suddenly develop a high libido? Because that was the most generous interpretation I had for whatever was happening to my body every time this man looked at me.

And he was the same way. Worse, maybe. But he was a man. Men were naturally highly sexual. Many men That was normal and expected and nobody questioned it.

Was it supposed to be the same with women?

“Celeste.”

I looked up.

He was watching me with that fixed, intent gaze, his eyes on mine.

I changed the subject immediately.

“The money dropped this morning,” I said, straightening my jacket. “Before I had even signed the contract. I hadn’t signed anything yet and five billion dollars just appeared in the account.

“I know.”

“You sent it before the contract was signed.”

“I trust you,” he said simply “That was enough.”

I looked at him for a moment. Then I nodded

“Get dressed,” he said. “I will take you somewhere to sign the contract properly. It has already been prepared.”

We both stood looking at the lobby feed one last time before we left.

Seraphine was still there. Still waiting. Still rigid with the particular fury of a woman who could not understand why the universe was not cooperating.

I thought about how she would look at me when I walked through that lobby. She would see my jacket. She would see my hair. She would notice, the way Seraphine always noticed everything about other women’s appearances, that most of my lipstick was gone and that I had been alone with her husband in his private office for the better part of an hour.

The thought almost made me smile.

“We are leaving through a different route,” Dominic said.

I looked at him.

He was already moving toward the elevator.

The elevator did not go down.

It went up

I watched the numbers climb and said nothing, and when the doors opened it was to a rooftop that looked out over the entire city, the skyline spread in every direction under a sky that was still blue and bright and sitting on the landing pad in the center of it was a helicopter. stopped

“A helicopter.”

“Yes.”

“You are taking me somewhere in a helicopter.”

“Is that a problem?”

I looked at the helicopter. Then at him. “This is my first time.”

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile. “Then I will make sure it is a good one”

It was.

We flew over the city and then beyond it, the buildings giving way to water, the water giving way to something I had not expected

An island

He picked up a folder from the table and handed it to me.

I opened it.

The contract. All the terms laid out cleanly, the investment structure, the conditions, the timeline. I read through it carefully, every clause, every paragraph, taking my time

It was fair. More than fair. It was the kind of contract that protected Helix rather than extracting from it, that gave us the funding without surrendering control of the research direction

I looked up at him.

“This is good,” I said.

“I know

I signed it. He signed his portion. We looked at each other across the table with the signed contract between us and something settled in the room, something that felt like the end of one thing and the beginning of something else.

He moved closer

He kissed me, soft and unhurried, his hand coming up to the side of my face.

When he pulled back he looked at me with that quiet, intent expression.

“Stay tonight,” he said

My heart picked up

We were getting too close. That was the thought that moved through me before anything else. Too close, too comfortable, too easy together in a way that had nothing to do with the game we were supposed to be playing

I did not answer

He moved closer and kissed me again, slower this time

A sound came from the direction of the front door

We both stopped

We both looked.

“What was that?” I said.

He was already still, his head turned toward the door, listening. Something had changed in his face. The

ease was gone.

“The pilot went out for a run,” he said, his voice low and careful “We are not supposed to have company

He stood up. “I will check”

I watched him cross the room. He moved differently now, quieter, more deliberate He reached the door and put his hand on it.

He opened it.

The sound was sharp and immediate and wrong

Shots

I heard them before I understood what they were, a crack and then another, and then Dominic was spinning away from the door and dropping to the floor beside it, his back against the wall, his hand going to his arm.

Blood

I saw the blood on his arm and I was already moving, already across the room and on my knees beside him before I had made the decision to move.

“What is going on?” My voice came out high and strange. My hands were on his arm, on the wound, trying to see how bad it was “What is happening?”

He looked at me. His breathing was controlled but fast, his jaw tight, his back flat against the wall beside the door

He looked at me with those eyes that never gave anything away and gave everything away.

“Someone wants me dead,” he said.