Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 19

Chapter 019

CELESTE

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my phone.

Julian had sent text messages.

“Where are you, baby. I’m worried.”

“Please call me when you get this.”

“I miss you so much. You are the love of my life.”

“Please just let me know you are safe.”

I read them one by one and felt nothing except a mild, distant irritation, the way you feel about a noise

that has been going on too long.

I rolled my eyes and put the phone face down on the bed.

Then I picked it back up and scrolled to my mother’s name.

She answered on the second ring.

“Celeste.” Her voice was warm and immediate, the voice she had used my entire life, the one that made me feel twelve years old in the best possible way. “My daughter. A millionaire. I always knew you had big dreams and I always knew you would fulfill them.”

I laughed. “Mom.”

“Don’t Mom me. I am allowed to be proud. Your father is so proud too.” A pause. “Where are you? I feel like I haven’t seen your face in so long.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy, especially now with trying to set up the lab at the new location. Everything is moving so fast.”

“You will come and visit?”

“Next week,” I promised. “I will come next week.”

“I will hold you to that promise, Celeste.”

“I know you will.”

After the call ended I sat there for a moment with the phone in my hand and felt the warmth of her voice settle somewhere in my chest. Then I scrolled to my brother.

He picked up immediately

“There she is,” he said “The woman of the hour. I saw you on the news. On a stage with the richest man in the country My sister”

“Stop,” I told him, but I was smiling.

“I’m serious. Congratulations, Celeste Genuinely. You worked for this.”

“Thank you.”

There was a pause. Then, “Was that Seraphine’s husband? The chairman. Dominic Ford. The name and the face, it’s definitely him, isn’t it. Sera’s husband.”

I went still for a half second.

I had almost forgotten. My brother had carried a quiet thing for Sera years ago, back when the three of us were still in university and the world was smaller and simpler. Sera had never looked at him twice. When she eventually married, he had moved on and never mentioned it again.

I had not realized he still kept tabs on her life closely enough to know her husband’s face.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said carefully “My lab got the funding. That’s what’s important.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Congratulations again. Another pause “How is Sera doing these days?

I looked at my phone screen for a moment I thought about the voicemail I had just listened to Sera’s calm, threatening voice Stay away from my husband Otherwise I will destroy you.

My lips curved up slowly

“Why,” I replied without missing a beat. “Of course my best friend is doing perfectly well

After the call ended, I was still pacing the room when the door opened and Dominic walked in.

I stopped.

I looked at him, checking automatically, the way I had been doing since the shots, looking for new damage, new blood, anything wrong

He looked intact Tired around the eyes but intact

Something unknotted in my chest that I had not realized was knotted.

“Sparrow will take us back to the hotel,” he told me

I nodded Then I stopped “Wait The hotel with the glass room?”

‘Yes’

Okay I pulled out my phone and held it out toward him. “You should listen to this first

He took the phone I pressed play and watched his face as Seraphine’s voice came through

He listened to the whole thing without expression

Then he handed the phone back and chuckled “Interesting What would you like me to do?

“Nothing yet.” I took the phone back. “I can handle Seraphine. I’ll keep you posted if she does more than leave voicemails.”

He nodded. Then his expression shifted, the ease going out of it, replaced by something more careful.

“Sit down,” he said. “There is something you need to know.”

We both sat.

He was quiet for a moment, the way he got when he was choosing his words rather than just producing them.

“Sparrow thinks the attack today was not something to take lightly,” he began. “In the past, there were many men who tried to take my father’s company. After my parents were killed, they came for me too. Sparrow handled them, one by one. That is why I stayed hidden all these years. I could not surface until they were all dealt with.”

“But someone got through?” I pressed.

“Not really. The son of one of them.” He looked at his hands briefly, then back at me. “Sparrow believes he has been waiting. Watching. And now that I have shown my face publicly for the first time, he has made his move.”

I sat with that for a moment.

“So what happens now?” I asked. “What measures?”

“I will need to appear less in public until the threat is neutralized.” He paused. “And we will need to stay away from each other for now.”

I looked at him.

“If the enemy saw you with me today, he would likely assume it was coincidence,” he continued. Unfortunate timing. But if he saw you with me repeatedly, he would realize you are important to me. I cannot put you in danger.”

Hearing this, something moved in my chest that I did not have a name for and was not ready to look at directly.

Important to me.

Was I really important to him? How important? Important enough that he thought about me when I was not there? Important enough to keep me away to keep me safe?

I pushed the thought away before it could do any damage.

“For how long?” I found myself asking.

“One or two weeks.”

One or two weeks.

I sat with that. I looked at my hands. I thought about the lab, the new location, the team, the five billion that needed to be organized and directed and built into something real. I thought about all the work that was waiting for me.

One or two weeks away from him was exactly what I needed. The space to focus. The space to remind myself what this was and what it was not.

My heart was not listening to any of this.

“Your arrangement sounds perfect,” I told him.

“Good.” He stood. “We go to the hotel. You get dressed and then I will take you wherever you need to go.”

I nodded slowly. Then I paused. “I’ll just go back home to Julian.”

Something moved across his face.

It was brief. A shift, a tightening, something that was there and then smoothed over so fast I almost missed it.

Almost.

I stared at him.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

I swallowed.

He was standing there with water running down his chest and I was supposed to just stand here and be normal about this. I had seen this man without clothes multiple times and apparently it made no difference whatsoever. My body had learned nothing.

Control yourself, Celeste. The man is injured, for God’s sake.

He seemed to register something in my expression, the way he always did, and the corner of his mouth moved.

“How do you manage to look sexy in everything you wear?”

I straightened up. “I’ll say it’s a gift. I was born this way.”

“Then congratulations are in order,” he returned.

I laughed before I could stop it.

He got dressed. Black t-shirt, black jeans, nothing complicated, nothing that required any effort whatsoever. I watched him and thought, of course. Of course only Dominic Ford could make a black t-

shirt and jeans look like that.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded.

I should have said yes the first time he asked me to stay the night, I thought.

We came out through the back.

He opened the car door for me. I got in. The windows were tinted so dark the city outside looked like a photograph, and when he got in beside me and started the engine I looked behind us and saw two cars

pull smoothly into position.

“Is it safe for you to be out like this?” I asked. “Driving yourself.”

“The car is bulletproof.” He checked the mirror. “Sparrow is directly behind us. There are others. Part of the security detail for now.”

I looked back again. Three cars. Moving together, perfectly spaced, the kind of coordination that did not happen without practice.

I faced forward.

Wow.

The drive was quiet. The city moved past the tinted windows and I sat beside him and thought about the lab and my mother and my brother and the voicemail and the shots on the island and his hands covering my ears and the expression on his face when I mentioned going home to Julian.

The car stopped.

I looked up.

Julian’s house. Our house. The house where I had lived for two years and where Julian had spent six

months lying to my face.

“We are here,” he said.

I looked at the building for a moment. Then I turned to him.

“This is it,” I murmured. “I won’t see you for one or two weeks.”

“I will call you.”

He reached out. His hand found my cheek, his thumb moving slowly across it, and he pulled me toward

him and kissed me.

My heart did what it always did when he kissed me, which was something I had given up trying to describe accurately.

When we pulled apart he looked at me and opened his mouth.

“Goodbye and…”

“Up for a parting gift, Mr. Ford?” I cut in.