Say Yes To The Fake Date (How To Win At Love #3)

10. Dominic

10

DOMINIC

I thought this was a good idea, but after a week of Lucy working in the office, I feel like I’m going crazy. Every chance I get, I find a way to talk to her and spend time with her. She still has her guard up, and maybe she always will, but I can’t not try to make her trust me again.

I roll underneath the '57 Chevy I’m working on when I hear a woman call my name. I let my head fall back on the board I’m lying on. Fuck, I don’t want to deal with this now. There couldn’t be a worse time.

“Dom!” I hear again.

Shit. I roll out from under the car, and my eyes go to the door of the office. Even though I can’t see Lucy, I know she’s looking at me through the one- way mirror. I can imagine the look on her face, and I know without doing a thing that I’ve hurt her again. I wipe my hand on the towel at my belt loop. “Hey, Rita. What can I do for you?”

She’s twirling a piece of her hair around her finger, and I cross my arms over my chest at the way she’s staring at me. I thought this was over, but she’s obviously heard that Luciana is back in town, and she’s here to stir up trouble. “I was hoping you could look at my car… It’s making a funny noise.”

“Jake!” I holler across the garage.

Jake is smiling as he comes toward me, but his mouth drops when he sees the woman standing in front of me.

Rita takes a step toward me and puts her hand on my arm. “But, Dom, I was hoping you could help me… for old times’ sake.”

I take a step back, and her hand falls from my arm. “You know how it is, Rita. If you want your car looked at, one of the other guys are going to do it.”

“But—”

I cut her off. “No buts. I wouldn’t refuse you service, but I will refuse to be the one that does it. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Instead of going back under the Chevy, I walk into the office and shut the door behind me. Lucy’s head is down, and she seems focused on the laptop screen in front of her, but I know she just witnessed Rita’s little show. “Lucky, look at me.”

She doesn’t even lift her head. “Don’t call me that.”

“Lucy, listen to me. I never slept with Rita.”

She lets out a laugh. “Really? Does she know that?”

I pull at the arm of her chair and turn her around to look at me. As soon as her eyes hit me, it’s like a punch in the gut. There’s no denying the hurt shining in her eyes. I squat down next to her. “Luciana, listen to me, please.”

She’s angry at me, and she’s practically trembling with it. “Dom, this has nothing to do with me. Just like the fact how over half your client list is women.”

I put my hands on the arms of her chair and look into her eyes. “I lied to you. All those years ago, when I told you I had slept with Rita, I lied to you.”

She’s staring at me, searching my eyes before she shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, Dom. It’s the past.”

I move my hands from the armrests to her thighs, and she tenses under my palm. “It matters to me. I need you to know the truth.”

Her hands move to the armrests, and she clenches it so hard her knuckles turn white. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand.”

I lean my head on her knee and suck in a deep breath. I need to be completely upfront with her, and it’s way past time that I came clean with her. “When I went to jail, I told you—”

She covers her ears with her hands and clenches her eyes closed. “Please, don’t do this, Dom. I can’t—”

I put my hands on her cheeks, and her eyes fly open. “Listen to me… just listen, and if you walk out of here and want nothing to do with me, I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

She nods her head, and I tuck her hair behind her ears. As she stares back at me, I sit back on my haunches, but I don’t go far. I put my hands on her knees. “When I was arrested, I knew everything we had was over. I knew that. I didn’t want it to be… hell, I would have given anything for us not to be over, but look, your family already didn’t want us together, I was bringing you down… I was doing everything I could to have a future you deserved, and I fucked it up. One night and I lost everything I wanted.”

“Dom…”

“No, I have to get this out. I knew if I pushed you away that you wouldn’t leave. I knew that you would wait for me, and I didn’t want you to ruin your future because of me… so I told you that I slept with Rita. I knew…” I let out a guttural groan and shake my head. “I knew that you would forgive me for the trouble I’d been in, but being unfaithful… I knew I couldn’t come back from that… I knew you wouldn’t forgive me.”

Her cheeks are flaming, and I can see the glare of distrust in her eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Dominic Evans. After everything you put me through, the last thing I need… the last thing I deserve is for you to lie to me.”

“I never slept with Rita. I haven’t slept with anyone since you, Luciana.”

She starts to laugh. “It’s been almost seventeen years. That’s bullshit, Dom.”

My face heats, but I’m determined to get it all out. “It’s the truth. I never slept with Rita, and after I got out of prison, I tried to move on, but I’m broken… I can’t… perform. ”

Her eyes widen, and she repeats my words. “You can’t perform?”

I shake my head side to side. “No, I can’t. After two times… I gave up. I considered it my punishment for what I did to you.”

Her eyes are still wide, and she’s shaking her head. “This is crazy. Are you telling me…”

Her voice trails off, and I tell her the rest. “I haven’t been with anyone since I was with you, and up until a few days ago, I thought that I could never be with someone again.”

Her forehead creases. “A few days ago?”

I nod, hoping that I’m not fucking this up. “Yes. When I saw you standing on the side of the road, I got hard.” I suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And every time I’ve seen you since… I’ve been hard. If I see you, smell you, hell, now even thinking of you, I’m hard.”

She’s not smiling; she’s just staring at me, and I release my hold on her, stand up, and take a step back. She has to see I’m not lying to her. Hell, if she looks down, she’ll see the attraction I feel for her. “I don’t expect anything from you. Hell, I don’t deserve to even breathe the same air as you, but it’s important to me that you know I never cheated on you. ”

She still doesn’t say anything. I look out into the bay, and Rita is gone. A part of me wishes I’d brought her in here to tell Lucy the truth, but I know Lucy wouldn’t appreciate the drama. I cross my arms over my chest.

She wants to believe me, that much I can tell. But she shakes her head in denial. “Dom, I can’t do this. It’s the past, and none of this matters now.”

Even though it feels like my heart is shattering all over again, I know she’s not ready for this, and I don’t know if she ever will be. I try to tamp down my heartache and go off topic. “Do you know Walker?”

She jerks, and I know it’s because I’m changing the subject. I want to beg her to give me another chance, but I know we need to go at a slow pace. I’m willing to go as slowly as she needs me to if she is in my life. When she doesn’t answer me, I ask her again. “Walker? I know you’ve been gone a while, but do you remember him?”

She sits up a little taller and rolls her eyes. “Yeah. I may have been gone, but everyone in Whiskey Run knows who Walker is. What about him?”

“I was talking to him this morning, and he needs someone to redo his website. I made an appointment for us to go talk to him tomorrow.” I hold my hands up. “I know I don’t have any right to make an appointment for you, but it all happened so quickly, and I thought it would be a good thing for you to get connected with him.”

She just stares at me, speechless.

I put my hands on my hips. “Tell me if you don’t want to meet with him. I can cancel.”

She jumps up from her seat. “No!”

I laugh then, and she shifts her weight back and forth. “How? I mean, did you guilt him into meeting with me? Did you tell him about… everything?”

The bruise still shows on her face, and every time I look at it, I want to punch the wall. “I told him that I knew someone that made amazing websites—”

She puts her hand on her hip. “You don’t know if I do amazing websites—”

“I know you’re amazing at anything you do, so yeah, I know you make amazing websites. Anyway, the appointment is at nine in the morning, so I thought I’d pick you up at eight-thirty—”

“You don’t have to drive me.” She gestures toward the bay. “I mean, I know you have work to do. ”

“Actually, I need to go sign something, so you’d be doing me a favor.”

She tilts her head to the side, and I continue, “You know, to keep me company.”

She wraps her hands around each other. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good.” She’s practically bouncing on her toes. “I’m so nervous. I need to research what his website looks like now, do some analyzing, make a list of ideas and—”

I laugh. “Well, I’ll let you get to work.”

She sits back down in her seat, and I walk over to the office door. Before I get through the door, she calls my name. “Dom.”

I hear the hesitancy in her voice. “Yeah, honey?”

She’s searching my eyes, and a part of me hopes she’s going to talk to me about my confession, but I know she won’t because it’s obvious she’s not ready. “Thank you.”

I wave her off. “Of course.”

She doesn’t let it go, though. “I’m serious. I know our past was…” Her voice trails off, and I wait for her to continue. “Well, just, I appreciate you doing all this for me. The car, the office space, the meeting tomorrow.” She looks down at her hands as she continues to talk. “It’s been hard co ming back here, and well, I can honestly say that you have made it easier. I appreciate you, I really do.”

I put my hand on the doorway. “I know you may not believe this, honey, but I’d do anything for you. Anything at all.”

Before she can respond, I walk out of the office and try to focus on my job at hand, but the whole time, all I can think about is the fact that the love of my life is right in the next room, and she may never be mine. Somehow—some way—I need to fix this… I just don’t know how.