Chapter 12 - Dominic Comes to the DoorDominic came alone.
No cameras.
No Olivia.
No lawyer.
Just him, standing outside my mother’s gate at dusk, looking like a man who had misplaced his own reflection.
Security called before letting him near the house.
“Mrs. Sinclair wants to know if you wish to receive Mr. Vance.”
My mother looked at me.
Leo looked at me.
Grace was on the rug, trying very hard to roll onto her side and becoming furious at the existence of gravity.
I should have said no.
Every rational part of me said no.
But sometimes closure does not arrive because a person deserves it.
Sometimes it arrives because you deserve to stop imagining what they might say.
“Ten minutes,” I said. “Outside.”
I met him on the back terrace.
Not inside.
Never inside.
The sun was slipping behind the trees, turning the garden gold. Dominic stood with his hands in his pockets. He looked thinner. His face had lost its expensive smoothness.
For once, he did not look like a man arriving to take.
He looked like a man unsure whether anything would be handed to him again.
“Mara,” he said.
“Dominic.”
He glanced toward the windows. “Is she here?”
“Grace lives here.”
His throat moved. “Can I see her?”
“No.”
Pain crossed his face.
I studied it without softening.
“You can request supervised visitation through the court.”
“I’m her father.”
“You remembered.”
He flinched.
The old me would have felt guilty.
The new me let silence do its work.
“I deserved that,” he said.
“Yes.”
He looked down. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then why are you here?”
His laugh was broken. “Because everyone else is gone.”
There it was.
The truth, ugly and late.
Brooke had left the penthouse. Everett was missing. Olivia was under court order. Investors were distancing themselves. The board had removed him. Friends had become busy. His phone no longer rang with admiration, only questions.
Everyone else was gone.
So he came to the woman trained by years of marriage to receive his wreckage.
But I was no longer that woman.
“I’m not your shelter,” I said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me then, eyes red. “I didn’t know about Everett.”
“You knew about the vasectomy.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why did you let me think our infertility was my failure?”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The garden seemed to hold its breath.
Finally, he said, “Because I was ashamed.”
I stared at him.
“I was tired of doctors,” he continued. “Tired of schedules, needles, disappointment. Tired of feeling like my life was controlled by whether your body—”
He stopped.
Too late.
“My body,” I repeated softly.
His face crumpled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s always what you meant.”
He dragged both hands through his hair. “I wanted something that felt simple.”
“Brooke felt simple?”
“She admired me.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was so small.
“I admired you when there was nothing to admire yet.”
He looked wounded by that, as if truth had been rude.
“I loved you,” he said.
“No. You loved what I made possible.”
He shook his head. “That’s not fair.”
“Dominic, fairness left the room when you brought your pregnant mistress into my hospital room.”
His face collapsed fully then.
“I hate myself for that.”
“Good.”
He stared at me.
I did not take it back.
“Hate can be useful if it makes you honest,” I said. “But don’t bring it here expecting me to turn it into forgiveness.”
He swallowed hard.
“I said things about Grace.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t undo them.”
“No.”
“I want to try.”
“You want access?”
“I want a chance.”
“Those are different.”
He nodded slowly.
For the first time, he did not argue.
Behind the glass doors, I saw my mother holding Grace. The baby’s hand pressed against the window, fascinated by the man outside who shared her blood but had not earned her trust.
Dominic saw her.
Everything in him seemed to stop.
Grace looked at him without recognition.
That did it.
Not the legal papers.
Not the wedding humiliation.
Not the company collapse.
That blank, innocent stare broke something in him.
“She doesn’t know me,” he whispered.
“No.”
His eyes filled. “That’s my fault.”
“Yes.”
He took one step toward the glass.
I moved in front of him.
“No closer.”
He stopped immediately.
A small mercy.
Or the beginning of sense.
“I’ll do whatever the court says,” he whispered.
“That would be wise.”
“And you?”
“I will do whatever protects her.”
He nodded, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He looked almost young, almost like the man I had once believed I could build a life with.
Almost is a dangerous word.
Before he left, he turned back.
“Mara?”
I waited.
“Was there ever a moment you would have forgiven me?”
The answer came easily.
“Yes.”
Hope flickered in his eyes.
Then I finished.
“In the hospital. If you had turned around before reaching the door.”
He closed his eyes.
May you like
Because we both knew he had not turned around.
Not once.
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