Midnight Heat (Black Phoenix Book 2) (9 page)

“Do you know how many times someone’s said that to me?” He shoved his arms in his shirtsleeves, his feet into his shoes. “‘Oh, Dom, I love you, Dom.’ They never mean it.”

“Yeah? Well consider yourself lucky.” Her voice was tight, filled with sadness. “No one’s ever told me they love me.”

That gave him pause. “Bec—”

“I’m not some groupie, Dominic. I’m a grown woman. I know my own feelings.”

He sighed. “Do we have to do this?”

She shoved the sheet aside and scooted to the end of the bed. “Yes,” she said, snagging his hand. “We have to do this.”

He stared at her, then at their joined hands for a long moment. “What do you want from me, Becca?”

“Nothing.”

“No?” he scoffed. Every woman wanted something. No one uttered those words without an ulterior motive.

“I want you to know what’s in my heart. I love you, Dominic.”

He felt the truth of that in his bones. He shook his head as panic welled within him. Not knowing what to do with it, he turned and walked out the door.

Dom couldn’t breathe. No matter how he struggled, there was no way to draw enough oxygen into his lungs. He was drowning – without a speck of water in site. He gasped and promptly choked. The pain was all encompassing, like nothing he’d experienced before. His limbs felt heavy, weighted down, and useless.

He hadn’t lied to Rebecca. He’d heard those four words so many times. He’d lost count how many. Shouted at him after a show, or whispered during sex, they were just words. Words that meant nothing…until she’d uttered them.

If only he hadn’t walked away. Panicked at the realization a woman could affect him both physically and emotionally. But the feelings she’d stirred in him had been so new and terrifying that he’d run.

All the way back to London.

Only to discover that just because she wasn’t with him physically didn’t mean he’d been able to let go. The memory of her stayed with him—sunk its teeth into him so deeply that to this day he couldn’t look at another woman without thinking of her.

Rebecca.

He had no one to blame but himself. He’d fucked up. For nearly three years he’d lived with that knowledge. He’d gotten used to the ache that was with him every day. The pain that had only grown since being back in the States, living out of Noah and Isabeau’s guest room, surrounded by their happiness, an easy love he couldn’t imagine but spent his life secretly craving.

“I don’t love you anymore, Dominic.”

He’d destroyed everything. Brought about the very thing he’d been trying to protect himself against. He’d lost the only woman he’d ever loved.

A crushing weight settled in his chest. He’d always feared being alone and that’s just what he was. With no one to blame but himself. He’d arrogantly thought that he could win Becca back with charm and charisma. Now he knew those tricks wouldn’t work and he had no recourse. He had nothing. Just the emptiness inside of him, the cold ache of loneliness that swallowed him whole.

Chapter Seven

The house was pitch black, which fit his mood. It was empty – another plus. Dominic sprawled in one of the four chairs surrounding a low table at the far side of the living room. A bottle of ale in his hand, he stared at the flames licking the glass-fronted fireplace. Just how much would he have to drink to forget tonight? How drunk would he have to be before the memory of the pain, the anguish he’d witnessed in Rebecca’s eyes was erased? Becca, tough, confident, can-handle-anything-that-came-through-the-doors-of-the-emergency-department Becca. Near to breaking. Because of him.

Knowing how deeply he’d hurt her was one thing. Seeing it was a whole different story.

Dominic took a long pull from the ale. Then another. He welcomed the burn at the back of his throat. Prayed for numbness he feared would never come.

The beep of the alarm system told him he was no longer alone. More tones as a code was entered into the keypad, then Isabeau’s voice carried to him across the polished cherry floors.

“I had a happy childhood. It was…anything but normal, but I was happy. Before the accident.”

“Isabeau,” Noah replied softly.

“I spent five years in Hell. Five years, Noah, that’s all.”

“Five years is a long time.”

“No,” she said adamantly. “Not compared to what other kids live through. I got lucky. I had Thomas to go back to. I found you. I look at this place, this house…it’s…”

“You don’t like our home?”

“Of course I do. What I’m trying to say is most people look at me and see a dream life. But I also have demons. You know that better than anyone. Demons after only five years, not a lifetime like some.”

Dom’s body went rigid as the truth of what she left unsaid soaked into his ale soaked brain.

“That girl tonight, she’s being abused. She favored her right side. Someone beat her, probably broke her ribs, and no one cared.” The tears in her voice tore at him. “No one would look at her and all she wanted was someone to
see
her.”

“You saw her, Isa.”

“I’ve been her. Hiding bruises beneath long sleeves no matter the weather. Wearing baggy clothes because anything else rubs and is too painful.”

Jesus. How had he not known this about her? It explained so much.
Dom lifted the ale to his lips, then lowered it without taking a drink. He wasn’t sure it would stay down.

Unaware of his presence, Isabeau continued. “Longing for someone to touch you – not hit or kick, but caress. Wondering how no one notices what you’re going through, then forced to face the cold hard reality that no one
wants
to see it. No one cares. What kind of world are we bringing…?”

Dom’s throat burned with the need to vomit. He stood abruptly, desperate to get out of there. For his peace of mind as well as her privacy. His emotions were already raw, this new insight into just how bad her childhood had been only amplified his agony.

Isabeau startled.

“I’m sorry.” He touched a hand to the remote on the table, activating the recessed lighting in the cathedral ceiling. “Obviously, this conversation was never meant for my ears. I just wanted you to know I was here before…” Before he threw up. “I’ll leave.”

“It’s okay. I’m going to go lie down.” She started for the stairs, stopping only long enough to place a hand on Noah’s visibly tight bicep before moving up the stairs and into the master bedroom.

Noah remained silent until the door clicked shut behind her, then he began to swear colorfully, without raising his voice.

“Let me guess,” Dom said quietly. “Whitehorse.” John Whitehorse, Isabeau’s biological father. The man who’d won custody of her after the automobile accident that killed her mother and scarred her hand. A man who’d never wanted his daughter, only her wealth and success.

Noah’s hands tightened into fists. “Every time he caught her playing the piano,” he growled, then followed his wife upstairs.

It was too much, too damn much. First Becca, then overhearing Isabeau’s confession. The pain and anger coalesced inside him making him feel like he’d been sucker punched. He’d never been any good at dealing with emotion. Just another one of his shortcomings. His first instinct was to run. Second, to break something. Instead, he opened another beer.

* * *

Dominic turned his gaze away from the windows as Noah came down the stairs thirty minutes later. “Is Isabeau okay?”

“She’s sleeping,” he said, dropping into the chair Dom had vacated.

He studied his friend. “You want to talk about it?”

“Fuck no.”

Unlike Dominic, Noah didn’t drop the f-bomb often. When he did, it was a sure sign of his emotional state.

So, even though a large part of him wanted to walk away, to escape the emotion, the overpowering, overabundance of emotion this night was bringing him, Dom left the window and sat in the chair to Noah’s right.

Noah cleared his throat. “Isa’s spoken with you?”

“About Whitehorse? Never.”

“Fuck,” he uttered again, launching out of the chair and crossing to the window. “I mean about…” He scrubbed his hands down his face. “She’s bored, Dom.”

“Not with you.” From everything he’d seen in the past seven months of living under their roof, Dom could say that much with certainty.

Noah mumbled something he didn’t catch.

“Is this why you were such a bear to live with while she was in Manhattan?” His friend’s relaxed, quiet nature combined with his ability to make things happen made Noah a natural leader. He was the decision maker, the peace keeper, the one who dealt with the stress of being in the music industry better than any of them. Until three days before Dom’s car accident, when he’d gone from unnaturally quiet to unnaturally quiet and irritable. “You can’t possibly think she wasn’t going to come back.”

Noah scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck, eased out a breath. “Not that she wouldn’t come back, just… Isabeau called me every day.”

He knew that, usually overheard part of their conversation. The hardest part for him to hear – when Noah would tell her he loved her. They made it sound so easy, but Dom knew how difficult it really was.

“You couldn’t mistake the joy in her voice. She was with friends, with her father. I don’t know, Dom, maybe I pushed her too hard, too fast. She gave up everything to be with me, left it all behind. But after the fire, after everything…I was so afraid of losing her.”

He’d come damn close to losing her. To a madman who’d wanted her dead. For hours after that fire Noah hadn’t known if Isabeau was alive or dead. Dominic couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult that must have been.

Pushing his long black hair out of his face, Dom stacked his hands atop his head. “You are a pushy bastard,” he said with levity. When Noah only sighed, he continued. “Do you know what I was doing the night of the accident?”

Noah faced him, his expression a mix of confusion and curiosity.

Damn, anyone else and he would never admit it, but Noah was like a brother to him. After all the years, all the stupid shit they’d shared…

Dom focused on him, standing silent, watching. That’s how he was. He didn’t usually say much, just observed. Always watching those around him, he didn’t miss much either. And he didn’t normally lie to himself or make something out of nothing the way he’d been doing these past few weeks. “I took Isabeau’s SUV because—”

“You couldn’t find the keys to the Aston.”

“Yes. But…look, you two are bloody difficult to be around sometimes. The shared looks, the connection… Christ, Noah, how could you ever question whether she’s happy with you? It’s so damn obvious.” This time it was he who launched out of the chair. He hated the bitterness in his voice. Hated even more the constant unrelenting ache in his chest.

Dom began to pace. “I couldn’t take it. The wedded bliss. Your damn caveman antics – the way you carried her to bed the minute she returned from New York. I had to get the hell out of here.” He stopped pacing, curled his fingers into the back of the chair. “I was hauling ass, thinking about Becca, how I could have had what you have if I hadn’t fucked it up. A woman. A life. Here I was back in California, pissed off and lonely as hell.”

“Tell me you didn’t run that light on purpose.”

“You know me better than that.”

“I thought I did.” He looked skeptical.

“Fuck, Noah, I’m not suicidal.”

“Dom—”

Dominic held up a hand to stop Noah from saying anything. “Isabeau’s finding her place here. She’s making friends, getting settled in. She doesn’t regret marrying you; she’s just looking for something. Maybe a way to reconcile her past.” Jesus, he couldn’t imagine carrying around that kind of weight. “Maybe just something to keep her busy while we record. To find her own identity apart from you. I don’t know. But I think you do, and I think what’s really eating you is that you’re worried about her.”

Noah stared at the piano. “I don’t know how to help her.”

“You want to fix everything, that’s how you are, that’s
who
you are. But you can’t fix this for her, Noah. You have to let her find her own way.”

“I know that, I do.”

Dominic followed Noah’s gaze to the gleaming, black, baby grand that had been a centerpiece to the room since Isabeau’d moved to California. “I know you do. I also know how difficult this is for you. Now that I know about Whitehorse, I understand her struggle. She may or may not find her way back to the piano, but at least she has you, and she’s composing. She’ll work through it with her compositions. She’ll put her soul into her music and come out better for it.”

“Isa hated performing.”

“Really?” For Dom, that was the best part of being a musician.

Noah shoved his hands in his pockets and dropped his gaze to the floor. “Said she felt like a…curiosity.” Dom could tell by the look on Noah’s face that wasn’t what she had said. “But she loved to play.”

Loved.
Past tense. “She must want to again, otherwise why torture herself by keeping that thing in the center of the living room, where she has to look at it every day?”

“I don’t know how to help her,” Noah repeated. “What the hell am I supposed to do when the past sneaks up on her?”

He had no idea, since his own past was giving him a one-two punch right now. “You might not be able to help her.”

Noah pulled his hands out of his pockets and shoved them through his hair. “Fuck that!”

“I believe my living here has had a very negative affect on your language, mate.”

His lips twisted.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Noah. I guess just do what you do best.”

“Distract her with sex?”

“Listen,” Dom corrected with a grin. “Listening is what you do best.”

“Says you.” Noah sighed. “I like my idea better. I’m not sure how many more details I can stomach.”

“I can’t imagine.“ After returning to his chair, Dominic picked up his ale. “Thank you for never sharing any of it with me.” His pain-filled childhood was already a weight around his neck. Learning the details of Isabeau’s was a burden he didn’t think he could carry.