Missing Hart (10 page)

It was the first time Minnie had ever said anything even in the neighborhood of being flirty and I gaped at her.

She turned tomato red as I stared at her. After a second she blurted out, “Oh my God, I’m sorry! That was unbelievably rude. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

I realized that by being an idiot and gaping at her she had jumped to the conclusion that I was uncomfortable with what she said. Since nothing could be further from the truth, I felt like an asshole. Reaching out for her arm I said, “No, Minnie… damn. I’m sorry I was just staring at you like a total moron. I’m acting like an idiot but… If it makes you feel any better, I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Her smile answered the question I had about whether or not she had feelings for me. Now I was positive that she did. Before I could edit the decision I was pulling her into my arms, cupping her head and leaning in to kiss her.

I had dreamt about Dillon kissing me so many times that as he pulled me forward, I thought it must be just another dream. When his lips covered mine and his tongue slid into my mouth I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

He kissed nothing like anyone I’d ever been kissed by before. Instead of attacking my mouth, he gently explored me like I was something precious to him. He tasted amazing on my tongue; manly with a mix of the cinnamon gum he favored. I’d never thrown myself into a kiss before, but with Dillon it was as natural as breathing for me to let go and let it happen. I stood on my tiptoes and curled my fingers into his dark blonde hair, shuddering against him as my body started to come alive in a way it never had before.

When we finally broke apart, we stared at each other in silence for a moment. He broke first, his face breaking into an enormous smile. Running his thumb over my lip he said, “My god, that was even better than I imagined that it would be.”

I turned to mush inside even as I smiled so big that my cheeks hurt. “So you were thinking about this too?”

Pulling me to his chest, he hugged me to him as his sexy chuckle reverberated under my ear. “You don’t even want to know how much I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve wanted to ask you out on a date but I wasn’t sure if you would think it was too soon.”

Looking up at him, I shook my head. “I don’t think that.”

“That makes this a much less anxiety producing moment then. Dominique, will you go to dinner with me on Friday night?”

Dammit. My dream was coming true and I actually had to freaking turn him down!

“Any other night but this Friday, my answer is yes. It’s my birthday and my family is having a big dinner for my sister and me. How about Saturday night instead?”

“What the hell?”

I looked up at him in shock, surprised that he sounded unhappy. Was he really going to be mad at me for pushing it off by one day? I’d never seen Dillon angry, had never heard him raise his voice but he definitely sounded annoyed with me.

“Are you seriously telling me your birthday is in two days and you weren’t going to say anything?”

Oh.

Shit.

There was a reason I hadn’t told him that my birthday was coming, and the reason was that I didn’t want to get him thinking about how old I was. In two days I’d be a legal adult, but he thought I was already nineteen. Now that he knew that my birthday was coming, he was going to assume that I was twenty. I needed to man up already and tell him that Marissa had lied about my age, but dropping the bomb on him after experiencing the best kiss of my life didn’t feel like an opportune time to do it. Scrambling to come up with a reason that I wouldn’t have mentioned it, I blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“I didn’t want to put any pressure on you to feel like you had to celebrate.”

My answer didn’t fly, but at least he wasn’t annoyed.

“Minnie, of course I want to celebrate your birthday. You’re too sweet for your own good sometimes. Mark your calendar honey because Saturday night I’m taking you on our first date where we will also be celebrating your birthday.”

Oh.

My.

Lord.

I’m going on a date with Dillon Cooper! He thinks that I’m beautiful. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming, but I knew that would look dorky and totally high school. My next impulse was to do cartwheels off his front porch. Instead, I took the hand he held out and walked into the house with him.

Once he laced up his shoes and grabbed his water bottle we headed out for our jog. I worried that things might feel different or awkward between us now that we had established that we were interested in one another. Fortunately, nothing changed. Being with Dillon was as mindless and easy as it had always been.

We talked about Leah during our warm up time, and I tried to soothe his growing anxiety about her really dramatic behavioral changes. Even though I was telling him that I thought everything would be fine, I had to admit to myself that I’ve been really alarmed by the one-eighty that she’s done.

When we both opened up our gaits and started to run, I had time to think about what had been going on with Leah. Since Marissa’s death, Leah has been really wild. In the last few months we’ve met three different boyfriends and they all registered badly on Dillon’s radar-and mine. Two weeks ago she texted me a dozen times at three in the morning to pick her up from some club in Hollywood because she was too drunk to drive. There was no way that I could get out of my house without my family flipping out, so I had no choice but to call Dillon and tell him that she needed a ride. We both tried to gently talk to her about what she’s been doing the next day when she finally woke up, but she was having none of it. She swears that she’s going to get herself together and she pointed out-loudly- to Dillon that since she had been responsible enough not to drive under the influence, he should cut her some slack because at least she had asked for help.

Dillon reminds me of a little bit of Damien and a lot of Spencer in many ways-fiercely protective but a total pushover when it comes to the people he cares about. He doesn’t have it in him to snap out on Leah (Actually I don’t think he’s got any kind of temper because he never yells) and since she’s an adult I guess it would be a bit of a stretch, but the truth is that right now she might benefit from some tough love. Or maybe she wouldn’t-it’s hard to tell.

Watching Dillon walk on eggshells trying to navigate the situation has given me a new appreciation for my brother Dante and all that he’s done for me. He loves Delilah and me more than anything in the world but he has a line that can’t be crossed and he’s able to be tough on us when he needs to be. One of my biggest fears is that I’ll let him down in some way. What he’s given up for our family overwhelms me, and I never want to do anything that will make him regret his sacrifices. He gets pissed when the rest of us talk about what he gave up for us, and he’s very clear about the fact that he hasn’t considered any of it a burden. In that way, Dillon reminds me of Dante. He has always put Leah, and Marissa when she was alive, first. I hope that someday I can introduce Dillon to my brothers-Spencer included-and my sister. I just know that he will fit right in.

Now I just need to get my high school graduation behind me and then I can bring him home to my family. If Dante knew I was going to start dating a twenty-five year old man in my senior year of high school he would lose it; but once graduation is past me he can’t really say much. I think any qualms he might have about it will be erased when he meets Dillon and understands what a stand up guy he is. They’ve got so much in common that I’m sure that once Dante calms down they will end up being good friends. I hope.

I was a sweaty mess by the time we finished our run and once we passed through the garden gate into Dillon’s back yard, we each stopped on the lawn to do our after run stretching. Once stretching was over each of us laid down on our backs to just relax and breathe. It might sound strange, but I really liked the comfortable silence that could exist between Dillon and me. I never felt like I needed to overdo or fill in with meaningless words.

Rolling onto his side to look at me he said, “Hey, you should bring your sister over. I’d like to meet her-and the rest of your family, too. What do you think?”

My pulse skidded to a screeching halt before picking up again at twice the pace it had originally been at. There was no way that I could introduce him to my family, not yet. I needed to hold him off.

“I’d love for you to meet my family. It’s hard to find a time when my brothers and my aunt aren’t busy because they are always working. My sister works in the baby room at a child care center and what time she doesn’t put in there she devotes to school or spending with my honorary brother, Spencer-and that’s really any time he isn’t working. Aside from Delilah and me the whole family works together which is nice, but this is a busy time for them. I’ll keep an eye on their calendars and see when something opens up. How does that sound?”

He nodded as he smiled at me. “Sounds good. What do they do that they all work together?”

I decided to keep my answer simple and fairly generic. I knew that Dillon had no idea that I was from a family that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and I didn’t want to let that cat out of the bag until it was time for him to meet them.

“They all work in construction.”

Technically that was true. Hart International designs and builds things, so construction isn’t too much of a stretch. What I’m not saying is that the family “Construction” business employs tens of thousands of people all around the world.

“That’s why you want to be an architect, isn’t it? You must have been watching them build things for your entire life. Were your parents in construction as well?”

I was Pavlov’s dog where my parents were concerned and the very mention of them made me tense up like I was bracing for impact.

Sitting up Dillon looked at me with concern. “I’m so sorry honey. You’ve mentioned that your parents are both dead before but that’s all you’ve ever said. I didn’t realize it was a touchy subject. I guess you must miss them a lot.”

I had omitted to share the full truth about my age and the family business with him, but I wouldn’t lie to him about my parents.

“I don’t miss them at all,” I spit out. “They both hated children, particularly the ones they were supposed to be responsible for. My mother died when I was three and my father died when I was ten. It was a huge relief when he died, to be honest. My brothers raised themselves and when we came along, they raised us. If it weren’t for Dante, Damien and Spencer, my sister and I wouldn’t be alive today. After our father died, my mother’s sister got custody of us, and then Spencer too. She gave us all the home life we had never had before. She’s the only mom that I’ve ever had and I love her to pieces. I only wish she had gotten custody of us earlier because so much of my life would have been different if…”

I abruptly stopped talking, surprised with myself for letting so much of my guard down. I had just been seconds away from telling Dillon what my father had done to me. Still, if there were anyone that I knew who could handle it, that person would be Dillon.

I realized that it had gotten strangely silent in the yard. I looked up to see Dillon staring down at me with a horrified expression on his face.

“I’ve heard something very similar to that sentence before Minnie, only it was Marissa who said it. Did your father do something to you honey?”

The tears were filling my eyes before the question was fully out of his mouth. Wiping at the tears that escaped, I nodded and then answered his question verbally.

“My brothers were so protective, always on guard and alert, but one day my father had an opportunity and he took it. I’m just lucky that they came home before he had the chance to rape me. He touched himself, touched me, but by the grace of God he didn’t get to violate me that way. The thing is… no one knows because I’ve never told anyone in my family. The first person I ever told the story to was Marissa. I used to be a lot like her, Dillon. Problems being touched, issues with intimacy, depression and anxiety. She was the one who helped me start to work my way through all of that. Now I realize that I am strong enough to survive and I will never let what he did ruin me.”

It felt so good to tell him, to open myself up to him completely. I leaned into his hand when he cupped my face and used his thumb to wipe away my tears.

“You amaze me Dominique. You’re easily one of the strongest people that I’ve ever known, and although I realized that long before today, I am more in awe of you than ever. I’m sorry that he touched you baby, but I want you to know that I’m damn proud of you for not letting it destroy your life. I hope you aren’t keeping this from your family because you think that it was somehow your fault.”

It was a bit of a shock to realize that I really wanted to be wrapped around him right then, but instead of second guessing myself I sat up and climbed into his lap. When he wrapped his arms around me and put his cheek on the top of my head I melted into him.

“For a really long time, I did think it was my fault. But now that I’m older, I understand that he would have done the same thing to my sister or any other person that he could have gotten his hands on. My father was a monster who lived to assert his dominance and make people feel inferior. He broke people as a hobby, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“The reason that I’ve never told my family is that they had to deal with enough. When I say that they gave up everything for my sister and me, I’m not exaggerating. I’ve never seen a reason to tell them because all it would do is make them feel guilty.”

Hugging me tighter he answered, “Honey, something terrible happened to you. You must have needed support all of these years. Your brothers must be a lot older than you to have raised you, so I’m sure they would have handled it.”

I swear that I felt a physical shifting inside my body as my heart opened the door to Dillon. He wasn’t just a great guy, a hot guy, a nice guy, a smart guy… he was the guy that I was falling in love with.