Dominic (Saint Brothers #1) (13 page)

She was sleeping soundly with her thumb in her mouth, looking peaceful.

“Is everything okay, Dominic?” Gemma asked quietly as we stood out in the hallway.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s not like you to call around like this. You know she’s happy and safe here.” Gemma glanced at me with a knowing look. “What is this about?”

“Nothing, Gem.”

“Is it a woman?”

How the hell did she know that Fallon had my head all messed up. I didn’t want to say anything to her, but my head was all over the place. I liked that girl much more than I should.

“It’s a woman.” She said firmly in confirmation.

“It’s nothing, really.”

Gemma patted me on the arm and smiled. “Someday, you’re going to have to let someone in. You don’t want to be alone forever.”

“I’m not alone. I have Lily.”

“That’s not the same and you know it.” She wagged a finger at me.

I didn’t want to talk about Fallon. I couldn’t get the thoughts straight in my head, so I had no idea how I was supposed to articulate them. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s as complicated as you want to make it, Dominic. Keep things simple and that will be a good start.” She smiled at the open doorway, “Lily wouldn’t mind sharing your life with someone. She’s a wonderful child and would take easily to anyone you chose to bring into your life.”

I nodded. She was right. Of course she was, but it wasn’t as simple as she was making out.

“I’m going to go down and sit with your father. Make sure you don’t wake her up, she was exhausted after all that playing with Rachael.” Gemma’s eyes sparkled.

I knew that she half hoped something would happen between me and Rachael, but there wasn’t anything like that there for me. She was more like a sister to me. Rachael was like family.

Walking into the bedroom, I kissed Lily lightly on the head. This wasn’t something I did very often, coming to my dad’s unannounced when they took care of my girl. She was safe and sound at my dad’s, but tonight, I needed to see her.

Heading slowly downstairs, I stopped by the living room and Gemma smiled at me warmly. “I’ll stop by in the morning for her.”

“We’ll call you when she’s ready for you. With coming for her a bit later tonight, I promised we’d take her to the park in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

“You know we love having her here with us, sweetheart.”

Kissing Gemma on the cheek and slapping a hand on my dad’s shoulder, I left them to it.

Making my way home, I wanted to slap myself on the head. All I could think about was that I was going home by myself when I should have had Fallon with me. Damn, I had to get my head straight and get her off my mind.

Chapter Ten

Fallon

I’d really had enough of Lauren’s matchmaking. It had been three weeks since I’d last seen Dominic and was doing everything in my power to make sure we didn’t cross paths again. Throwing myself into work was the best excuse, getting roped into wedding preparations was the worst.

The engagement party had gone pretty much as I had expected. Money was being thrown right, left and centre and no expense was spared for Princess Olivia’s upcoming nuptials.

My father had made the party a little less suffocating by plying me with whisky while I hid in a corner from all the prying eyes. It was just unfortunate that when the time came to leave, I was all but stumbling all over the place.

Needless to say, my mother was not at all impressed. Apparently, I’d brought shame on the family. Personally, I didn’t see how. There were only a handful of guests left when I staggered out from my hiding place, so it wasn’t like there were many witnesses to my drunken display.

But, that wasn’t the point. Those handful of women had managed to start the gossip trail and my mother had been furious. I’d had to sit through countless phone calls with her expressing her outrage at my behaviour. Blah, blah, blah.

My answer phone had been getting a lot of use. I’d taken to screening my calls as my mother was giving me a constant headache and Lauren was persistent in her attempts to get me to talk to her about Dominic.

In all fairness, I didn’t like having to dodge Lauren’s calls. She was a good friend to me and needed me. She was still getting confused by her feelings for Maze and the whole security detail thing that the boys had going on was freaking her out.

She had tried getting me to go to Sinners several times over the last few weeks, but I had refused every single time. Taylor had called to see if I wanted to go for a night out to Decadence, but there was no way that was going to happen. I was going to do everything I could to make sure I didn’t bump into Dominic again.

It seemed that I was trying to hide from everyone at the moment.

Especially Dominic.

I couldn’t get thought of him out of my head. The last thing I needed was to see him again and have those feelings intensify again. The longer I was away from him, the easier it was to get on with my life.

What was the big deal anyway? We’d had mind-blowing sex twice. That was it. That was all it was ever going to be. I had to get over it, and so did everyone else.

As it was, I was splitting my time between work and sleeping. There were plenty of shifts at work to be had and I was making the most of staying busy. The busier I was, the less my mind had time to think of a certain man. It was a win-win situation.

Lauren was calling around tonight before her shift at Sinners tonight. It would be good to see her. We hadn’t spent much time together lately. It wasn’t so easy with her shadow following her everywhere anyway. Plus, she’d promised to stay away from the subject of Dominic.

Maze was still stuck to her like glue. She hadn’t really said too much about him on the phone to me lately, but all that was going to change tonight. I had the feeling that something had gone on between them from the way she spoke about him, but she hadn’t admitted to anything.

It was going to be inevitable that the situation with Dominic would come up. Lauren could make all the promises in the world, but I knew that the temptation would be too strong. And I was actually kind of interested to see if he had said anything to her. It was doubtful, as I knew most guys didn’t gossip like us girls, but I had to hope.

I didn’t want to just be another notch on his bedpost. I wanted to be something more, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I didn’t want to go to Sinners or Decadence because I would look too eager. But I couldn’t get him out of my head.

Maze was going to be coming with her tonight, but he had already agreed to wait and keep watch outside. There would be another member of their security team watching the back of the property, which I thought was overkill, but they were adamant that Lauren wasn’t going to be left unprotected.

Moving around the house, I made sure everything was tidy and got the wine glasses out of the cupboard and put them on the coffee table, ready and waiting for Lauren who would be arriving at any moment.

A knock came on the door not two minutes after and I had to grin when I opened the door and saw Lauren standing there with her arms full of munchies.

“Come on in.”

“Where shall I put these?”

I nodded to the table, “Might as well keep them in here so they’re close at hand.” I always had to munch on food when I drank, even if it was just wine.

With a sigh, she put all the food down and then flopped onto the sofa, kicking her shoes off and making herself at home. “It’s good to have a night off.”

“Has it been busy at work?” I didn’t know why I was asking such a silly question. It was always busy at Sinners. They attracted a big crowd every single night of the week, not just at the weekends like in some bars.

“I didn’t mean work. I meant it was good to have a night off from having Maze or one of the other guys standing over my shoulder.” She scowled and I laughed. “What? It is so frustrating having them hanging around like a bad smell. Maze is the worst.” That was all the confirmation I needed to know that something had happened between them. Lauren looked torn. “What’s so funny?”

“You!”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious you like him and he likes you.”

“He’s only here because he has to be.”

“Bullshit.” I giggled. “Of course he likes you or he wouldn’t have slept with you.”

Lauren looked at me with shocked eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like then?” I asked as I poured us each a glass of wine, pleased I’d called it right this time.

She groaned. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

I laughed ruefully. “Been there, done that.”

“It’s not the same as with you and Dominic. Things have changed. We used to talk so easily and now it’s all ruined.”

“You can get it back.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

I felt sorry for her. In the middle of all this mess, she’d actually met someone she really like and it still wasn’t working out for her. What a fuck up.

Sitting down in front of the television, we decided to sit through re-runs of Sons of Anarchy. There’s no way you can ever feel down when Charlie Hunnam is gracing you with his shower scenes!

Dominic

Sitting in the living room, the house was finally quiet. Lily had been playing with her toys that were still scattered all over the floor. Usually, I’d make her tidy up after herself, but tonight she was so tired, I had to carry her to bed.

It had been a relatively easy going day. I’d caught up with everything at Decadence, Sinners was running without a hitch and I’d had the day off to go to a parents meeting at Lily’s nursery.

It didn’t make sense to me at first. I wondered why the hell we needed a parent/teacher meeting when the kid was only four. I mean, what did they think they were going to tell me? But, it was productive. They sang her praises, telling me how well she was coming on with her learning-through-play and my heart had swelled with pride.

Taking Lily to nursery and picking her up used to be quick an ordeal. The single mothers there gathered around me like vultures and nothing I did or said could deter them. And then when they found out I was one of the Saint Brothers and that I owned Sinners, they got even worse.

Luckily, the teachers weren’t like that. They made a brief nod to the fact that I was a single parent, but it wasn’t like they looked down on me or treated me any differently because of it. Lily was a great kid and everyone in her life was doing the best they could by her. I appreciated everything they did for her at the nursery and was pleased to see she was right on track to be starting big school.

Flicking through the movie channels, there was fuck all on that I was interested in. I wasn’t one for sitting around and watching television, but now that I had the time and inclination, there was nothing on. Bloody typical.

The phone rang, saving me from having to decide what to watch. “Yeah?”

“Dominic? It’s dad.”

“Hey, what’s up?” It wasn’t often that my father called me through the week, so I wondered if something was wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong. Gemma asked me to call you to remind you that it’s the family meal on Saturday.”

Ah, yes. The family meal. Years ago, Gemma had tried to implement this tradition for a Sunday roast, but seeing as we all went out on a Saturday night, especially now that Lily stayed over with them for me, she didn’t appreciate us turning up with hangovers. So now, we all gathered together on a Saturday evening to feed up before hitting the town.

Lily loved having everyone in one place all at the same time. She was the centre of attention and ate it up like a pro. At least having us all over wore her out so she slept like a log for Gemma and my dad.

“I hadn’t forgotten. What time does she want us?”

“Come around for about five. She doesn’t want Lily eating too late. Last time she ended up with tummy ache.”

“No problem.” I chuckled. Lily was just like me, happily eating anything that was put in front of her. “We’ll be there for five.”

“See you Saturday.” My father said gruffly as he hung up the phone.

As soon as I put my phone back down on the coffee table, it started to ring again. Shaking my head, I laughed. It was just like my dad to remember something as soon as he hung up.

“Dominic?”

That wasn’t my dad. “Kellin? What’s up?” It wasn’t like him to be calling, either. Usually, he was at home with Kacey.

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m swinging by.” And the phone line went dead.

Frowning, I knew it had to be something important to bring Kellin around to the house. He knew I didn’t like to discuss business when Lily was around, whether she was asleep or not.

Picking up the vast majority of the dolls and putting them haphazardly in one of the toy boxes, it was less than five minutes before soft knocking could be heard at the door. Opening it up, Kellin walked inside with a brief nod.

Walking into the living room, I pulled the door closed behind me. If Lily happened to hear her Uncle Kellin’s voice, she’d be up like a shot, no matter how tired she was.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he stood awkwardly. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“This isn’t a social call, bro.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

Kellin shook his head. “Maze got a feeling about this Matt guy and decided to check it out.”

“Didn’t he run this by you first?”

“No, but that’s not the problem.” Kellin sat down heavily in one of the chairs. “It’s what he found out that’s the issue.”

“And that is?”

“He’s not who we think he is.”

I frowned again. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that it doesn’t matter what we’ve found out up until now. It’s all bullshit. His name’s not Matt.”

Well, that was a shocker. “So, who the hell is he?”

“We don’t know. That’s the problem. Maze is chasing his contacts as we speak. We’ve been chasing our fucking tails.”

Kellin looked like he wanted to punch someone. I could understand his rage. My own blood was boiling. No wonder the asshole had looked like he was laughing at us. “So, what now?”

“We wait.”

“How far is he off finding something out?”

Kellin’s eyes darkened. “His usual contact has too much work on at the moment. Maze is having to use different avenues.”

I wasn’t going to ask anything more about that. We all knew that Maze didn’t always stick to the legal routes to find out what he needed, but as long as he got the job done, he could do what the fuck he wanted for all I cared. This time, I didn’t care how far past illegal he went as long as we found out what we needed to.

Up until this point, we thought that Matt was a little unhinged, but without a correct background check, we were still clueless.

Kellin stood up. “I promised Kacey I wouldn’t be too long. When I told her about this, she understood why I had to rush out.”

I nodded. Kacey would be as worried about Lauren’s safety as the rest of us. “Who’s with Lauren at the moment?”

“Chester and Greg.”

“And we’re keeping two on her at all times?” It wasn’t often I questioned Kellin about his security business, but this was a whole other situation.

“Of course.” He paused at the door. “I know she’s on shift tomorrow night. Personally, I think she should keep to her normal routine. If he’s watching her, I don’t want him to think there’s anything out of the ordinary.”

“Have you told her what you’ve found out?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Maze thought it would be better to keep her in the dark until we find out all the information on him. No point in worrying her unnecessarily.”