Page 96 of The Dominator

I nodded.

He took my face in both hands and caressed it, looking deeply into my eyes. I chewed my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I nodded, but wondered if he was referring to being sorry about earlier or just now. He was still being a dick.

He kissed me on the forehead and then on the lips. His lips lingered, looking for mine to respond, I guess. I tried, but probably failed at being convincing. He backed up and stared at me for a minute and then he shook his head slowly.

“Fuck, Tia. What are you doing to me?”

I frowned. How was his hangover and / or his temper tantrum my fault?

He pulled me against him and held me tight, almost too tight. Then he backed up, shook his head with dismay, grabbed his phone and then left through the adjoining room. I was relieved to be alone. When I woke up today, I had no desire to sit in this hotel room all day while it seemed like the whole city was having fun. But now? I hoped he stayed busy.

He’d been off, mood wise, with me frequently since we got back from the farm. He was broody, temperamental. Actually, it’d started at the hospital, I think. I hated it. I hated that I had to walk on eggshells. Was this going to be my life from now on?

* * *

He picked me up about two and a half hours later. His eyes were sparkling and he seemed like he was in a good mood.

“The rest of the day is ours,” he told me and took me by the hand into the adjoining room where the two guys played cards with poker playing on the TV.

“Free time, boys. I’m going to show my girl Sin City. Just

have your cells on. I’ll have an errand for you in a few hours, so I’ll text about it.”

They both looked elated. I guess they were both itching for a real card game and some time out of their hotel room.

When I picked her up, she was timid with me. I couldn’t blame her for that after the way I’d been that morning, but right now I didn’t want timid, I wanted to show her some fun and erase what’d happened that morning.

It’d been a few hours since we left the room. We got lunch at an outdoor café and then I asked her what she wanted to do. She wanted to walk the strip. So we let the Bentley that the hotel had given us go and we walked, and walked. I took her to a jewelry store and told her to pick out a new pair of earrings. She didn’t want to. I insisted. She chose a simple pair of princess-cut diamond studs. They looked beautiful on her. I suggested we look at wedding bands, too.

The jeweler suggested an eternity band that would complement her engagement ring nicely and she liked it, so I bought it and told Tia to pick something for me. She was really wary about it, so much so that it made me feel like she was having second thoughts. I guess I was probably doing this to make her forget about the way I’d acted this morning as well as to move forward with the wedding plans, too.

After a long time, she chose for me. She made a really nice choice, actually. It was a twisted gold and black band, the two colors woven together in a Celtic knot pattern. It made me think of her and I. Light and dark, wrapped around one another.

“I love it,” I whispered in her ear. “It’s perfect. It makes me think of us.” She nuzzled into me and smiled shyly, her expression showing me that she and I had similar opinions about the design.

I arranged for the rings to be sent home, but Tia put the earrings on before we left the store. She was still quiet and a little timid, though, and it was getting to me. I needed to snap her out of it.

I guess he was trying to make up for that morning. I wasn’t trying to not let him off the hook or anything, but I just felt… I don’t know… sad. I didn’t know if he was being honest about the lipstick on his collar and I didn’t know what else was on his mind that’d made him so awful earlier. I didn’t know how to fake it. And he told me he didn’t want me to be fake when it was just him and I, anyways. But him buying me jewelry and acting the way he was acting felt fake to me. I wished we were back at the hay loft.

Tommy Ferrano was light and dark, like the colors in the wedding band I’d chosen for him. He thought the light and dark represented us but to me, it represented him. Woven together, the light and dark was who he was. I wondered if I’d be able to take the dark, though; I wanted the light to win out over it. But it looked like it’d be both I’d have to live with. Unless I found a way out. Did I still want a way out?

I needed a restroom. As we were walking through a mall-like area in between two hotels, I told him so and he said he did as well. Once we found bathrooms, he said he would meet me right outside the door afterwards.

But, he wasn’t there when I got out. It felt strange to find myself totally alone and with no eyes on me, no security guards around. I had the urge to run, to disappear into the crowd. My heart pounded with adrenaline as I looked around myself.

If I did take off, what would happen? My father clearly hadn’t been honest with me and so did that mean they wouldn’t have killed him if I hadn’t cooperated? I knew, for a fact, that they didn’t hesitate to kill their enemies, so Dad probably would be in danger. But did he even deserve my consideration after selling me out when I had escaped from Tommy? I didn’t know. But, where would I go?

No. I wasn’t going to do it. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d promised to be faithful, he’d said he was sorry about this morning, and he was trying to make his miserable mood up to me. I’d been weighing the good and the bad and right now the scales were still tipping in his favor. And if he was starting to trust me to be alone, without security, maybe it meant that it’d evolve to where I’d have enough freedom that if I ever did need to run, I could do it then. I didn’t want to run. I just wanted him to always be who he’d been in many of the moments when he’d been sweet to me. I could handle the hotness in the games we played, too, I liked the hotness, but this morning? Not hot at all.

I didn’t know what was keeping him. It’d been at least ten or fifteen minutes. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted him with:

“Did you fall in? LOL”

Five more minutes. Ten more minutes. No reply to my text and no sign of Tommy.

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