Page 43 of Dominic

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Where’s Cassandra?”

The moment he’d shown up without her both of his brothers had noticed her absence and given him a look. But it wasn’t until about an hour before the wedding was scheduled to start that Sarah realized Cassandra wasn’t there.

“This is a family event, sweetheart,” Dominic tried to explain, the excuse weak even to his own ears. “I thought maybe it would be better if Cassandra didn’t attend.”

Sarah just looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “Cassandra has been here every day this week helping me set everything up. She’s been an absolute godsend.Why would you think I didn’t want her here?”

To Dominic’s absolute dismay, Sarah began to cry. Roman shot him a look that made him think of slow, painful deaths.

“Sarah,” Dominic tried to explain, “I don’t think Cassandra is the person you think she is. She’s a con artist, a thief; she always has been. That hasn’t changed.”

Sarah, dressed in her beautiful white gown, took a step away from Roman and came to stand right in front of Dominic.

“Is that what you truly think? Deep inside is that really the person you think she is?” Sarah asked.

Roman felt his fists clench. “Damn it, no I don’t want to believe it. But I can’t deny the proof when it slaps me right in the face.”

“And what proof is that?”

“We caught her planting a device that will transmit my computer files. Financial records, scheduling, plans for the future. Details that could be really damaging if sold to the right people.”

“You caught her doing that?”

Dominic grimaced. “No, actually we caught her taking it off. But the fact is, she did put it on the computer. She didn’t deny it when I confronted her.”

“And what did she say when you asked her why she did it?”

Dominic thought of Cassandra’s still form, lying on his bed. She hadn’t gotten up even when he’d hit her hard enough to draw blood. He flinched. “I—”

“Did you ask her if she was under duress? Or if there was some sort of stress trigger? I’ve gotten to know Cassandra a little this week, and I’ll be the first to admit that I might be too quick to give people the benefit of the doubt, but the one thing I’m definitely sure of is that she has some triggers. Feelings of inadequacy and uselessness. Like the night we were all together on the way tothe gala. And she was a breath away from a panic attack.”

“Yes.” He remembered. Of course he remembered.

“You threatened to do some pretty drastic stuff.”

Dominic could feel himselfgetting defensive.“Because she needed it. It helped her.”

Sarah touched him on the arm. “I know. I was actually thrilled that you seemed to be so aware of what she needed. Definitely much more than she was aware of what she needed.”

“She’s still a thief and a con artist, Sarah.” Dominic looked over at his brothers to see if they had anything to chime in with, but they stayed silent.

“Something triggered her that night with the gala. But because it wasn’t one of your triggers, you helped her through it. All I’m asking is did she make a deliberate choice to betray you — because that would be one thing — or did something trigger her and she made a bad call, and then tried to fix it?”

Dominic felt a knot forming in his gut. “I don’t know.”

Because he hadn’t asked. Hadn’t given her a chance to explain at all. Hadn’t been able to see past the fact that she had betrayed him again. Hadn’t wanted to understand.

All he’d wanted to do was to make her hurt the way he had been hurting. And he had. He made her bleed. But the physical pain she would get over much more quickly than she would recover from what he’d said to her.

“Oh God.” His mind, his own subconscious, had known exactly what to say to hurt her worst.

“Maybe she had a reason,” Sarah said. “It may not even seem like a good reason to you or me, but things are a little twisted to her. Maybe if you just hear her out. And try to understand.”

Yes, that was what he should’ve done. It was what Titus had been trying to tell him. That he needed to speak to Cassandra calmly, get all the facts. But he hadn’t been able to see past the possibility of his pride of getting hurt again.

“I said some unforgivable things to her.”

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