Page 30 of Endgame

‘It’s a good thing I’m one of those.’ I smile at him, removing my hand from his.

‘Let’s hope it stays that way, because we’ve found your new CEO. He starts in two weeks.’

‘Is there anything I can do to make things easier for him?’

‘No.’ Dominic snorts at a private joke. ‘Samir relishes a challenge.’

‘We’re certainly that,’ I say as I smile.

‘He has his way of doing things. Expect some chaos.’

‘We can handle chaos.’

‘You continue to intrigue me, Ariella Mason.’ He looks at me with a little smirk, then picks up the menu again and hands it to me. ‘Feed me? Please?’

I take the menu and do as he asks. Dinner is easy and laughter-filled, like all the dinners we have had before. Dominic may have committed to backing off, but I know that his mere presence is going to make my reconciliation with Caleb difficult. Also, the one thing I have observed and that I admire about Dominic, working with him over the last few months, is his tenacity. He seems incapable of backing off anything. It worries me because we’ve had the friendship conversation before, but the last time Dominic showed up expecting me to feed him, it ended with both of us crossing a huge line.

A few weeks ago, Dominic reminded me that I’d promised to make him mac and cheese to say thank you for my birthday party, so after I moved into his community he came over with an empty belly and some champagne as a house-warming present.

‘Hey!’ He happily shook the two bottles of Bollinger at me as I opened the door.

‘Hi. Come on in,’ I said as I gladly let him in.

‘I came armed with my streaming username and password – I’m determined to set your TV up so we can watch something good!’

‘Brilliant! I’ll put the champagne in the fridge.’

‘Let’s pop one right away. I know it’s your favourite.’

‘I have colder bottles in the fridge.’ I relieved him of both bottles to put them away.

‘I feel like celebrating the fact that we are finally hanging out alone in your home. I actually managed to make it over without being interrupted by Lara.’ He laughed loudly, reminding me that it was the first time we’d been alone since the kiss in front of my apartment building.

He followed me to the kitchen, where I handed him a much colder bottle of Bollinger and grabbed a couple of glasses. Dom made a show of popping it loudly, then filled them.

‘Cheers!’ we said in unison and took our sips.

‘Your home is much nicer than mine,’ he quipped, walking through the kitchen. ‘You’d know if you ever actually took up any one of the many invitations I’ve extended. Are we eating out here?’ he asked, pointing at the laid dining table in the garden.

‘I thought it would be nice to sit outside?’

‘Hell no. We’re having a movie night and you’ve made us American classics. Tradition dictates we eat in front of the TV. I’ll move this stuff over while you finish up.’

I watched Dominic pick up the cutlery, crockery and linen, then turned back to the stove. Cooking before he turned up had been fun. It was wonderful to have a stab at Gigi’s recipes tonight. MsPat had gone on the ingredients hunt for me, so I had to improvise when she couldn’t find what I was looking for. It was exciting to come home to make sense of it all. The smoky lardon macaroni cheese was easy. I’d made it plenty of times before with Gigi but never alone. I grilled some salted chicken wings that were to be served with buffalo sauce that MsPat had found, and blackened some shrimp before adding it to the potato salad to make it a little more interesting. The first batch of almost everything was such a disaster that I was worried that the night’s meal was destined for the bin. Thankfully, I ended up with final results that were passable. It wasn’t perfect – andcertainly not up to Gigi’s standards – but each dish had a good amount of flavour and no one was going to die of food poisoning.

‘What do you want to watch? I’m looking at a bunch of chick flicks and hoping you’ll go easy on me and pickBridesmaids,’ Dominic shouted from the living room.

I laughed to myself as I brought the platter of food in. Dom cleared the coffee table and set places for us there, with cushions on the floor for us to sit.

‘I’m in the mood for something scary…’

‘How do you feel about foreign-language films?’

‘I love them!’

‘Train to Busanit is!’

I grabbed the ice bucket, poured us both more champagne and set out the rest of the condiments. Dominic hit the lights.

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