Page 26 of Inspiring Dominic

By the time I opened it, I was alone, my eyes wandering over the contents of the envelope, shaking my head at what I was reading. “You sly dog.” It’s what I used to call Granddad whenever he pulled one over on me during a card game.

“Dom, can I come in?” Samara asked, knocking on the open door. “Your dad suggested I come find you.”

I stood, walking to her instead. “Probably because of this.” I handed her the documents.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“About a year ago, Prescott Holdings purchased an online magazine with plans to turn it into a resort and casino centered publication. Until then, the current employees have been keeping the content updated. The bottom sheet is a receipt for payment sent to a—”

“Sam Stevens,” she finished, her mouth gaping open. “So your family hired me to do an investigative article for their own company? But why?”

I touched the bottom of her chin and tilted her head upward. “My best guess is that Granddad knew I needed you in my life before I even knew it myself.”

“There is so much that could have gone wrong if we hadn’t realized we love each other.”

“There’s even more that went right,” I reminded.

Her lips slowly curled into one of her signature hit-you-in-your-gut smiles. “Can’t argue with that.”

By the time I kissed her, I was already thinking of excuses to tell my family why Samara and I had to go back to my place.

Chapter 9

DOMINIC

“You ready for this?” Samara asked after we parked our car and headed to one of the most popular rooftop bars in Historic Charleston.

“Yeah. I haven’t worked this shit out with Johan since the funeral and it’s long overdue.”

This afternoon, we were meeting up with Wes and Denise, as well as Johan and Evelyn who flew into Charleston last night. It had been a couple months since I introduced Samara to my family, and as I was sure Granddad had suspected, I returned to Rosewood Heights to visit my family or handle Prescott Holdings business pretty often.

I guess in a way, you could take the man out of the small town, but you couldn’t take the small town out of the man. However, being with Samara and us moving in together in Miami gave me a chance to have a healthy balance in life.

Last week, we returned home from a trip to Chicago to visit Samara’s mother, who I met a week after Samara met my parents. Samara was a spitting image of her mother, and after one conversation with Ms. Alonso, I could tell that Samara got her spunk and feistiness from her.

Sammy told me that her mother had lost many pictures of her father in an apartment fire that happened when Samara was little. To Samara and her mom’s surprise, I reached out to Tomás who had a cousin that worked for some company that tracked down historic photos through a huge database and managed to find a few pictures of Mr. Alonso. Gaby reached out to some family who searched high and low, too.

Family history meant everything to me, and with everyone’s help, I was able to put together a small album for them, memories that belonged to Mr. Alonso that could now be passed along to his future generations.

I don’t think I would ever forget the emotion I witnessed in their eyes as mother and daughter sat together on the sofa, getting to know a little more about a man whose time on Earth had been cut short.

Samara and I weren’t going through life with a to-do list or anything … however, introducing Samara to Johan was one of the last pieces that made up the puzzle that was Dom.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for Denise again,” Samara admitted when we arrived at the brunch spot. “She’s a nice enough woman, but she talks so much and so fast, I can barely keep up.”

“I think that’s why Wes likes her,” I implied. “She’s the only person he’s ever met that does more talking than he does.”

After informing the hostess that we could spot the group we were meeting with, we walked over to where the others sat engrossed in conversation.

“It’s about damn time y’all got here,” Wes claimed, standing to hug us both with Denise following suit.

“There was a bit of traffic coming from Rosewood,” I told them, nodding to Johan. “Hello, Johan and Evelyn, good to see you both are well.” I placed a hand on the slope of Samara’s back. “I’d like for you both to meet my girlfriend, Samara. Samara, my good friend Johan and his fiancé, Evelyn.”

“Lyn,” Evelyn corrected. “Or you can call me Eve. Just not that other name.”

Seriously?“My apologies,” I stated, honestly forgetting she was going by this shortened name thing or that Wes told me she had Denise calling her Eve.

“Nice to meet you both.” Samara stepped forward to give them each a hug. Johan hugged her back, but Evelyn just reached out her hand instead.

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