Page 21 of The Alpha's Assistant & The Dom Next Door
The Dom Next Door
A Billionaire Single Daddy Romance
I used to know exactly what I would do with my life, and why. I planned to devote myself to God. I was in the middle of my novice training a little over a year ago, when someone blew up my parents’ car. They were the kindest people in the world, and their deaths shook the foundation of myfaith.
Now I’m lost, knocking around in a half-furnished new house with no family left but a sister who hates me. No one has ever found the people responsible for my parents’ murder, and the police don’t seem interested in trying to find them, either. The only bright spot in my life is the man who lives next door with his babydaughter.
I look at him and remember that I’m a woman, not just a failed novice. He gives me one smile, and I feel some of the glacier of grief inside of me meltaway.
I can only imagine what a kiss from him woulddo.
* * *
Chapter1
Emmeline
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Sorry I haven’t visited in awhile.”
My coat is toothin for this weather. The chilly breeze blows across the hillside and rustles the flattened dead grass before cutting through the wool. It’s the only black coat I have, however, and I’ve been using it exclusively for a year, for just thatreason.
In their living will, Mom and Dad insisted on a burial on the same low hill where our ancestors’ graves have sat for centuries. The small mausoleum, a plain filing box for two coffins, sits before me as I crouch down with the icy wind at myback.
“It’s snowing again. Second time this winter. It’s crazy. Cars are pilingup
on the highways, and over in Florida the iguanas are falling out of trees from the cold. Can youimagine?”
My laugh is small, awkward, and hollow, and the wind carries it awayquickly.
This doesn’t feel like New Orleans. There shouldn’t be snow here. This winter feelswrong.
But things have felt wrong for months now. None of it makes sense—but I’m not all that surprised. My whole world has felt crazy ever since my parentsdied.
“I’m not going to the convent after all. I know, I said I was doing that right after junior college, but I’m realizing more and more that after what happened to you, my faith ... just didn’t end up being my rock like I thought itwas.”
My voice breaks and I go silent, cold tears tracking down my cheeks. The Mother Superior of the convent I had been seeking membership with was very sympathetic, but she didn’t understand. But she’d also never seen her parents blown up right in front ofher.
Seen? No, felt—my whole vision was whited out by the fireball. One moment, I was walking to the car, my dad talking to me from the driver’s side, teasing me gently for forgetting my phone while my mother hid a smile. The next, a tremendous blast of heat hit me and hurled me backward, my own awkward smile barely having time to die before I landed in our hedge. After that, everything wentblack.
I spent last January in the hospital, first for burns and cracked ribs, and then for post-traumatic stress. They released me with a clean bill of health, but they were deadwrong.
Mom and Dad have been in their grave a year, and I haven’t felt right or healthy in all that time. I can function day to day now—I can manage my money, and I have my own house. But part of me died that day with my parents—I woke up in the hospital without it, and haven’t been able to find itsince.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I know you were proud when I decided to devote myself to God. But I can’t join a religious order withoutfaith.”
The faith that sustained me since I was six years old, which I turned to over and over again when my sister Shayla wrought havoc in my life, crumbled like sand in the face of that explosion. The arsonist hasn’t been caught; Shayla is three times worse without my parents’ disapproval to restrain her; and every comforting word from a priest or the Bible ... no longercomforts.
The tears won’t stop. In the time since my parents have been gone, I’ve slowly been able to cut down on the public sobbing fits, hating to embarrass myself like that. But right now, I can forgive myself for breaking down alittle.
“I’m going back to college. I’ll finish my degree and then ... well ... I’m not sure. But I’ll try to find some way to make you proud of me.”Ihope.
Lucky for me that my half of the inheritance will carry me my whole life—even if I am never able to handle a jobagain.
“I still can’t get along with Shayla,” I mumble, wiping my cheeks again. “She pushed me into leaving home. I could only turn the other cheek so many times, so I left. I’m sure she planned it thatway.
“I think you would like my new house, though. It’s not very big, but it’s well-restored, it’s clean, and it’s mine. The neighborhood isn’t as nice as ours, but ... one of the neighbors ... well, he’sverynice.”
The thought of Carl, the single dad next door, makes me smile enough that my tears dry for a while. I can’t even fully explain how much the thought of him comforts me. Watching him play with his cute little daughter, his huge, powerful form moving so gently around her, always makes mehappy.
