Page 128 of The Scandal You Started
“Thank you. You too, Monty. Bye.”
He offered the same greeting, and they turned in opposite directions.
The moment her back was to the head historian, her forced smile dropped with the leaden weight that sank through her.
What am I supposed to do?
Rayna didn’t bother turning her computer on when she got to the office she shared with George, Erin, and River, neither of whom were around. She simply plopped down in her desk chair and stared at the encased tube lights on the ceiling, trying to catalogue her thoughts.
At some point, she closed her eyes and imagined two scenarios.
A life with Dominic. And a life without.
Things would be easier without him. There would be no more butting heads with a man who wanted to protect her, who called her a little witch, and told her to obey him. There’d be no more uncomfortable emotions, and she wouldn’t be risking her job.
Things would go back to the way they were, where she did what she wanted, messed around whenever she was in the mood for a man’s company, never questioned whether a life spent with someone was actually as bad as she’d always convinced herself it would be.
But with all her memories of him, would she really be able to go back to being the person she had been before meeting him? Would it be easy? Would she regret letting him go?
A life with him, though, was supposed to be impossible.
He couldn’t stay. He wanted marriage and children. He would drive her mad every day, and they’d argue whenever he got too domineering and jealous. He’d make her feel things for him against her will, and she’d have to deal with the discomfort of it for the rest of her life. And that was if they stayed together, because breaking up or getting divorced were both possibilities.
But things would never be boring with him. They’d learn and work together, she’d tease him about his old-man ways, and maybe eventually he’d get the hang of technology. Their arguing would always be followed by sounds of laughter or sex, and there would never be a moment where he left her alone for too long. He’d be clingy, overbearing, and possessive, with eyes that displayed his heart, the most beautiful, toothy grins, comforting hugs, safe arms, the warmest of kisses, and his big, fat, wonderful dick.
He’d sneak love letters through the walls around her heart, persuading her to pull them apart brick by brick without her even realising it. He’d take over her life. He’d be in every damn part of it. But the scariest thing was realising he’d made sharing it feel fulfilling so far.
What if it always felt like that?
How did she trust that it would always feel like that?
Eventually, tired of running around in circles within her head, she turned her computer on. It took her ages to try to get her mind to focus, but she managed to reply to three emails, before Ash brought Dominic to the office and left them with a few instructions.
There was a moment of silence once the door closed, weighted with so many words that needed to be said.
“I will not agree to this idea of leaving early,” Dominic uttered firmly.
“I know,” she said. “I told Monty you wouldn’t want to.”
A relieved glow cast over his face. “Thank you.”
He shifted towards her with a visible need to scoop her up into his arms, but she quickly scooted her chair back. “Don’t. There’s a camera in the corner.”
He halted, swallowed, and straightened, curling his hands into fists. Then his gaze travelled the ceiling before moving around the rectangular room.
“Is this where you usually work?” he asked.
“When I’m at the lab, yeah.” Rayna looked around the way he did.
A grey metal cabinet and set of drawers were placed against the back wall, while white desks lined the left and right sides of the room, with two monitor screens on each. A black desk chair was placed in front of each identical computer, but it was clear who sat where.
Rayna’s desk was tidy, decorated with a few Post-it notes stuck to her computer screen and a photo frame filled with a collage of small, printed pictures. George’s desk behind her had a single biro and pencil that he lost every other week within a rugby ball-shaped mug. Erin’s desk was full of pastel colours and the most recent romance book she’d left at her desk to read when she found a quiet moment, while River’s side had papers overflowing his desk organiser.
Dominic did a slow round of the space then hinged at the waist to peer at her photo frame. “Are these your pictures?”
“Yeah.”
“May I take a closer look?”
