Wicked Liar by Faith Summers

Chapter Six

Dominic

After the debacle from yesterday, I expected the strange day I had at work. With my two-year absence, people were already going to be looking my way.

Today, though, they were looking for a different reason. It was a mingle of curiosity and surprise.

They would have been curious to know what would possess a sweet woman like Candace Ricci to slap me. Me, one of the owners of the company. Me, one of the D'Agostino brothers.

The surprise would have come from the fact that I allowed it.

I rarely give two fucks what people think, but today was different. It heightened the sting of shame I already felt.

Like Tristan, I do the company accounts, so I distracted myself with work and tried to get back into the swing of things. There was enough work to keep me busy, but I left after lunch, opting to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach to restructure my plans to see Candace.

I still want to see her. Just because yesterday was shit, and she told me to leave her alone doesn't mean I'm going to. I'm not going to be a pussy and hide. I just have to figure out a better way to approach her.

The goal is to apologize to her properly. After that... I guess whatever happens won't matter.

My doorbell rings just before six, and I open it to find Tristan standing on the other side.

I'm not surprised to see him. I was expecting one or both of my brothers to come and see me at some point.

When I got to work this morning and met them for coffee, I could see them both itching to talk about Candace. Neither did. It looks like this was the idea they came up with, and I could have preempted that Tristan would be the first to come. Even though they call me the kid there isn't that much of a difference in age between the three of us, but I've always been closer to Tristan.

“Hey, hope you weren’t busy,” Tristan beams.

“Nope, I wasn't.”

“Good, let’s have a smoke on the terrace.”

When he walks in, he pulls out a pack of our favorite Cuban cigars from the paper bag he's carrying, opens it, and tosses me one. He then walks ahead of me like this is his place and I’m the one visiting. What’s nice is we feel like nothing’s happened, like nothing’s changed, like I never left.

We head out to the terrace, and he takes off his biker jacket. When we sit opposite each other on the wicker chairs he lights up our cigars.

A wave of nostalgia washes over me as I remember the first time we did this. It was back in Stormy Creek.

He was sixteen, and I was fifteen. We stole Pa’s cigars and the fools we were thought it would be cool to smoke in his office.

I chuckle to myself and Tristan looks at me like he knows what I’m thinking.

“Thinking about that time with Pa?” He grins, moving a lock of his hair away from his eye.

I burst out laughing. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever smoke a cigar without remembering that. We were so stupid Tristan.”

“Yeah, me more than you. I was the one sitting in his chair getting ashes all over his stuff.”

“Tristan, that was nothing. You set his office on fire.”

“I suppose I did.”

Pa was furious as fuck. We were lucky we didn’t set the entire house on fire and ourselves. The only thing that didn’t burn was the chair and the documents on the desk.

Those documents and the desk were the start of D’Agostinos Inc.

“Look how far we’ve come since then.”

“We have. We've all changed too."

"Yes, you're married and a father, not the knucklehead who almost burned the house down."

“I sure am. And this knucklehead is hoping for another baby soon.”

“Wow, really?” I don’t know why I’m surprised. He’s the brother who’s more family orientated.

He nods proudly and I feel proud of him. “Isabella and Giacomo felt like the missing parts of my life that just fit together and completed me. Isabella and I both want more kids." He laughs. "I've come to realize that the meaningful things are the things that matter. They make a man, and they can break a man.”

“Family,” I concur. “I think if I realized that too before I left, I would have known it was me who was changing, not you guys.”

He shakes his head. “Too much happened to us, Dominic. That's the answer.”

I sit forward and take a draw on my cigar. "Yeah. Too much."

He keeps his gaze trained on me. “How are you doing, Dominic? Maybe, shit happened between us because I didn’t ask you that enough.”

“No, it wasn’t that Tristan. Everything was too much, and I added to the shit when I shot Candace.”

“It was an accident. We all know that.”

“And if she’d died, it would have still been a fucking accident and I would feel the same. Either way, I lost her.”

The look on his face is a tell he thinks so too. “I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s gonna be difficult to work around what happened. It’s a messy situation. I wish I could sugar coat it and tell you everything will be cool, but I can’t, because you’re right. It was an accident, and she could have died. What I can say though is that maybe you can reform your friendship and see what happens from there.”

“I'm not sure about reforming friendship."

“Give her some time.”

"I don't know about that. I think at this point I would settle for civil." When I remember the hurt that flashed in her beautiful champagne-colored eyes as she told me to leave her alone, I think hoping we can be civil might be a stretch. "How is she, Tristan? How is she really doing?"

“She’s doing good. She’s better than she's been in years and really going places in the company.” He taps the end of his cigar on the ashtray and stares at me. “Did you see her today?"

“No. She doesn’t really want to talk to me. I understand."

"You aren't gonna leave it like that though, right?" His dark brows knit together.

"No, I'm not."

"Good." He dips his head and takes another draw of smoke.

"I... checked in on her from time to time while I was away. I checked on all of you." I bite the inside of my lip as a wave of uneasiness scatters my nerves.

He straightens up. "What? How?"

"Tristan, you know I have my ways. I'm a fucking tech god."

"What did you see?"

"As much as I could." I nod. "Meaningful things like you bringing your wife home and loving that she was your wife. You watching her get bigger with your child and the two of you happy when you welcomed your son into this world. Pa would have been proud you named him after him."

"Jesus Dominic, you saw all that?"

"I did." I chuckle lightly. "The same for Massimo. The man is fucking obsessed with his wife. Now he has his son, it looks like he loves her even more. I saw what I could and tried to decipher what you guys could be feeling. With Candace though... I could never tell. I stopped looking after a while, thinking it was best. When she moved into her apartment, I thought maybe I should leave her alone."

Truthfully, it was killing me not being with her.

"You still love her," he notes.

"Yes."

"Don't you want her back?"

"I don't think such a thing is in the cards for me, Tristan. What about this Jacques person?"

"He's the new favorite."

"She likes him."

He bites the inside of his lip. "I don't know. I think she might be trying something new, and he's like a dog with two fucking dicks."

Motherfucker. I'm sure he must be.

"They're dating."

"That's news to me, little brother." He raises his brows.

"Dinner's tonight," I intone.

He puts his cigar out, stands up, and motions to the settling sun. "Better get your ass over there then. It's a fucking dinner, Dominic. She's not getting married to the guy. It's messy between you guys, but don't let that stop you from trying to fix whatever you can. If it's friendship, then it's gotta beat this."

He taps my shoulder reassuringly and walks away.

I look out to the scene of buildings around me and contemplate seeing her.

Tristan's right. I should try. Friendship would be something. Definitely better than what I have now, which is nothing.