CHAPTER FOUR

The coat room suddenly felt smaller with both of them standing, Cassie still in her rumpled engagement dress and Dom in his perfectly tailored tux. She was still holding his hand, she realized. His grip was warm and firm and nothing like Marcus's carefully measured touches.

She dropped it.

"So," Cassie said, smoothing down her dress even though it was pointless, the fabric was already creased beyond redemption. "What exactly happens now? Do we just walk back out there and announce we're getting married?"

Dom laughed, low and dark. "God, no. That's amateur hour. We need to be strategic about this."

"Strategic?"

"You think I've survived this family without learning how to play the game?" Dom walked over to where Cassie's phone lay on the floor and picked it up, examining the cracked screen. "Still works, that's good. You're going to need it."

He held it out to her but Cassie didn't take it. The thought of looking at more notifications, more comments and more evidence of her public destruction made her stomach turn.

"Not ready for that yet?" Dom pocketed the phone instead. "Fair enough. We'll deal with your digital funeral later. First things first, we need to get you out of here without the vultures descending."

"My parents—"

"Are handling the fallout in the ballroom, trust me." Dom moved to the door, cracking it open to peer out. "Your father's probably doing damage control with the board members and your mother is managing the society ladies. Very efficient people, the Reeveses."

There was something bitter in his tone that Cassie didn't have the energy to think too much about it.

"There's a service exit two doors down," Dom continued. "I'll get you to my car and we will go somewhere quiet, and figure out the details of this arrangement before we go public."

"Your car," Cassie repeated. "You're assuming I'm leaving with you?”

"You shook on it." Dom turned back to look at her, his expression unreadable. "Or were you just humoring the crazy Hale brother?"

Cassie met his gaze. In the flattering dim light of the coat room, she could see the resemblance to Marcus more clearly, the same sharp cheekbones and strong jaw. But where Marcus's eyes were cold calculation, Dom's held something dangerous and unpredictable. Like a storm you could see coming but couldn't avoid.

"I wasn't humoring you," she said quietly. "I'm just trying to figure out if I'm actually considering this or if I'm having a mental breakdown."

"Could be both." Dom's smile was smaller now. "Look Cassie, I get it. This is insane. You don't know me like that and I have a reputation that would make your mother faint. And an hour ago, you were engaged to my brother."

"An hour ago, I thought I was going to marry your brother," Cassie corrected. "There's a difference."

"Is there?"

The question hung between them, heavier than it should have been.

"I loved him," Cassie said, though even as the words left her mouth, they felt hollow. "Or I thought I did. I don't know anymore."

"You loved the idea of him," Dom spat. "The security, the partnership, the merger of two perfect families. But did you love Marcus? The actual person?"

Cassie wanted to argue, to defend three years of her life, to insist that what she'd felt was real.

But she couldn't because Dom was right.

She'd loved the stability Marcus represented and the way her father approved of him. She'd loved being the perfect daughter. She'd loved the blueprint, not the man.

"That's what I thought," Dom said softly, reading her silence. "So let's stop pretending this is a romance tragedy and start treating it like what it actually is— a business opportunity."

"You're very particular about this."

"One of us has to be, and you're still processing." Dom held out his hand again. "Come on. Let's get you out of here before someone posts a photo of you crying in a coat room and #ReplacedBride gets a sequel hashtag."

His cockiness infuriated her. Cassie looked at his hand, at the door, at the racks of expensive coats that belonged to people who were probably still in that ballroom dissecting her humiliation over champagne.

She'd already made the insane choice so she might as well commit to it.

She took his hand.

Dom's fingers closed around hers, and before Cassie could second-guess herself, he was pulling her out of the coat room and down the hallway. With the confidence he walked, she could tell he knew exactly where he was going and didn't care who saw them.

They passed a server who did a double-take, clearly recognizing Cassie from the disaster in the ballroom. Dom shot the guy a look that said “say nothing,” and miraculously, the server nodded and kept walking.

"Do people always just do what you tell them?" Cassie asked as Dom pushed open a door marked STAFF ONLY.

"They know me on the street. They know there are consequences if they don't." Dom took them through a service corridor that shone with light. "Also helps that I've helped most of the staff here at one point or another."

"Of course you have."

"I contain multitudes."

They emerged into an underground parking garage, the air cool and smelling faintly of exhaust. Dom led her to a sleek black Aston Martin that probably cost more than Cassie's first apartment.

"Careful," she said.

"I never said I was careful." Dom opened the passenger door for her, which felt weirdly chivalrous given the circumstances. "I only said I would be effective."

Cassie gathered her dress and slid into the car, the leather seats soft and expensive against her skin. Dom closed the door and rounded to the driver's side, sliding behind the wheel with the ease of someone who'd done this a thousand times.

The engine purred to life, low and powerful.

"Where are we going?" Cassie asked as Dom drove them out of the garage.

"My place.”

“Huh?”

“Penthouse in Tribeca. It is private, secure, and most importantly, nowhere near this hotel or your parents' house or any location where photographers might be camping out."

"Looks like you've thought this through."

"I've been planning how to destroy my brother for four years," Dom said casually. "Tonight just gave me the perfect opportunity."

He said it so matter-of-factly that it took Cassie a moment to process.

"Four years," she repeated.

“That's correct.”

“Why?”

"Long story. I'll tell you over drinks." Dom glanced at her as they pulled into the street, the lights of Manhattan streaming past. "You do drink, right? Or is that another thing Marcus trained out of you?"

"I drink," Cassie said, a little defensively. "I just don't get drunk at society events because—"

"Because it's not appropriate for a Hale fiancée," Dom finished. "Yeah, I know the rules. I broke most of them by the time I was twenty-three."

They drove in silence for a few blocks, Cassie watching the city speed past her window. Couples walking hand in hand, groups spilling out of restaurants laughing and normal people living normal lives, completely unaware that Cassie's world had just imploded.

Her phone buzzed in Dom's pocket.

"You can turn it off," Cassie said quietly. "I don't want to see it."

"Already done." Dom had pulled the phone out and silenced it without looking away from the road. "But eventually you're going to have to face it."

"I know."

"And you're going to have to decide how you want to respond."

"I know that too."

Dom was quiet for a moment, then said, "For what it's worth, I think what Marcus did was cowardly. If he wanted to be with Vanessa, he should have ended things with you privately. The public spectacle was just cruelty."

Something in Cassie's chest loosened slightly. It was kind of him to say that.

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't thank me yet. I'm about to ask you to do something just as public and probably just as insane."