Resisting my father’s best friend

The terrace of my father’s Hamptons estate glittered with string lights and the kind of effortless wealth that never needed to announce itself. Two years. I had been gone for two years, and yet nothing had changed, it was the same elegant crowd, snobbish as always and looking for the latest gossip on whose husband was sleeping with who.

Everything was exactly the same, except me.

“Bella! Oh my God, you’re finally here!” Lily Chen rushed to my side in a flash of crimson, her dark eyes sparkling, she pulled me into a fierce hug. “Two years is too long. I’ve had to endure your father’s parties without you, and do you know how boring these people are when you’re not here to mock them with me?”

I laughed, some of the tension in my shoulders easing. “I’ve missed you too.”

“How was London? Did you become impossibly sophisticated? Should I curtsy?” She stepped back, looking at me with the scrutiny of someone who had known me since freshman year at Columbia. “You look… different.”

“Older,” I said.

“Sadder,” she corrected, and because she was Lily and we didn’t lie to each other, I didn’t deny it.

“Come on,” she took my hand pulling me as she walked. “Your father’s been watching the driveway like a hawk all evening. Let’s go find him before he sends out a search party.”

We moved through the crowd, and I smiled and nodded at familiar faces, my father’s colleagues, old family friends, the handful of relatives who still lived on the East Coast. My mother seemingly appearing from nowhere, elegant in navy blue, came and kissed both my cheeks.

“Bella darling, you made it. Your father will be so relieved.” She smoothed a hand over my hair, her eyes searching my face. “Are you all right? You look…”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” I said starting to get annoyed. “I’m fine, Mom. Just jet-lagged.”

She didn’t believe me, but she let it go. “Your father’s on the terrace. Come, he’ll want to show you off.”

I followed Lily through the French doors, and that’s when I saw him.

Dominic Ashford stood near the stone balustrade, a glass of scotch in hand, deep in conversation with someone I didn’t recognize. The fairy lights cast shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp angle of his jaw, the silver threading through his dark hair at the temples. He wore a grey suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent in London, tailored to perfection across shoulders that were broader than I remembered.

Or maybe I just hadn’t let myself remember.

My breath caught. My entire body went hot, then cold, then hot again. Two years of distance, of carefully constructed indifference, of dating other men and pretending I had moved on all evaporated in an instant.

Then he turned, as if he had felt my gaze, and our eyes locked.

The world tilted.

His expression shifted through multiple emotions rapidly—surprise, recognition, something dark and hungry that made my pulse spike, and then carefully, deliberate blankness. But I had seen that flash of want before he had locked it away.

“Bella!” My father’s voice boomed across the terrace, shattering the moment. My father, Victor Martinez was a silver-haired force of nature, with a laugh that could fill a room. He swept me into a bear hug that lifted me off my feet. “There’s my girl! Two years too long, mija. Don’t ever leave me that long again.”

“Happy birthday, Dad.” I hugged him back, breathing in his familiar cologne,it took me back decades. I felt like a little girl running into his arms for a hug after I had seen a spider. 

“Come, come, I want everyone to see you.” He kept one arm around my shoulders as he guided me through the crowd, introducing me to people I had known my whole life as if I were a stranger. “This is my daughter, Isabella. Just got back from London. Brilliant architect, she got her master’s from the Bartlett, top of her class…”

I caught Dominic watching us from across the terrace. He hadn’t moved, he looked indifferent but I knew better.

“And speaking of brilliant architects,” my father continued, steering me directly toward him, “you remember Dom, of course. He’s been asking about you.”

Of course I remembered. As if I could ever forget him. I remembered everything.

“Mr. Ashford,” I said, proud of how steady my voice sounded. “It’s been a while.”

“Isabella.” His voice was as deep as I remembered, rough around the edges like expensive whiskey. He didn’t offer his hand or move closer. “Welcome home.”

The formality was deliberate. A wall between us.

“Dom’s been keeping me company in your absence,” my father said, oblivious to the tension crackling between hid righthand man and his daughter. “Don’t know what I would’ve done without him these past couple years. Best friend a man could ask for.”

The words landed like a physical blow. Best friend. As if I needed the reminder of exactly how wrong this was.

“That’s wonderful,” I managed. “I’m glad you have each other.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

My father launched into a story about some project they had worked on together, and I nodded and smiled and tried not to stare at the way Dom’s throat moved when he swallowed his scotch. Tried not to remember the last time I had seen him, in the garden at Sarah’s wedding, when he had kissed me like a drowning man seeking air right before he  disappeared from my life entirely.

Lily rescued me after an excruciating five minutes, dragging me away with some excuse about needing help in the kitchen. We made it halfway across the balcony before a hand caught my elbow.

“Bella Martinez. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

I turned to find James Sterling smiling at me with that familiar boyish charm that worked on me in London. Tall, blond, handsome in the way that British men often were. We had dated for six months before I had ended things two weeks ago, right before I left for New York.

“James. What are you doing here?” My smile was forced.

“Your father invited me, actually. Mentioned he was trying to woo some London firms for a merger.” His hand slid casually to my lower back, and I stiffened. “Thought I had come see if I could change your mind about us while I was in town.”

“There’s nothing to change my mind about.”

“Come on, Bella. We were good together.” He leaned closer, his cologne overwhelming. “I know you felt it too.”

“Mr. Sterling.” The voice came from behind me, cold enough to frost glass. “Victor’s looking for you. It sounded urgent.” 

Dominic stood there, his expression perfectly polite and absolutely deadly.

James’s hand quickly dropped from my back. “Right. Of course.” He shot me an uncertain look. “We’ll talk later?”

“Sure,” I said, just to be polite,

James disappeared into the crowd, and I was left alone with Dominic. The air between us felt charged, dangerous.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said quietly.

“Your father wants a photo with you. Study. Now.” He turned and walked toward the house without waiting to see if I had follow.

The commanding tone annoyed me but I followed anyways.

The study was exactly as I remembered as we walked into the study, the faint smell of tobacco wafted to my nose even though my father had stopped smoking it years ago. Dominic closed the door behind us, and suddenly the room felt too small, the air too thin.

“There’s no photo, is there?” I said.

“No.” He leaned against the door, arms crossed, every line of his body tense. “Two years.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t call.”

“You didn’t want me to.”

His laugh was bitter. “You have no idea what I wanted.”

“Then tell me.” I took a step toward him, reckless with champagne and two years of pent-up longing. “Tell me why you kissed me that night and then pretended I didn’t exist. Tell me why you’re looking at me right now like you want to—”

“Don’t.” The word cracked like a whip. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Christ, Bella.” He dragged a hand through his hair, and for the first time, I saw the cracks in his control. “You were building a life in London. A good life. Away from… this.”

“This?” I moved closer. “Say what you mean, Dominic.”

“Victor is the only reason I’m in this room right now.” His voice was ice. “The only reason I can stand to be in the same house as you. Because I made him a promise twenty-five years ago that I would never—”

He cut himself off, but the words hung between us anyway.

“Never what?” I pushed. “Never want his daughter? Too late.”

“You need to stop talking.”

“if you didn’t want me talking you shouldn’t have brought me here,’

“Stop. Talking.”

“Make me.”

It was a mistake. I saw it in the way his eyes went dark, the way his whole body went rigid. I had pushed too far, and now something was about to break.

He moved so fast I didn’t have time to react. One moment he was against the door, the next he was right in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said roughly.

“Yes, I do.”

“You’re twenty four years old.”

“Twenty five. And you’re forty-five. I can do math, Dominic.”

“Your father would never forgive me.”

“I’m not asking for his forgiveness. I’m asking for—”

I stumbled backward, my heel catching on the edge of the rug, and suddenly I was falling. His arms came around me instantly, catching me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head.

All the breath fled my lungs and all it took was five seconds, Five seconds of full body contact, my breasts pressed against his chest, his thigh between my legs, his fingers tangled in my hair. Five seconds where I felt his heart hammering against mine, felt the tremor that ran through him, felt the wall between us start to crumble.

“Oh God, Bella,” he breathed against my temple, and his voice was wrecked. Desperate. “What are you doing to me?”

I looked up at him, and the hunger in his eyes made me dizzy. This close, I could see the gold flecks in his dark irises, could see the pulse jumping in his throat. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and I knew he was going to kiss me, I let my eyes close.

Then he released me like I had burned him and stepped back so fast he nearly tripped.

“This can’t happen,” he said, but his voice shook. “I won’t let it.”

He turned and walked out, leaving me standing in the middle of my father’s study, my skin still tingling from his touch, my heart in pieces all over again.

Through the window, I could see the party continuing, the laughter, the celebration. And I thought about how easy it would be to go back out there and pretend. Pretend I felt nothing. Pretend these two years had healed me. Pretend Dominic Ashford was just my father’s best friend and nothing more.

But my body was still humming from those five seconds in his arms, and I knew the truth: I had never been very good at pretending.

Not when it came to him.