登入VALERIE The mansion rose up at the end of a long, winding driveway lined with perfectly trimmed hedges and ancient looking oak trees that probably remembered more family secrets than I ever would. It wasn’t the cold, modern glass and steel thing I expected from Dominic’s world. This place felt old money. Real old money. Tall white columns, ivy climbing the walls in elegant patterns, windows that sparkled like they got polished every single day. The kind of home that screamed “our family has been running things for generations, and we’re not sorry about it.” High standards. Billionaire blood. The SUV stopped.My stomach did a nervous flip as Dominic helped me out. After all the laughter in the plane and all the reassurance that his grandmother was a loving old lady I felt weight on my shoulders. Like stepping onto a stage where I didn’t know the lines.The front doors opened before we even reached them. A tall, elegant woman stepped out onto the wide porch. She had to be in her late
VALERIEThe silence stretched again, but this time it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… strange. Nice strange. Like we were both catching our breath after the almost explosion.“So,” I finally said, folding one leg beneath me and turning a bit toward him. “How’s your month been?” He looked almost offended. “My month?”“Yes.”“You truly want to know?”“I asked.” I shrugged, but inside I was nervous. We hadn’t really talked like this in weeks.He leaned back in his seat, rubbing his jaw dramatically like he was thinking hard. “Well…”“I’ve been ignored by my wife.” I blinked. “…Excuse me?”“You heard me.”“I did not ignore you.”“You absolutely ignored me.”“I was working,” I protested, but my mind flashed back to all those nights I’d fallen asleep at the desk, him carrying me without me even noticing. “So was I.”“You travel every other day.”“And yet I still noticed you.” I pointed at myself. “I noticed you too. You just didn’t notice that I noticed you.”He laughed again, shaking his head.
VALERIE Dominic lips were still hovering right there over mine, our foreheads pressed together, his breath warm and ragged enough to make my whole body forget how to do basic stuff like breathing properly. My heart was hammering so loud I swear it was louder than the plane engines. We were both still buzzing from what almost happened and my skin tingling where his hands had been gripping me, my lips swollen, that deep ache between my legs not going anywhere. A whole month without him, and now this? The universe had the worst timing.Then three sharp knocks echoed through the cabin door like some rude alarm clock.Dominic didn’t move. Not even an inch. His hands stayed on my waist, fingers digging in just a little like he was debating ignoring the whole world.Neither did I. I couldn’t. My body was still pressed against his, feeling every hard line of him, and God, I didn’t want it to stop.Another knock.“Sir?” Hawthorne’s voice came from the other side, polite but insistent. “My ap
DOMINICThe old Valerie used to barge into my office without knocking. She’d steal my attention, argue with me over nothing and everything, insult me to my face, threaten me with whatever came to mind. She existed around me. Now she disappeared into her study for entire days. Sometimes I wouldn’t see her until midnight, if at all. She’d be buried in emails, sketches, contracts, and that new chaotic life of hers. The signing had changed everything. In the best way for her. In a way that left me… unsettled.I wasn’t used to this. Wanting someone’s attention this badly. Missing the fights. Hawthorne cleared his throat. “The car is ready whenever you are, sir.”I stood up, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair. “Good.”We headed downstairs. Outside, Valerie had finally ended her call and slipped into the back seat. She didn’t even notice me approaching at first. Too busy typing another response on her phone, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, that little crease between them that
DOMINIC That sound. Her voice all breathy and broken. It did things to me. I ignored the ache in my pants, the way my cock leaked against the fabric. This was for her. Making her feel good somehow filled me up more than any quick release ever had. Was I falling for her? No. Couldn’t be. But even as I thought it, I pushed two fingers inside her tight heat, curling them just the way she loved, and the way she moaned my name louder made my heart clench in a way that scared the shit out of me. I worshipped her pussy like it was the only thing that mattered. Long, slow licks mixed with fast flicks on her clit. Fingers pumping steady, then faster when her walls started fluttering. I looked up at her face—eyes half-closed, lips parted, that rookie innocence mixed with pure need. My wife. Mine for now. I sucked harder, adding a third finger, stretching her gently because it had been a month and she felt tighter than ever. “You taste so fucking good,” I growled between licks. “Missed t
DOMINIC The last month had been absolute shit. Like fucking hell.Not the kind of hell where business was tanking or deals were falling apart. No, my business never failed for me. It ran like a well-oiled machine, always had. Investors weren’t panicking; they never did when the numbers looked this good. Competitors? They weren’t even close to being a real threat. Everything in my life was clicking exactly the way it should, smooth and predictable and boring as hell.Which was exactly the problem. Because Valerie wasn’t clicking. Not with me, anyway.I sat behind my desk, staring at this quarterly report I hadn’t actually read in almost ten minutes. The words blurred together on the page while a bunch of executives droned on through the laptop screen, their voices fading into background noise like traffic during a storm. My eyes kept drifting over to the edge of the desk. Not because I suddenly cared about photographs or sentimental crap like that, but because she’d left her sketchb
ETHANWhat is she doing now?That was genuinely my first thought the second Madeline walked into the dining room like some offended princess arriving late to a coronation nobody invited her to. She had that pout on too; the one that usually meant trouble because Madeline Ross did not enjoy feeling
DOMINICThe second I stepped out onto the upper hallway and looked down into the living area, my hand tightened unconsciously around the staircase rail.Valerie was smiling. Not the fake sarcastic one she used when she wanted to piss me off, not the sharp mouthed grin she threw around like a weapon
DOMINICThe second I stepped out onto the upper hallway and looked down into the living area, my hand tightened unconsciously around the staircase rail.Valerie was smiling. Not the fake sarcastic one she used when she wanted to piss me off, not the sharp mouthed grin she threw around like a weapon
VALERIEBy the time I finished washing up, Dominic had disappeared again to hell knows where. Probably business fucking Hawthorne. One second the man would be balls deep inside me like I was his redemption itself and the next he would vanish like some emotionally constipated Batman billionaire hyb







