The Scandal You Started, page 13
“That is not the reason I wish to apologise.”
“Then wha—”
“Dammit, woman, would you just listen?”
Rayna clapped her lips together, but a storm of insults rolled around in her narrowed stare.
Dominic let out a calming exhale and tried again. “I made a terrible first impression on Victor. I wish to rectify that, because I do not want him to think that I could ever truly bring you harm.”
She sighed and shook her head. “He doesn’t. You wouldn’t be here with me if he did.”
Dominic nearly threw himself onto his back and yanked at his hair with a frustrated growl.
Damn it, why didn’t she understand that it wasn’t about that?
Victor was her father. Dominic had to make amends with him immediately so that Victor didn’t think badly of him. Because if Victor didn’t like Dominic being around Rayna, if her father didn’t approve of him, how was he—how could he—what if Rayna decided she didn’t wish to be around him either as a result?
Having Victor’s favour was crucial if Dominic wanted to...to…to…
To what?
To court her? And for what? Marriage?
A woman he hadn’t even known for more than a week? Who, as beautiful and delightful as she was, was also maddening and so unlike him in her thoughts. Not that it could be deemed a fault, but it showed how different of a world she’d grown up in from his.
So how? How could he even consider the idea of courting Rayna? This wasn’t his time nor his home, and once the four months had passed, he’d return and never see her again.
What was the point of worrying over Victor’s opinion of him then? Marrying Rayna wasn’t even a possibility to begin with.
But…
Dominic rubbed his teeth together as he mapped the sweet lines of her face. A howl sounded from the deepest depths of his being in protest of the idea of being without her.
I want her. I wish to have her.
But simply labelling it as desire felt…inadequate. In fact, it was offensive to the emotion she stirred inside him when it ran far more dear and sincere than just a wish to lie with her and feel her bare skin rubbing against his.
Bloody woods, he couldn’t explain it other than a constant whispering question binding around his heart and teasing the edges of his mind.
Is she the one?
Was she the one he couldn’t find in his own time? The kind of love he’d watched his father and Mother Penny have that he craved for himself?
Surely the world wouldn’t test him in such a cruel way, putting hundreds of years between him and the woman of his heart.
Would it?
“What?” Rayna grumbled in his silence, forcing him to push the worrying thought to the back of his mind.
Dominic rolled his jaw as he swallowed. “You’re being incredibly infuriating at present.”
“Me?” she snapped in a higher tone. “Well, you’re not exactly making me grin from ear to ear. You’re actually beginning to piss me off. And can you…” She began huffing and grunting as she tried to turn onto her side under the thin bedding he was lying upon. “Can you stop lying on top of my blanket? Either go to your own room or fucking lie under it.”
He had no desire to go back to his own room, but ingrained decorum made him hesitate over climbing under the sheets alongside her despite her invitation.
Well…only for a moment.
Dominic sat up and scooted off the edge of the bed, then he climbed back under the blanket and laid on his side facing Rayna. He made sure he didn’t end up too close to the edge of the pillow as he tucked the sheet around his waist.
“Turn the lamp off,” she said, folding one arm against her chest.
“Not yet.”
He stared at her, memorising the way the luminous light touched her skin. She stared back for several quiet heartbeats.
“What now?” she asked with an impudent rumble coating her words.
He wanted to smile at how charming he found that soft lilt of attitude whenever she was ill-tempered. But something about what she’d said minutes earlier kept his mood from inflating.
“Do you…” Dominic started, then paused, averting his gaze to her neck. “Have you truly forgiven me for how I treated you?”
Her expression didn’t overtly change, but the quick flutter of her lashes made it seem like he’d caught her by surprise.
“I would not blame you if your answer is no, but I sincerely do regret how I hurt you.” He shook his head against the pillow. “I vow to you I have never raised a hand on a woman before, nor would I or will I ever again. And I am aware my behaviour after was not any better. You had me wonderstruck, and I got ahead of myself and acted like a shameless cad. But I am not…I’m not truly like that. I would never force myself upon you, ever. Ever.”
Dominic poured every ounce of conviction he could conjure up into his words, hoping if she still held any doubts or grievances against him, he could swipe them all away.
“I know, Dominic,” she said, soft and understanding. “You don’t have to feel bad about it anymore. It’s forgiven and forgotten, I promise. I told you that first day it wasn’t an issue.”
“I know, you foolish woman.” She narrowed her eyes, and he smiled lazily. “I am relieved your skin didn’t severely bruise. I would have loathed myself a lot more if it had.”
She touched an absent finger to her throat. “Yeah, the redness faded quite quickly.”
“Thankfully. But do not ever play with your life like that again, Rayna. The outcome could have been far worse.”
“I’ve already had enough lectures from V,” she grumbled. “But yeah. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Good.”
She rolled her eyes, but an irritated little smile found its way onto her mouth. “Take your own advice and try not to destroy your knuckles again.”
Dominic rolled one set of fingers. The dry scabs pulled slightly, but they were healing rather well with the cream Rayna had given him to use. “I…have also learned my lesson.”
She chuckled. His grin widened.
Silence fell between them again. Under the weight of her brilliant, charcoal gaze, his blood warmed with satisfaction. He could have lain there forever, simply watching her.
“What?” Rayna eventually muttered, her voice a touch raspy, maybe even breathless.
“Nothing,” he whispered thickly.
“Then turn over and go to sleep.”
He gave the slightest shake of his head. “Not yet.”
“Fine. Then I will.”
Before she could move, he clamped his fingers around her hand, pinning it to the mattress.
“No. Not yet.”
Her lashes dipped for a long moment, then lifted. “My hand.”
Dominic lowered his attention to their hands as her fingers shifted under his palm. But no matter how much he tried to will his grip to soften, his body refused to comply.
It was the first time he’d touched her in two days. He suddenly found he was weak and famished for even the slightest feel of her skin against his. He just wanted to cling on a little bit longer…only a few more seconds…one more breath.
Like stiff, cold fingers forced to leave the comforting heat of a fire, he let go gradually and eased his hand back, tracing the lines of her palm as he did.
Unable to give up her touch entirely, he rested his hand by hers and dared to keep two blunt fingers against the delicate inner side of her wrist.
He watched, with his heart pounding at the base of his throat, as her eyes darted between his caresses and his face.
She only looked at him like that, like a confused, startled creature that wasn’t quite certain if it were in danger or not, whenever she rejected his flirtation. So Dominic did the only thing he could think of doing, and broke the silence first, hoping it’d deter her from kicking him out.
“Would you consider this to be an intimate touch?” he mumbled.
She gulped slowly. “It is when you stare at me like that.”
Was the desperate hunger and longing burned across his soul printed so obviously within his eyes? Though it wasn’t as if he wanted to hide it from her, so was it a surprise that it was?
“I could close my eyes,” he suggested, and reluctantly, pressed his lashes together.
A breathy sound of amusement had him opening them again.
His fingers stopped in their motion upon seeing the twist on her mouth that resembled a smile. She didn’t look happy, though, but rather frustrated and uncertain.
“You’re stupidly persistent, Dominic,” she whispered. “And it hasn’t even been a week.”
“Does that bother you?” he asked, wary of pushing her too far and losing all her trust.
She exhaled the weight of the world off her shoulders and dragged her hand away, tucking it under the duvet. “Do you realise that I could lose my job at the lab if the wrong person saw you behaving like this with me? And I like my job, Dominic. I’d hate to lose it.”
A sharp pang pricked at his chest, and he shook his head. “I would never jeopardise your work, Rayna. I swear that to you.”
For a moment, it seemed as if she were going to argue, but then she pressed her lips together and gulped down those words. “Can you turn the lamp off, please? I want to sleep.”
Dominic obeyed her wish and draped the room in darkness.
The rustle of her turning over whispered through her voice as she said, “Stay on your side of the bed.”
“I will,” he promised. “Good night.”
“G’night.”
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dominic listened to Rayna shift into a comfortable position until she fell still and her soft breaths became the sound his pulse beat to.
But as he etched her silhouette into the treasure trove of his memory, he realised something promising. Something that flowered a vine of hope between the rungs of his ribs.
Rayna hadn’t said his persistence bothered her because she didn’t like him.
She hadn’t said his feelings weren’t reciprocated. Neither had she put it down to discomfort.
She’d only said she feared losing her job.
Did that mean…was there a possibility that perhaps she too…the issue wasn’t him.
He’d known she didn’t hate his flirtation. With a powerful character like hers, she would have put him in his place like she had in the lab if she did. But she hadn’t. Rather, it seemed to entertain her.
But it hadn’t occurred to him that in the moments he pushed her a little too far, her confusion and frustration might have been down to confliction.
What if she wanted him too, but worried about the consequences?
The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a plausible conclusion, turning the single vine into a dense, moving, breathing bush that manipulated the thrum of his heart until the anticipation left him dreaming of a world where she was his.
Oh, sweetheart…what have you done?
Chapter 15
Rayna
Letting Dominic sleep in her bed had only meant to be a onetime thing. Just Friday night because he’d been there, and she’d been too tired to care about kicking him out. But considering he hadn’t exactly followed all the normal rules for a Study anyway, it was no surprise he didn’t follow that one either.
On Saturday evening, when Rayna was swiping on her phone in bed, Dominic knocked on her door and crawled under the duvet like a big bull in a porcelain shop, trying to be as quiet and unassuming as possible. And on Sunday evening, he was already in her bed, reading through the welcome manual binder, when she came out from her ensuite.
But he behaved. As much as his persistence arse could, at least.
He flirted during his lessons, and except for a few sneaky caresses across her fingers and wrists, he kept his hands to himself.
At night, he stuck to his side of the bed and made no attempt to touch her, being the respectful gentleman he claimed he was. Nor did he push through the imaginary wall of pillows that divided their spaces. So, in the end, she stopped grumbling at him to go back to his own room.
Rayna woke up beside Dominic on Monday morning too, then after breakfast and showing him how to use the equipment in the makeshift basement gym, they gathered in the library-cum-office room at the front of the house.
“Is it similar to the video call you can make on a phone?” Dominic asked when she explained they were going to talk to head historian, Monty, from the lab through the computer.
“Yeah, essentially,” she said and did her best to answer his questions on how video calls actually worked.
Dominic’s eyes were bright with intrigue when Monty first appeared on the computer screen. He peered around it as if he might find the man standing behind the screen. But Monty quickly recaptured Dominic’s attention as he questioned him on his experience of the future so far, with the usual cheeriness Rayna hadn’t seen on the black man’s face a week ago.
But as the meeting went on, Rayna dominated more of the conversation with Monty as the older man detailed the case study report she had to work on with Dominic, as well as generic reports and checkups that had to be conducted with every Study.
“So, yes, as for your question,” Monty said, rolling a hand to gesture through the screen, “focus significantly more on the large socio impacts of Dominic’s direct actions as part of the nobility, but who he speaks of and their doings can be included in a subsection. Is that clear?”
The keys on the keyboard clicked under Rayna’s fast fingers as she made a note of what Monty had explained in a document while his face took up the rest of the screen.
She was sitting in the black, swivelling chair before the dark varnished desk, the blue, sunny sky illuminating the room from the window behind it. While Dominic was in a velvet scallop chair, watching her type in a mixture of confusion and fascination.
To their backs, two of the cream walls of the small office-library were lined with matching, dark varnished bookcases stuffed full with a variety of books that were probably long overdue a sort through. There was an empty space where Dominic had taken the chair from.
“All clear,” Rayna said as she finished typing. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Any more questions?” Monty said with a grin. When she shook her head, the older man’s friendly brown eyes shifted away from her. “You, Dominic?”
“I…” he started, then paused. “There was much I did not understand, so I am not entirely sure how to ask for an explanation.”
Rayna smiled as Monty chuckled. “Don’t worry,” the older man said. “You’ll understand significantly more as time goes on. But other than that, is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
“No.”
“Well, I think that is the end of this meeting then. Rayna, I’ll email you the updated document for general reporting on how Dominic’s getting on, and Ash will get in touch with you to confirm the dates for his monthly checkups. I’ll speak to River too when he pops into the lab later today to collect Dominic’s ID, but as for the case study report, fit it around your schedule for the museum project, and we’ll do a check-in in a month’s time, yes?”
Rayna nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. River’s coming here tomorrow, so I’ll discuss breaking down the reports with him too.”
“Perfect,” Monty said with a satisfied nod. “I believe, if I remember correctly, you’ll be taking Dominic to the museum on Wednesday, correct?”
“That’s right,” she answered.
“Well, Dominic, as I’m sure Rayna has already told you, you’re in for a treat.” Passion lit up Monty’s face. “Fronis Museum is wonderfully rich in Khaas’s history and has several displays that are part of the International Cultural Exchange programme.”
Dominic flashed a modest grin, but Rayna thumbed in his direction. “He hates museums.”
Monty’s face and shoulders fell in complete heartbreak as Dominic flew around to her with his lips parted in shocked complaint. She nearly cackled at how comical it was.
“Ah,” Monty said sadly. “Well…that won’t do.”
“No, no,” Dominic immediately said, clearing his throat. “I do not hate museums. She is wildly exaggerating what I said.”
Rayna gawked in disbelief. “No, I’m not.”
“I said,” Dominic cut in, “that I had never truly had the opportunity to appreciate the cultural value of museums previously. But this is my chance to do so.”
Oh my—his guy…
She chuckled in outrage, shaking her head slowly, while Dominic wore the fakest grin ever.
Monty laughed. “Well, either way, I hope you enjoy the museum and the project itself. I have a meeting with the Evidence team soon, so I’ll leave you two now, but take care, and we’ll speak soon. Bye.”
“Bye,” Rayna said as Dominic wished the older man a good day.
As soon as Monty ended the meeting, Rayna whipped around and smirked menacingly. Dominic glared back in betrayal.
“Why on Neves would you tell him that?” he demanded.
“Why the fuck did you lie to him?”
“I cannot have him thinking less of me for not appreciating museums now, can I? I have already embarrassed myself enough in front of him. A man has his pride, Rayna.”
She scoffed. “He wouldn’t have thought less of you.”
“He looked very near close to tears.”
“He did, didn’t he?” she said with a cheeky smirk. “I didn’t think it would upset him that much, honestly.”
Dominic shook his head. “You are a dreadful woman for taunting the old man.”
Rayna rolled her eyes, her grin widening. “Anyway.” She shuffled her chair closer to the desk. “Let’s go over the research report together quickly so I can explain what you didn’t understand, and then we’ll make a start on it later today after your lesson, or when River comes tomorrow.”
“As you wish,” he answered, angling his legs to face her more directly.
“Okay, so, in the most basics of terms, we know a bit about you already, but the research or case study report helps us create a picture of your life within the wider context of what we know about the Tregency period already, so that we can make comparisons, new inferences, change or confirm what we thought, etcetera, etcetera.”
