39. He’d Be So Proud of Her

Dom

Leonie was staying in her old room, down the hall from mine. Before I left for the military, Dad had bought me a little apartment on the coast. Now, I paid someone to run it as an Airbnb but rented it out myself over the summer each year.

I loved my parents, but it didn’t mean I had to enjoy living with them.

So when I packaged the dress I’d bought for Leonie to wear that night, I slipped a card in with a note and the address and left it in her room while she gave Issy her birthday presents.

Though, if she didn’t come to mine, I was more than prepared to stay here for the night. To ensure no Yun took a step into her room.

Not much had changed since she left for university, or probably last had him in this room. The first time I’d come back off tour, it had been weird for her and Issy to be away. Is came back to see me for a while. Leonie went further north on an internship. Today, she’d only come in quickly, putting down her little suitcase and skipping to see my mum.

Her duvet was still a light purple, pom-pom bunting hanging around the edges of the ceiling. Her little reading corner looked as if she had just briefly left it.

Before she could lose herself to drugs, she used to lose herself in stories.

Often on our drives out to the cove, she would tell me about the twists and turns of the latest book she was reading. She liked thrillers, books with mystery and deception. Sometimes, the plots were so complicated I just nodded along, enjoying how invested she was.

I placed the box with her dress on her bed and snuck out.

The next box I grabbed was far heavier. In the kitchen, I grinned at my sister, still in her pyjamas surrounded by wrapping paper. She jumped down from the stool and came to my side, forcing me into a tight squeeze the moment the box was on the counter.

“Scale of one to ten, how bad?”

“Twelve,” I exaggerated with confidence, puffing out my chest. “The best worst yet.”

She grinned, hands in balls of exhilarated energy, before peeling back the box lid and facing her horrific cake.

A three-year-old could have made it better.

“It’s awful!” she cried joyfully as Mum looked over her shoulder.

“This tradition of yours,” she sighed. “I hope when you have children, you’ll hire a baker. You two can’t be trusted.”

As Issy snapped a picture of it on her phone, I watched Leo on her stool, looking over cautiously, her gaze never reaching me. Last night, we had only cuddled. This morning, she had reassured me multiple times of her plan with Sam.

I’d needed it. Seething wasn’t the word.

Imagining him even thinking he had a chance made my fingers itch for my gun.

When I got her text last night, I knew she had the same weakness for me as I had for her. We’d get through it.

“This year, I think you’re going to be the winner,” Mum said, peering down at the monstrous cake. “This is truly horrifying.”

“I had some help this year,” I said, nodding Leonie’s way. “Leo had some great ideas.”

Mum whipped around to face her. “You two really are friends again.”

“The bestest,” I said.

Leonie smiled, amused and lied, “I did it for Issy.”

“Well, you’ll have to help me with Dom’s,” Issy said, looking down at her phone. Mine chimed and Leonie’s lit up as we both received the same Instagram notification. Neither of us had to look at it to know it was the birthday girl putting her cake on her story. When it was my birthday, she would do a poll to her 120k followers, asking which was the worst.

Mum came to my side and patted my shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. “Have you had anything to eat? I can knock up some more pancakes.”

“Leonie made me buy the whole chocolate shelf in the petrol station, so if anything, I have eaten too much,” I told her.

And my mum’s smile grew even bigger.

“What?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said with a smirk and turned to Issy. “Go and get dressed. Cecilia will be here in the next hour.”

Cecilia, Mum’s private beautician.

Dad walked in then and Issy rushed to him. There was no way this was the first time he had seen her, but my sister was always a sucker for her birthday. It was like she had downed a factory’s worth of additives.

Dad stroked Issy’s hair and peered over at the cake.

Normally, I always had to over-achieve or at least succeed in every aspect of my life for my father. When we first started this tradition as teenagers, I’d been embarrassed for him to see how easily I could be bad at something. Even cake decorating.

But a few years back, he complimented me on my need to make Issy happy. How the priority should always be family, even above reputation.

For my father, love was not a weakness.

For Leonie, it was.

“You’ve really outdone yourself this year, son,” he said with a small smile. “It’s horrific and terrific.”

I gave a knowing nod. “It was Leonie’s vision.”

Dad glanced up at me, somewhat alarmed, before Mum said, “Come on, ladies.”

The women got up and though Leonie had showered and was dressed, she made her way with them across the lawn to her bedroom.

I watched her through the open French doors.

“I don’t know how to tell her this, or even if I should,” my dad said behind my back, “but if Luís were here, he’d be so proud of her.”

“He would,” I agreed before turning to him and saying softly, “tell her, Dad. She should know. She wants to know everything about him.”

“So you two really are friends again?” he asked with a raised brow, putting the cake in the fridge. “I knew you two would be together one day.”

“We’re on speaking terms,” I clarified.

“Just speaking?” he asked, voice low, brow even higher.

“Dad.”

He lifted both hands in surrender. “I’m just asking. You might want to lock her down soon, though. She asked for a plus one.”

“I know,” I sighed. “Sam Yun.”

His eyes narrowed at my knowledge. “Our possessions, our family do not get taken by others, Dom. Whether it’s a hotel or our women. You are a Belov, she is a Belov. If you want her, you’ll have to prove how fucking much.”

“She isn’t his,” I snapped, repulsed by the suggestion. “She’s using him. Roc told her the Yuns have been making unwise moves. She’s going to get information out of him.”

Dad’s brows knotted in confusion. “She got out. She didn’t even want her father’s money, let alone—”

“In her eyes, we’re her family. She’s lost enough family that… she can’t lose us.” Which was partly why she was so scared to love me.

“Should just kill him,” Dad muttered. “I don’t like her getting close to him.”

“I nearly killed him last time I saw him,” I muttered.

Dad scrunched up the wrapping paper that had been left on the side, collecting it as he walked around the kitchen island. “So don’t fail this time.”