5. Discoveries

CHAPTER 5

Discoveries

Zain

The chiseled muscles on Dominic’s torso were the first damned image in my mind as I drifted up from the depths of sleep. Somewhere in the blackness of the night, his lean muscles and taut, smooth skin had imbued my thoughts that the remainder of my time in bed was restless. Sleeping shallowly, I was almost aware of where my disjointed dreams were taking me.

I know I am dreaming , I thought countless times, but I still stood in the kitchen, letting my gaze shed away the dislike, the near hatred I had for him, and indulge in what he was inadvertently offering.

Except he wasn’t offering. And even if he was, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want my gaze sliding over the rippling muscles of his body, but the urge was stronger than me. It was impossible to resist it when the opportunity was so close, so present, so imposing. And maybe I wouldn’t have spent the rest of the night dreaming about his body had he not tried to be so intimidating.

I brushed my teeth in front of the big mirror above the bathroom sink, then washed my face with cold water, doing little to put out the fire within. My own body was strained, wrought tight, and tingling whenever our midnight encounter crossed my mind. I wasn’t much of an athlete, as the mirror showed without being asked, but I worked hard, lifted things, rode a bike, and often ran. Skinny, almost scrawny, I had the faint outlines of muscles that couldn’t compare to what I had stared at last night. The deep ridges between individual muscles, the bulging chest that was much broader than his shirts and suit jackets indicated, and the cut physique of a man who had a purpose in mind.

No, I wasn’t fond of Dominic Blackthorne, who had put my family in a terrible situation and who was on a personal crusade of vengeance.

But I was fascinated.

I was intrigued enough to know, deep down, that I wanted to be here. I wanted to pore over the files, do as I was asked, and scratch the cold, angry surface he put out to the world. That was all it was, I was sure. A front, a facade.

I had seen it slip for the briefest of moments. To be fair, it was in the middle of the night, in poor light, and with tired eyes, but I could have sworn that I saw him balk, then pull tightly together a mask of indifference.

Part of me suspected that Dominic Blackthorne wanted people to hate him.

And because that was a far-fetched idea, I would check before I claimed it aloud.

Putting on a pair of black skinny jeans, the only good ones that I owned, and a white T-shirt I had expected to be cleaning his dusty library in, I decided I was as ready for the office work as I could be. How strict was he, anyway?

I descended the big stairs and found the familiar dining room bathed in bright morning light. Outside, mildew sparkled on the vast lawns, and mist lingered on the ground in the far distance, near the forest.

Dominic looked up from his tablet as I walked in. He wasn’t sitting at the long dinner table as the first night, but by the far window at a smaller, round table clad in white. The breakfast table was cluttered with all sorts of tasty items. From boiled eggs to hot buns and cold cuts, accompanied by fried bacon, hot hash browns, a pitcher of orange juice, a pot of coffee, and a small mountain of muffins in various colors.

“I half expected you would be leaving today,” Dominic said. His eyes glimmered as they caught the morning sunlight. He swiftly erased all traces of surprise from his expression, hardening his facial muscles and looking down at his table uncaringly.

“My word and signature mean a little more than all that,” I said in a cheerful tone. I had always been a nightbird, but working early shifts had taught me how to start my day right. A smile, even if it had to be dragged from the angry clutches of my sleepy heart, and a hearty breakfast. And that was it.

“I am beginning to see that,” Dominic said in an almost flat tone, but it rose at the last two words as if carried by hope. He pretended to be busy for a minute as I sat down, looking through his tablet and touching the screen. He folded his lips, licked them, and continued to look at the screen. “I only thought that your conscience wouldn’t let you do the work.”

I helped myself to a cup of coffee and a chocolate muffin. “You misunderstood.”

His attention snapped to me.

“Let me guess,” I said, smiling to myself victoriously. “People don’t say that to you often.”

“They do not,” Dominic agreed.

“Well, you did,” I said. I took my time before speaking again, tasting the muffin and having a long sip of coffee.

“Care to elaborate?” Dominic asked, his tone a touch impatient.

I nodded, swallowing another bite of the muffin. I didn’t often get to have a sweet breakfast. “If I need to have my conscience at stake to do this, I only want to understand the situation.”

Dominic looked at me blankly. He wore a crisp, white shirt with an unbuttoned collar stretched wide by the width of his shoulders. A black leather wristwatch with a dark blue dial and silver handles caught the light of the morning sun. It was a fancy thing. It was probably priceless, like his cufflinks or the hairs in Orwell’s nose. “Is my word not enough?”

I blinked, surprised by the question and its implications. Was I supposed to trust him? “I…don’t know.”

“It should be,” Dominic said coldly. He ate the breakfast on his plate with quick, short motions, parting his lips only to insert bits of food inside his mouth. When he was finished, he stood. “We will work in my study.”

“Together?” I asked before I could rein in my surprised reaction.

Dominic hesitated, cooling his expression further. “Orwell will be happy to install a temporary screen if you want privacy.” He turned on his heels and led the way to the library.

I would have felt sorry for offending him, except it was so easy to offend him that it was borderline hilarious. I didn’t regret expressing the questionable trust between us any more than he regretted not telling me everything I needed to know.

So we entered the library.

My breath drained out of me.

Dominic’s stride didn’t change until he was halfway through, but I stood in the doorway with wide eyes and endless wonder. The library was the size of a Victorian ballroom, except its walls were lined with bookcases so tall that they required a ladder to reach. Through the center of the room, a reading haven was designed with several desks for notetaking and three distinct sitting areas. Each was cozier than the one before it. Ottomans, armchairs, coffee tables, footstools, blankets, and round little carpets to separate the areas from the rest of the room were just the start. There were elegant antique lamps and more seating spaces for larger gatherings. A pool table appeared untouched near one corner, but my attention slid off that and turned to the books.

I saw countless hardcover, cloth-bound classics that were preserved as best as possible, but I noticed shelves upon shelves of much newer editions.

“How…how many books are there in here?” I whispered.

Dominic stood in the middle of the room. Light slanted through the tall, arched windows and fell on him. “I don’t know,” he said. “Eight, nine thousand.”

A laugh burst out of me, and I stopped it abruptly before he suspected I was mad. I blinked fast, my mind racing. If I read two books a week, it would take me at least eighty years to read all of the ones Dominic had in here.

“Of course, if you wish to read any, feel free to take them to your room,” Dominic said cautiously. I must have seemed mad despite my best efforts.

“Um. Yes. Er, that would be nice,” I said, trying my hardest to appear normal. Few people were as giddy at the sight of books as this, but I didn’t know a better feeling than walking by a bookshelf, slowing down to look at the titles, and putting my fingers on their spines to feel each and every one as I moved on.

Well, the only feeling that beat that was when I got to buy them in a bookstore.

“If you don’t mind,” I added.

“Not at all,” Dominic said. “Some came with the house. Others are a personal collection.” He glanced to the middle of the wall to my right, where newer books filled the shelves. He was quiet for a bit, then turned away from me again. “This way is the study.”

We walked through the library, my feet tripping over each other as I glued my gaze to the shelves, hoping to catch some familiar titles, and entered a much smaller room where a brand-new desk, chair, and office supplies had been added. Bookcases in there were filled with business-related nonfiction, and the visibly used desk and chair of high quality belonged to Dominic. He circled his cluttered desk, put his hand on its surface, and watched me as I approached my chair on the other side of the room. We each had a corner to ourselves, and I wondered if he meant to keep an eye on me or simply enjoyed my company.

I almost snorted when that thought crossed my mind.

“Will this suffice?” he asked.

“I have very low standards,” I replied, nearing my chair and sitting down. It was much more comfortable than the old one in the shop, and the desk was clean and smooth, its dark brown surface matching the mood of the entire gloomy study. I ran my fingers over the surface, then pressed my hands against it.

When I looked up at Dominic, he was as close to smiling as he was capable of, which is to say the corners of his lips were ever so slightly lifted, and the scowl was gone.

The computer screen was large and slim, the keyboard and mouse both minimal and elegant. A stack of books sat on the edge of the desk. “Those are for me?”

Dominic nodded. “They are essential business regulation handbooks. They should bring you up to speed on various things I want you to pay attention to. Conflict of interest, insider trading, money laundering, and so on. Use them as a reference as I read through the company records. This week, you’ll look over the files I had already skimmed, learn what’s right and wrong, learn how to categorize the information you find, what to label as important, what to do with the things you’re not sure about, and the list keeps going.” He crossed his arms on his chest, his biceps swelling in the white shirt. “As per our terms, your practice is paid fully against your father’s debt.”

“Perfect,” I said, unable to disguise a touch of shame and spite in my voice. He had every right to remind me why I was here, but I didn’t have to enjoy it.

Dominic sat behind his desk, his back straight and his collar undone, and began typing.

I wondered if this was what he did for a living. Was this how his hours were spent? Pouring over information, reading emails, avoiding human contact. I wondered why. Why would a guy as rich as the Baron of Manhattan live in complete isolation, and why would he then bring a stranger to his home and give him a job in such proximity?

He was a walking, brooding contradiction in a tight shirt, and it left me both frustrated and flustered. The night before returned to me countless times as I tried to learn the ropes of what he wanted me to do. It played out in ways it never could have happened in reality, and I hated how hot it made me feel.

Was that why he wanted me here? I doubted it, but the thought was planted in my brain like a seed, and I couldn’t weed it out.

So, I forced myself to work. The records before me were from a well-documented meeting of the board of directors, and little of it mattered if Dominic’s goal was to find something incriminating. But I clicked around the virtual archive labeled HVB Records and found that there was more information in these folders than there were books in Dominic’s library.

During that first day of work, I found little that was noteworthy, but I soon learned that Julian, Nicholas, and Maxwell were the only people in power. Together, they owned three-quarters of their investment firm, making decisions on virtually every aspect of the company. It also meant that they bore all of the responsibility.

When I looked up the current company records, I found that the men were no longer the majority shareholders, with Maxwell having a few token shares and Julian and Nicholas owning fewer than before. It didn’t take long before I pieced together who owned the various holding companies that owned the shares today.

My gaze lifted from the screen and traveled to the man who’d taken over the company.

Dominic was deep in work, his focus unbreakable. His sleeves were rolled like he was cleaning a gutter, a job I couldn’t imagine he knew about. His cold gaze was directed at the screen of his computer, and I pitied the screen. Dominic’s jaw worked, tensing the muscles in his face as he ground his teeth quietly. He lifted one hand to his bare neck and rubbed gently, fingers trailing down to the top of his chest where the shirt was open.

I returned to work, but the heat began creeping into my face.

I squirmed in my chair, pressing my thighs tightly together. These feelings had no place here. Just because I was away from my parents’ watchful eyes didn’t mean I could indulge in all that my heart desired. Especially not when Dominic was the source of these tingling sensations.

The three men who were soon going to be sorry they were ever born—if Dominic had his way, which I had no doubt would be the case—had personal files, too. At a glance, they each had a Harvard degree, same year and same class, and it matched the degree that hung on the wall in this very room. College enemies, I decided, but said nothing.

Dominic didn’t want to confide in me and had no reason to change his mind. Still, I had caught moments when his hateful gaze would break and something completely different appeared in his eyes. They weren’t always so cold and calculating.

No matter how much the rational part of me needed to hate Dominic for troubling my parents and being a ruthless businessman, I couldn’t convince myself that it was all. I couldn’t make myself see him as just that. There must be more to you, buried somewhere so deep that even you don’t know it exists .

Dominic sent me to have lunch on my own, choosing to make a few calls from the office, and I found that Orwell had already left a serving for me in the dining room. After wolfing the lunch, I wandered through the big library and neared the bookshelves that had drawn Dominic’s gaze once. The titles he had acquired himself…

My heart tripped as I found a shelf of familiar titles.

Half of the books I had carried here with me, those I had to hide from my parents and siblings, were on the shelf. From Mary Renault’s historicals to some particularly salacious contemporary reads, Dominic Blackthorne had a very gay bookshelf.

Hope bloomed in me so abruptly and absurdly that I struggled to keep it down. It was the same sort of hope I felt every time I ever entered Neon Nights. Not a real sort of hope, but a stupid, unattainable one. It felt like possibilities opened up where I hadn’t expected them. It felt like anything at all could happen just because someone near me was like me.

All my life, I had known not to hope for this. I had taught myself to enjoy stories instead of yearning for the real thing. Even so, every time I walked into Mama Viv’s bar, something in me buzzed with the expectation that a guy would sweep me off my feet. Fantasies blossomed even if they were just that—fantasies.

Dominic was gay.

I knew that a few books didn’t confirm that, but something in me was dead sure. The truth was, it had never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t be.

And there I found the bottom of it.

The thing that had drawn me to him from the start, that had lingered there beneath the repulsion and hatred, was a sense of familiarity. In the closed-off way he carried himself, I saw myself.

We were both creatures driven by survival and self-preservation. We just chose different ways to survive. And his way was to hide everything that was kind and good in him. After all, it couldn’t hurt you if it was just a business transaction.

I grew comfortable with his presence after that first day of working together. Even so, remembering that he was like me always sent a strange flutter through my body. But aside from that, we had a simple routine. We worked together in the morning, and I had my lunch alone. After lunch, I would browse his library and rejoin him in the study when his calls were finished.

In the evenings, Dominic would expect me for dinner, and I made an effort to have my decent clothes ready for those occasions. We didn’t speak much. Mostly, when I tried, Dominic pulled his cards closer to his chest, and I knew when to stop asking.

The workload was interesting. The three men Dominic targeted for reasons he wouldn’t share had done plenty of wrong with other people’s money. They used their business accounts for all sorts of small luxuries. According to the textbooks, that was enough to mark them as criminals, but Dominic told me that such things were mostly accepted in practice. “But keep collecting invoices for those corporate flights,” he advised me.

Corporate flights were just the tip of the iceberg. The men seemed to spend lavishly on so-called business meetings in the most exclusive clubs in the country. Vastly overpriced gifts, like gold-plated golf clubs and such, were sent to various powerful investors as tokens of goodwill. And HVB paid for all of it.

Early next week, I took my lunch an hour later, sun already tilting westward, and slipped into the library quietly to explore more of Dominic’s queer books. His collection was far larger than mine, I had found.

My gaze flicked to an old, battered spine of a book, and I pulled it off the shelf. It was dusty, the leather cover cracked and tied with a cord. Carefully, I unwrapped the leather cord and opened the front cover. The paper was yellow with age and water stains, unlike any of the books in the library. But when I saw what it was that the pages held, I regretted lifting it at all.

Photos.

Glued photos on each page of the book looked back at me—people with big smiles and slightly dated styles. On one page, a boy between two adults was blowing out six candles on a birthday cake, his eyes impossibly blue. On another boy, the same boy, now well into his teens, was standing shirtless in a pair of denim jeans by a small tractor with some farming tool attached to it. On yet another, the boy was not a boy at all but a young man with clear blue eyes and a determined look on his face. He was beautiful with those dazzling eyes.

When had they gone so cold and dead?

“What are you doing?” The low voice rose from my left, and I jumped, dropping the photo album on the floor in a moment of clumsiness.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted.

Dominic crossed the room with a furious speed and snatched the photo album a moment before I could bend down and pick it up. “This is private. Can’t you see that?”

“I’m sorry. I thought…” Embarrassment burned in my face and neck. My mouth was dry. The guilt I felt was there specifically because I had known, almost immediately, that I should have put the album back where it belonged.

“It’s my damn fault,” he said in a deep growl. “I should have burned this fucking thing years ago.” He retreated a step with determination as if he was about to do just that.

“No,” I cried. “Don’t.”

He glared at me. “You are forgetting yourself, Zain.”

“Don’t burn it,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper. “You’ll regret it.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” he said stiffly. “The only thing I regret is bringing a nosey guy into my home.”

I snapped my mouth shut, my eyes widening. I hadn’t meant to be nosey, and he knew it. He must have known it.

A tremor of something came over his face, and then he took a step back. Calmly, he said, “That’s enough for today. You’re free.”

Before I could protest, his back was turned to me, and he was striding back to the office. He shut the door, and there was a distinct click when he locked himself inside.

With angry and embarrassed tears stinging my eyes, I blinked fast and hurried out of the library.

When I shut myself inside my room, I leaned all my weight against the door and tried to silence the buzzing in my ears.

Dominic was not that happy young man anymore, and I couldn’t understand it. He had everything. He had everything he could ever wish for. This house was more than the rest of the world could hope for; his net worth was larger than the GDP of most developing countries; he had appointed skilled, respectable people to all the key positions in all his companies so that he never had to worry about them again. Where had it all gone so wrong? Where had he lost his heart? Where had that smiling young man become a vindictive, debt-settling, justice-dispensing monster?

I wanted to know. But more than anything, I wanted to be away from here.

Dominic

Pages were scattered around my study.

Dusk glow poured through the windows, giving the room a fiery orange tone. The wallpaper on the far side was chipped from impact. The spine had split, and the pages poured out everywhere.

I sat on the floor, my back pressed against the door. My hand ran through my hair, pulling now and again until pain reminded me that I was still alive and awake.

My gaze went over the mess in the study. Some of the photos had fallen out of the pages before the album had reached its destination. I picked up the nearest one. My mother had taken that photo. She had taken it by the lake near our house on the day I received a letter informing me of my scholarship. I was going to Harvard to break the cycle of poverty that had plagued my family for generations. All my hopes and dreams and all my work had paid off.

In the photo, surrounded by all the green shrubbery and brilliant green-blue water of the lake, I stood in my swimming shorts next to my father. By that time, I was already taller than him, and I suspected that was just the first of many grievances my existence had caused him.

Oh, he was smiling in the photo, but I was certain that even then, he hated me.

Some parents are strict because they want you to excel. Some are oppressive because they want to achieve everything through you. And some, like my dear old pa, are envious. You look at a younger version of yourself and can’t help but be jealous of it. That was my father. He watched me grow taller while he shrank; he looked at the way I styled my hair while his hairline receded; he saw me catch the eye of every girl that crossed my path while he let go of himself and bragged only of all the conquests of his youth. But the worst offense of all was the fact that I managed to do my work at the farm and still study hard. It cost me my life and my childhood, but I had done it. I had earned my scholarship, my ticket out of that hell, and he just couldn’t get over it.

Back then, my mother still had a reason to negotiate for me. She still tried to reason with Father, but that wouldn’t last long.

I looked at the young man in the photo as my eyes stung. They weren’t tears that stung them. I was all out of tears and had been for years. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried. Probably around the time this photo was taken.

That young man, with hope and dreams practically beaming from his stupid, inexperienced face, was dead. Stupid optimism had killed and buried him. Even then, he was walking around with that noose around his neck, but he didn’t know it. He’d find out. A year or so later, he would find out.

A pang of guilt twisted my heart. I thought of Zain’s wide eyes, the shock of being caught, and I squeezed my eyes shut. He hadn’t known. For fuck’s sake, I’d said he was free to browse.

I had to make it right.