Sweet Seduction Sacrifice (46 page)

"And you think you deserve her?" he spat back eventually. "You're a womaniser, Anscombe. You leave a trail of heartbroken and mentally damaged women in your wake." Caroline's head turned slowly back to look at them both, but Dominic didn't show any obvious outward signs of being affected by Brett's words. I'd forgotten, however, that Nick was listening through my cellphone and I still had it to my ear.

Nick's muttered, "shit" over the phone startled me and made me look closer at Dominic standing statue still before Brett. If I hadn't have gotten to know his body so well over the past two weeks, I would have missed it. A tension flowing out rigidly from his shoulders to the rest of his frame. Brett had hit a tender spot, a chink in Dominic's armour, and Nick knew it.

"Yeah, you know who I'm talking about," Brett said on a taunt. "And it wasn't just Caroline here, was it?"

Oh my God. I knew Brett was the reason Caroline was here right now. He'd used her, manipulated her, to get in touch with me. Knowing I would come running, or hoping I'd tell Dominic and he would come instead of me. What an arsehole, to take advantage of a sick woman like that. To screw with her head even more. The damage he could cause was unimaginable, but nothing compared to the reason why he'd gone to such lengths for this ruse.

He wanted Dominic here. He wanted Dominic off centre, the evidence of whatever perceived destruction Dominic had caused in his ex-girlfriend's psyche, on display to rub it in some more.

That thought was frightening, because Brett had a plan and that plan revolved around my man.

"Leave her out of this," Dominic said in a voice that was neither calm nor controlled. My heart sank.

"OK," Brett said agreeably. "What about Stacey?" Dominic's fingers twitched at his sides and Nick growled down the phone. "Or Rebecca? Or Nancy? Or Melanie?"

"Ah, fuck," Nick muttered down the phone and I held my breath. "He's fishing, Gen," Nick added for my benefit. "They mean nothing to Dominic, you know that right?" I closed the phone, disconnecting the call, without a word.

"All of them fucked over by the charismatic, rich and popular, Dominic Anscombe," Brett said taking a step closer. A move designed to be casual, to be accomplished while Dominic was off guard. It worked, because Dominic didn't seem to be aware of how close he was getting. He certainly wasn't adjusting his stance in preparation for a physical confrontation. He looked a little stunned and lost, I thought.

My heart clenched tight. I didn't know who these women were. Dominic had never mentioned them. Maybe they were important. Maybe not. Maybe he treated them badly, maybe it just didn't work out. Maybe it's all conjecture and Brett was stirring up shit where it didn't belong.

Dominic seemed to shake himself awake slightly when Brett had halved the distance between them.

"What's your point, Elliott? Bringing up my ex-girlfriends doesn't mean a thing." I held my breath, aching for the man I loved, and despising the man who made him have to address these things right here. "Genevieve knows I've had previous relationships, likewise I'm sure so has she."

"Three," Brett answered immediately. "Gen's had three boyfriends before me, you fucker. If you knew her at all, if you
cared
about her at all, gaining that knowledge would have been the first thing you did."

I blinked, a little stunned at Brett's words. And a little shaken.

"Really?" Dominic shot back, looking more like himself again. Controlled and calm and deadly. "I was more concerned about getting to know the Genevieve of today. The woman she has become. We both have pasts that have shaped us, but it's Genevieve I love, and sifting through her romantic history won't change that at all. That smacks of possessiveness and insecurities to me. Having to know absolutely everything about anyone who has gone before you, so you can ensure they never come back, proves how little of her heart you actually held. Or thought you did."

Oh. He'd certainly nailed Brett on the head with that analysis.

"You don't love her," Brett spat out desperately, his face scrunching up in anger. Caroline's head moving rapidly between the two men, no longer frozen in a psychotic episode, but I was thinking very much present in this ugly scene.

It was obvious all Brett had heard though, from Dominic's last speech, was the fact that Dominic loved me. I was sure none of the rest of his words had even sunk in. Typical Brett, attacking the supposed threat, not picking up on his own failings. And suddenly I knew that Brett would say and do anything to prove his point, and that most of it - if not all of it - would be utter crap.

Yes, Dominic had a past, but so did I and how Dominic behaved
now
was all that mattered.

Dominic Anscombe loved me. No matter what hurdles came our way, that would never change. And I loved him right back. Brett - and Caroline - could go the fuck to hell.

"You don't care about her," Brett was adding, bringing my attention back to the scene before us and making me wonder where Jason was now. Several minutes had passed, surely he was upon us already. "If you did, you'd let her walk away."

"Sound advice," Dominic admitted. "Advice you should take yourself."

"She doesn't love you," Brett shot back. "She knows I'm all she'll ever get. You move in different circles to us, you live a different life. Genevieve Cain is not a million dollar babe, she knows where she sits on the ladder of life and it's right beside me."

Those words would have meant something once upon a time. But I've come a long way since then. Yes, Dominic was worth more than me financially. He owned a firm on Queen Street. A sought after lawyer with an established career. He had a museum of expensive and exotic cars in the basement of his commercial-sized home. I would never have thought someone such as god-like Dominic Anscombe would settle for me.

But then, I do all right financially, especially now that Brett's not draining me dry. I can pay my bills now, I've even put some aside, and Sweet Seduction is getting more and more popular as time goes by. I own a successful business on High Street. A sought after café and chocolatier. People come to my establishment because of the seductive atmosphere; great music, fine chocolate and to-die-for coffee. I have a loft apartment in the CBD, it's small and I owe money on it, but it's all mine. I'm a success - and I am so far out of Brett's league it isn't funny.

"No, she's not a million dollar babe," Dominic surprised me by saying, making all of my courageous words falter in my mind. "She's priceless, Elliott. She's a precious treasure that I would sell my soul to keep." Oh, that's nice. "She's the world," he added, his voice slightly rough on those last few words.

I watched, stunned at Dominic's beautiful, heartfelt words, as Caroline quietly nodded - as though to herself - and began to walk back down the wharf, away from Dominic and Brett. Neither man noticed, too wrapped up in their own contest of wills. But she held my gaze as she walked past the car, a small sad smile playing on her lips. Then she was gone, between two houses across the street, disappearing into the fading night.

I'd been right, she'd needed to see it. But I had never thought for a second that she'd see it this way. Damn Brett for doing this to her. Damn him for making Dominic suffer through it too.

"You're really beginning to fuck me off," Brett said snidely, his whole body relaxed, nothing to give away his next move.

But I'd known Brett for over seven years. I'd seen him standing exactly like this, talking in exactly the same overly casual way, right before he threw a glass of beer at my head.

I was out of the car and running towards them before my brain registered what was happening.

I could see Jason pop out from behind the phone booth across the street, a gun in his hand trained on Brett. I spotted a series of black clad, armed, soldier-like men half crouching, half running along the beach wall, and emerging out between houses - even the houses where Caroline had disappeared to.

I saw Dominic tense for attack, what he was going to do I wasn't sure. Throw a punch, dive out of the way? Did he know I was running towards them? Maybe he was getting ready to grab me and keep me from harm's way.

But nothing mattered in that instant, nothing mattered at all. Because Brett had grabbed his gun from behind his back where neither of us had seen it, but no doubt Dominic like me, had suspected it rested. And pointed it at Dominic's head.

Several things happened at once, which strangely enough I could see playing out in slow motion, like a DVD movie being forwarded at the slowest setting on the remote. Jason fired his gun, a puff of smoke and a flash of orange light at the muzzle. Dominic spun slightly to see me jumping through the air at his side, a surprised look on his face. Several of the black clad men fell to the ground and trained their weapons on Brett, but Nick's urgent, "Don't fire!" sounding out behind them had them holding their position and not firing. As Brett pulled the trigger on his gun, from no more than five feet away.

And I took the bullet meant for Dominic in my lower right stomach, as I sailed through the air between him and my loser-ex, determined to protect my love, my dream-man, from harm.

I hit the ground hard. Another gunshot rang out from behind Dominic and me, but I couldn't see who fired it, I was too busy gasping for air and wanting to scream in pain, but unable to get a sound out because my body had simply decided enough was enough. I could feel warm liquid through my fingers, where they rested against my groin. I could smell the sea that lay beneath the wharf where I lay. I could hear sirens getting closer and shouting and someone pleading for me not to die, right beside my ear.

And I hurt. I was in agony, but I was also so very happy that I'd done it. That I'd sacrificed something so precious for something even more so.

My life for Dominic's. The sweetest of sacrifices, the most worthy offering I could make.

Gen's my best friend. I never, in a million years, thought that something like this could happen to my best friend.

If I could have strangled that nurse's neck I would have. How many friggin' times did she have to come out of that door? I mean it was obvious she'd get pounced on. If not by me, then by Gen's Mum or Dad, or God forbid by Dominic himself. That's if his brother and one of his men weren't holding him back by hanging off each of his arms.

The man was beside himself. It was obvious to everyone here that he thought Gen was a gonna. I'm not surprised. She was so pale when they wheeled her trolley into the ED, the helicopter paramedic yelling at everyone to get out of the way. Dominic trailed after them, blood smeared all over his T-shirt and jeans, utter shock the only emotion on his face. Thankfully Nick brought a spare, clean T-shirt for him ten minutes later, before Mr and Mrs Cain arrived. They wouldn't have needed to see that. It was bad enough that I did.

Nick had phoned and told me to get to the emergency department, he and his men were following behind the Westpac Rescue Helicopter in one of their own. I couldn't believe how quickly they all got here, apparently it had happened out at Maraetai, a fair distance from Auckland City Hospital, that was for sure. But then Jason walked in, a big oaf of a guy in army greens at his side. Jason had commandeered the government's assets to get ASI and himself back to the CBD in double quick time. I guess it paid to be a member of the military elite. Not that I was thinking it would make much difference.

Since Dominic and Gen arrived, me being the only person waiting for them, we'd been kept in the dark. Twenty minutes later Gen's parents turned up, but the nurses were tight-lipped. Even for next of kin there was nothing, other than she was in theatre and the doctors and nurses were doing everything they could.

Doctors, plural. I'm no rocket scientist, but more than one just couldn't be good.

So, me, Dominic, the Cains and eventually the rest of the gang sat in silence. Or at least the Cains and the rest of us sat, Dominic paced, running both hands through his short black hair. I had abso-fucking-lutely no idea how to calm him. He still scared me slightly. That cool exterior and chill that could invade his frame at a moment's notice. Sure, he was warm around Gen, but not so much with me.

Still, can't complain about how he's looked out for her. And looking at the guy now you'd think he was in physical pain. Right alongside my best friend.

I stood up and started pacing myself. If you can't beat 'em and all that. Just me and Dominic pacing, Jason was under some sort of quasi arrest in the corner, sitting on his butt. The police detectives who'd been running Gen's case, either side of him. No handcuffs present, I think that was for Mr and Mrs Cain, but the implied threat was there. I'm not sure what happened, but obviously something for them to have Jason of all people surrounded and Jason's army friend, who apparently was a lawyer, sitting resolutely nearby.

Well, I've never been one to shut the fuck up in awkward situations, so I walked on over and stood before all four of them, crossing my arms over my chest and looking directly at Jason. I ignored army man and the cops, and just waited for Jason to lift his head. He looked harrowed, almost in as much pain as Dominic.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked, what I thought was a straight forward question.

"Don't say a word," army man instructed off to the side. I shot him a glare for good measure, but you just can't impress a man in army fatigues with a look.