The Dominator (40 page)

A moment passed with me just sitting there and him just standing over me radiating anger.

Tommy

Damn it. She was on the floor looking so small and afraid. Her beautiful silky hair all messed up and hiding her face, her hands over her eyes, and just this white pool of terrycloth fabric surrounding her. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world right now. I
was
the biggest asshole in the world. I kept fucking this up. Why did I keep fucking this up?

Her shoulders started to shake a little and I knew she was crying. I got down in front of her on my knees and reached for her and she flinched.

“I’m sorry.” I pulled her to me. She kept her arms around herself instead of putting them around me and I could hear that she was trying to mask crying. I sat down on the carpet and pulled her onto my lap and held her tight, “I’m a dick when I’m hung over. I’m sorry, baby.”

She stopped shaking and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her bathrobe.  She looked up at me for a second and then looked away, pain on her face, her eyes red. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I tipped her chin up so she’d have no choice but to look at me and then I kissed her lips softly, “I have to go out for just a while today and then we’ll go do something, okay?” I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

She shook her head and her voice was small. “I know you’re here on business, not to entertain me. Maybe you should’ve left me back at your place.” She still wasn’t looking me in the eye.

“Our place. And no, I want you here,” I let out a sigh and tucked her head under my chin and rocked her for a minute. Then I got up, taking her hand to lead her back to the sofa. I pulled her on top of me so that she was laying on me with her head on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her. She was so warm. My head was fucking pounding so hard.

“I need to close my eyes for a few minutes, Tia. Stay with me?”

She didn’t answer but she didn’t try to move away. I closed my eyes.

Tia

I could reach the remote on the coffee table, thankfully, and found something else to watch on TV once I heard his breathing even out.  He had me on top of him and he was snoring. His arms were tight around me and I wasn’t going anywhere without waking him so I just made myself comfortable and watched TV with my head on his chest until he woke up a little over two hours later to the sound of his cell ringing.

So much for breakfast. I tried not to think about what’d happened. I didn’t want to think about that temper and what it might mean for my life going forward. I didn’t want to think about it so I just let it feel good to be in his arms. I let him comfort me with his arms around me, which was beyond bizarre because those same arms had lifted me up by my bathrobe a little while ago and were attached to a man who was hollering right in my face. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of his heartbeat but I didn’t fall back to sleep. I let myself get caught up in The Wizard of Oz, which was on television. I’d never get sick of this movie. Ever.

He didn’t reach for the ringing phone, though; he started running his hands under my robe, gripping my rear end. I felt his lips in my hair. Bile rose in my throat.  Sex was the last thing on my mind right now. His phone started to ring again and at that same moment there was a knock on the adjoining door. We got to our feet. He grabbed his phone and I decided to go into the bathroom and get a shower, and get dressed.

I didn’t know what was on the menu for plans today, so I wore a pair of nice dressy cream colored walking shorts, a frilly tan peasant blouse, and some sandals. I put make-up on.

I couldn’t find my tweezers to clean up my eyebrows, which were looking a wee bit unruly, in my train case so I started to go through my purse and that’s where I found the travel make-up bag that Sarah had put together for me when we were in Mexico. I’d used it at the farm, too, and I knew there was a manicure kit in there with tweezers. I rifled through it until I found the kit and my eye caught something shimmery. It was Tommy’s silver chain with the crucifix. I lifted it out and looked at it. Then I remembered Tommy said I could call to have the spa people come up. Maybe I’d do that today while he was out and get my eyebrows and girlie bits done.

He came into the Hers bathroom, just walked right in. He grabbed his toothbrush from my train case and then his eyes landed on the necklace in my hand. He made a face I couldn’t quite read.

“Um, I could’ve been doing something embarrassing in here,” I said.

He rolled his eyes at me but he didn’t answer as he squeezed toothpaste onto his brush and started on his teeth.

“Next time I guess I’ll lock it,” I mumbled.

His eyes narrowed and he spat toothpaste in the sink, “Don’t ever try to fucking lock me out of anywhere.”

I jolted in surprise.  There was an awkward silence where he was looking at my reflection in the mirror, then he put the toothbrush back in his mouth and resumed but I could see his eyes on the chain in my hand in the reflection.

“I, uh, Mexico,” I said, motioning to the case it had been in.

He gave me a swift nod, “Put it on for me.”

I fumbled and fastened it around his neck as he finished brushing his teeth. He was looking at me weirdly in the mirror. After it was finally fastened I plugged in my curling iron and flicked it on and left the bathroom.

As he came out, I started, “Breakfast got cold. Should I---”

He shook his head, “I gotta run.  Boys are next door if you need them. Stay here. I’ll be a couple hours and then we’ll go do something.”

I nodded.

He took my face in both hands and caressed it, looking deeply into my eyes. I chewed my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I nodded but wondered if he was referring to being sorry about earlier or just now. He was still being a dick.

He kissed me on the forehead and then on the lips. His lips lingered, looking for mine to respond, I guess. I tried. But I don’t think it was too convincing.  He backed up and stared at me for a minute and then he shook his head slowly, “Fuck, Tia. What are you doing to me?”

I frowned. How was his hangover and / or his temper tantrum
my
fault?

He pulled me against him and held me tight, almost too tight. Then he backed up, shook his head at me, grabbed his phone and then left through the adjoining room. I was relieved to be alone. When I woke up today I had no desire to sit in this hotel room all day while the whole city, it seemed, was having fun. But now? I hoped he was busy and stayed busy.

He’d been off, mood wise, with me frequently since we got back from the farm. He was broody, temperamental. Actually it’d started at the hospital, I think. I hated it. I hated that I had to walk on eggshells. Was this going to be my life from now on?

He picked me up about 2.5 hours later. His eyes were sparkling and he seemed like he was in a good mood, “The rest of the day is ours,” he told me.

He took me by the hand into the adjoining room and told the guys, who were sitting there playing cards with poker playing on the TV, “Free time, boys. I’m going to show my girl Sin City. Just have your cells on. I’ll have an errand for you in a few hours so I’ll text about it.”

They both looked elated. I guess they were both itching for a real card game and some time out of their hotel room.

Tommy

When I picked her up she was timid with me. I couldn’t exactly blame her for that after the way I’d been that morning but right now I didn’t want timid, I wanted to show her some fun and erase what’d happened that morning.

It’d been a few hours since we left the room. We got lunch at an outdoor café and then I asked her what she wanted to do and she wanted to walk. So we let the Bentley that the hotel had given us go and we walked, and walked. I took her to a jewelry store and told her to pick out a new pair of earrings.  She didn’t want to. I insisted. She chose a simple pair of princess cut diamond studs. They looked beautiful on her. I suggested we look at wedding bands, too. The jeweler suggested an eternity band that would complement her engagement ring nicely and she liked it so I bought it and told Tia to pick something for me. She was really wary about it, so much so that it made me feel like she was having second thoughts.  I guess I was probably doing this to make her forget about the way I’d acted this morning as well as to move forward with the wedding plans, too.

After a long time she chose for me. She made a really nice choice, actually. It was a twisted gold and black band, the two colors woven together in a Celtic knot pattern. It made me think of her and I. Light and dark, wrapped around one another.

“I love it,” I whispered in her ear, “It’s perfect. It makes me think of us.” She nuzzled into me and smiled shyly, her expression showing me that she and I had similar opinions about the design.

I arranged for the rings to be sent home but Tia put the earrings on before we left the store. She was still quiet and a little bit timid and it was getting to me. I needed to snap her out of it.

Tia

I guessed he was trying to make up for that morning. I wasn’t trying to
not
let him off the hook or anything but I just felt, I don’t know, sad. I didn’t know if he was being honest about the lipstick on his collar and I didn’t know what else was on his mind that’d made him so awful earlier. I didn’t know how to fake it. And he told me he didn’t want me to be fake when it was just him and I, anyways. But him buying me jewelry and acting the way he was acting felt fake
to me
. I wished we were back at the hay loft.

Tommy Ferrano was light and dark, like the colors in the wedding band I’d picked for him. He thought the light and dark represented us but to me, it represented him. Woven together the light and dark was who
he
was.  I wondered if I’d be able to take the dark, though; I wanted the light to win out over it. But it looked like it’d be both I’d have to live with. Unless I found a way out.

I needed a restroom. As we were walking through a mall-like area in between two hotels I told him so and he said he did as well and once we found bathrooms he said he would meet me right outside the door afterwards.

Outside the door afterwards, he wasn’t there. It felt weird as I’d found myself totally alone and with no eyes on me, no security guards around, I suddenly felt the urge to run. I wanted to take off and disappear into the crowd.

If I did take off, what would happen? My father clearly hadn’t been honest with me and so did that mean they wouldn’t have killed him if I hadn’t cooperated? I knew, for a fact, that they didn’t hesitate to kill their enemies so Dad probably would be in danger. But did he even deserve my consideration after selling me out when I
had
escaped from Tommy? I didn’t know. But where would I go? What would I do?

No. I wasn’t going to do it. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d promised to be faithful, he’d said he was sorry about this morning, and he was trying to make his miserable mood up to me.  I’d been weighing the good and the bad and right now the scales were still tipping in his favor. And if he was starting to trust me to be alone, without security, maybe it meant that it’d evolve to where I’d have enough freedom that if I ever
did
need to run, I could do it then. I didn’t want to run. I just wanted him to always be who he’d been in many of the moments when he’d been sweet to me. I could handle the hotness in the games we played, too, I liked the hotness, but this morning? Not hotness.

I didn’t know what was keeping him. It’d been at least 10-15 minutes. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted him with:

“Did you fall in? LOL”

5 more minutes. 10 more minutes. No reply to my text and no sign of Tommy.

A man went in and then came out of the bathroom, an older grandfatherly-looking man,

“Excuse me? My I’m wondering if my fiancé is alright. He went in kind of a long time ago and hasn’t come out. He’s quite tall, brown hair, wearing a green t-shirt and dark jean shorts?”

“Bathroom’s empty,” the man said, shrugging.

I’m sure I must’ve looked shocked, “Thank you,” I said. I leaned against the wall and dialed Tommy’s phone number. It just rang.

I looked back at the text message. It was iMessage and it now said the earlier message had been read, just a moment before.

Where are you?
I texted.

It was read immediately.

I waited to see the little dots showing me he was typing. It showed nothing after the read notification.

I looked around me. There were people walking everywhere.  I sat there for another few minutes and finally I felt like I had to do something. So I called him again.  It rang and rang. Then I called Dario. His was the only other number in my contacts.

“Yeah?” he answered on the first ring.

“Dario, it’s Tia.”

“Hey-ya Tia Tyson!” he answered enthusiastically and it sounded like he was smiling through the phone, which was weird because he’d gone from angry brother to this other person, still pretty intense, but now nice to me.

“Um, Hi, sorry to bug you but I don’t know what to make of this.”