Chapter 4 - The Midnight VisitorAt 2:15 a.m., the mansion was wrapped in a deceptive, velvety quiet.
Skylar lay awake in the small, comfortable guest room in the staff wing where Dr. Vance had insisted she sleep rather than her usual cramped quarters downstairs. The ice pack against her swollen cheek had melted an hour ago, leaving behind a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
She stared up at the dark ceiling, replaying the evening’s events in her head like a recurring nightmare.
She had crossed Bianca Moretti.
In a world where powerful people settled disputes with quiet phone calls and ruined lives, Skylar knew her days at the Rossi estate were numbered. By tomorrow afternoon, she would likely be fired, blacklisted from every major household agency in the state, and left scrambling to find a way to pay for her father’s next dialysis treatment.
A soft, muffled sound outside her door pulled her from her thoughts.
It wasn't the heavy, synchronized tread of the estate security guards. It was slower. Heavier. Deliberate.
Skylar slipped out of bed, her bare feet making no sound against the thick carpet. She crept toward the heavy oak door and pressed her ear against the wood.
Tap. Tap.
Two soft knocks. Not the urgent pounding of an intruder, but the measured knock of someone who owned the building and didn't need to ask permission.
Skylar slowly turned the brass handle and pulled the door open an inch.
Dominic Rossi stood in the dimly lit hallway.
He had removed his tuxedo jacket; his crisp white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing lean, corded muscle and a faint scar across his left wrist. He looked less like a corporate mob boss in this light and more like a predator who had shed his ceremonial armor.
“Mr. Rossi?” Skylar whispered, her hand gripping the edge of the door. “Is Mrs. Rossi alright? Does she need her medication?”
“My mother is sleeping,” Dominic said, his low voice carrying clearly through the gap. He looked down at her swollen cheek, noting the neat white butterfly stitches Dr. Vance had applied. “You should be sleeping too.”
“I was... trying,” Skylar stammered, feeling painfully self-conscious in her oversized cotton sleep shirt, her hair falling in a tangled mess around her shoulders. “Is there something you need, sir? I can come down to the kitchen—”
“No,” Dominic interrupted, stepping closer so that Skylar had to choose between retreating into the room or holding her ground. She held her ground. “I came to talk to you.”
Skylar swallowed hard. “About earlier? Mr. Rossi, if I overstepped—if I shouldn't have interfered with Mrs. Moretti—I’m sorry. I just... I couldn't watch her strike your mother.”
Dominic was silent for a long moment. He studied her face—really studied her—not with the cold appraisal he used for business rivals, but with a strange, intense focus that made Skylar’s breath hitch.
“You threw yourself between a violent woman and a seventy-year-old lady,” Dominic said quietly, his voice dropping into a register that felt almost intimate in the dark hallway. “Knowing full well who Bianca is. Knowing what it could cost you.”
“She was going to hurt her,” Skylar whispered simply. “That’s all I knew.”
Dominic raised his right hand. For a terrifying second, Skylar thought he was going to touch her cheek, but instead, he reached past her and pushed the door open wider, stepping uninvited into her room.
Skylar backed away, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Dominic didn't look around the modest room. He kept his dark eyes fixed on her.
“Bianca’s engagement to me was arranged by our respective fathers three years ago to consolidate shipping lanes across the eastern seaboard,” Dominic stated bluntly, as if reciting corporate logistics. “It was a business merger disguised as a romance.”
Skylar blinked, thrown completely off balance by the confession. “Mr. Rossi... I don't think I’m supposed to know that.”
“You know it now,” Dominic replied without missing a beat. “And as of twenty minutes ago, that business merger has been permanently dissolved.”
Skylar’s jaw dropped. “Dissolved? But the wedding is in less than a month! The invitations—the press—”
“The press will report that the wedding has been called off due to irreconcilable differences,” Dominic said coldly. “And Bianca and her father are currently packing their belongings under the supervision of my security detail, heading back to Manhattan before sunrise.”
Skylar stared at him, unable to process the sheer magnitude of what he was saying. He had just torpedoed a multi-million-dollar corporate alliance—a marriage that would have expanded his empire—because of an incident in the conservatory involving a housemaid and his mother.
“Why?” Skylar whispered.
Dominic closed the remaining distance between them until he stood just inches away. Up close, he was tall enough that Skylar had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. He smelled of rain, expensive cedarwood, and cold night air.
“Because in my world, Skylar, people spend millions of dollars trying to buy loyalty, and they still end up surrounded by traitors,” Dominic murmured, his dark eyes burning into hers with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. “You didn't have loyalty to my bank account. You didn't have loyalty to my name. You protected my mother because you are a good person.”
He reached out then. His fingers were warm, calloused, and surprisingly gentle as they brushed lightly against the uninjured side of her jawline.
May you like
Skylar shivered, her entire body locking up with a jolt of pure electricity.
“And nobody,” Dominic whispered, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rumble that sent heat rushing straight to her cheeks, “hits someone in my house and gets away with it. Especially not the woman who protects my family.”
