Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 425

"I am eating." I gestured with my fork. "Talking and chewing is how people choke, Dominic."

"See, this is why I eat alone."

Pat laughed into her glass. "He has a point. You almost took out an entire bakery with that croissant story last week."

"The croissant story is important. It has layers."

"Like you," Dominic said, deadpan, and I threw a piece of bread at him.

He caught it, bit into it, and grinned at me with such unguarded happiness that my chest squeezed. This was the part I could not fake and could not explain, the way he looked at me, like I was the answer to a question he had been asking his whole life.

Every time I saw it I wanted to tell him everything, wanted to crawl into his lap and cry until the poison was out of me. But Dominic had already carried enough of my weight, and this was mine, the debt my family had never been able to collect, and I would collect it alone.

So I smiled and I joked, I fed him strawberries while Pat pretended to be scandalized, I laughed until my cheeks hurt, and when the night finally wound down and Pat yawned her way upstairs, I stood at the kitchen window with my hands in the sink and watched my reflection waver in the dark glass.

"Coming to bed?" Dominic's arms wrapped around me from behind.

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