He quickly got to work on his laptop, handling some urgent business. A shipment delayed at the port. Numbers that needed reconciling before a call with associates overseas. There was a wordless understanding between us as we worked side by side until the early morning. This was what we'd always been best at. Not love. Work. The machinery of the Sloane empire had always been our most fluent shared language, and even now, with my severance letter signed and folded in my bag, my fingers moved across the spreadsheets with the competence of a woman who'd kept these books for seven years.
Eventually, I couldn't fight off the exhaustion any longer and fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke up in bed, surprised to find myself tucked in. The sheets had been pulled to my chin with a precision that suggested hands more accustomed to violence than tenderness.
Dominic sat beside me, casually leaning against the headboard, flipping through the financial section of the newspaper. The silver lighter rested on the nightstand beside him, catching the morning light. He glanced at me as I stirred.
"Breakfast's on its way," he said, already picking up his phone to call room service.