Page 72 of Disavowed

“I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders.

He propped himself up on his elbow. “You are a special person.”

“I’m not.” She lowered her gaze. “But I want to do something special with most of my trust fund. My income is comfortable enough that I haven’t tapped into it in so long I can’t remember. It’s been growing, earning boatloads of interest. It’s not doing me any good. I even tried giving or loaning some to Alex last year to get her business off the ground, but she wouldn’t take it.”

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “What do you want to do with it?”

A look of determination came over her. “Donate it to a children’s charity. I want to transform the ugliness of my past into something worthwhile in the future.”

Pride and even more admiration came to him as he gazed down at her. “I’d like to help you find the right place. If you’ll let me.”

She smiled, her eyes glistening. “I’d like that.”

“Have you ever heard of Lost Souls of New York?” Dom asked, and when she shook her head, he continued. “It’s a nonprofit organization that helps foster children get through difficult transitional situations.”

She smiled, nodding. “It sounds perfect.”

“How much do you want to donate?”

“Well”—she twisted her mouth, deep in thought—“ten million dollars.”

He lifted an eyebrow. Holy shit. Goes to show, money doesn’t buy happiness. But in Daisy’s case, giving it away might bring her some amount of joy. “That’s a helluva lot of money. You sure you want to part with all that?”

She nodded emphatically. “I used what I needed a long time ago. There are others who need it more.”

He wasn’t the mushy type, but if a man could actually feel his heart swell, he felt it now. Even if she never agreed with him, she truly was the most special person he’d ever met. Somehow, he’d always known that.

Helping children would be Daisy’s path to healing. He wanted nothing more than to make the pain of her past go away, but he knew he couldn’t do that. No one could. But he could be there for her now, using his body as a tool to make her feel cherished.

He slipped from the bed, grabbing another condom on the way to the bathroom. After discarding the used one, he quickly sheathed himself and returned to the bed. Tugging the sheet down their bodies, he rose over her, and she parted her thighs. He slid inside her, kissing her, rocking rhythmically until she tightened around him and came. A moment later, semen shot to the tip of his cock, and this time he was the one who cried out.

Their breathing slowed, and as his gaze roved her beautiful face, one word kept rising from the depths of his brain and his heart, struggling to surface but not quite breaching the darkness of his past enough for him to say it aloud.

Love.

Chapter Nineteen

Three a.m. He’d only slept for a few hours, but it was more than he’d had so many nights as a Delta operative in the Middle East. Beside him Daisy slept peacefully, her hand resting on his chest. He’d been lying awake for nearly an hour now, content to watch her sleep.

Sleeping Beauty.

He looked down at his fingers splayed at the small of her back, noting the contrast between his large, rough hand and her satiny smooth skin. It made him realize all the more how delicate she really was. Like a fragile flower. The opposite of the image she intentionally portrayed to the rest of the world. And while he couldn’t be certain, from the way he’d had to drag it out of her, he doubted Alex knew all of Daisy’s backstory.

The cell phone on the table next to his head vibrated once, indicating he’d received a text. He grabbed the phone and stared at the screen. The message was from his D.C. contact. The text was short:

William Fachon, illegitimate son of Colonel William “Bud” Marsden.

He slipped out of bed and tugged the comforter over Daisy’s shoulders. Luckily, she didn’t budge as he stepped quietly from the room and closed the bedroom door behind him. Instinct and a lifetime of watching his back had him going to the living room window and peering through the drapes to the street below. Seeing nothing out of place, he cued up an internet search on William Fachon.

A list of articles popped up on the phone’s screen. He clicked the first one, a New York Times article dated over a year and a half ago. Columbia University Student Killed By Drunk Driver. William Fachon, age 20, was killed by a drunk driver while crossing Broadway in front of the university’s main gate. The driver, Christopher Shane, fled the scene but was later arrested by police after crashing his Maserati into a concrete divider.

The next article was slightly more recent, dated thirteen months ago. Case Dismissed Against Drunk Driver. The case against Christopher Shane, CEO of Fairhaven Hotels—

“Holy fuck.” Dom snapped his head up. The CEO of Fairhaven Hotels—the same hotel chain that owned the Piazza—had killed the colonel’s son. And now the Pyramid was planning their next kill at the Piazza. Shane had to be the target. The photo included with the article showed a tall man about fifty with silver-gray hair leaving the courthouse.

He refocused on the article. The case against Shane was unexpectedly dismissed by the DA’s office. The prosecutor, ADA Andrew Goldsucker, stated all original breathalyzer and field sobriety test results were not available and that chain of custody protocols at the hospital where Shane’s blood test was taken had been improperly followed. Goldsucker further stated that the DA’s office had no choice but to reluctantly dismiss all charges against Shane for lack of evidence.

The article went on to quote an NYPD spokesperson who maintained the two arresting officers had provided all the proper paperwork to the DA’s office in preparation for trial and the department vehemently disagreed with the ADA’s decision not to prosecute.