Ink & Lust

Chapter 26

"Are you sure we aren't lost?" Amila asked, peering out the window of the all-black Mercedes G-wagon gliding down the two-lane road.

It felt like they were lost. Yellow, orange, and red leaf trees surrounded them; had been engulfing them for the last thirty-eight minutes. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood venturing deeper and deeper into the woods only she wasn't going to Grandmother's house nor did she have a red cloak. But there could be a big bad wolf in those woods. The woods were vast as an ocean with stories of their own.

She didn't know much about Connecticut. Only the spare facts she learned in school, some of the facts she'd forgotten after taking the test. It was a New England colony. A colony that birthed one of her mom's favorite actresses. Katherine Hepburn. She could recite the lines of Bringing Up Baby better than any nursery rhyme taught to preschoolers before the age of nine. And it was the home of her sister's favorite show she loved to hate-watch, Gilmore Girls.

"We're not," Dominic affirmed, his hand went to her legging covered thigh drawing her sight away from the window and back to him. He nodded to the screen in the middle of the SUV's console supplying them with navigation. "Google Maps got our backs."

She grinned withholding the fact that Google Maps got her lost once, in her own town; She ended up in front of constructions signs and a road that was dug up but that was three years ago and technology was almost advancing at the speed of light so maybe those miscommunications were fixed with the new satellite docked in space.

Her eyes went to the console, discovering the eta. In eleven minutes she'd be at the estate with all of the people that Dominic called his close family.

"So, let me make sure I remember correctly...your oldest brother is Daniel and he's a middle school teacher with two kids; boys and a wife that's a manager of Stamford Bank." She held up another finger and tilted her head trying to call back the memory of last night when he told her about his family. "You're sister, Danielle, is a nurse and her fiance is a pharmaceutical sales rep and they have a daughter that's seven."

"Correct." He briefly glanced away from the road.

"Don't do that." She slapped his arm. "Keep your eyes ahead. Bambi's mom could skip out here."

"We wouldn't want that." He said, sitting up straighter. He tightened his hand on the steering wheel and gently squeezed her thigh with his other. "You know they're not going to quiz you at the door. My family is laid back. My parents are cool. Hell, my mom might treat you like her second daughter."

He started to laugh then it faded leaving a gleam of sadness in his eyes. His Adam's apple rose and fell as he peered ahead growing silent.

She wondered where his mind went. What thought or memory streamed across his cranium from the words he uttered? She sat her hand over his letting her touch be the salve to aid the emotion that rendered him silent. His chest expanded beneath the cream cable-knit sweater as if the feel of her gave him the ability to breath deep. The corner of his mouth quirked up as she began to brush her thumb over his fingers absentmindedly while returning her vision back to the scenery around them.

"How's the pie?" He inquired, resuming the conversation between them. "Did it survive that sharp turn?"

She glanced over her shoulder remembering the windy turns that made her grip her seatbelt and the door. She wasn't going to tell him that he didn't drive as great as his chauffeur but it was true; the unfriendly overly professional man wielded the car down the road like every terrain was as smooth as buttercream.

"It's perfect." She told him, done inspecting the pie neatly in its container buckled in snuggly. "You think they'll like it. Not everyone favors pecan pie."