Chapter five: the scandal
981 Words
DOMINIC’S POV:
She didn’t move.
That was the first thing I noticed after I said it.
Most people would have stepped back by now, created distance, said something just to fill the silence. She didn’t. She just stood there, looking at me like leaving wouldn’t actually fix anything.
Outside, the office had started shifting. I could see it through the glass, people moving faster than usual, phones up, conversations cutting short the moment they noticed where they were standing.
Inside, it stayed quiet. Too quiet. “You’re saying this just continues?” She asked. There was a slight pause before the last word, like she didn’t like how it sounded even as she said it. “It doesn’t stop on its own,” I said.
That was enough. “And you think you can control it.” I glanced at the tablet again before answering. “I can manage it.” Not the same thing. But it’s close enough.
She turned slightly, then back again, like she couldn’t decide if she wanted space or answers. “That article mentions my mother.” She said. I nodded once. “I saw it.”
“She’s not part of this.” She muttered. “No,” I said. “She isn’t.” She looked at me. “But now she is.” I didn’t answer that immediately. There wasn’t a clean way to. “You need to understand something,” I said after a while.
Her eyes lifted again, sharper this time. “This doesn’t go away because we say it’s not real.” I said. “Then fix it,” she said. “Release something. Shut it down.” Almost yelling now. “That makes it worse.” She frowned.
“How?” She asked. “Because it turns the rumors into something worth defending.” I looked at her, then added. “And people tend to pay more attention to what you deny.”
She didn’t argue right away. This was new.
Instead, she looked down for a second, then back at me like she was running through it and not liking any of the outcomes. “So we just let this happen?” She asked. “No,” I said. “We redirect it.”
Her brows pulled together slightly. “That’s not better.”
“It’s more controlled.” She didn’t say anything again. I stepped closer, not all the way, just enough that I didn’t have to raise my voice. “This problem already exists,” I said. “Right now, it’s messy. People are filling in gaps they know nothing about. That’s the problem.”
“And your solution?” She asked. She already knew it wouldn’t be simple. I watched her for a second instead. Really looked this time. She wasn’t as steady as she wanted to be.
Then I said it. “We get married.” That hits harder than anything else. She didn’t react at first. She just stared at me. Like she was waiting for me to correct myself. “What?” I didn’t repeat myself cause I knew she heard me.
She let out a short laugh, but it didn’t sound right. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Absolutely not.” Her grip tightened around her phone. “Because there’s no way you just said that.” I didn’t take it back.
I wasn’t going to. Then it changed. “You want me to marry you?” She asked. Slower this time, more careful. “Temporarily,” I said. “Yes.” She looked away for a second, then back at me. “I just got rejected.”
Her voice slipped slightly on that. “My company is falling apart.” She paused. “And your solution is marriage?”
“It stabilizes this,” I said.
I didn’t say everything else, because I didn’t need to. She stepped back this time. “This doesn’t stabilize anything,” she said. “This makes it worse.”
“It makes it clear.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She looked at me again. Trying to figure out if I was serious. I didn’t give her anything else. “I don’t even know you, you reject my company, this happens, and now you want me to marry you?”
“I’m giving you a way out of this.”
“That’s not a way out.”
“It’s the only one that works fast enough.”
That part slipped out a little more direct than I intended. But I didn’t correct it. “My mother,” she said quietly. I didn’t interrupt. “She doesn’t need this,” she added. “Any of this.” Her voice didn’t rise.
If anything it only got lower. I held her gaze. “That’s why I’m proposing this marriage. It keeps it from getting worse.” She shook her head slightly. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Silence again. Longer this time. She didn’t walk away, she just stood there. Thinking. “This would be a contract,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Temporary.”
“Yes.”
“No real relationship.”
She nodded once.
Like she was trying to make it make sense. “I don’t trust you.” She said. “You don’t need to.” I replied.
“I hate this.”
“That’s fair.”
That made her look at me. Like she didn’t expect me to say that.
“I need time.” She said. “Take it.”
She turned toward the door. Stopped for a second but didn’t look back.
“If I say no,” she said slowly. “What happens then?” I took a while before answering. “It gets worse.” She stood there for a moment. Then she left.
- Writer
