Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 105

Chapter 105

DOMINIC

“So, Sparrow said after a moment of quiet on the line. “How about we arrange the meeting for tomorrow morning? Since you said there is something you need to give her urgently.”

“That is actually perfect,” I told him. “I have an idea for a location. I will let you know the details shortly. I need somewhere private. Somewhere no one can get close enough to take a photograph. I do not need the public connecting her to me any further.”

“Understood,” Sparrow replied.

The call ended.

I set my phone on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling.

Well. In the end, things were going exactly the way Celeste wanted. I would give Seraphine the divorce certificate, she would find out the way Celeste had always intended, and after that Seraphine would have nothing further to do with my life. That part, at least, was clean.

The other part was less clean.

I checked my phone twice waiting for a call from Celeste that did not come. I did not call her either. I was going to see her tomorrow and I wanted to be in front of her when we had that conversation, not a voice in her ear that she could manage from a distance.

I put the phone face down and went to sleep.

I was at Lumiere by eight.

It was a private members restaurant that most of the city did not know existed and the ones who did know never discussed. Floor to ceiling windows looking out over a garden that had never once been photographed. I had paid to have the grounds cleared for the morning and the staff had been briefed to stay in the back until I called for them.

I had already told Sparrow to make it look like I had a meeting, so that Seraphine would have a reason to wait in the car rather than walking straight up to me. I did not want a scene inside. I wanted to be able to hand her the certificate and leave.

The certificate was in my jacket pocket.

I sat at the corner table with a coffee I did not particularly want and waited.

Eventually I saw Sparrow’s car come through the gate. I gave it a few minutes. Then I stood, slid my phone into my hand as a prop, and walked out of the restaurant.

The morning air was cool. I held the phone to my ear and made no call to no one and walked at a deliberate pace across the grounds, keeping my face angled slightly away from where Sparrow’s car was parked.

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I heard her voice before I turned.

My name, called out the way people called things they had been holding in for too long. High and raw and slightly desperate.

I turned.

Seraphine was running toward me.

She closed the distance between us in seconds and threw herself at me before I had fully processed that she was going to do it. Her arms went around my body and her face went into my chest and she was crying. Properly crying, her shoulders shaking, her voice muffled against my jacket.

“I missed you,” she said. “I missed you so much. Please. Don’t leave me again. Please.”

I stood there and let her hold on for a moment.

Watching her cry, someone would have thought she was a devoted wife who had been abandoned. Someone who did not know what I knew. Someone who had not been briefed by Sparrow on how she had spent the previous night.

The irony was not lost on me.

I reached down and took her hands from around my body. Gently but firmly. I stepped back and put

distance between us.

“What are you doing?” I said. “Please keep your distance.”

She stared at me. Her eyes were red, her mascara a ruin down her cheeks. She looked genuinely shocked, which told me some part of her had still been expecting a different reception.

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