Chapter 4: The Setup
Trevor Whitmore was everything Dominic was not: loud, overly dressed, and completely lacking in genuine presence. He arrived with a small entourage of lawyers, his eyes darting around the DeLuca mansion with greedy ambition.
Grace did exactly as she was told. She kept Margaret in the upstairs sunroom, playing a quiet game of chess while the tense negotiations happened in the study below.
But trouble never stays where it belongs.
Around noon, Grace went down to the kitchen to fetch Margaret's tea. As she walked past the grand foyer, Trevor Whitmore stepped out of the hallway, blocking her path. He looked her up and down with a sneer that perfectly matched his mother's.
"So, you're the little stray Dominic picked up," Trevor mocked, taking a step closer. "My mother told me about you. You’ve got a lot of nerve, playing hero."
"Excuse me," Grace said, keeping her voice even. "I need to get past."
Trevor didn't move. Suddenly, the study doors swung open, and Dominic stepped out, followed by his lawyers. The tension in the air instantly spiked.
"Is there a problem here, Trevor?" Dominic's voice was deathly quiet.
Before Trevor could speak, one of his lawyers rushed forward, holding an ornate, velvet jewelry box. "Mr. Whitmore, the negotiations are off! We just checked the briefcase you left in the cloakroom. Someone slipped this inside. It's the DeLuca family heirloom—the diamond broach!"
The entire room went dead silent. Trevor gasped in mock horror. "What? I didn't take that!" He suddenly pointed a dramatic, shaking finger directly at Grace. "She did! I just saw her coming out of the cloakroom! She was trying to frame me to ruin the deal, just like she humiliated my mother!"
Grace's blood ran cold. The accusation was so absurd, so perfectly orchestrated, she couldn't even form words. "I didn't! I was just coming down for tea! I swear!"
The DeLuca security guards instinctively stepped toward Grace.
Dominic held up a hand. The guards stopped immediately.
He looked at the diamond broach in the lawyer's hand, then at Trevor, and finally at Grace. Her eyes were wide, pleading with him. She was bracing for the dismissal. She was bracing for the coldness to return to his eyes. She was a servant, and they were billionaires. The script was already written.
"Search her room," Trevor demanded, grinning triumphantly. "She probably has more stolen goods up there. Call the police, Dominic!"
Dominic took two slow steps toward Trevor.
"Did you know, Trevor," Dominic began, his voice dangerously soft, "that the security cameras in my hallway are not visible to the naked eye? They are embedded in the molding."
Trevor's smug smile faltered. "What?"
"And did you know," Dominic continued, his tone turning to ice, "that my head of security watched you slip into my mother's private sitting room exactly twelve minutes ago, take the broach, and place it in your own briefcase, all to frame the woman who protected my mother?"
Trevor turned bone-white. The lawyer holding the broach looked terrified.
"You thought you could come into my home and play games with what is mine?" Dominic roared, the sudden explosion of volume making everyone in the room flinch.
He didn't just mean the broach. He meant Grace.
"Get him out of my house," Dominic ordered the guards. "And release the footage to the board of directors. The Whitmore family is finished."
As the guards dragged a screaming, protesting Trevor out the front doors, Dominic turned to Grace. She was shaking, the adrenaline crashing down on her.
May you like
Without a word, Dominic closed the distance between them. In front of his staff, his lawyers, and the world, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her small frame tightly against his solid chest.
"You're safe," he whispered into her hair. "I've got you. I'll always have you."
