Illusions of Love (34 page)

India
stood up, running her fingers through her hair and Dominic felt his stomach lurch.
 
She was the most beautiful, most mixed-up, complicated woman he’d ever met, and he wanted her so much it hurt like hell.

‘I need to explain things,
India
.’
 
His voice was quieter now.
 
Calmer.
 
He shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about her and Kenny, but given their past, and the way he wasn’t exactly thinking rationally right now, he’d just assumed.
 
Wrongly.

‘I don’t want to hear it.’
 
India
pushed past him but he grabbed her arm, swinging her round to look at him.

‘What did you mean when you said you wanted to get away from here for a while?’

‘Exactly that, Dominic.
 
I want to get away from here.
 
Which part of that don’t you understand?’

‘With Kenny?’

‘Yes, with Kenny.
 
He’s my…’

‘Best friend, yeah, I get that.
 
But why Kenny?
 
Why can’t
we
go away together, you and me, talk this whole mess out…’

‘Because I don’t
want
to go away with you, Dominic.
 
Don’t you get it?
 
You and Michael… you need to sort things out with
him
, not me.
 
He’s your father, for Christ’s sake!’

‘And you know nothing of the circumstances,
India
.
 
You know nothing about any of this, nothing about why I had to do what I did…’

She looked at him again, into the eyes of a man who, all of a sudden, reminded her too much of a man she’d tried so hard to forget.
 
‘I don’t
want
to understand, Dominic.
 
I want…’

‘To run away.
 
You want to run away from the situation, but you
can’t
run away from this,
India
.’

She pulled her arm away from his grip and walked out of the bedroom, into the living room, opening the French doors that led out onto the terrace.
 
She stared out at the view of the city that stretched before her; a city she loved, but a city that always seemed to bring complications and heartache to her life in equal measures every time she was here.
  
‘How long has Michael known about this?’ she asked, because she knew Dominic would’ve followed her outside.

‘I don’t know.’
 
He stood by the open French doors, leaning against the doorpost and
India
turned around, staring at him for a few seconds, trying to see if there was anything in his handsome face that reminded her of Michael, other than those incredible blue eyes.
 
But it was only the eyes that held any resemblance to her ex-husband, although that was enough as far as she was concerned.
 
Enough to make her take a step back from this.

 
‘As far as I was aware he had absolutely no idea I even existed,’ Dominic went on, never taking his eyes off her.
 
‘I thought this was going to be one hell of a surprise for him so I have no idea how he found out.’

 
‘Oh, believe me, if Michael wants something he usually gets it.
 
And I should know.
 
He’ll have found out in the only way he knows how – by getting someone else to dig the dirt.
 
He’s got connections we can’t even begin to imagine…’
 
She looked up at Dominic as everything suddenly started to click into place.
 
‘He’ll have seen how close we were getting.
 
How you were – in his eyes – moving in on me, and that won’t have sat easy with him.’

‘He still wants you back, huh?’

She shrugged, running a hand through her hair, pushing it back off her face as a sudden breeze blew it over her eyes.
 
‘To be honest, Dominic, even if he didn’t want me I just don’t think he wants anyone else to have me either.’

‘I think he wants you.’

She looked up at him, but didn’t respond to his comment.
 
‘If he’s seen you as a threat then he’ll have made sure that any dirt that
could
be dug up on you was unearthed.
 
But I guarantee he probably didn’t expect to find
this
out.
 
Doesn’t really matter though.
 
He’ll still try and use it in any way he can to discredit you, to make
you
look like the bad guy.
 
I know how he works now.
 
I know the way he thinks.’

Dominic moved a step closer but stopped short of touching her, even though he wanted to.
 
So much.
 
‘I’ve handled this all really badly, and I need you to understand that,
India
.
 
I really need you to let me explain why I couldn’t tell you about any of this…’

‘Why you
wouldn’t
, you mean.’
 
She threw her head back and sighed, a sudden wave of overwhelming tiredness sweeping over her.
 
‘Do you know what?
 
I really don’t care anymore.
 
I’m tired of Michael infringing on everything I do.
 
I should never have agreed to do this movie…’
 
She started walking back inside but Dominic reached out and put a hand on her hip, causing her to stop and turn back around.

‘I meant it when I said I was falling in love with you,
India
.
 
I meant every fucking word, that was no lie, that was no game.’

‘So, you admit you were playing a game then?’

‘Yes, but… Jesus, this is fucking hard…’

She started walking away again but Dominic reached out and grabbed her arm, preventing her from moving any further away from him.
 

‘It started out as a game, baby.
 
I can’t lie to you, that’s how it was in the beginning.
 
Michael, he wasn’t a good man to my mom.
 
He wasn’t a good man…’

India
stopped and looked at him, his beautiful blue eyes clouding over but she had to be strong here.
 
He was a Walsh.
 
He was part of Michael, no matter how much he didn’t want to be.
 
He was part of Michael.
 
And that was enough to make her think twice about any involvement she may have with him now.

‘Okay.
 
He wasn’t a good man, so…?’

‘So, I… I just wanted to make him realise that he couldn’t always have what he wanted,
India
.
 
That he couldn’t always control things… people.
 
Situations.’
 
When he said it out loud it all sounded so pathetic.
 
So trivial.
 
So childish.
 
Something he should have dealt with in a much better way.

‘And where do
I
come into all of this?’

He looked at her, swallowing hard, trying to work out how to say it to her without it sounding as crass as it really had been.
 
‘Michael loves you more than he’s ever loved anyone,
India
.’

She stared right into those ridiculously blue eyes, never wavering for a second.
 
All of a sudden she wanted to hear this.
 
‘Go on.’

‘And I just thought that… that if I could take you away from him…’

‘How can you take someone away from a person when they were never with them in the first place?’

‘Jesus, you’re not making this easy.’

‘You want easy?
 
Okay, I’ll give you easy.
 
I’m outta here.’
 
She turned to walk away from him but he was too quick, reaching out to grab her hand, swinging her back round to face him.

‘
India
, please… Look, I know how this sounds, but… I wanted you to be with me, to fall in love with me, to show him that you weren’t just there whenever he wanted you.’

‘That was never the case anyway, Dominic.’

‘I know.’
 
He sighed heavily, pushing a hand through his dark brown hair, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling for a second.
 
‘I know.
 
I just… I just wanted you there, with me, when I told him… when I told him I was his son.
 
I wanted it to hit him hard,
India
.
 
I wanted to get him any which way I could and I don’t even fucking know why now, y’know?
 
Not anymore.
 
Because none of it fucking matters.
 
It really doesn’t matter.’
 
He looked at her, right into her eyes as a tightness crossed his chest, a small shot of pain making him flinch slightly.
 
‘And it doesn’t matter because what I didn’t bank on… what I hadn’t realised would happen… I didn’t bank on falling in love with you,
India
.’

‘You used me?’ she whispered, suddenly feeling those tears she’d refused to cry before making a reappearance, burning the back of her eyes.

‘Christ… baby, I never meant it to be that way…’

‘What way
did
you mean it then?
 
You used me to get back at Michael – what other way is there of describing it?’

‘
India
… please…’

She shook her head, still staring at him, the realisation of what was going on here almost rendering her speechless.
 
She felt as though she was rooted to the spot; she wanted to get away from him, but it was as if her body was refusing to do anything her brain told it to.

‘So, when you followed me to L.A… everything that happened there… it was just a way of you getting back at Michael?’

‘No… India, believe me, when I followed you to L.A. that was the turning point for me, that was when things were changing, when I was starting to have second thoughts…’

‘Then that’s when you should have told me everything, Dominic.
 
You should have taken a step back and you should have told me.
 
I mean, Jesus Christ, after everything I went through when I found out Reece was my dad… You could have talked to me, don’t you see that?
 
I would have understood all those crazy, mixed-up feelings that must have been going round in your head because I’ve been there.
 
I’ve been there, I’ve felt that shock, I know how it feels.
 
But you wasted that chance.
 
You wasted that.
 
And this could have all been so different… Shit!
 
I’m so angry with you right now, Dominic.
 
So fucking angry…’

He felt his stomach lurch as the realisation of what she was saying hit home.
 
Why hadn’t he seen that?
 
Why hadn’t he seen that the one thing they had in common could have brought them closer together, instead of tearing them apart?
 
His fault.
 
He’d been blinkered, let tunnel-vision take over with that completely pointless need to get one over on Michael.
 
And it hadn’t needed to be that way at all.
 
He should have told her the truth that night in
L.A.
 
He should have told her.
 
Jesus!
 
What an idiot he’d been!

‘Baby, I know.
 
I… I know that now.
 
But things were moving so fast, my feelings were all over the place, I was confused…’

She’d heard enough.
 
He may not think he was anything like his father but the similarities in his behaviour were just too close for
India
to cope with.
 
‘You said he was manipulative, with your mum, right?’

He looked at her, hoping beyond anything that she was beginning to understand his motives for what he’d done – no matter how twisted they may have seemed at the time.

‘And what exactly have
you
been, Dominic?’

‘No,
India
… no, baby, it wasn’t like that…’

‘It was
exactly
like that.
 
Now, just go, please.’

He walked over to her and she didn’t step back, didn’t make any attempt to move as he reached out to gently stroke her cheek with his thumb, leaning in to kiss her mouth so softly she almost fell against him, because she was still weak where he was concerned.
 
Despite everything.
 
A kiss from him was more than enough to make her knees turn to jelly and her heart beat faster, as it always had done with the man Dominic now called his father – Michael Walsh.
 
Her feelings for him had always haunted her, always been there in the back of her mind no matter how many times she’d tried to move on.
 
Because the real reason why she could never seem to move too far was because she’d never really gotten over Michael.
 
But she’d honestly thought that Dominic could have been the one to finally break that spell, the one to make her realise that life without Michael really could exist.
 
Only, he
was
Michael, to some extent.
 
Wasn’t he?
 
He was a connection, a blood relative.
 
A part of him.
 
And that was far too close in
India
’s eyes.