Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Glass
By four in the afternoon the following day, the rain had turned into a thick, blinding snowstorm that buried Chicago under six inches of white powder.
Inside the Moretti mansion, the heat was turned high, filling the grand drawing room with the smell of burning birch wood and old leather.
Vanessa Whitmore sat on the velvet sofa near the fireplace, holding a cup of Earl Grey tea in a porcelain cup that rattled softly against its saucer. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed from a night of furious, unrequited phone calls to Dominic’s personal line.
Dominic stood by the window, a glass of bourbon in his hand, watching the snow pile up against the stone balustrade outside.
“She’s still here,” Vanessa said, her voice sharp, trembling with suppressed rage. “I saw her thirty minutes ago in the West Gallery. She was carrying a medical tray into your mother’s room.”
Dominic didn't turn around. “Her name is Hannah. And yes, she is still here.”
Vanessa set her teacup down so hard a splash of dark liquid spilled onto the mahogany table.
“Dominic! She insulted me in front of the entire board! She grabbed a glass out of my hand like I was a criminal! And you gave her your coat!” Vanessa stood up, her silk dress rustling loudly. “My father called me this morning! He heard about what happened at the party! He wants to know why my fiancé is publicly humiliating his daughter for the sake of a common housemaid!”
Dominic took a slow sip of his bourbon. “Tell your father that if he has questions about my household management, he can ask me himself at the docks tomorrow.”
Vanessa walked over to him, her diamond rings flashing in the firelight as she grabbed his arm. “Dominic, please! Look at me!”
Dominic turned slowly, his eyes cool and detached.
“You’re changing,” Vanessa whispered, her voice cracking. “Ever since she arrived twelve days ago, you don't look at me. You don't talk to me about the merger with the rail yards. You spent two hours in the conservatory with her last night!”
“I was attending to my mother’s health,” Dominic said smoothly.
“She isn't a nurse!” Vanessa shrieked. “I ran her name through my father’s contacts this morning! Clara Higgins is a dead woman from Peoria! That girl is using a stolen identity, Dominic! She’s a fraud! She could be an informant for the feds!”
Dominic’s jaw tightened slightly. He reached out, taking Vanessa’s hands off his sleeve, his grip firm enough to make her wince.
“Listen to me very carefully, Vanessa,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a quiet, freezing whisper that cut through her hysteria like a blade. “You are going to marry me in four months because your father’s rail lines give my shipping company access to the Midwest. That is the agreement.”
Vanessa’s breath hitched.
“You will live in this house,” Dominic continued, his dark eyes locked onto hers. “You will have unlimited access to my credit lines, my cars, and my name. But you will never—and I mean never—question who I bring into this home, or how I choose to treat them.”
“Dominic...” she sobbed softly.
“If you ever raise a hand, a strap, or your voice to Hannah again,” Dominic said, leaning down so his lips almost touched her ear, “I will cancel the rail agreement, destroy your father’s business within forty-eight hours, and leave you with nothing. Do you understand me?”
Vanessa stared at him, her face completely drained of color, her body trembling with a mixture of terror and utter humiliation.
“You... you love her,” Vanessa breathed, the words escaping her lips like a death sentence.
Dominic didn't answer. He released her hands, turned back to the window, and took another sip of his drink.
“Go home, Vanessa,” he said flatly. “The driver is waiting outside.”
Vanessa stood motionless for five seconds, then turned and fled the room, her heavy heels clicking wildly against the marble corridor until the front doors slammed shut behind her.
Dominic watched her car drive down the snow-covered driveway through the glass.
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He knew Vanessa wouldn't go home. A woman like Vanessa, humiliated and stripped of her leverage, wouldn't accept defeat quietly. She would go straight to her father.
And her father had direct ties to Marcus Vance.
