One Last Rainy Day: The Legacy of a Prince(65)

Her lips quiver as she stares at me long and hard, prying deeper before she speaks. “I know you know what it feels like to be invisible . . . to have a sick parent. To suffer and constantly worry about if the lights will get cut off, or if you’ll have lunch money or eat at all. I saw it that night I was there. I felt it in the atmosphere of that house. The desperation,” she holds a palm over her chest, “because it lingers there, it’s in the walls, and I recognized it. I lived through it too.”

She weighs my expression, and I have no idea what she sees as my heart thuds out of control—her confessions striking deeper with each one.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

“I-I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I don’t mean to unload on you, it was just . . . today did something to me, and as those people lit up, as the worry eased from their faces . . .” she relays, heart in every single syllable. “I had to come here. I had to tell you that you probably saved some invisible kid from a similar fate today. Kids like us . . . or someone like my mom who was sick, and is still sick, and too fucking broke to get the help she needs.” Tentatively reaching out, she palms my face, slowly running a thumb along my jaw. “Do you know that’s why I’m here?”

I shake my head because it’s the truth. All I knew was what was in the email. Sean hadn’t trusted me with this, but to be fair, I hadn’t ever let him get far in telling me much about Cecelia. Though the house is equipped and tapped, I haven’t listened in since the day I picked her up. Roman hasn’t been back, so I’ve respected her privacy—even when curious.

“I’m here. I came to Triple Falls because she’s sick. She went into a deep depression just after I graduated. She just couldn’t function, so when Roman sent the invitation, I couldn’t say no, Dom. I’m doing this for her. I’m here to get an inheritance, to do the same thing you’re doing for so many others that need the help.” She moves in and presses a slow kiss to my lips. “I just couldn’t . . .” her blue eyes shine with a sincerity that levels me, “I had to come here and make sure you know that you’re a good man, Dom—an incredible man.”

Pulling her hand away, I shake my head in refusal. “I’m not, Cecelia, don’t believe the narrative going on in your head. It’s your emotions playing tricks on you.”

“Bullshit,” she retorts, shaking her own head, refusing my statement.

“Don’t put me on some nonexistent pedestal,” I warn. “I’ll only disappoint you.”

“Please,” she begs, stopping my retreat, “please, just . . . just acknowledge that you’re helping people. Desperate people who need it. Give yourself that much credit, okay?”

I nod, my throat tight. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry I unloaded on you,” she sniffs, wiping her rapidly flushing cheeks. “You probably think I’m crazy.”

“You do leak a lot,” I flash her a grin as she looks over at me without a trace of humor.

“I see your heart, Dom, I see it—and it’s beautiful.”

Biting my lip, I stand. She glances around like she doesn’t remember how she got here as I go through the same motions, chest raw and aching.

She stands and shakes her head ironically. “God, I’m a mess. I’m going to go clean up for my shift.” Looking up at me, she lifts and presses a slow, emotion-infused kiss to my lips. I don’t catch her parting comment as she walks out. I’m still standing in the middle of my room when she starts her car.





“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.”—Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry





Cecelia rushes toward my Camaro and down the porch, dodging a few rogue drops of lingering rain as I push open the door from inside the cabin.

As she settles in, her addictive scent greets me along with her soft “Hey.”

“Hey,” I echo, as she corners me with her usual “missed you” while securing herself into the ancient seatbelt.

“I won’t scare you today,” I lie.

“Liar,” she spurts with a sarcastic laugh as I start rolling out of the driveway.

Glancing in my rearview, Roman’s estate starts to shrink behind us—which is fitting, seeing as how our progress with him is still at a standstill. As I eye the mansion in the rearview, Cecelia follows my gaze, and I tense when she speaks up.

“What’s this?” She asks, curiously eyeing the offering hanging from the rearview. “Oh, my God, Dom . . . is this what I think it is?”

“It’s no big deal,” I interject, “just—”

“—a crown made of honeysuckle vines,” she admonishes as though I’ve just given her the Heart of the Ocean from the Titanic. I inwardly groan as she starts to gush.

“It’s so beautiful,” she murmurs.

“It’s edible weeds,” I counter.

“It’s incredible,” she dons herself in my peripheral. “Dom, you really made this?”

“Well, seeing as they don’t exactly sell them at the Texaco, yeah. Stop acting so surprised. I’m not the anti-Christ,” I snap.