Dangerous Control (Dark Dominance 3)

Still, thanks for showing me your Strad, and for kissing me. You’re really good at it. (Both things. Playing the Strad and kissing.)

Your friend,

Alice

I looked around my bedroom, alarmed that I’d slept so late. I didn’t have to be anywhere, I was just upset that I’d slept through her exit. How had she gotten home? Had she walked to the Michelin building alone in the early morning darkness? I didn’t have her phone number to check that she got home all right. Damn it.

I needed some coffee. I headed toward the kitchen, then heard a soft snort from Blue. He was lying on the sofa nearest the fireplace, cuddling as well as he could against Alice’s reclining form. She’d pulled a blanket over herself, and slept with one arm tossed above her head. The other rested on Blue’s back.

So she hadn’t made it home yet. Good. She looked so comfortable on my couch with my dog, so cute and domestic. So sweet.

Too sweet.

While the coffee brewed, I picked up my phone from where I’d tossed it on the counter. As soon as I checked it, it rang, flashing my father’s number. I sent his call to voicemail, but one ring was enough to wake Alice. She blinked at me in the daylight sun, confused for a moment.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning. I didn’t leave after all.”

“I see that.”

She ran her hand up Blue’s back. “He wouldn’t let me go out the door. Well, he didn’t want me to leave, and I was afraid he’d bark and wake you up.”

I fiddled with the coffee machine to hide my nerves. She was still here. We’d kissed. Things definitely still felt awkward. “Coffee?” I asked.

“Thanks. That sounds good.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Just sugar.”

I could feel her eyes on me as I poured coffee into mugs and doctored hers with some sugar packets I kept around for my mom. “You didn’t have to sleep on the couch,” I said, stirring her drink.

“I intended to slink out of here before you woke up. That was a fail.”

“Awkward breakfasts are underrated.” I carried her coffee over and met her eyes, so she’d know everything would be okay. “There’s a great breakfast place downstairs on the corner. Blue, you wanna go out, boy?”

My dog detached himself from Alice’s side with a luxurious stretch and yawn, and followed me down the hall to his fake lawn on the back balcony. It was cold, so Blue did his business quickly, then skittered back inside, ready to eat breakfast and sleep for a few more hours. Alice curled on the couch while I fed Blue and changed his water. She drew her blanket around her like a shield, looking as disheveled as I felt.

“Oh, your phone rang while you were outside,” she said.

I checked the screen. My dad again. Whatever he wanted, it would have to wait, because I had no idea what to do with Alice now that daylight had come. Take her to breakfast, obviously. But what to say then, when we were facing each other across a table? Last night had happened, and neither of us would forget it, not for a while.

“It’s okay,” she said, as I looked at her in ponderous silence. “I get it. I understand.”

“What do you understand?”

“The friendship thing.” She shrugged. “I thought about it last night, and I get the reason you can’t see us surviving as a couple. You’ve known me too long. You knew me when I was immature and annoying.” She made a face. “Maybe I still annoy you.”

“You don’t annoy me.” I went to sit on the other sofa, near her, but not too near. “I hate to say something so stupid and worn out, but…it’s not you. It’s me. I wouldn’t be good for you.” That was true. I was being honest with her now. “I feel connected to you, Alice, in a pure and long-standing way, and I don’t want to ruin the history we share by exposing you to the relationship Milo, who’s really an asshole.”

“You seem pretty easy to get along with most of the time. I guess I don’t know you, not the way I think.”

She was skeptical. She thought I was bullshitting her. Fix this, I berated myself.

“I love you as a friend and I always will,” I said, and I meant it intensely. “But a relationship between us, a romantic relationship… Well, it would be a disaster.”

She sighed, looking down into her cup, and then gave a little laugh. “You’ve said that same thing, more or less, at least half a dozen times in the last twelve hours. I guess I have no choice but to believe you.”

“You must have tons of men pursuing you. You can’t be that hard up.”

“Hard up? Wanting you is ‘hard up’?” She shook her head. “Whatever. To answer your question, I’m pretty picky when it comes to men. There’ve been a few who seemed promising, but they always disappoint me.”

Because you’re perfect and lovely, and newsflash, I’d disappoint you too. Or horrify you. Or both.

My phone rang again, my dad calling for the third time in fifteen minutes. “I’d better take this,” I said, swiping to pick up. “Hi, Pop. What’s going on?”

My father’s voice sounded rough. “I’m calling about Lala. Alice.”

My mother grabbed the phone, her voice loud and hysterical. “They can’t find her, and she’s not answering her phone.”

My dad broke in. “There was an explosion. They’ve called and called her cell and she’s not answering.”

“Ah, Massimiliano!” I could tell by her voice that my mother was crying. “We were afraid for you too, because you took her home.”

“Wait, Ma. What? What kind of explosion? When?”

“Early morning hours, the whole Michelin building, and half the building next door. Stefan and Freja called us because they can’t reach her. They want you to go check…” Her high-pitched voice dissolved into a fit of sobs, and my father took back the phone.

“There was an explosion,” he said. “A gas line, early this morning. Half the building was blown away, and the other half caught fire. They can’t find her, Milo. No one can find her among the…among the casualties.”

“Papa, stop. Alice is okay. She’s here right now, sitting on my couch.” In fact, she was staring at me, wide eyed. My mind reeled. An explosion early this morning? Holy fuck. “She slept here last night, Pop. In my guest room,” I added, because they were Catholic, and those things mattered even when you were recently afraid someone might be dead.

Alice mouthed, “Is everything okay?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. On the phone, my parents both sounded like they were crying now. “She’s there?” my mother sobbed. “Lala is there with you?”

“Yes. She came up last night to see my Stradivarius. We started talking and it got so late, she slept in the guest room rather than go home. We’re just having coffee. She’s right here.”

On the other end of the line, my emotionally stressed parents repeated oh my God, Praise God, and Thank you, God several times, although it had been Blue, not God, who stopped her from going back to her apartment where she might have been…

Holy Christ. Where she might have been killed in a gas explosion early this morning. It hit me, and I rested a hand on Blue’s head. “Thank God,” I said, just like my parents. “Thank God you wouldn’t let her go home, buddy.”

“Keep her there, Milo,” said my father. “And don’t turn on the news where she can see. It’s a terrible scene. She’ll be upset.”

“Take care of that girl,” my mother yelled.

“I have to hang up and call the Nyquists,” my father said, talking over her. “Tell Lala to call her parents too, they’re hysterical.” With one last Thank you, God, he ended the call.

“What was that about?” she asked.

I looked at her, dazed. “There was a gas explosion this morning at your building. Your parents couldn’t reach you, and they didn’t know where you were.”

“What?”

“An explosion. Some gas line problem, I guess, and a fire. Everyone was in a panic because they couldn’t reach you.”

She g

rabbed her phone. “Shit. It died last night, and I didn’t have my charger.”

“Don’t worry, my parents are calling your parents. Give me your phone. I’ll charge it.” She held it out, her fingers shaking. “You can call them from my phone when you’re ready, so you can let them know you’re okay.”