Revengeful Deceptions (28 page)

“Absolutely Dominique, I’ll take
you wherever you want to go.”

The drive to the point was short
and as Adam parked the car, he wasn’t expecting Dominique to get out. But when
she did, he shoved the tiny box in his jacket pocket and quickly followed suit.

The night sky was clear and the
waves rising and falling was the only sound. Stars dotted the sky and Adam
thought to himself,
this night couldn’t be more perfect
.

Dominique stood in the sand with
her eyes closed just listening to the wave’s crash around her. She reached for
Adam's hand and when she did, she felt a surge of warmth go through her. Adam
told himself, it’s now or never as he turned to face her and got down on bended
knee.

Dominique couldn’t have been
happier, she cried while Adam proposed. Her tears were tears of joy when she
remembered her dream and how Stephen told her that it was okay to fall in love
again and that he only wanted her to be happy. So when she said yes, Adam could
hardly contain himself as he shouted his undying love for her into the night
sky.

As they lie in bed that night after
making love, Dominique and Adam began planning their wedding. Dominique had
shared with Adam that since she'd been married once before she did not want a
large wedding, she had no family left and only a handful of friends. Then she
sat
  
up quickly as an idea began to form
in her head.

 
“Adam, we should have it here at the house! I
can invite Molly, Neal, Pam and Rob and of course your parents and anybody else
who you'd like to invite,” she said, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Do you
like that idea or am I being selfish? I mean it is your first time getting
married and you deserve some say in the matter I guess,” she said jokingly.

 
“Dominique honey, I don’t care what we do as
long as we do it fast; I cannot wait for you to become my wife. And if you want
to have the wedding here at the house then we will have it here. I'll call my
mom in the morning and I guarantee that she will have everything planned in a
matter of two weeks. She lives for this kind of stuff.”

 
“Oh Adam, really? Because I am going to need
the help,” she said while gazing at the ring on her finger.
  

The next morning, Adam, true to his
word phoned his mother and told her the good news. The moment she finished
talking to Adam, Muriel began making calls to caterers, florists, hotels,
drivers and inn keepers. The final call was to Dominique to tell her to rest
and leave everything up to her because she had it all under control.

“Oh and Dominique? Congratulations!
I'm going to finally have a daughter!” She said with glee as she hung up the
phone.

Within a week Muriel was able to
fulfill her mission, and she did it with such ease that everyone, including her
husband had told her that planning things on short notice was certainly her
calling.

 
“Are you kidding? I live for things like
this.” Was all that Muriel would say about her speedy yet thorough
planning.
Dominique was surprised at how fast everything was
happening. It was the first week of June and she would be getting married two
weeks from now. She did not mind the fast pace with which everything seemed to
be going at all. Muriel was taking care of it all and the only decision making
she had to do was choosing her gown. She chose an empire style light yellow
chiffon gown with diamond accents.

 
“Muriel I hope we're doing the right thing
getting married before the baby comes, it's just that I’m afraid things will be
too hectic to plan a wedding after, what do you think?”

Muriel gave her a warm hug.

“Dominique I think it’s a wonderful
idea that you two are getting married now and I know it’s something that Adam
wanted to do some time ago. But you and I both know with all that was going on
there never seemed to be the right time. And now is the right time, so come on
now, no second guessing, you and Adam are going to be married, then you’re
going to have my grandchild and we are going to be a family again.”

Chapter Twenty Six

The more he thought about it, the
more Brandon felt resentful towards the Caruso family.

Here he
was
having
to work his way up from the bottom and there they were living the
life of luxury. It wasn’t his fault that Jonathan had been a greedy, selfish
man who took the money instead of doing what he would have done and ditched
Muriel.

After all if Jonathan had ditched
her she would have gone to DiNunzio and then he would have been born into
privilege and kept in privilege his entire life. He didn’t find it fair that he
was given everything by his so-called parents and everything had been taken
away, all because of that bitch Dominique and her controlling ways.

He was set to forget about it until
his real father had told him that he would have to work his way up. Brandon
assumed that he would be given a position of power within the DiNunzio family,
but instead he was nothing more than one of the crew's lowly thugs, and that
was something he couldn’t live with.  It didn’t take him long to figure
out just where Dominique was staying, he hadn't been previously hired by the
firm as an investigator for nothing, he knew how to follow people without being
noticed and it was even easier following around his own mother who seemed to be
incredibly preoccupied with doing something and he made it his job to find out
just what that something was.

Muriel had been making several
trips from Boston to Nantucket and during those hectic trips she had no reason
to think that anyone was following her, let alone her own son. Once she left
the penthouse for the day, Brandon would simply stroll in and use his key to enter
the home. Neither Muriel nor Jonathan had known that he had made a spare and
kept it at Nick's place. Envy surged throughout his body when he entered the
home.

But he was glad that he had
returned when he spotted a wedding invitation laid out on the coffee table in
the living room. “So that’s what you've been up to mom, you've been busy
planning a wedding for that bitch to Adam. Oh and look it here, they've got a
baby on the way. Ain't that sweet. Shit! That doesn’t leave me with a lot of
time.” He cursed as he read the date on the invitation.

"Just about a week though,
that'll have to do, I think I’ll have to dig my tux out from my old room,
thanks mom,” he murmured as he slithered through the house. The more he
wandered through it, the more he began to reminisce.
If it wasn’t for
Dominique all of this would still be mine,
he told himself,
and now it’s
going to be Adam's one day?  How is that fair? Why should he benefit from
it all? No, after all it was me who got the short end of the stick. If I can't
have it, neither can Adam,
he thought to himself, getting angrier with each
moment. Brandon wanted to make Dominique and his half-brother suffer, and the
only way he could do that was to take away everything that Adam held dear, his
soon to be wife and their child.

Although she had not planned on
returning to Boston so soon, Dominique and Adam thought it easier to stay at
Adam's place for a few days in order to finalize the wedding arrangements. She
would return to the island with her friends Molly and Neal the day before the
wedding; Adam would stay behind until the day of. Dominique wanted to do at
least one tradition for the wedding and that would be having the groom not see
the bride until the day of the wedding.

As they sat on the ferry, Dominique
couldn’t help but tell Adam that she was feeling apprehensive about returning
to Boston. She wasn't sure that Brandon had moved on. “But what if he hadn’t,”
she asked, “What if he's out there lurking around?”

“Dominique your being silly,
Brandon Caruso, I mean DiNunzio wants nothing more to do with the Caruso
family,” Adam told her.

“I hope your right Adam, because I
want nothing more to do with him, I want him to stay away from me and our
baby.”

“I am not going to let anything
happen to you or the baby, I promise,” he said as they drove off the ferry and
into Boston.

They were meeting Jonathan and
Muriel at a restaurant in downtown Boston.

“This will be just great seeing
your dad Adam, another thing for me to be anxious about,” she said nibbling on
her fingernail. Dominique felt more and more vulnerable now that she was
pregnant and showing, the anger and animosity she felt that December day back
in the penthouse seemed to melt with every month the baby grew inside of her.

“Dominique are you kidding? My dad
cannot wait to see you; it’s because of you that he and mom are finally on
their way to a decent marriage.”

“Are you sure Adam? I just feel a
bit strange, I don’t know, seeing him again after I tied him up and gagged
him!”

“You did what you had to do
Dominique, and yes it was unorthodox and yes you surprised and scared us all
but that’s over and done with. Now none of that matters anymore. Look, my dad
holds no grudges against you Dominique, in fact he's grateful.”

“Grateful? To me, why?”

“Dominique, I don't want to dredge
up old memories but my dad is grateful to you for not turning him in. He knows
that you could have done a lot worse and for that he is very grateful. Not to
mention the fact that you helped mom open his eyes to all of the hurt that he
was causing her. So you see if it wasn’t for you, we'd all be at a loss. You
helped save our family.”

“Well if that's so, then it's quite
ironic how I helped save your family and Brandon took mine away.”

“Don't do that Dominique, you know
if I could change things I would but I can't. So let's not travel down that
road again. Everything is out in the open, there are no more secrets. Brandon
will pay for what he's done and you know that.” Adam pulled into the restaurant
parking lot and shut off the car. “Dominique I love you. I know you still think
about the family that you lost, I wouldn’t expect you not to, but I also want
you to think about the family that you and I are going to start.”

“Adam, of course I am thinking of
you and the baby, I’ve thought of nothing else. That's why I decided a long
time ago to stop torturing myself. Thinking about what I was going to do to
Brandon was tearing me up inside, you know this. Adam all I want to do now is
marry you, have our baby and live happily ever after,” she said giving him a
long lingering kiss.

“I'm going to do everything in my
power Dominique to make sure that we get our happily ever after.”

“I have no doubt that you will
Adam,” she said, gently squeezing his hand. “Now let's get inside, I’m hungry.”

Adam was right about his father,
Jonathan was not only happy to see Dominique, but  he also spent most of
the evening thanking her for helping to reconnect him with his wife. And to
show his appreciation, he told them that the wedding was on him.

“Dad you don’t have to do that, I
can take care of everything,” Adam urged.

“Son, it’s the least that I can do
and besides, it's already taken care of so there's no use arguing about it.”

Dominique had never seen Jonathan
looking so relaxed and at ease. She was glad for that because it meant that her
dear friend and soon to be mother in law was relaxed and at ease and she
deserved every moment of it.

“You kids decide whether or not
you’re going to stay in Boston and raise our grandchild or live out on the
island far away?” Jonathan asked.

Both Adam and Dominique exchanged
looks, neither of them had thought about it. Dominique thought she wanted to
stay out on the island, but now being back in Boston and enjoying herself, she
wasn’t so sure anymore.

“We hadn’t really thought about it
to be honest, but I suppose we should,” said Dominique looking at Adam.

“Well let's get you two married and
then we'll tackle the housing situation, but I must say, it would be very nice
to have our grandchild within driving distance,” Muriel hinted.

“Okay, okay Muriel, I read you loud
and clear,” joked Dominique.

Brandon had the perfect idea, he
would take the ferry to Nantucket the day of the wedding and as the festivities
were carried out he would lie in wait and once the opportunity arose and he was
sure that it would, he'd make his move.

He would take care of Dominique and
Adam and get back on the ferry and home in Boston before anyone would know what
happened. His father, Peter DiNunzio told him that if he was able to carry out
his plan, it would greatly improve his standing in the family and he would
instantly move up to the big leagues.

For Brandon, that meant no more low
level jobs. He was ready to move up, and taking care of Adam and Dominique
would be just the thing to get him there.

Dominique gave Adam a long kiss
goodbye before heading back to the island with Molly and Neal.

She had butterflies in her stomach
and couldn’t believe just how nervous she was. “It's not like I haven’t been
married before,” she told her bridesmaid Molly. Pam and Rob were also due on
the island today and Pam would be the maid of honor.

“Doesn't matter how many times
you've been married Dominique, it’s natural for you to be nervous, I would
think there was something wrong with you if you weren't,” she giggled.

“Oh Dominique this is going to be
so much fun, thank you for having me in your wedding.

No one has ever asked me before and
I want to say thank you for everything. Neal and I have been getting treated so
well at the firm and it's all because of you.”

“Molly, you’re welcome and I’m
glad, I am so glad that it all worked out for you guys.”

“Are you kidding? Things worked out
for all of us. I mean you’re getting married to Adam tomorrow, you’re expecting
a child, Adam's parents have reconciled and Neal and I will soon be following
suit,” she grinned as she showed Dominique her newly engaged hand.