She Took My Seat, He Took Her Side, I Took Another Man Chapter 08

She Took My Seat, He Took Her Side, I Took Another Man Chapter 08

“I know I wronged you.” He deliberately lowered his voice. “What happened on the wedding day-that was my fault. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I shouldn’t have treated your parents like that.”

“Mm.”

Just a flat response. No anger, no tears. I took his words the way I’d take in something that had nothing to

do with me.

Dominic clearly hadn’t expected this reaction. He looked up at me, and there was something flickering in his

eyes-a kind of panic he probably hadn’t even noticed himself.

“Sienna. Say something.”

“I did,” I said, looking at him. “And then, Dominic?”

“And then…” He faltered. “Then I want to start over.”

Those words landed and stirred absolutely nothing inside me. There had been a time when they were all I’d

ever wanted to hear. I’d imagined it in my darkest hours-how it would feel if he actually said them. But now

that he was standing here, saying them for real, all I felt was how foreign they sounded. Like listening to a

story that had already long since ended.

“Start over.” I repeated the words. “Dominic, do you remember everything that happened between us?”

“I do.”

“On the wedding day,” I said, my voice still steady, “I nearly died at your hands.”

Dominic’s face shifted. His jaw tightened, his throat working, but no words came.

“When you crushed my hand, did you think about starting over then?”

I looked down at my bandaged fingers, the color still seeping faintly through the white.

“I know.” His voice sank. “I know that was my fault…

“Three lives. How do you plan to make up for that?”

For the first time, I felt my throat tighten.

“You tore down the back wall of my house. The mudslide poured straight through that opening. One more minute, and all three of us would have been swept away alive.”

“I know.” Dominic raised a hand as if to reach for something, but it hung there in the air, then dropped. “Sienna, I…”

“You say you want to start over.” I didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Start over from where, exactly? Dominic, you want another chance with me-I already gave you a way. Tonight, I’ll leave you out in the

mountains. Whether you live or die, I’ll agree to start over. That’s the deal.”

He stood there, his expression slowly becoming unreadable.

“You and your mom-you’re both standing right here, alive. Isn’t that enough?”

My hand connected with his face before I even realized I’d moved.

“Seven years.” My voice started to tremble. “I gave you seven years to see how much I loved you. I thought if I gave enough, if I worked hard enough, you’d finally turn around and look at me. But on the wedding day, you showed me I was wrong. When you kicked my hand off that car door, you showed me. When you threw that cash in my father’s face, you showed me. When you yelled at my mother-‘don’t touch her’-you showed me.”

I wasn’t crying as I spoke. I was just listing facts, reading off a tally I’d long since written out in my head.