Chapter 19 - THE TABLE I CHOSE
Dominic and I did not become a fairy tale. We both had too much history.
By our third dinner, we stopped trying to impress each other.
He told me he hated being called a mafia boss.
I told him maybe stop having meetings where everyone wore black suits.
He laughed.
Slowly, Moretti Consolidated changed.
Independent compliance, new board members, whistleblower protections.
Dominic sold the fight club building, which became a youth training center.
Dad stayed in Illinois.
He and Mom did not reunite romantically.
Some choices cannot be undone by love.
But he drove her to dialysis.
He fixed our broken window.
He sat in the waiting room.
He showed up.
That was a beginning.
I enrolled in business school part-time. The first budgeting assignment almost made me laugh.
One afternoon, I returned to Lake Forest for the first time since the birthday party.
Dominic hosted a fundraiser for families affected by workplace injuries.
The ballroom looked different.
Or maybe I did.
No one made me use the service entrance.
No one asked what my hands had touched.
At 9:31, exactly one year after I had knelt in cake, Dominic found me beside the same marble floor.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He looked down.
“I replaced that tile.”
“What?”
“The one you knelt on.”
I stared at him.
“That is the dumbest rich-person apology I have ever heard.”
He smiled.
“I’ve made worse.”
I looked around.
Mom sat with Tessa.
Dad stood awkwardly near the dessert table.
I realized something.
A year earlier, Vanessa had tried to force me to kneel because she thought money decided who stood above whom.
Tonight I chose my own table.
And nobody in the room could make me smaller.
Then Dominic held out his hand.
“Dance?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You know I can throw you.”
May you like
“I’m counting on your mercy.”
I took his hand.
