The dust from the driveway settled slowly, but the atmosphere around the Vance farmhouse was charged with a tension so thick it felt like the air before a terminal lightning strike.
As Elena reached the front porch, her fingers trembling as she fumbled with the rusted key, Sarah surged forward. Her protective instincts were screaming. She had seen the way Dominic looked at Elena—like a man who had found a missing piece of his soul and intended to weld it back into place.
"Elena, no! Don't go in there alone with him!" Sarah cried, reaching out to grab Elena's jacket. "You don't know what he's capable of! He's a stranger, Elena! A powerful, dangerous stranger!"
Before Sarah could cross the threshold, a solid wall of muscle blocked her path. Marcus stepped in with practiced, clinical precision. He didn't use force, but he caught Sarah by the waist, his grip firm and steadying, anchoring her to the porch.
"Let me go!" Sarah thrashed, her eyes wide with panic.
"Stay calm, Miss Miller," Marcus said, his voice a low, soothing baritone that carried the weight of a man used to managing disasters. He didn't let go, his large hands holding her in place. "I can assure you, your friend is safe. Dominic Thorne is many things—he is ruthless, he is arrogant, and he is obsessive—but he is not a psychopath. He won't hurt her. If anything, he's more afraid of her right now than she is of him."
Sarah stopped struggling, breathing hard, looking at the closed door with a heart full of dread. "You don't understand," she whispered. "He already broke her once."
"Then let them fix it," Marcus replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the door.
Inside, the farmhouse was silent, smelling of floor wax, dried herbs, and the lingering, clinical scent of the antiseptic Elena used to clean her father's room. The sunlight filtered through the lace curtains in dusty shafts, illuminating the modest, worn furniture.
Elena stood in the center of the kitchen, her back to Dominic. She felt him behind her—a massive, radiating presence that made the small room feel like a cage. She didn't turn around. She couldn't.
"You said business, Dominic," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Speak. Then leave."
Dominic didn't speak. He took a slow step forward, his boots silent on the linoleum. He reached out, his hand hovering inches from her hair, before he let it drop. "I lied," he said, his voice devoid of its usual boardroom steel. "There is no business today, Elena. I just... I needed to see you."
He moved around her until he was standing in her line of sight. He looked at her—really looked at her—taking in the exhaustion in her eyes and the defiant tilt of her chin.
"You're so beautiful," he breathed. The words were simple, stripped of the flowery prose of high society. "That night... the light was dim. I thought I was dreaming you. But here, in your own home... you're even more breathtaking."
Elena let out a harsh, jagged laugh, her eyes filling with tears she refused to shed. "Beautiful? I'm a mess, Dominic. I'm a girl who sold herself to save a farm. Don't use your silver-tongued compliments on me."
Dominic's expression softened into something pained, something human. He reached out, his fingers grazing the bruise on her neck that was just visible above her collar. Elena flinched, but he didn't pull away.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, the words sounding foreign and heavy on his tongue. "I'm sorry for that night. I'm sorry I broke your virginity in a transaction. I'm sorry I was a beast when I should have been a man. I didn't know, Elena. If I had known..."
"Stop!" Elena shrieked, shoving his hand away. She backed up against the kitchen counter, her chest heaving. "Don't apologize for it! I don't want to recall that night! I want to bury it! I want to pretend it never happened! Speak the business you came for or get out!"
Dominic stood his ground, his gray eyes darkening with a raw, agonizing honesty. "I can't speak business because my mind isn't on the land, Elena. It's on you. You've captivated me. You've occupied every thought, every breath, every heartbeat since the moment you walked into that suite. My heart... it hasn't felt anything in years. And then you happened."
Elena felt a wave of vertigo. She turned, her hand on the doorknob, ready to bolt back into the orchard, back into the world where billionaires didn't talk about hearts.
But Dominic was faster. He lunged, his large hand slamming against the door to keep it shut, his other hand catching her waist and spinning her back to face him. He didn't pin her; he held her, his gaze locking onto hers with a terrifying, singular intensity.
"Listen to me!" he commanded, his voice trembling. "I...I... love you, Elena."
The world stopped. The ticking of the wall clock seemed to go silent.
"It was love at first sight," Dominic continued, the words pouring out of him like a confession. "I thought it was just lust. I thought I just wanted to possess you. But even the sex... it wasn't just physical. It ignited something in me that I didn't think existed. It made me want to protect you, to keep you, to destroy anything that ever made you cry."
He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath hot on her lips. "I've never told these words to anyone before. Not to my fiancée, not to my mother, not to anyone. I've seen a thousand women, Elena. I've been with more than I can count. But none of them—none of them—have driven me crazy like you. I'm a king in Ottawa, but here, in front of you... I'm just a man begging for a chance."
Elena stared at him, her heart hammering a frantic, irregular rhythm. For a second, she wanted to believe him. She wanted to lean into his strength and let him carry the burden of her life. But then;
She shoved him back with everything she had, her face a mask of cold, jagged fury.
"Leave," she ordered, her voice like a razor. "Get out of my house, Dominic."
Dominic stumbled back, his face falling, the vulnerability in his eyes shattering. He looked small in that moment, stripped of his billions and his power, standing in a humble kitchen being rejected by a girl in a denim jacket.
"Elena, please," he rasped. "What do I have to do? What do I have to say to make you believe me?"
"You don't get it, do you?" Elena said, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than a scream. "You think you can buy my love the way you bought my night. But I feel nothing for you, Dominic. When I look at you, I don't see a lover. I don't see a man I want to be with. I see the person who took the only thing I had left of myself when I was at my lowest."
She stepped closer, her eyes boring into his. "I feel nothing. No love, no attraction. Only the ache in my body that reminds me of your 'love.' Leave me alone, Dominic. You don't belong here, and you don't belong to me."
Dominic stood frozen, the silence of the farmhouse closing in on him like a tomb. He had offered his heart, and she had stepped on it with the dusty boots of a farm girl.
"Nothing?" he whispered, his voice broken.
"Nothing," she confirmed.