Beautiful Trauma (Complete)

Chapter 18 - Babysitting (Part 3)

Aria's POV

 Odette was so exhausted she fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow. I put on her turtle night light and made my way out of her room. 

I walked down the hall towards Dom's voice. He came into view then I heard his phone call with Marcel. Did he hear the conversation I had with Odette? He turned around to look at me. 

"Dom, what is going on?" I could see the vein on his forehead popping and his hair disheveled. He was starting to get agitated. 

"I heard what Odette said. I will be taking care of Alexa tomorrow." He said void of emotion. The playful Dom from the kitchen is long gone. Or so I thought. 

I nodded at him. The silence was deafening until he spoke through it.

"You're really good with her, Aria." 

"Yeah. She is really special and I have worked with a lot of kids at work." I tried to play it off before the conversation went further into the topic of kids.

He nodded and the silence was once again upon us. I was the one with break it this time. 

"Anyways, she is asleep. She exhausted herself out completely. I am off to bed as well. Goodnight, Dom. Thank you for the evening." 

I started walking towards him then made my way to go around him. However, he put out his arm and held it against the wall stopping me at his side. His arm was now in front of my face. I turned to him and saw he had a smirk on his face. He took his other arm and extended it to the other side of my head, caging me between him and the wall. 

"If I remember correctly, you promised me a drink. I don't forget things, Aria. You know this." He said with a husky tone as he looked me right in the eyes. Oh boy, that voice of his. 

"I never promised. I was coerced. There is a difference." I said matter of fact. 

He raised his eyebrow and chuckled underneath his breathe. I watched as his one hand went to my waist.

"Well do I need to do more coercing?" He threatened. 

I grabbed his hand with both of mine. I took his hand off and placed it on his chest, tapping it a couple of times. 

"Nope. That is quite alright. We can have a drink. But only one!" I said determinedly. 

He nodded and put his arms down, extending his right one towards the hallway indicating for me to go first. 

As we walked towards the lounge, I kept pep talking myself that it was only one drink. See the problem with me and alcohol is it tends to make me way too brave and confident. It is usually a dangerous mix. 

Well, of course, my pep talk worked wonderfully. Note the sarcasm. One drink turned into two which turned into three. I wasn't drunk, far from it actually but three drinks were good enough to make me courageous. And courageous it did. 

We were both sitting on the couch. I had my body turned towards his and he was sitting forward. I had a glass of red wine while he was drinking his famous whiskey. We spoke about what he has been up to these past 10 years. How he changed the family business around just like Dani had mentioned. How he actually takes down trafficking rings around the city. He explained it was his territory and people needed permission to do anything illegal within it. 

Then the topic fell onto me. 

"So Ari, what have you been up to?" He asked swirling his drink in his glass.

"Well you know, ran off to Florida, finished school there. Got a scholarship to study to be a doctor, met Olivia and here we are." I said simplifying it.