I didn't say a thing, and the silence that settled over the living room was the kind that precedes a verdict. The kind of quiet that fills a room when someone has already made their decision but hasn't announced it yet.

But Dominic was completely unaware of how unreasonable his request had been. He looked at me, waiting for a yes. The Don of the Sloane family, a man whose word rearranged lives, standing in his own kitchen asking the woman he'd neglected for seven years to bake a cake for the girl he couldn't stop protecting.

Eventually, I just nodded, keeping my expression neutral. "Send me the picture," I said, standing up. "I'll head out now to buy the ingredients."

I thought back to that dinner seven years ago. The one where a client with wandering hands and too much grappa had cornered me during my first week handling accounts for a family-adjacent operation. If Dominic hadn't been there, if he hadn't materialized at my side with that cold authority that made grown men excuse themselves to the restroom, I wouldn't have made it out of my first job unscathed.

I glanced at him one last time, thinking, Once I finish this cake, I'll finally be done with him.

I headed for the door, feeling the heaviness in my steps. The marble floors of the penthouse stretched out before me like a sentence I'd been serving.

Before I could reach the doorway, Dominic's voice, surprised, cut through the silence behind me.

"Olivia…" he started, his voice unsure.

I didn't bother turning around. "Anything else?" I asked, my tone flat.

There was a pause. The kind of pause that in any other household might mean nothing. In the home of a Don, a pause was a calculation. I could almost hear the gears turning, the brief war between the man who never explained himself and whatever unnamed thing had flickered across his face.

"...I'll send you money for the ingredients."

I continued on my tracks without a word.

When I stepped into the elevator, the doors closing me into that polished steel box, I pulled out my phone. Opening up our chat history, I stared at the numbers.

5,363. That's how many messages I'd sent him.

He'd replied to only 25.