Dominic's Chronicles
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Morning crept into the house with the pale glow of sunlight spilling across the floorboards. I was already awake—sleep never held me for long.
The house was quiet, but it wasn't the same kind of quiet I used to know. This one lingered heavier, thicker.
It was her silence.
Aurora.
The memory of her sitting across from me last night wouldn't leave my head. She'd typed out her words—hesitant but deliberate—telling me she never wanted this marriage.
I had expected resistance, even coldness. But what unsettled me was what followed. She had thanked me, of all things. Thanked me for trying to make the house comfortable.
The words had no business sticking with me. But they did.
I tugged at my tie, irritated by the strange tug-of-war inside me. She wasn't here by choice. Neither was I, not really. And yet… she wasn't like I imagined.
She wasn't weak, even in her silence. If anything, her quiet had a way of speaking louder than most people's words.
I didn't know what to make of that.
I pushed away from my desk, restless. There were meetings, files, phone calls waiting for me—things that should have held my attention. But instead, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl down the hall.
Why did I care if she was awake? Why did I wonder if she was painting, or if she was still curled up beneath her blankets?
My jaw tightened. I wasn't supposed to care. This arrangement was just that—an arrangement. Nothing more.
And yet, before I could stop myself, I found my steps angling toward her hallway. I told myself I wouldn't knock. I told myself it wasn't my place.
Still, my hand hovered for a moment outside her door, caught between the pull of curiosity and the weight of restraint.
What was she doing to me?
My knuckles hovered a breath away from the wood. I wasn't even sure what I planned to say if I knocked. Good morning? That felt absurd on my tongue. Ask if she'd had breakfast? Even worse.
This wasn't me. I didn't linger outside doors, I didn't… hesitate.
I almost pulled my hand back, ready to walk away and bury myself in work where I belonged, when the door clicked softly from the other side.
The handle turned.
Aurora stepped out just as I started to retreat, and we froze—her wide eyes colliding with mine. She wasn't dressed for the day yet, her hair falling loose over her shoulders, a softness about her that was far from the polished girl I'd seen at the party.
For some reason, that startled me more than anything and for a second, neither of us moved.
I saw her fingers twitch against the phone in her hand, as though words wanted to spill but couldn't. My own throat felt tight, and I hated how unprepared I was for this—how unprepared I was for her.
I should've stepped back. I should've said something, anything, to break the tension. Instead, I just stood there like the silence had caged us both.
And for the first time in a long while, I wasn't the one in control.
I pulled my expression into place, shutting every errant thought behind the mask I'd worn for years. My voice came out cool, measured.
"Make sure you take care of yourself today," I said, clipped, like it was no more than a casual reminder. "Don't skip meals."
Her brows lifted the slightest bit, as though she hadn't expected me to say anything at all. I didn't give her time to type a reply on her phone. I didn't even give myself time to think about why the words had slipped out.
I stepped back, adjusting my cufflinks though they didn't need adjusting, and turned away. "That's all," I added, almost as an afterthought. Cold. Detached. Final.
And without another glance, I left her standing there, every muscle in my body coiled tight, as if the only way to keep from unraveling was distance.
The car door opened, and I stepped out, the click of my shoes against the polished pavement echoing with certainty.
The Blackwood Tower never slept, but in the morning it carried a sharper rhythm—people moving with clipped steps, voices lowered, papers shuffled in a rush.
It was the pulse of my empire, a living testament to efficiency, and the moment I entered its glass doors, I became the center of it.
"Good morning, Mr. Blackwood," came the chorus, but I didn't spare more than a nod as I walked. My focus was straight ahead, my stride certain, every inch of me tailored into control.
Near the reception desk, Mr. Green was waiting. I remembered the last time he had made a mistake—late submission, a misfiled contract—and how quickly I had cut him down for it. In my world, incompetence was weakness, and weakness spread like a virus.
Today, however, I noticed something else. He stood straighter, his eyes sharp, his tablet already alive with data before I reached him.
"Mr. Blackwood," he greeted, stepping beside me as I crossed the lobby. "Quarterly reports are prepared in advance, sir. The numbers are already broken down and verified."
"Efficient," I said, glancing at him. It wasn't praise, not quite, but he understood the weight behind the word.
His shoulders shifted slightly, as though that single acknowledgment was worth more than any compliment. "I've ensured there will be no delays this quarter."
"See that there aren't," I replied smoothly, stepping into the private elevator. He handed me the tablet, bowing his head.
The elevator carried me up, numbers ticking past in silence. When the doors opened to the top floor, Anna was waiting at my office entrance. My secretary and PA. Where Mr. Green dealt with numbers and logistics, Anna managed everything else—the human side of the empire.
"Sir," she said briskly, following me inside, "your nine o'clock has been pushed to ten. They were… nervous about the presentation, I gathered."
"Then they shouldn't be presenting," I said, moving toward my desk.
Anna, unlike most, didn't falter. She tapped her tablet. "I told them the same thing, sir. They'll be ready. I also rescheduled the international call for noon, and arranged your dinner with the Singapore partners for next week."
I sat, loosening my cuffs as I glanced at the skyline stretching beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. "And the press release from last night?"
She hesitated only a fraction before replying. "The coverage is everywhere, sir. The Sinclair name linked with Blackwood is making noise—stock interest has already risen."
Aurora's name. Even here, again. My jaw flexed, but I said nothing.
"Anything else?" I asked.
Anna shook her head, her expression as composed as ever. "Not unless you'd like me to filter some of the press requests. They've been calling nonstop."
"Handle it," I ordered.
"Yes, sir." She gave a slight nod and exited quietly, closing the door behind her.
The silence that followed should have been grounding. I had work spread across the desk—contracts demanding my attention, signatures waiting for ink, decisions that could shift millions in the market.
This was my arena. Here, I was untouchable.
I tried to drown myself in the rhythm, in the clean lines of words and numbers. Yet, no matter how many documents I signed, Aurora's image threaded itself into my thoughts. Her silent eyes, the words she had typed on her phone the night before, the vulnerability edged with defiance.
Pathetic. I pressed harder into the paperwork, as though I could stamp her out with ink and contracts. But then, a subtle shift. The silence outside my office wasn't the steady hum of phones and typing—it had broken. A low murmur, quick gasps, footsteps that weren't meant to be there.
I frowned, pen stilling in my hand.
"Miss Sinclair—please wait, you can't just—" Anna's voice, for once, carried strain.
And then—
A knock.
Sharp, unexpected.
"Enter," I said, my voice cutting through the silence.
The door opened.
And there she was.
Aurora. Standing in my office doorway, small against the towering walls of Blackwood Tower, but somehow shifting the balance of the room. Her phone glowed faintly in her hand, as if she had been typing before she stepped inside.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Of all places… she had come here.
My grip on the pen tightened. "What," I said, voice low, controlled, "are you doing here???"
The words sliced through the charged quiet of the room. Even Anna, still frozen at the door, flinched.
Aurora didn't flinch. Her expression didn't shift, not even a flicker. Instead, she raised the phone in her hand and tapped the screen, her thumbs moving fast. Then she held it up for me to read.
I wanted to see where you work.
My jaw set. Of course she did. Of course she would choose today, when I needed order more than disruption, when Blackwood Tower was finally beginning to breathe efficiently again after weeks of dragging dead weight.
I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking with the shift.
"This is not a place for… visits," I said flatly, letting my gaze cut past her, to Anna. "Control the floor. Now."
Anna snapped back into motion at once, nodding quickly. She pulled the door shut as though sealing us off from the rest of the world. The silence that fell after was heavier than before.
Aurora was still standing there, in the center of my office, eyes fixed on me with that steady, unsettling calm of hers.
"You can't just walk in here," I said, sharper this time. "This—" I gestured to the desk, the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the city below, the files stacked with precision "—is not some gallery or drawing room. It's work. My work."
Her eyes flickered, but again, no words. Just her fingers against the phone. She turned it to me when she finished.
I know. But I wanted to understand it. I wanted to see it.
Damn her. The honesty of it. No schemes, no theatrics, just plain truth that cut deeper than anything else could have.
For a moment, I didn't speak. I watched her instead—the way she stood, quiet yet unyielding, in a space no one else dared intrude. My empire, my order, my control—and her mute defiance simply by being.
I pushed the chair back and stood, slowly, deliberately, each movement calculated. I closed the distance between us until only a few feet separated us, my shadow falling across her smaller frame.
"You shouldn't be here," I said at last, voice even but colder than I intended. "Next time, don't come without asking."
Her phone tilted again. The screen glowed between us.
"Would you have said yes if I asked?"
My chest tightened. For a fraction of a second, my mask slipped.
I looked at her—the girl who couldn't speak, yet somehow always asked the questions I couldn't answer.
Her fingers moved quickly over the screen, faster than before, and when she lifted the phone again, the words glared back at me.
"If I have to grow and become the wife you want me to be, I need to be in your environment. I need to learn how things work. Even if I'm not cut out for business, I can at least grasp something."
The silence that followed was deafening.
My throat tightened. My first instinct was to shut it down, to slice her words apart the way I would anyone else who presumed to intrude on my world. But this wasn't anyone else. This was Aurora.
Her eyes—steady, unwavering, too damn honest—held mine as though daring me to dismiss her.
I felt the corner of my jaw tick.
"You think this world is something you can just… step into?" I asked, low and sharp. "This tower swallows people whole, Aurora. It doesn't bend, it doesn't forgive. It doesn't care that you've never played the game."
Her thumb flicked across the screen again. Another message.
"Then let it try to swallow me. At least I'll know I tried, instead of staying in a corner, useless."
My breath caught, almost imperceptibly, but enough that I felt the crack in my composure.
Useless.
That was the word she had chosen. The word that hit too close. Because beneath all her quiet strength, she actually believed that.
I stepped closer, so close now that I could almost see the very thin and faint smudge of paint still clinging near her wrist—remnants of her world clashing against mine. She didn't step back.
"You don't know what you're asking for," I said, softer now but edged with warning. "This isn't just about growth. It's war. And wars don't leave survivors, Aurora. They make you harder, colder, until you forget who you were."
Her screen lifted again. Her hands didn't shake.
"Then maybe I need a little of that. Maybe I need to stop hiding. If I stay the same, I'll never be enough—not for this family, not for you, not for myself."
I froze. For one dangerous moment, I almost forgot to breathe.
The words sat heavy between us, daring me to answer. Daring me to admit that she wasn't wrong.