“So what are you going to do, Miss Dom? I’ve been your assistant for five years and in all this time have never seen you so happy.”

“Not much I can do about that now,” Dominique replied. “It takes two people to write a happy ending.”

“Sometimes we have to fight for what we want, Miss Dom.”

Dominique arched her brow. “Like Quinn fought over you?”

Reggie preened like a freshly plucked chicken. “Between you and me, even though hot-blooded Alejandro clearly won the fight, Quinn’s brazen act made an impression on me.” Reggie leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I’ve started seeing him again.”

“You broke up with Alejandro?”

“Girl, I could never give up that caramel cutie!”

“You’re dating both Quinn and Alejandro?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” Reggie explained, as if this statement made perfect sense. “I love them both. Does that sound crazy?”

Dominique looked at Reggie without flinching. “Yes.”

“Maybe,” Reggie answered, reaching for his drink and standing. “But so does letting the best thing that ever happened to you waltz out of your life. Maybe you need to take a champagne bottle and knock some sense into Jake McDonald’s head.” When he reached the door he paused and added, “I’m just sayin’ ...”

54

54

Dominique accepted the plate that Faith had fixed her. Anita was spending the weekend in Vegas with some of her girls, so Dominique had accepted her sister’s invite to share Sunday dinner. “Thanks, sis,” she said, savoring the aromas arising from her plate of lasagna. “This smells delicious.”

“Thank your brother-in-law,” Faith replied, taking her seat. “This is Aaron’s special recipe.”

“Aaron cooked?”

Faith shrugged. “Girl, you don’t even know. He’s trying to go all Bobby Flay on me.”

Aaron came around the corner. “Bobby has nothing on me, Dominique.”

“From the smells wafting from the kitchen, I believe it.”

“Except several restaurants and a few million dollars,” he added.

Everyone laughed.

In fifteen minutes the family enjoyed a meal that had taken an hour to prepare. Shortly afterwards, Alexis retreated to her room and the phone, Justin and Michael resumed their Wii game, and Aaron went out to join his frat brothers for male bonding. Dominique and Faith found themselves alone in the kitchen, putting away leftovers and cleaning up the mess.

“Faith,” Dominique began as she placed leftover lasagna into the refrigerator, “I bet you would have never guessed in a million years that Aaron would have turned into the man that he is.”

Faith smiled. “I saw snatches of brilliance. Like when he rescued Nell from my window ledge.”

“That cat was always psycho.”

“And he always remembered my birthday, and the anniversary of our first date.”