Chapter 3 - The Dinner That Became a Habit
Dominic returned home before seven that evening.
Grace noticed because Eleanor nearly dropped her teacup.
“My God.”
Dominic removed his coat.
“What?”
“You came home before dinner.”
“I have done that before.”
“When Clinton was president?”
Grace hid a smile.
Dominic looked at her.
She was standing at the stove in the lemon apron.
He had spent most of the drive home thinking about hidden Moretti accounts, his missing uncle, forged property documents, and the possibility that Grace’s restaurant had sat above something his father considered worth killing for.
Then he entered the kitchen and smelled garlic, rosemary, and fresh bread.
For one moment, the complicated machinery inside his head stopped.
“What are you making?”
Grace looked suspicious.
“Dinner.”
“I gathered that.”
“Chicken with lemon and herbs.”
Eleanor lifted one finger.
“The lemon apron improves flavor.”
“It does not.”
“You have no evidence.”
Grace looked toward Dominic.
“Seven thirty.”
“I have calls.”
“Then make them before seven thirty.”
He stared.
She returned to chopping.
Dominic realized something unpleasant.
He had come home early because he knew dinner was at seven thirty.
That could not become a habit.
It became a habit.
Over the next two weeks, Dominic began appearing at dinner four nights out of seven.
He told himself it was because Eleanor looked better when she ate regularly.
That was partly true.
Grace had transformed Eleanor’s meals without making them feel medicinal.
Roasted salmon instead of bland steamed fish.
Vegetable soups that tasted like actual food.
Small desserts because Eleanor refused any health plan that did not include sugar.
Her color improved.
So did her mood.
Dominic noticed Grace watching her.
Not intrusively.
Carefully.
Grace tracked which foods Eleanor finished.
Whether her hands shook.
How much water she drank.
She said nothing.
She simply adjusted.
Dominic understood observation.
Grace used it differently.
He observed to detect threats.
She observed to detect need.
That distinction bothered him.
One Tuesday, Dominic entered the kitchen at six thirty and found Grace laughing with three of his security men.
Luca stood near the refrigerator holding a wooden spoon.
Dominic stopped.
“What is happening?”
All three guards straightened.
Luca immediately put down the spoon.
Grace turned.
“They were helping.”
“They are armed security.”
“They also possess hands.”
“Debatable,” she said, glancing at Luca’s unevenly chopped onions.
Luca looked offended.
Dominic surveyed the room.
Marco was peeling potatoes.
Another guard was washing greens.
There was flour on Luca’s jacket.
“What exactly am I paying everyone for?”
Grace answered, “Tonight? Basic knife skills.”
Dominic looked at Luca.
“You are my operations chief.”
“I was ambushed.”
“With onions?”
“Ms. Bennett is persuasive.”
“Grace.”
Luca corrected himself.
“Grace is persuasive.”
Dominic should have been irritated.
Instead, he noticed everyone looked relaxed.
His kitchen had become the only room in the house where men who spent their lives watching doors occasionally turned their backs to one.
That frightened him.
It also made him understand why Eleanor had wanted Grace there.
Grace gave people permission to be ordinary.
Dominic had never considered ordinary a luxury.
Now he began to.
After dinner, Eleanor went upstairs early.
Grace watched her climb.
Dominic noticed.
“She’s tired.”
Grace nodded.
“She has been more tired this week.”
“She’s eighty-two.”
“That explains some things. Not all.”
His chest tightened.
“What are you saying?”
“Has she seen a doctor recently?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three months.”
Grace looked at him.
“Take her again.”
“Why?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“Grace.”
She sighed.
“She’s losing weight.”
“I know.”
“She hides nausea.”
His face changed.
“How do you know?”
“She keeps crackers beside her chair.”
That meant nothing.
Except Eleanor hated crackers.
Grace continued.
“She drank ginger tea yesterday.”
“People drink tea.”
“She hates ginger.”
Dominic stared.
“You know her two weeks.”
“I pay attention.”
The words struck deeper than Grace intended.
Everyone needs someone who notices whether they’ve eaten.
Dominic looked toward the staircase.
“I’ll call tomorrow.”
Grace nodded.
No victory.
No lecture.
Just concern.
He appreciated that too.
The next morning, Eleanor refused.
“I have luncheon.”
“You have a doctor.”
“I am not going.”
Dominic stood in her sitting room.
Grace remained in the doorway.
“You can’t force me.”
Dominic almost laughed at the irony.
“I can have the doctor come here.”
“That is bullying.”
“It is healthcare.”
“It is expensive bullying.”
Grace cleared her throat.
Eleanor looked at her.
“Traitor.”
Grace smiled.
“Probably.”
Two hours later, Dr. Patel arrived.
Eleanor complained the entire examination.
Then stopped when he requested blood work.
Dominic saw fear.
Real fear.
He sat beside her after the doctor left.
“You knew something was wrong.”
“No.”
“Nell.”
She looked at her hands.
“I suspected.”
His chest tightened.
“How long?”
“A few months.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I didn’t want fuss.”
“You moved a cook into my house.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Eleanor looked toward the kitchen.
“Because if I become ill, someone needs to make sure you don’t turn into your father.”
Dominic stood.
“Do not say that.”
“Nicky.”
“No.”
His father had died seven years earlier.
Shot outside a private club after a meeting Dominic had warned him not to attend.
Anthony’s death had been violent.
His life had been worse.
Dominic had inherited everything afterward.
The businesses.
The enemies.
The men.
The house.
The silence.
Eleanor reached for him.
He stepped away.
“I have work.”
“Dominic.”
He left.
Grace found him twenty minutes later in the downstairs gym punching a heavy bag without gloves.
Blood had started across his knuckles.
She leaned against the doorway.
“That seems intelligent.”
“Leave.”
“No.”
He hit the bag again.
“You’ve developed a pattern.”
“So have you.”
“What’s mine?”
“Believing every room needs you in it.”
Grace considered.
“Fair.”
He struck again.
She walked forward.
“Stop.”
He ignored her.
Grace stepped directly between him and the bag.
Dominic froze.
“Are you insane?”
“Possibly.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“You have no idea how easily—”
“How easily you could hurt me?”
She looked at him.
“Then don’t.”
Silence.
His fist remained raised.
He lowered it.
Grace took his wrist.
Dominic almost pulled away.
Then didn’t.
She inspected his bleeding knuckles.
“You need ice.”
“I’m fine.”
“Apparently this entire household shares one vocabulary.”
She guided him toward the bench.
He sat because he was too surprised not to.
Grace returned with a first-aid kit.
She cleaned the cuts.
He watched her head bent over his hand.
“You do this often?”
“Patch up emotionally constipated Mafia bosses?”
His eyes sharpened.
She glanced up.
“What? Did you think I didn’t know?”
“Eleanor told you?”
“She told me you were ‘in complicated family businesses.’”
“That is not the same.”
“I grew up in Milwaukee, Dominic. I can use Google.”
His mouth twitched.
Grace taped one knuckle.
“I don’t care what people call you.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because some of it is true.”
Her hands paused.
He appreciated that she did not immediately romanticize the answer.
Good.
“What part?”
“Enough.”
Grace resumed wrapping.
“Does that make you proud?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“You aren’t going to ask more?”
“When you want me to know, you’ll tell me.”
He looked at her.
“That much trust?”
“No.”
She finished.
“That much respect for my own peace.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“Difference?”
“Trust says I believe you.”
She sat back.
“Peace says I’m not going to torture myself trying to extract answers from someone determined not to give them.”
The words stayed with him.
“You were married?”
Grace looked surprised.
“What makes you ask?”
“You sound experienced.”
“I was engaged.”
“What happened?”
“He liked the idea of me more than the reality.”
Dominic said nothing.
Grace closed the medical kit.
“He liked that I cooked. That I was warm. That I remembered birthdays.”
Her smile became humorless.
“He liked introducing me as the woman who took care of everyone.”
“And?”
“He didn’t like when I wanted anything.”
Dominic understood more than he wanted to.
“What did you want?”
“My restaurant.”
“He objected?”
“He wanted me to move to Indianapolis for his career.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Grace looked at him.
“You approve?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because anyone who asks you to give up what you built should have a better reason than convenience.”
She stared.
Dominic realized he had said something dangerously close to personal.
He stood.
“Thank you.”
“For the bandage?”
“Yes.”
“Try not to punch architecture.”
“No promises.”
That afternoon, Eleanor’s test results returned.
Dr. Patel asked to speak privately.
Dominic refused privacy from Eleanor.
Eleanor refused Grace leaving.
So the four of them sat in the library.
Dr. Patel spoke gently.
“There are abnormalities in the liver panel.”
Dominic’s body became rigid.
“What abnormalities?”
“We need imaging.”
“For?”
“I don’t want to speculate.”
“That means cancer.”
“Dominic,” Eleanor said.
He looked at her.
She was calm.
Too calm.
Grace reached for her hand.
Eleanor accepted it.
Dominic had to look away.
Imaging was scheduled for the next morning.
That night nobody slept well.
Grace cooked soup.
Eleanor ate half.
Dominic ate nothing.
At eleven, Grace found him sitting alone at the dining table.
She put a bowl in front of him.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He stared.
She sat across.
“No lecture?”
“No.”
“No reassurance?”
“I don’t know what the scan will show.”
“Everyone else keeps saying it could be nothing.”
“It could.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe pretending not to be scared doesn’t make fear disappear.”
Dominic looked down.
“I can’t lose her.”
Grace’s expression softened.
He had not intended to say it aloud.
Now the sentence existed between them.
“She’s the only person who—”
He stopped.
Grace waited.
“Who what?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t have to finish.”
He looked at her.
Everyone in his life always wanted more.
Information.
Access.
Promise.
Grace sometimes offered absence instead.
Space.
He took one bite of soup.
Then another.
She said nothing.
The next afternoon, scans showed a mass on Eleanor’s pancreas.
The biopsy would take time.
Dr. Patel used careful language.
Possible malignancy.
Treatment options.
Specialists.
Dominic heard only one phrase.
Mass on the pancreas.
Eleanor returned home and demanded chicken pot pie.
Grace made it.
Dominic canceled every meeting.
At dinner, Eleanor looked around the table.
“Stop staring at me like I’m already dead.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Grace said quietly, “Then stop talking like you get to control how frightened people are.”
Eleanor looked at her.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
Dominic stared at Grace.
No one corrected Eleanor.
Not lovingly.
Not firmly.
Grace did.
Something moved inside him.
Dangerously close to attachment.
After dinner, Eleanor went to bed.
Grace cleaned the kitchen.
Dominic remained.
“Leave it.”
She looked over.
“The dishes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Sit.”
Her eyebrow lifted.
“Please.”
She dried her hands.
Progress.
He poured two glasses of wine.
Grace sat across from him at the kitchen island.
“What do you want?”
“To ask you something.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“If Eleanor is sick…”
He stopped.
Grace waited.
Dominic looked at the wine.
“Will you stay beyond her birthday?”
Grace’s expression changed.
He hated how exposed the question made him feel.
“I don’t know.”
His jaw tightened automatically.
Then he caught himself.
“Okay.”
She studied him.
“That answer hurt.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
He almost smiled.
Grace touched the stem of her glass.
“I care about her.”
“I know.”
“I won’t abandon her.”
Something in Dominic’s chest released.
“But that doesn’t mean I become part of this house forever.”
“I didn’t ask forever.”
“Not with words.”
His gaze lifted.
Grace met it.
There was awareness there now.
Something neither had named.
He looked away first.
At midnight, the biopsy laboratory called Dr. Patel.
He called Dominic.
Dominic stood alone in the dark library when he heard the result.
Cancer.
Pancreatic.
Advanced but possibly treatable.
He closed his eyes.
Then another alarm sounded in his phone.
Security.
Kitchen.
Possible intrusion.
Dominic drew his weapon and ran.
He reached the kitchen to find Grace standing perfectly still near the counter.
One of his guards held a small glass vial.
Luca looked grim.
“What?”
Dominic demanded.
Luca lifted the vial.
“Found this beneath the pantry shelving.”
“What is it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Grace looked toward the cutting board.
A pot of Eleanor’s soup sat nearby.
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Someone tampered with the pantry camera.”
Dominic went cold.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
The night before Eleanor’s abnormal test results.
Grace stared at the vial.
“Do you think someone put something in her food?”
Nobody answered.
Dominic looked at Grace.
She had cooked every meal.
She had access to everything.
Everyone in the room knew what suspicion would look like.
Luca’s eyes shifted toward her.
Grace noticed.
Her face changed.
Dominic made his decision before anyone spoke.
“Grace did not do this.”
Luca looked at him.
“We need to investigate everyone.”
“Investigate.”
Dominic stepped beside Grace.
“But you will not treat her as a suspect unless evidence gives you a reason.”
Grace turned toward him.
Surprise in her eyes.
Dominic did not know why that mattered.
He only knew it did.
Then Luca’s phone buzzed.
He read the preliminary security report.
His face became darker.
“The pantry camera wasn’t disabled from inside the house.”
“Where?”
“Remote access.”
“Whose credentials?”
Luca swallowed.
“Matteo’s.”
Grace closed her eyes.
Dominic’s hand tightened around his weapon.
His cousin had already stolen through his company.
Watched Grace.
Maybe targeted Eleanor.
May you like
And Dominic finally understood this was no longer an accounting problem.
It was war inside his own family.
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