Chapter 2 THE PHONE THAT BURNED

DOMINIC BLACKWELL'S POV

She held the phone like it burned. I almost told her to drop it. But instead, I watched. Her smiley face turned all irritated at the sound of his voice.

"Eliza?" The man's voice was harsh on the other end. Possessive and also Loud. "What the hell are you doing in New York?" She flinched, but not visibly enough for most people to catch it. I noticed the subtle tightening of her jaw, the shift of her shoulders. Yet it was controlled and at same time also calm. But that flash in her eyes told me everything I needed to know.

"You called my potential employer," she said, her tone perfectly flat.

"You left without telling me where you were going. You took the kids and vanished."

"I didn't vanish, Mark. I filed a custody petition. You were served. You just didn't read it."

"You filed? Are you insane?"

"You emptied the savings account. Lied to our bishop. And according to your own sister, you've been paying for a condo in Nevada under a different name."

Silence. Then the unmistakable sound of anger building through clenched teeth. "You think running to some billionaire is going to save you?"

"I think being in New York gives me a chance to build a life outside of yours."

"Put him on the phone."

"No." She shouted, tightening her grip on the phone

"Eliza, So my sister advised you to do this? You've changed a lot Eliza"

She handed the phone back to me without looking at me. "I'm done talking." She blurted out.

I took it, held it to my ear. "Dominic Blackwell speaking."

"You're harboring my wife."

I let the silence hang for a beat before I answered. "That's a bold accusation, considering she doesn't seem too eager to go home."

"She's brainwashed." He shouted as I shifted the phone meters from my ear

"She sounds lucid to me."

"You have no idea who she is. She's not cut out for this."

"Maybe," I said. "But that's not your call anymore."

"You think you can steal her and turn her into one of your Manhattan pets? You'll ruin her."

That made me smile. "You already did that Mark."

I hung up.

She sat across from me again, expression unreadable. She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them like they held answers she wasn't sure she wanted.

"I didn't know he had your number," she said.

"I didn't either." I said glancing at her then her resume.

"I'm sorry." She must have been feeling guilty. How did she cope with that scum of a husband she has?

"I'm not." That made her look up. "I wanted to see how you'd handle him," I said. "Now I know."

She stared at me. "And what does that tell you?"

"That you have more backbone than most of my board members."

She didn't smile, but something softened in her eyes. "He'll call again."

"Let him call."

"You don't mind being dragged into someone else's marital mess?"

I poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the side table and handed it to her. "I invest in chaos for a living."

She accepted the glass but didn't drink from it. "This is real, Dominic. It's not one of your high-risk ventures."

"I know. That's why it interests me."

She shook her head, almost amused. "You're impossible."

I leaned back in my chair and studied her. "You said you want to rebuild. Start over. That requires two things."

She waited.

"Money and most importantly, distance. I can give you both." Her eyes suddenly lit up. I just smiled.

"And what do you want in return?" Her brows furrowed, I didn't answer right away.

Most women around me came with agendas, ambition, and Sex. Eliza Whitmore came with none of that. She wore no makeup, traveled with one bag, and looked at me like she didn't care whether I thought she was beautiful. That made her dangerous.

"I want someone who doesn't flinch," I said finally. "I want someone I can trust in a room full of liars. And I want to know why someone like you walked away from a life designed to keep you in it." My gaze fixated on her, she didn't flinch.

"You think it was designed to keep me?" She asked with a tone of sarcasm.

"Five kids. No job. Isolated from the outside world. That wasn't an accident." I said, stating her earlier predicament.

"I believed in it," she said Calmly.

"And now?"

She looked down again. "I still believe but just not in him."

I leaned forward. "So believe in something else. Like yourself." I asked trying to be clear.

"That sounds like a therapy quote on Instagram." She said then laughed.

"Maybe. But it's still true." At some point, your biggest catalyst turns out to be yourself. Every successful person beloved in their selves even when they sounded ridiculous.

She sighed and set the glass down. "If I say yes to this job, I need to know something." She asked further.

"Go ahead."

"Are you going to try and sleep with me?" I blinked twice. That was not what I expected. She didn't flinch. Didn't look away. Just sat there like a woman who had been underestimated her entire life and was finally done playing polite.

"No," I said. "Not unless you want me to."

Her expression didn't change. "Good."

"But I'm not going to pretend I don't find you interesting." I stated clarifying her.

"You don't know me."

"I've met enough people to know who's real and who's not. You're real." She gave off a wry smile and nodded.

She exhaled slowly. "I'll take the job. On a trial basis."

"You'll stay here in the building." Her eyes shone in surprise

"Temporarily." I said for clarity purpose. "I'll have legal draw up a housing agreement. And I'll increase your initial salary to cover the transition."

"I'm not a charity case." She stated bluntly.

"This isn't charity. This is investment." I said correcting her. If it's one thing I learnt from my dad is investing in people. So far, they've brought most the revenue. Who said broken crayons don't colour then come to Blackwell Enterprise.

"In what?" She asked as her eyes met mine.

"You." I said bluntly, That shut her up. I stood and held out a hand. "You're hired." She took it. Her grip was firm, steady and also very warm.

Later that evening, I sat in my office on the top floor and reviewed the day's briefings, contracts and deadlines. A merger I was pretending not to care about.

But my attention kept drifting back to the security feed in the lower corner of my screen.

Eliza, standing in the guest suite hallway, talking on the phone with one of her children. Her voice was too low for the feed to catch, her expression too full for me to ignore.

This woman had been trained to hold it all together. To smile through suffocation. To sacrifice herself on a daily altar built from domestic perfection. And yet here she was. In my penthouse. Holding her own.

I hadn't planned on hiring her. I didn't need to. But something about the way she looked at me with that level, her grounded gaze made me curious in a way I hadn't been in a long time.

I was still watching the feed when my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. I raised my brows. Then I answered. "Blackwell."

"You don't know what you're doing," the voice on the other end said.

"Then do well to enlighten me."

"She's not who you think she is." The person on the other end said. I smirked. This must be Mark's doing.

"Neither am I."

There was a pause. Then a low, humorless laugh.

"Check your inbox. I sent you something you'll want to see."

The line went dead. I opened my email and saw nothing. Then the screen refreshed. Just one message with a subject line, Ask her about Jacob.

I clicked it open and stared at the photo attachment loading. And when it did, I went still. The woman in the image is a splitting image of Eliza. Same eyes with same smile just younger. And she wasn't alone. She was wrapped around a man who wasn't her husband. And that man was very much dead.