Nora Bennett Caruso stood beneath the crystal chandeliers of the Crown Harbor Hotel in Manhattan with the metallic taste of blood on her tongue and one hand pressed against her burning cheek.

The storm hitting the coast of Rockport was fierce. Cold rain lashed against the windows of Bennett Atelier, Nora’s new boutique store located on the main cobblestone street near the harbor.

The studio was warm inside, smelling of fresh pine, lavender oil, and raw silk. Nora was standing at a wooden cutting table, pinning an ivory dress pattern onto a roll of French lace.

Eli was sitting in a cozy corner armchair, coloring in a sketchbook with bright crayons.

The brass bell above the front door chimed.

Nora didn't look up immediately. "We're closed for the evening, I'm afraid. We reopen tomorrow at nine—"

"Nora."

The scissors slipped from her hand, dropping onto the wooden table with a sharp clatter.

Nora slowly turned around.

Dominic stood in the doorway.

He was soaked to the skin. His tailored dark suit was heavy with rain, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. He wasn't wearing a coat. He had no bodyguards behind him. He looked thin, hollowed out, with dark shadows under his gray eyes and deep lines etched around his mouth.

He looked like a man who hadn't slept in a month.

In the corner, Eli looked up from his coloring book. "Dad?"

Dominic’s eyes flicked to his son. A look of unbearable, agonizing pain crossed his face, but he didn't move toward the boy. He stayed standing on the welcome mat, rain dripping from his sleeves onto the floor.

"Eli," Dominic whispered, his voice cracking. "Hey, buddy."

Nora immediately stepped between Dominic and her son. Her body was rigid, her chest rising and falling beneath her dark linen blouse.

"How did you find this place, Dominic?" Nora asked, her voice ice-cold, devoid of any warmth.

Dominic didn't step forward. He kept his hands visible at his sides, as if showing her he carried no threat.

"I found it two days ago," Dominic said softly. "I came alone, Nora. No security. No lawyers. No cars."

"Then leave the same way," Nora said. "The legal paperwork was delivered to your office. My attorney handles all communication now."

Dominic looked at her—at her ear, where a tiny white scar remained near her lobe, and at her eyes, which held no fear, only an impenetrable wall of steel.

"I pulled the collection, Nora," Dominic said quietly into the quiet room. "We issued a public retraction this morning. I gave full credit to you in every major publication in New York and Paris."

Nora’s eyes flicked with a moment of surprise, but her expression didn't soften. "That was the bare minimum required by federal law, Dominic. You don't get a medal for returning stolen goods."

"I know," Dominic whispered. He took a single, agonizing breath, his chest shuddering. "I didn't come here to ask for the collection back. I didn't come here to ask you to come home."

"Then why are you standing in my shop?"

Dominic looked at her, his gray eyes filling with unshed tears—a sight Nora had never seen in the seven years she had known him. Not when his father died, not when his family business was threatened, not ever.

Slowly, heavily, Dominic Caruso fell to his knees on the wooden floor of her shop.

The king of Manhattan’s corporate world, the man before whom businessmen bowed and politicians treaded carefully, knelt in the damp sawdust at her feet.

"Because I am a monster," Dominic whispered, his voice breaking into a ragged sob. "Because I hit the woman who gave me everything. Because I let my arrogance destroy my family. And because I would rather spend the rest of my life kneeling in the rain than live another day pretending I am a man without you."

Nora looked down at him. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides, a knot of deep, old emotion twisting in her throat.

"Get up, Dominic," she said softly.

"I won't leave until you hear me," Dominic wept, his hands resting flat against the floorboards. "I don't ask you to forgive me, Nora. I don't deserve it. But let me be a father to Eli. Let me protect you from afar. Don't erase me completely."

Eli slowly slid off his armchair, holding his crayon, looking at his father kneeling on the floor. "Mommy? Why is Dad crying?"

Nora looked at her son, then back at the shattered man on the floor.

She walked over, picked up a clean dry towel from a rack near the counter, and dropped it into Dominic’s lap.

"Get off the floor, Dominic," Nora said quietly. "You are hurting your son by letting him see you like this. Stand up."

Dominic wiped his face with his sleeve, breathing heavily, and slowly rose to his feet.

"You can see Eli for two hours tomorrow morning at the coastal park," Nora said, her voice firm, setting an unyielding boundary. "Under my supervision. If you bring one bodyguard, if you bring one reporter, or if you speak one word about us coming back to New York, the visit ends instantly."