Chapter 120 One Hundred & Twenty
The door had barely closed behind her before Dominic moved.
“Dominic…..” Miranda started.
But he was already gone.
He pushed the lounge door open and stepped back into the ballroom, his eyes scanning the crowd.
There.
Izzy was halfway across the room, walking toward the exit. Calm. Unhurried. Like she hadn’t just dropped a trillion-dollar bomb and walked away from the man she once loved.
“Izzy!”
His voice cut through the music and chatter.
A few people turned.
She stopped.
Slowly.
Then she turned around.
For a second, Dominic felt like he was back six years ago…. When she used to work for him. How he influenced every choice she made now she looked like she didn't need him anymore.
He reached her in a few quick strides, breath tight in his chest.
“You’re the investor?” he said again, still trying to process it.
“Yes.”
Her answer was simple.
Calm.
Like it meant nothing.
Dominic ran a hand through his hair, frustration tightening every line of his body.
“You just disappeared,” he said hoarsely. “Six years, Izzy. Six fucking years. Do you have any idea what it did to me? I almost died.”
Her eyes stayed locked on his, calm and unflinching.
“And yet you survived.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Dominic?” she asked coolly.
His jaw tightened. “You took the money and vanished.”
Her expression didn’t shift. “That was your mother’s doing.”
“My mother said you demanded it,” he shot back. “I saw the evidence.”
A heavy silence stretched between them.
Then Izzy laughed…. soft, sharp, and almost mocking.
“You’re still a mama’s boy, aren’t you?” she said. “Six years later and you still don’t know where to stand without her telling you.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
The laugh cut deeper than he expected.
“I’m serious, Izzy,” he said, voice low now, dangerous. “You don’t get to walk back in here and pretend none of it happened.”
She tilted her head slightly, studying him like he was some puzzle she had already solved years ago.
“Walk back in?” she echoed. “That’s what you think this is?”
“What else would you call it?” he snapped. “You vanish without a word, take a fortune with you, and six years later you just show up like it’s another Tuesday.”
Izzy’s lips curved, but there was no warmth in the smile.
“You really believed that story.”
“I saw the transfer,” Dominic said sharply. “Twenty-Five million dollars. My family’s account. Sent to you the day you disappeared.”
“And that was enough for you?” she asked quietly.
His silence answered.
“God, Dominic,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You really didn’t change.”
His temper snapped.
“I didn’t change?” he stepped closer, towering over her now. “I almost drank myself to death trying to figure out why the hell you left. I tore this city apart looking for you. I thought—”
He stopped himself, breathing hard.
Izzy’s gaze sharpened.
“You thought what?”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“I thought maybe you were dead.”
The words hung between them.
For a moment, Izzy didn’t speak.
Then she looked away, her composure cracking just slightly.
“I'm glad I didn't.,” she murmured.
Dominic froze.
“What the hell does that mean?”
She exhaled slowly and turned back to him, the wall already back in place.
“It means you believed exactly what your mother wanted you to believe.”
“My mother had nothing to do with this.”
Izzy’s brow lifted.
“Still defending her.”
“Because she wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
This time Izzy didn’t laugh.
She just looked at him with a kind of tired disbelief.
“You really have no idea what your mother is capable of.”
Dominic’s voice dropped to a warning.
“Careful.”
“No,” she said calmly. “You be careful.”
He scoffed. “You expect me to believe she forced you to take the money and disappear?”
Izzy crossed her arms.
“I expect nothing from you.”
“Convenient.”
Her eyes flashed now.
Around them, the party carried on as if nothing had cracked open between them... laughter spilling across the room, music gliding through the air, crystal glasses chiming softly.
But the space between Dominic and Izzy felt like a storm no one else could see.
“You got married,” Dominic said finally. The words tasted bitter.
“Yes.”
“You have a kid.”
“Yes.”
Each answer landed like a blade sliding quietly between his ribs.
Dominic searched her face, trying to find something familiar.… the girl who used to argue with him until two in the morning, laugh at his worst jokes, cry into his chest when the world felt too heavy.
But that girl was buried somewhere deep now.
This woman standing in front of him didn't give a shit about him..
“You moved on just like that?” he asked quietly.
Izzy tilted her head, studying him.
“Six years is not ‘just like that,’ Dominic. You also got married..”
“But.. Izzy if you've waited if you've had..” she got him off
“Imagine I waited.. I would have still been waiting..
Izzy cut him off gently but firmly, her voice steady.
“Imagine I waited,” she said, letting the words hang. “I would have still been waiting… for what? For you to leave Sienna and marry me? Knowing you could never man up.”
Her gaze didn’t soften.
“The best thing I ever did for myself was leaving,” she added quietly. “And I don’t regret it.”
Dominic’s throat tightened.
The words hit harder than anything else she’d said that night.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
You never once stood by me,” Izzy continued, her voice dropping, rawer now. “You gave me vain hope… and love. Hope that you’d fight, love that you’d choose me. And it never happened, I waited for a version of you that never existed.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
“I told you I needed time.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “Time. That convenient little word men use when they want everything without choosing anything.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life rarely is.”
Dominic stepped closer, frustration radiating off him.
“You think I would’ve married Sienna if you’d stayed?”
“You did marry her,” Izzy replied simply.
The truth hung heavy between them.
Dominic exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair.
“You left before I had the chance to fix things.”
Izzy’s eyes flashed.
“Fix things?” she repeated softly. “Dominic, you were already standing at the altar of the life your mother chose for you. I just stopped pretending you’d ever walk away from it.”
His voice dropped.
“You didn’t trust me.”
Izzy looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said quietly,
“No. I trusted you exactly as much as you showed me I should.”
The music from the ballroom drifted faintly through the hallway.
Laughter.
Applause.
Life is moving forward.
But between them, the past was still standing there like an open wound.
Dominic’s gaze hardened slightly.
“And now you’re happy?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly.
Too smoothly.
His eyes searched her face again.
“With him?” he asked.
Izzy didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
Something in Dominic’s chest twisted painfully.
“You replaced me pretty easily.”
Her expression cooled.
“No, Dominic. I healed.”
That word silenced him.