Chapter 9 - The Wolf at the Door
The winter blizzard that slammed into the Door County peninsula was the fiercest storm the locals had seen in twenty years.
Gale-force winds whipped off the freezing expanse of Lake Michigan, howling through the towering white pines and flinging curtains of blinding white snow against the cottage windows.
Inside, the massive stone fireplace roared with blazing oak logs, casting a deep, amber glow across the whitewashed walls of my studio.
I sat on the wool rug in front of the hearth, resting back against an oversized floor cushion, my sketchpad balanced across my knees.
At twenty weeks, the swelling of my abdomen was unmistakable, a proud, beautiful fullness that moved beneath the soft fabric of my cream maternity tunic.
I placed my palm against my side and felt the distinct, fluttery kick of my child—small, energetic, and undeniably alive.
A soft knock sounded at the heavy front door, muffled by the howling tempest outside.
I frowned, glancing at the brass wall clock; it was nearly eight o'clock in the evening, and the county road commission had issued a travel ban across northern Wisconsin three hours prior.
Julian was supposed to be in Milwaukee presenting our revised coastal permit filings to the regional environmental commission.
I stood up slowly, supporting my lower back with one hand, and walked to the entrance.
"Julian?" I called out through the heavy timber door, keeping the brass security chain firmly locked in its groove.
No answer came, only the fierce whistle of the blizzard tearing through the eaves.
Then, a voice cut through the wooden panels—a voice that sent a jolt of pure, freezing adrenaline racing straight through my veins.
"Emma."
The word was low, hoarse, and ragged with exhaustion.
My heart slammed into my ribs with enough force to make me stagger back a step.
Dominic.
I stood frozen on the hardwood floor, every muscle in my body locking into survival mode.
Through the narrow frosted glass sidelight beside the frame, I saw his dark, hulking silhouette standing on my snow-swept porch.
His charcoal wool overcoat was crusted in thick white ice, his dark hair plastered against his forehead by the driving sleet, and his face pale, gaunt, and hollow under the porch light.
He had driven through three hundred miles of whiteout conditions to find this remote bluff.
"Emma, please," Dominic spoke again, his forehead resting against the exterior wood of the door.
"I know you can hear me."
"I know you hear every single word."
The irony was suffocating, heavy enough to drown in.
For three years, I had stood before him, moving my lips in desperate silence, believing his world was devoid of sound.
Now, he stood on my porch in a sub-zero blizzard, begging for the vibrations of my voice through an inch of locked oak.
I did not unlock the chain.
I took a deep, steadying breath, drawing strength from the little life fluttering beneath my heart, and spoke clearly through the door.
"Leave this property, Dominic."
A ragged gasp escaped his throat on the other side, a sound that bordered between a sob and a prayer.
"Emma... open the door. Just five minutes. Please. I drove through the storm... the highway is closed behind me."
"You shouldn't have come," I said, my voice as calm, steady, and unyielding as the limestone cliffs below the cottage.
"The Moretti name holds no authority on this peninsula."
"I don't care about the name, Emma!" he cried out, his fist thudding against the wood, not in anger, but in desperate supplication.
"I don't care about the company, I don't care about the gala, I don't care about any of it!"
"Gabriel told me what you did with the settlement papers... how you walked away from forty million dollars... how you burned the hearing aids in the fireplace."
"I was blind, Emma. I was arrogant, cowardly, and sick with my own pride."
"I thought if I kept you quiet, I could control my life. I thought I was protecting myself from the chaos of my family."
"You weren't protecting yourself, Dominic," I answered, each syllable falling like a clean executioner's blade.
"You were using me."
"You wanted an obedient ghost to clean up your mother’s messes and run your house while you kept your heart reserved for a woman who sang for crowds."
"Vanessa is nothing to me!" Dominic’s voice broke violently against the howling wind.
"She’s carrying a child, Emma, but she was never my wife! She was an obsession, an echo of a boy’s fantasy that turned into ash the second you walked away!"
"The house in Lake Forest is a graveyard without you! The penthouse is an unbearable circus!"
"I hear everything now, Emma! I hear every whisper in the boardrooms, I hear the music, I hear the rain... and every single sound feels like knives in my skull because your voice isn't there!"
I stepped closer to the frosted glass, looking out at the broken billionaire standing on my freezing porch.
He looked up, catching sight of my shadow behind the pane, his hazel eyes wide, bloodshot, and brimming with unspilled tears.
"Dominic," I whispered, loud enough for his healed, miraculous ears to catch every vibration.
"You spent three years pretending you couldn't hear me."
"You listened to me cry in the dark when I thought God had made me barren."
"You listened to me whisper my deepest dreams to you while you pretended to sleep."
"You stole three years of my dignity, Dominic."
"You don't get to come back into my life now just because your golden songbird turned out to be made of brass."
Dominic slid down against the exterior door frame, dropping to his knees in the drifting snow on my porch, his head buried in his gloved hands.
"Emma... please... let me make it right... let me atone for what I did to you..."
"You can't rebuild a burned house with apologies, Dominic," I said softly.
"Go back to Chicago."
"Go back to your mother, go back to Vanessa, and be the father to the child she is carrying."
"There is nothing left for you here except the cold."
May you like
I turned off the porch light, plunging the entrance into darkness, and walked back into the warmth of my studio without unlocking the door.
Behind me, the wind howled around the cottage eaves, burying his desperate cries beneath the merciless roaring of the northern winter.
