Chapter 7 - The House With Flowers
One year later, the Rossi estate had flowers.
That was my doing.
Dominic complained for six weeks.
“They're pink.”
“They're peonies.”
“They're pink peonies.”
“You'll survive.”
“I survived being shot. This is worse.”
Leo walked past us carrying paperwork.
“They look excellent, sir.”
“Traitor.”
I laughed.
Dominic had changed in ways outsiders probably wouldn't notice.
He was still intimidating.
Still tattooed.
Still capable of silencing an entire room with one look.
But Rossi Logistics and the family's hotels had become the center of his business life.
The darker parts of his father's empire were being dismantled piece by piece.
It wasn't quick.
It wasn't easy.
But it was real.
Vincent eventually accepted a plea agreement that would keep him in prison for years.
Dr. Bell lost his medical license and faced his own sentence.
As for me, I never became Dominic's private nurse again.
Instead, I returned to emergency medicine three days a week.
And with Dominic's financial backing—after six months of arguing over the word donation—I helped establish a free evening clinic downtown for patients who couldn't afford basic care.
The sign read:
HAYES COMMUNITY CLINIC
No Rossi name.
That had been Dominic's decision.
“This is yours,” he'd said.
On the clinic's opening morning, Leo entered my office.
“He's nervous.”
“Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
Leo looked at me like the answer was obvious.
“You.”
I found Dominic outside near the new flower garden.
He wore a charcoal suit.
No tie.
The tattoos on his hands remained visible.
“Leo says you're nervous.”
“Leo talks too much.”
“He does.”
Dominic looked toward the mountains.
“I've negotiated deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Congratulations.”
“I've sat across from men who wanted me dead.”
“Also congratulations?”
“Nora.”
I smiled.
“What?”
He reached into his jacket.
Then stopped.
My heart began pounding.
“Dominic?”
“I had a speech.”
“Oh no.”
“It was good.”
“How long?”
“Four minutes.”
“Absolutely not.”
He laughed.
“That's what I thought you'd say.”
Then he lowered himself onto one knee.
For once, I couldn't think of anything sarcastic.
Dominic Rossi looked up at me.
The man who had once thrown lamps at nurses.
The man who had ordered me out of his bedroom.
The man who had nearly died because he believed trusting someone was more dangerous than bleeding alone.
He held up a simple diamond ring.
“Nora Hayes, you walked into my house when everyone else was leaving.”
My eyes burned.
“You told me no when nobody else would.”
“Frequently.”
“Very frequently.”
I laughed through my tears.
“You saved my life before you had any reason to care whether I deserved saving.”
His voice softened.
“And then you taught me that surviving isn't the same as living.”
He paused.
“So I'm asking instead of ordering.”
“Good choice.”
“Nora, will you marry me?”
I looked toward the mansion.
Leo was pretending not to watch from a window.
Several staff members were doing an even worse job of pretending.
Then I looked back at Dominic.
“Yes.”
For half a second, the feared Dominic Rossi simply stared at me.
“You said yes.”
“I can change my mind.”
He stood immediately.
“No.”
I laughed.
“There's the mafia boss.”
He slipped the ring onto my finger.
Then kissed me.
Behind us, someone inside the mansion started applauding.
Dominic pulled away.
“Leo.”
“Definitely Leo.”
“I am firing him.”
“You've been saying that for a year.”
“One day I'll mean it.”
“No, you won't.”
Dominic looked at me.
That familiar expression appeared—the one I'd first seen when I'd refused to leave his bedroom.
Only now there was no anger in it.
Just love.
“You still tell me no too often.”
“Someone has to.”
His arm settled carefully around my waist.
Below us, the city stretched across the valley.
Behind us stood a mansion that no longer smelled like blood and lemon polish.
The curtains were open now.
The windows caught the morning sun.
People laughed in the hallways.
And outside the fortress Dominic Rossi had spent his entire life building, hundreds of ridiculous pink flowers moved gently in the wind.
A year earlier, I'd entered that house because I needed enough money to pay my rent.
I thought I was there to save a wounded man.
I was wrong.
Dominic had needed someone willing to tell him no.
I had needed somewhere I could finally choose yes.
May you like
And somehow, between a blood-soaked bandage, a forty-cent pen, and two people too stubborn to walk away, we had both found our way home.
THE END
