Chapter 7 - The Mirror at Home
When we arrived home—a sprawling, secure limestone estate overlooking the lake—the house was warm, quiet, and entirely detached from the chaos of downtown.
I walked straight to the master bathroom, turning on the overhead lights and standing in front of the massive double-sink vanity.
For the first time, I looked at the full extent of the damage in the mirror.
The left side of my head was completely normal, dark waves falling past my shoulders. But the right side had been butchered—shaved right down to the pale skin, red and irritated from the cheap electric clippers Preston’s friend had wielded.
Tears finally pricked the corners of my eyes, not from weakness, but from the violation of it all.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist from behind. Dominic rested his chin gently on my shoulder, looking at our reflections in the glass.
“It looks fierce,” he whispered into my ear.
I let out a wet, genuine laugh, shaking my head. “It looks like a disaster, Dom.”
“It looks like a survivor,” he corrected softly, turning me around so I was facing him. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small pair of precision barber shears we kept in the grooming drawer. “Sit down.”
“What are you doing?”
“If you’re going to have a shaved head, we’re not leaving it half-done by a spoiled drunk,” Dominic said with a faint smirk. “Trust me. I know how to trim edges.”
I sat down on the velvet stool, a small smile touching my lips.
With steady, practiced hands—hands that had signed corporate acquisitions and negotiated peace treaties across the Midwest—Dominic carefully evened out the clippers, systematically shaving the rest of my hair down into a clean, sharp, symmetrical buzz cut.
It was intimate, quiet, and completely grounding.
May you like
When he finished, he brushed the loose strands from my forehead, leaned down, and kissed the top of my newly bare scalp.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
