Chapter 102: What Comes After

By the second week, Dominic stopped wearing the cap.

Not permanently.

Not because his hair had miraculously recovered.

It hadn’t.

The treatment hadn’t had enough time to do anything dramatic, and the thinning areas remained visible if someone knew where to look.

He simply stopped thinking about them every minute.

That counted.

He noticed the change one morning when he walked halfway down the road, then realized he’d left the cap on the terrace.

He almost turned back.

Then didn’t.

Nobody was there to photograph him.

A farmer drove past and lifted one hand in greeting.

Dominic returned the gesture.

That was the entire event.

No headline.

No comments.

No zoomed photograph.

Just a man walking without a hat.

He kept going.

The paintings multiplied.

Landscape first.

Then a doorway.

An olive tree.

The old stone wall beside the villa.

Victoria, unfortunately, became the subject of one.

She discovered this when she came outside and found Dominic staring at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Don’t move."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Why?"

"You’re ruining it."

She looked toward the canvas.

"Are you painting me?"

"Not anymore if you keep talking."

Victoria immediately adjusted her posture.

Dominic groaned.

"Stop posing."

"I’m not posing."

"You absolutely are."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"What you were doing."

"Reading?"

"Yes."

She picked up her book.

Then looked toward him.

"Like this?"

"Mother."

"Fine."

Eventually, she forgot about the portrait enough to actually read.

That was when Dominic started getting it right.

Not Victoria Sebastian dressed for an event.

Not Victoria calculating how to enter a room.

Just his mother.

Reading glasses low on her nose.

Hair moving slightly in the breeze.

One hand holding the book open.

Dominic worked quietly.

When he finished, Victoria looked at the canvas.

Her expression changed.

"I look old."

"You are old."

She struck his shoulder.

He laughed.

Then she looked again.

"I like it."

That surprised him.

"So do I."

Neither said anything for a while.

They talked about their future that evening.

No dramatic setup.

No argument.

They sat on the terrace after dinner, both too full to move.

Victoria had a cup of tea.

Dominic had coffee.

Decaffeinated, after the dermatologist’s lecture about his caffeine intake.

He considered that deeply unfair.

"What happens when we go home?" he asked.

Victoria looked over.

"You go back to therapy."

"Obviously."

"Dermatologist."

"Yes."

"Then..."

She stopped.

Dominic smiled faintly.

"You don’t know."

"No."

"Amazing."

"Enjoy the moment."

He did.

Then he became serious.

"I don’t want to go back to Sebastian Group."

Victoria’s fingers tightened slightly around her cup.

There it was.

The sentence she had spent decades making impossible.

"You mean immediately?"

"No."

"After your sabbatical?"

"I don’t know."

"Dominic."

He looked toward her.

"I don’t want Andrei’s job."

That hurt her.

He could see it.

Not because she hated Andrei.

Because so much of her life had been built around making sure Dominic never lost that position.

"You were raised for it."

"I know."

"You spent years—"

"I know."

"What will you do?"

Dominic smiled without humor.

"That’s the problem, isn’t it?"

He set down the coffee.

"Everyone keeps asking what I’ll do if I’m not Sebastian’s CEO, as though there’s nothing else I can be."

Victoria didn’t answer.

Dominic continued.

"I thought I wanted it."

"You did."

"Maybe."

He looked toward the landscape.

"Or maybe I wanted to win it."

That distinction cut deeply.

Against Andrei.

Against the Board.

Against anyone Victoria presented as a threat.

CEO had become first place.

Alexander had become first place too.

And Dominic had spent years confusing possession with success.

"I don’t know what I want to do next," he admitted. "But I know I don’t want to build another company tomorrow just to prove I can."

Victoria nodded slowly.

"That’s sensible."

"You sound disappointed."

"I am."

He laughed.

She smiled reluctantly.

"But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong."

Another first.

Then Dominic turned the question around.

"What about you?"

Victoria looked genuinely alarmed.

"Why does everyone suddenly want me to have a life?"

"Because apparently you do."

"I have friends."

"Who?"

She stared.

Dominic waited.

"Several."

"Names."

"Don’t interrogate me."

He laughed.

Victoria looked toward the darkening hills.

"I don’t know."

There it was again.

Not knowing.

Perhaps both of them needed practice.

"What did you want before Dad?" Dominic asked.

Victoria frowned.

"Your father?"

"Yes."

"That’s ancient history."

"Still history."

She thought.

"I liked fashion."

"Obviously."

"Don’t."

"What else?"

"Travel."

Dominic looked around.

"Convenient."

She smiled.

"Languages."

"You speak two."

"Poorly."

"Three if insulting people counts."

"Then I’m fluent."

They laughed.

Victoria eventually admitted she’d once wanted to open a boutique.

Not some enormous fashion house.

A curated shop.

Clothes.

Accessories.

Perhaps home pieces.

She’d never done it because marriage, society, and eventually Dominic became more.

"Would you now?" he asked.

"At my age?"

"That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said all week."

Victoria stared.

Dominic shrugged.

"You told me I could start painting again."

"That’s different."

"Why?"

She had no answer.

Dominic smiled.

"Interesting."

Their flight home was scheduled for the following afternoon.

Neither packed until morning.

That would’ve been unthinkable two weeks earlier.

Victoria carefully folded Dominic’s finished paintings.

"These are coming."

"Obviously."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"The doorway isn’t good."

"I like the doorway."

"It lacks depth."

"So do many people. We still keep them."

Dominic laughed.

"You’re impossible."

"Genetic risk."

There it was again.

He took Victoria’s portrait and wrapped it himself.

He didn’t trust anyone else to handle that one.

Before leaving, he stood on the terrace one last time.

The countryside stretched out beneath the morning light.

He hadn’t become a different person.

His hair was still thinning.

His therapy wasn’t over.

The Board hadn’t magically forgotten everything he’d done.

Alexander still didn’t want him back.

Giovanni still existed.

Andrei was still CEO.

Nothing waiting at home had disappeared simply because Dominic spent two weeks in Italy.

But something had changed.

For the first time, he didn’t see those facts as a list of things he needed to defeat.

Victoria came beside him.

"Ready?"

Dominic considered.

"No."

She smiled.

"Good."

He looked at her.

"Why good?"

"Because apparently we don’t need to be ready for everything."

Dominic laughed softly.

Maybe she had learned something too.

He picked up his bag.

"Let’s go."

As they walked toward the waiting car, Victoria glanced at him.

"So when we get home, what do I tell people?"

"About?"

"Your plans."

Dominic opened the car door.

"Nothing."

She frowned.

"Nothing?"

"For now."

"But they’ll ask."

"Let them."

That answer would’ve been impossible before Italy.

Victoria studied him.

Then nodded.

"Fine."

Dominic got into the car.

His mother followed.

No announcement.

No comeback strategy.

No new company.

No promise to reclaim Sebastian Group.

For once, Dominic didn’t need everyone to know what he intended to do next.

He didn’t know himself.

And as the villa disappeared behind them, he discovered that uncertainty no longer frightened him nearly as much as it once had.

It felt less like losing direction.

More like finally being allowed to choose one.