Abby held her breath. If Dominic was correct, Zhang would have no reason to help her now. If she was indeed no more than a pawn to her, she would soon know.
"Don't bother to unpack," Zhang answered. "You'll be on a flight home minutes after you land."
Relief flooded Abby. She might have been wrong about Dominic, but at least Zhang's support had been sincere. The tears that Abby had held in poured forth. Her throat tightened with spasms, making the words almost impossible to get out. "He doesn't love me, Zhang. He doesn't even respect me."
"Do I have to kill him?" Zhang asked in all seriousness. Oddly, Abby found comfort in Zhang's extreme question. It had been a long time since anyone had leapt to defend her. She had carried the burdens of others for so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to turn to others for help.
"No," Abby said grudgingly. "But I do want to leave."
Sounding relieved, Zhang said, "Consider it done," and hung up.
Abby banged the receiver a few times as she tried to hang it up on the wall. Her hands were shaking with emotion as she collapsed onto the bed and gave into the tears that she no longer had a reason to hold in. Loud sobs wracked her body and she hoped Dominic heard them and felt even the smallest bit sorry for being the complete jackass he was.
Dominic swept the remaining papers off his desk, watching them float aimlessly toward the carpeted floor of the plane. He flipped on the radio to block out the sound of Abby's crying and paced the room.
How had he become his father? After a lifetime of despising the man for his maltreatment of his mother, Dominic had just treated Abby the same way. Even the dismissive, superior tone of his voice reminded him of the bastard he'd sworn to be nothing like. My God, Abby was right, there was very little mystery as to why his mother had left and hadn't wavered once in her decision to cut them from her life.
Blinded by his earlier anger, he had refused to listen to further excuses from Jake or even entertain Zhang's attempt to convince him that time would reveal Abby's innocence. However, none of his varied contacts had been able to link Zhang to Abby or Abby with Jake. His personal security team had not dug up anything more damning on Jake than a text requesting that Scott follow him from bar to bar and arrange transportation if Scott had deemed Dominic too impaired to drive. Another text instructed Scott to keep the press as far away from Dominic as he could and to inform him if Dominic made any moves that could be publicly damaging to his image or himself.
Dominic had postponed returning to the plane to give his team more time to research recent events. However, with each discovery the inconceivable became less deniable.
Abby might be telling the truth.
He thought back to their first encounter and the simple way she'd been dressed. Jeans and a t-shirt were not the clothes of a hired siren. What if she really had been there simply to help her sister? She said she'd stayed out of concern for him. He had repaid that kindness by practically chasing her around his brownstone and then insulting her.#p#分页标题#e#
As he looked back over their time together, he felt ashamed by his actions in a way he never had before. Each step of the way, Abby had freely offered her companionship and her support. Because of her, he'd been able to spend a few days as simply Dominic; not a defiant son, not a corporate magnate, just a man mourning a loss.
He groaned as his recent outburst replayed in his head. He'd mocked her for being a teacher, when in reality it was one of the many things he admired about her. Unlike him, she had a passion for what she did that was not driven by greed or personal gain. And it was that desire to help that had brought her to China with him.
It was conceivable that Zhang could have used Abby's concern for him to manipulate her into delivering the additional contract pages; which had forced Dominic to make his first act of philanthropy. However unwillingly it had come about, his company would now have a positive cultural impact on billions of women and lead the way for other large corporations to support international social causes and, surprisingly, that knowledge filled Dominic with an unsettling feeling of satisfaction.
The media called him a hero, but the real hero was Abby.
Without her, he might have gone on believing that the world had somehow cheated him and deserved to be treated accordingly. How had he gotten so politically powerful without ever wondering if he could use his influence to better the lives of those less fortunate? Had it been arrogance or obsession which had allowed him to deal with third world countries without ever considering that he could affect more than their exchange rate?
In less than a week, Abby had changed him forever. And what had he given her?