Well, fuck that. He didn’t deserve my love. Just like Dad didn’t deserve Mom’s. And if this is what love did? If love caused pain and fighting and made people say hurtful things, digging their dirty fingers into bloody wounds, I wanted nothing to do with it.
“I was wrong,” Ash said quietly. “I was jealous of what I thought I saw and I spoke cruelly to protect myself. I’m sorry.” Ash leaned in, pressing his hands against the wall above my head. A palm rested on either side of my ears, caging me in as his forehead creased in thought. From the shadows, his eyes tilted to mine, dark and hooded and shielding any bit of his thoughts that I could potentially read.
My heart thundered in my chest with wildly sporadic beats. Something about Ash filled a hollow area of my soul that had been growing and festering like a cavity since Dad left. Around Ash, the pain was numbed. He soothed the history with his touch. Mended the wound with his words. Except today? Today, his comment had brought it all crashing back.
The cavity throbbed inside me, pulsing hard with loneliness. It was my weakness. But it was also my shield. One that I wasn’t ready to drop and forfeit yet. A hard laugh cracked through my tensed lips. “Is that the best you’ve got? You were wrong and you’re sorry?” I ducked out from under his arms as his expression cemented into shock. “You basically called me a whore.”
He sucked in a breath, pushing off from the wall to face me. “I didn’t—”
“You did.” Tension stretched between us like gum around a finger. His mouth parted to speak, but I cut him off. I couldn’t hear anymore. Couldn’t hear another apology. Because the next one could potentially work; could potentially earn my forgiveness and I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let him derail me. “Not that you were wrong. Maybe I am sleeping my way to the top,” I bluffed. It was the only way I knew how to ensure Ash would walk away. Leave me be. Because above all, I knew he didn’t share. He was possessive and passionate and the thought of me with another man would shove him in the other direction. Push him away from me. “After all,” I continued, “how else would you explain how a girl right out of college landed the assistant costume position on a major motion picture?”
Anger snaked across his features, tightening the skin around his eyes. “Don’t say that. We both know it’s not true.” His hand lifted, those calloused fingertips tracing a fluttered line down my jaw.
The air between us swirled with chaotic energy, tightening the emotional grip he had on me. I grabbed Andrea’s ID and slapped it into his chest. “Give this to Andrea for me. Not that she probably even needs it.” Then, spinning on my heels, I stomped toward the same unmarked door I had entered through.
“Luciana Blair Rodriguez,” Ash boomed. “Do not take another step.”
Blair.
He knew.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ash
I closed in on her. This wasn’t how I wanted this to go down. But it was clear I was losing her. Clear that she was about to walk out on me without a proper explanation, and I couldn’t let that happen. I wanted the truth to come from her beautiful, plump mouth. I wanted her to trust me enough to confide in me. If this was really going to happen—if she was truly going to be my partner and enter this lifestyle in the way she seemed curious about it—trust was key.
You’re a hypocrite. I swallowed the whispers of doubt down, ignoring them.
I didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but goddammit, I had to try. She didn’t deserve what I had said to her earlier. It was hurtful. Uncalled for. And I was so, so sorry for it that I ached—actually ached—in my gut.
Calling her by her full name seemed to work. She stopped in her tracks, spinning back to face me. “What did you call me?”
“Luciana Blair Rodriguez,” I said. “I’m sorry for saying that you were sleeping your way to the top. It was terrible of me. And it couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
She swallowed hard, those dark eyes glittering as they lifted and met mine. “And you know the truth?”
“I know what some general internet search allows me to know.” Her face dropped when I admitted that. Her jaw slackening and her skin paling to a creamy white complexion.
“You Googled me?”
My throat was dry with guilt, but I swallowed anyway. “Andrea told me to. Your best friend is a hardass. But I’d rather hear it from you. I'd rather hear everything from you.” She didn’t say anything, but broke her eyes away from mine, darting her gaze to the ground. Doubt speared me like an archer’s arrow, piercing my heart. “Lucy,” I whispered, “As far as secrets go… this one isn’t that big a deal.” I should know. I knew all about the twisted, fucked up things people would hide in their closets for their own gain. Forget the skeletons—most of the people who frequented LnS had catacombs in their closets.
Doubt continued to twist up through my body, lodging at the base of my throat. I wanted to claim her mouth, body, and soul for my own. Instead of lunging for her and wrapping my arms around hers, I stepped back and forced my hands into my pockets.
She shook her head. “You fucking Googled me. All this time, I was waiting for you to open up to me about Brie. About you. Respecting what you asked of me at the beginning of this ridiculous, sorry excuse for a relationship. I respected your right to privacy and refrained from doing any kind of internet search about you and your wife. And the second you doubted me, you opened up a Google search.” Lifting both hands she shoved at my chest. Hard. But not hard enough to knock me off balance.
Then, she turned away from me, crossing her arms.
“Your best friend told me to Google you,” I repeated.
Lucy snorted. “She isn’t the one you should have gotten permission from. You also could have talked to me. Heard me out when I tried to explain everything. You could have come back to talk to me after what you saw.”
“Would you have talked to me?” I pressed. “Would you have given me that second chance if it had been reversed? If you had walked into a room where I was cupping another woman’s face and tenderly kissing her?” My fists clenched at the visceral memory. Even though I knew it wasn’t romantic now, at the time, it felt very real. And an intense betrayal.
“He was tenderly kissing my forehead. Not lips. Forehead.” She spun back around to face me, jaw twitching. “And yes. I would have given you a chance to explain.”
“Bullshit. You had your back to me. It didn’t look like he was kissing your forehead. It looked intimate.”
“When Rich told me that you were given an assignment to train a submissive, I was pissed. But I took a deep breath and made the choice to talk to you.” Her nostrils flared and her glasses slipped a little further down her nose. “What does that say about you, Ash? That a twenty-two-year-old is more fucking mature and relationship savvy than you are?”
“You don’t have to tell me what a fuck up I am. I know that already. But I can’t apologize for a Google search that led me back to you. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you more—I should have. I should have known you would never—”
“That’s right,” she interrupted. Her forehead tightened as her eyebrows drew together. “I would never ever cheat on you. Not with anyone and especially not with Richard Blair because he’s my uncle.” She held out her hands. “There. You happy? I mean, you already know about my daddy issues. Must be why you thought I was after a daddy dom, isn’t that right?”
I cringed, my own words flinging back to pierce into me.
“Uncle Rich is the closest thing to a father that I have.”
It only took two steps for me to be in front of her. My hands twisted into the silky threads of her hair, tugging it free from the ponytail. The soft strands slid between my fingers like shredded satin.
“Ash,” she cautioned.
I took a deep breath and forced my raging desire to calm down. Instead of slamming my lips over top of hers, I enclosed her in my arms, wrapping them around her small, soft body. I held her in that same way she held me a couple weeks ago in front of her apartment bu
ilding. Then, whispering in her ear, I said, “I’m sorry.” I would say it a million times if I needed to.
It felt so fucking good, so right, having her there in my arms. Like I was made to comfort and care for her. I was put on this earth to protect Lucy. Except… I hadn’t done all that great of a job so far.
I felt her swallow hard, the movement pressing into my body. If only I could absorb those nerves for her. Soak up all of her pain like a saturated towel and wring it out. Make her trust me.
“How is it that you have managed to untangle years of messy mistrust in a matter of weeks?” she asked.
If only she knew. It wasn't fair that she exposed so much of herself to me and I’d barely talked about myself; about Brie. I’d told her some of the truth. But not all of it. My eyes darted down to hers as I pulled back to examine her and from my hold on Lucy, with my hands behind her back, my fingers brushed over the hammered gold of Brie's wedding ring.
It nearly cracked my heart open as she unraveled from my hold. She looked up at me from over the top edge of her glasses. Her eyes dark and deep, I was unable to read them. Nervously, she pressed her lips together, and when they relaxed they were wet and glistening.
I tilted my head at her. “Do you forgive me?”
Her jaw ticked. “No,” she whispered. “What you said was cruel—”
“I know.”
“And you tell me over and over to trust you, but then you broke the first rule we had established. How can I trust someone—forgive someone—who knowingly crossed that line?”
“Lucy,” I said. “I. Know. I know I failed you.”
She huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “I don’t care that you know. You knowing the fact that you did something shitty doesn’t matter if you keep doing it. Show me. Show me that you’ve changed … or that you’re at least attempting to.”
“What can I do?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “What can I say?”
Lucy paused, her gaze dropping to Brie’s ring. “What is it you don’t want me Googling? Tell me. Tell me everything so that I don’t have to break the promise like you did. No more secrets.”
My muscles clenched and without realizing it, I was shaking my head no. “Please don’t,” I said.
Lucy’s eyes softened and it was no longer anger glittering back at me, but sadness. “It’s not even about you, is it? It’s her.”
White hot tears threatened my eyes and I blinked rapidly to push them down.
“She’s a part of our relationship too, Ash. Whether or not you can admit it.”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand here and tell Lucy—the one woman in the world I was trying to prove I wasn’t a fuck up to—how much I had fucked up with my wife. If I revealed the details of Brie’s suicide—how it was my fucking fault—she’d never forgive me. In the same way I couldn’t forgive myself.
Lucy waited a few more moments before nodding and brushing her palm against my cheek. I clutched it, pressing my lips to the soft skin of her hand. She sniffled and the soft noise pulverized what was left of my broken heart.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m not mad at you. I don’t want to force you to tell me.”
Between the lines of what she said, the words that weren’t said dangled between us. I don’t want to force you to tell me like I had done to her. I had coerced every bit of information out of her. Googled her. Searched for info. And she waited. She gave me the space I needed. She was understanding beyond belief.
Her thumb moved over my cheekbone, stroking it before she pulled back completely. “I understand. But I can’t be with the someone who doesn’t open up to me. I care about you. But when it comes down to it, if I have to choose between you and me… I’m choosing me. Because I can’t love anyone if I don’t know how to love myself first. I can’t care for you and keep you safe and healthy if I don’t do so for me first and foremost. And until you’re ready to open up to me… this relationship isn’t going to be healthy for either of us. I can’t trust you with my body. With my trauma. With my history… if you won’t trust me with yours. And I can’t trust you knowing you don’t feel these rules apply to you.”
Well, fuck. Who was teaching who here?
She was so right. All this time, I was trying to protect and care for other submissives. And the reason I was so bad at it wasn’t because I was a bad Dom. It was because I wasn’t tending to myself.
My eyes burned and I clutched Brie’s ring in my free hand.
She pushed onto her toes, her palm connecting to my chest, and she brushed her lips across my cheekbone. “It’s okay if you’re not ready to reveal yourself to me—or to anyone. If you’re not ready to talk about Brie. To move on from her. It is truly okay, Ash. But I also can’t stand here and be in an uneven relationship. I can’t continue to bear my soul to you—to give you bars of gold, only to receive tiny nuggets of fool’s gold in return.” Her voice trembled and cracked and when I looked into her eyes, tears streamed down both of our cheeks.
Her words pierced my heart clean through. I was trying to open up. Couldn’t she see that? Couldn’t she see how hard I was trying with her? More than I’d ever tried with anyone since Brie.
But it was clear. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. And I didn’t think I could give any more of myself.
So I let her go. I watched her walk out of LnS and I didn’t stop her.
Chapter Thirty
Lucy
I spent the next two days in bed. I called Kelly, claiming I was sick and secretly praying that the trust we’d been working to build wouldn’t crumble with me taking days off. On one hand… I cared. On the other hand, I was too desperately heartbroken to give it more than a passing thought.
My eyes were swollen. My pillow was drenched with tears. There were unanswered texts from Andrea asking me if I wanted to carpool to Silhouette tomorrow. Now that she was working both at Silhouette and LnS, she was hardly ever home. We were like passing ships… or rather, she was the ship and I was the island. Unmoving. Stuck.
By the time Wednesday afternoon rolled around, I couldn’t stomach another can of crappy store-bought soup, and I ordered some Mexican food delivery.
The buzzer rang, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror as I went to answer it. I nearly gasped at the sight of myself. On one hand, I was never the most glamorous girl. But this? This was a whole new level. My unwashed hair was tangled into a knot on the top of my head. And not one of those cute messy buns. Mine was legit rat’s-nest-messy. My face was puffy and red from crying. For all the time I’d spent in bed the past forty-eight hours, I’d done very little sleeping.
I gave myself a shrug and grabbed my wallet as the impatient delivery boy buzzed a second time.
Wrenching the door open, I came face to face with Ash. My mouth momentarily fell open, then I snapped it shut, squeezing my eyes closed against the oncoming tears. No. No, no, no… he was not standing here in front of me.
My only consolation was that he looked like he’d been a mess too. A more functional mess than me, but let’s be real… who the hell wasn’t?
And what truly wasn’t fair was that even though his eyes were also rimmed red and puffy… and even though his hair was strewn as though he’d been raking his hands through it all day… and even though he was in gym shorts and a t-shirt… he still looked deliciously handsome.
It made me want to slam my fist into his stomach. Then kiss him. Then kick him in the shins.
“Ash?” I managed to say, my voice not shaking nearly as much as I’d expected it to.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his tone urgent. His gaze swept my body. “You haven’t been on set and—and I was worried.”
“You were worried,” I repeated, snark dripping from my words.
“Yes. I was worried. Just because we aren’t… we aren’t a ‘we’ anymore doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you. Are you sick?”
I laughed, a bitter sound that cracked at the back of my throat. “Sick.
Sure. We can call it that. That’s what I told Kelly.”
His face softened. “I’m sorry. I wish I could give you more, but I can’t—”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
His intense stare sent goosebumps racing down my arms. When he didn’t answer me, I sighed, crossing my arms. “What are you really doing here, Ash? The truth.”
He swallowed, veins pushing against the sinews of his throat and shoulders. “I miss you.” Moisture brimmed in those gloriously blue eyes and his voice cracked as he spoke.
My heart broke in that moment. It broke for him. It broke for me. It broke for the future we could have had if he could just pull his head out of his ass.
“It’s coming up on mine and Brie’s seven year anniversary,” he said quietly. “In a couple weeks.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And meant it. Was this his way of trying to open up to me? Of trying to repair what he broke? And more importantly… was it too late?
“Most people visit the graves of their loved ones, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I don’t want to visit a place that reminds me of her death. I want to visit a place that reminds me of her life.”
I swallowed a sob and reached out to grasp his hand, unable to help myself. “Where is that?”
“I hike Runyon. Where I proposed to her.”
I squeezed his fingers. “She was a sporty girl. I should have guessed.” I sent him as big of a smile as I could muster and he snorted. A sound that was a half-laugh, half-sigh.
Then, something shifted, the molecules buzzing between us. He was silent for the longest minute of my life and I waited, silently, begging and praying he would give me more. Tell me more. Trust me. But he didn’t. He went silent… again.
“Come back to work, Lucy,” he finally said, and detached his hand from mine. His fingers slipped out of my grasp. “Don’t let an emotionally unavailable prick like me ruin this opportunity for you.”
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