She couldn’t imagine there was anything more painful in the world than losing your Master.
Maybe it hadn’t been official, but it might as well have been. It meant something. He meant something.
That she’d felt it so strongly, been so in love, only made the betrayal hurt more. Last night, she’d driven home through blurry tears and had to pull over twice until she calmed down. He’d been calling and texting all night and day, and she’d finally turned her phone off, unable to handle seeing his name without bursting into fresh tears.
But enough was enough. He kept trying to explain himself, but he didn’t understand that was only making it worse. He was proving exactly what she’d said—he was just like every other rich, selfish asshole. Ambrose wanted what he wanted, and he’d do anything to get it.
And she’d taken him for a Dom. Instead, he was just a spoiled liar.
“So . . .” Jimmy’s voice pulled her attention. His brow creased as he tilted his head in confusion. “You broke up with him because he’s rich?”
“Because he lied about being rich.”
His expression remained bewildered.
“Being rich is enough though. Rich people are entitled, selfish, and inconsiderate,” she spouted off as if she’d said it a hundred times before. Maybe she had, but this time the sweeping generalization embarrassed her as it came from her mouth. Was Ambrose really all of those things? As a second thought, she looked at Jimmy and asked, “You’re not rich, are you?”
“No.” He laughed. “I’m a plumber.”
Jimmy the Plumber. A divorcé with a pickup truck, a trailer home, and a six-year-old kid he shared custody of. But somehow a perfect match for her mom. She always went for humble and ordinary. Everly had assumed she’d do the same, but somehow she’d ended up with the enemy. She snorted at herself. Sleeping with the enemy.
“Listen, honey.” Her mom’s voice softened. “I know our family and the girls at school were mean to you when you were a kid, but you gotta forgive them and get over that shit.” Her gaze shot to Liam, who was happily tasting each kind of cookie. “Uh, stuff.”
“I’m over it,” she replied, suddenly grumpy.
“Clearly not, if it made you break up with a perfectly good guy.”
“Ugh.” She threw her hands in the air. “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not just that he’s rich. It’s that he lied. For months! That’s acceptable to you? He said he loved me with this hanging over his head. He was okay with that. Doesn’t that say something about him as a person?”
“Did he say sorry?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes. But . . .”
“Sounds like he wasn’t okay with it, then.”
He hadn’t just apologized—he’d groveled and begged for forgiveness. But if she gave in, what did that make her? A doormat. Gullible. She was a sub but certainly not a sucker.
“Let me tell you something about guys,” Jimmy added. “We’re kinda stupid.”
She snorted.
“Seriously. When guys fall in love, it short-circuits their brains. They become drooling Neanderthals and do some really stupid things they regret later. It doesn’t surprise me that a guy could fall for a girl and let a lie get away from him like this. He was probably scared to tell you. Afraid of this exact scenario.”
That was what Ambrose had told her. For a long moment, she couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d thought he’d fallen for her as much as she had for him, but after yesterday, she wasn’t sure anymore. It seemed more like she’d been a conquest. She was just another thing for him to conquer and make his. But could Jimmy be right that this was all one big accident? A messy, jumbled-up clusterfuck, but maybe not the end of the world?
Frustrated, she snapped, “Why are you people defending him? You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Her mom gave her a sympathetic smile. “I am, sweetheart. Why do you think I made so much dessert?”
* * *
A few weeks later, her body felt old and used, and not just because she’d picked up more hours at work to keep herself busy. Every morning, she woke up happy, in love with Ambrose. Then she remembered what happened. It was like having her heart ripped away, again and again.
She was exhausted.
Between working her ass off and planning the big sit-in, her eyes were constantly drooping and her feet always ached. But at least she felt something. It was better than the hollowness that came when she was alone in her apartment.
“You okay, Ev?” Chloe asked, pulling her from her pity party.
She must have looked as bad as she felt. But she threw Chloe a shaky smile anyway. “Fine.” She pretended she’d been scanning the crowd. “I can’t believe how many people are here.”
Her best guess was around fifty people had come to the sit-in. Far more than Everly had thought—more than anyone at Community Cares had been prepared for. They were running out of hot chocolate.
City Council was planning to shut down the soup kitchen because so many neighborhood businesses had complained about it. Community Cares had been staging the sit-in for the last two weeks. She’d poured herself into the project, trying to feel passionate about something instead of like a zombie, but it wasn’t working yet.
She’d visited each business and asked them to reconsider their complaints. Surely, a soup kitchen next door wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t like crime had gone up. But they’d said having poor people milling around outside was making their patrons uncomfortable, even though no one was panhandling or anything.
“I guess more people care than we thought,” Chloe said, looking over the crowd.
Everly’s phone vibrated in her pocket. The only reason she checked the caller was to be sure it wasn’t her boss. As usual, it was Ambrose. She rejected the call, ignoring the big lump in her throat, then focused on her task.
Chloe and Max frowned at her sympathetically. Ugh. The pitying looks were getting tiresome. She needed to invest in better makeup if this was going to continue.
“It was him again, huh?” Max asked.
She didn’t bother to answer.
Chloe and Max sighed at each other, then Chloe took a step closer. “You need to talk to him.”
“Shut up.” She avoided eye contact and pretended there was something interesting going on at the hot chocolate stand.
“You haven’t been yourself,” Max said. “We’re worried about you.”
Ignoring them, she tried to smile at other protesters, but they mostly looked afraid of her.
“You might feel better if you just talked to him,” Chloe added. “At least get some closure.”
With a big sigh, she turned to them. “I will talk to him. Eventually. I just needed a little space and time. When I’m ready, we’ll talk and maybe even stay friends.” Fat chance. “Now will you quit bugging me about it?”
Through suspicious looks, they nodded.
“Thank you.” She didn’t cry anymore. The well of tears had dried up. Now she fought the numb haze that was her life.
It was hard. Nothing felt right, tasted good, seemed funny anymore. It was like everything good had left when Ambrose had. Well, when she’d left him. How could she go on like this?
It wasn’t a lie that she planned to talk to him. She was working up the strength and the right words. Friendship was out of the question—it hurt too much just looking at his picture when it popped up on his contact info when he called.
They’d say their good-byes, and then she’d give herself time to heal before heading to the dungeon again.
Just the thought of it made her want to throw up, but if she didn’t go soon, she might never get the nerve. What were the chances she’d find another Dom who understood her bratting but also her need for mastery? Slim to none.
Even if she found someone who came close to meeting her needs, he’d never be Ambrose. She’d never get back what she’d lost.
But she had to believe it could happen or else be doomed to a lonely, dreary life.
T
ears stung her eyes. Apparently they weren’t totally dried up. Thankfully, the cold breeze froze them before they fell, and she was spared more pitying looks, especially from strangers.
This had to stop. She had to talk to him. After the protest. Once that was over with and she wasn’t spending all of her free time planning it, she’d approach him with a clear head.
The lights of a police car coming up the road caught her attention. Her initial reaction was to panic, but she knew the laws and they weren’t breaking any. A loudspeaker turned on as the car approached.
“You are blocking the intersection. Please move your demonstration off the road and onto the sidewalk.” The officer spoke slowly from the window of the car. “You are blocking an intersection. We will be arresting violators, so please move your protest to the sidewalk. Thank you.”
She hadn’t noticed that more and more protesters had been lingering in the street. They’d been moving when cars came through though. Wasn’t that enough?
A few people meandered to the sidewalk, but many stayed put, either obliviously chatting to neighbors or glaring at the officer in protest.
“We’re not going anywhere!” one protestor shouted. A few echoed him. “So fuck off!”
“Shit,” Everly whispered. “This is going to get bad.”
Without another word, she rushed toward the people in the road. “Move!” she yelled as she pushed through the crowd. “Get off the road! This isn’t that kind of protest.”
When she reached the members who were getting angry, she said, “We don’t want any trouble. We can still make a difference from the sidewalk. Please move.”
“Nobody cares if we stand around there,” the man said, gesturing at the sidewalk. In his dark eyes, she saw her own desperation, her own resentment from years of pain. She would bet a million dollars this man had a history a lot like hers. “They won’t care unless we make them care.”
“Getting arrested won’t fix anything,” she explained.
At the angry shouts around her, panic struck. She didn’t want anyone thrown in jail because of her. That wasn’t supposed to be how this went down.
She turned and looked at them. “Get off the road. Please!”
But it was too late. A team of officers descended upon them. Some of the crowd fled to the sidewalk once they saw the police were serious. She was still encouraging people to move when she felt a hand grip her arm.
She spun, expecting Chloe or Max to be there, trying to drag her to the sidewalk, but instead she came face-to-face with a uniformed man, wearing sunglasses and holding out a set of handcuffs.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
“Yup.” He slipped the handcuffs on her wrists behind her back and started reading her the Miranda rights.
Dozens of protests, and she’d always managed to avoid arrest. Some people would say she was a real protestor now, but she just felt stupid and irresponsible. How many others had she gotten in trouble?
As she was driven away in the back of the squad car, she had a hard time not letting her emotions get the best of her. Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way. God, did she have to be a failure at everything?
Her life was falling apart. First, Ambrose. And now this. The word “failure” should have been stamped on her forehead. She’d thought she was past the point of feeling like she had as a child, but here she was. Back in the line of fire. Failing at life, just as her estranged family had predicted. Her poor mother was going to be so disappointed. At least she was away with Jimmy for the weekend, but that meant calling her for bail wasn’t even an option—not that she wouldn’t be too ashamed to anyway. All Lysette had ever wanted was for Everly to make something of herself. Instead, now she had a criminal record and a destiny as a lonely cat lady.
Not that being single was bad for some people—but she wanted children someday, and she wanted them to have a father. And she wanted sex. Good, kinky sex with someone who loved her.
It was easy to blame Ambrose now that he was gone. He’d ruined all other men for her. Not only because he’d lied and broken her trust, but because she’d had mind-blowing kinky sex with a dominant that suited her perfectly. What were the chances she’d ever find that again? Even if she settled and dated another guy, she’d be constantly comparing him to Ambrose and coming up disappointed.
After the officer put her information into the computer and took her fingerprints, he locked her in the holding cell with about a dozen other women—mostly from the protest.
Letting out a long sigh, she plopped down on one of the benches. Nothing made you contemplate your life’s direction more than being stuck in a holding cell that stank like urine, with no one to call for bail.
Shit.
There was one person.
Could she swallow her pride enough to do it, or should she spend the night here? Her body was too drained for a terrible night’s sleep. Her emotions were spent—she’d break down sobbing any minute if she didn’t get out of there soon. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball somewhere warm and cry. God, she sounded like such a baby. She hated not being able to deal with shit she’d gotten herself into.
And what about all the other people here? Maybe she should have explained the rules better, warned them what could happen if they weren’t careful to follow the law regarding peaceful protests. She’d built up a pretty decent savings account—money she’d been tucking away in case of an emergency. It was probably enough to pay bail for the people she’d gotten into this mess. It was only fair to get them out of it. But she had to shift things around in her accounts, so it couldn’t happen tonight.
Ugh. She was so fucking tired.
There was nobody she hated worse than herself right now. Not even Ambrose.
But Ambrose might be the only one who could help her. Not just her, but the innocent people she’d landed here. If he could front her the money, she could set things right.
When the police officer handed her the phone, she swallowed back the lump in her throat and dialed his number.
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re one sorry sack of shit, you know that?” Konstantin grinned at him. “Give me your phone.”
“Fuck you. I’m not giving you my phone.” He stared at Konstantin morosely and stretched out on his friend’s ultramodern sofa, feeling like he was in a space-age psychiatrist’s office. So maybe he’d called Everly way too many times and was turning into a pathetic moron. It wasn’t like he had anything left to lose.
“Have some fucking self-respect. Quit calling her. At this point she probably thinks you’re annoying and pathetic, if not a stalker. Even if she’d been thinking about taking you back, how could she ever take you seriously as a Master if you’re groveling like a slave?” Konstantin was petting the girl in his lap as though she were his pet cat. “Slave, should Masters ever grovel?”
Sindee’s eyes widened at suddenly being addressed. “I don’t know, Master. I suppose a Master can do whatever he likes.”
Ambrose chuckled in spite of himself, and Sindee tried to suppress a smile.
Konstantin blinked like he was in pain. “Just agree with me, woman. If I want your honest opinion, I’ll beat it out of you.”
She squirmed in his lap, giggling. “Is that a promise?”
Her master arched a brow at her, and she somehow managed to shrink back without getting off his lap. Talented. “If you have the slightest shred of self-preservation, then yes. I’m not interested in dealing with a bratty girl today.”
She pouted at him, and he kissed her on the forehead.
As much as Ambrose was indifferent about Konstantin’s toy girls, the short, affectionate interaction reminded him of what he’d lost with Everly. It was hard to find a girl that understood his need for both mastering and playfulness, instead of having an unreasonably severe dynamic. Sure, he was a serious guy at times, but life was too short to spend it glaring at the woman he loved. Everly was full of fun, and yet responded instinctively to his style of mastery, giving him
a run for his money at times, but still obedient when it was important.
He must have stared at the girl too long without meaning to, because Konstantin raised his brows and gestured to her. “I’ve told you before, if you want to play with her, you don’t even have to ask. She’s already told me she’s more than willing. Or we could share her, if you’d prefer.”
Sindee bit her lip and eyed him nervously.
“Don’t mind her—I told her how big your dick is a while back, and she’s talked of nothing else since. It’s a good thing I’m not a jealous man, at least not when it comes to you and Banner.”
Nothing about sex even interested Ambrose since Everly left, except for the occasional dream he woke from where his brain tricked him into thinking she was still next to him in bed.
“It’s been weeks. All you do is work. You won’t pull yourself out of this if you never do anything fun.”
Ambrose attempted to entertain the idea.
She’d left him. She wasn’t answering his texts or his phone calls. It felt like his history with Shae was repeating itself, except this time he knew it was his fault. Maybe he hadn’t been engaged to Everly, but it didn’t matter, because his connection with her had run deep—even deeper than things had been with Shae. But no matter how important Everly had become to him, they were over now.
For all he knew, Everly was off playing with other men and sleeping with them. Maybe she even had a new boyfriend. But even if Sindee had been his type, she still wasn’t Everly.
Just thinking her name made his chest ache.
Konstantin groaned and hid his face in Sindee’s hair. “Do you see? He plans on wallowing in his guilt and self-loathing for the rest of his life.” He coaxed the girl up off his lap. “Go to him now and make him happy.”
Sindee recovered her usual self-assured demeanor and stalked over to him with feline grace, as though she didn’t have the slightest hesitation about doing what her Master asked. When he realized she wasn’t going to balk, Ambrose sat up quickly and raised a staying hand.
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