Why didn’t I tell her? Why? I love you…it was so easy for me to tell her now in my head. I said it into her mouth while we made the most incredible passionate love during that storm. I didn’t have the courage to even say it to her face. I was still struck by fear of her past and what she wasn’t telling me yet. I should have just said it out loud. Fuck. And now she was God knows where. I ran down to the townhouse hoping Mel might have a clue.
I was breathless as I ran into the kitchen, where they all sat at the island, waiting for us to come back. Mel looked at me and then behind me looking for Izzy. “Where is she?” She asked with a look of panic.
“I don’t fucking know. She told me everything and then I couldn’t contain my anger. I went crazy punching the wall and throwing things and turned around as she was running out the door. I couldn’t catch her. She grabbed a cab and now I can’t figure out where she would have gone.” I was shaking now. Where the hell was she? What was she thinking? I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of being without her. “Mel, where the hell would she go?” I yelled but pleaded with her hoping she would have a clue.
“I…I don’t know.” She searched space with her eyes, trying to think of something. “The trail?” “No, it’s too late for that. She wouldn’t go there this late and she was in a fucking cab.” I spat out, but felt guilty for being rough with her. “Fuck,” I screamed out as I pulled out my phone and began calling her number frantically. It went straight to voice mail.
“Z, we’ll find her. It’ll be okay.” Flynn said trying to calm me down. Mel picked up her cell.
“No! It’s not going to be okay!” I screamed out. They didn’t know the whole story, how bad he really fucked with her head. I felt like she just left me forever. “Mel, is she, do you think she would try to hurt herself?” I had no idea what frame of mind she might be in. She wouldn’t take her life, would she? I was starting to panic.
“No, I really don’t think so. I mean after all she’s been through…” Mel was starting to look as panicked as I was. “I’m calling her, but there’s no answer.”
“What about where you went? The ocean? She loved it there. She couldn’t stop talking about how much fun you guys had there.” Flynn said with hope in his voice. Yeah. The inn. I picked up the phone to call and see if she checked in there. The lady at the front desk said no one with her description, nor this late, had come. I gave her my name and number and begged her to call me if Izzy showed up at any point in time.
I texted Izzy and called her over and over again. No response. Her phone went straight to voicemail. I texted over and over again:
Please come home. I promise, I’m not mad. Please…X
I’m sorry for my reaction.
Baby please come home. PLEASE X
I wrote countless other things. Nothing. No response. I thought for sure if I added in my “promise” that I would get her normal response of ‘promises, promises.’ Flynn handed me a glass of Jack. I drank it down as fast as I could, feeling the burn, hoping for the burn to punish me for not being caring and loving with her when she needed it. Instead I acted like an asshole and went crazy.
My glass was refilled just as soon as I set it down. I put my head down trying to think of where she would have gone. I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Mel screamed running after me.
“To look for Izzy,” I spat back. I spun back around adding, “Call me if she comes back here!”
I stopped at my house and ran inside, hoping, but knowing she wouldn’t be there. I drove the streets on my bike searching for any sign of her. I checked everywhere she might have gone. I even drove out to the park where were we loved to hike, which was closed. The sun was coming up and still no sign of her. I drove back to my house hoping she was sitting on the steps. Nothing. I checked inside. Nothing. I called Mel, but she told me she wasn’t in her room and hadn’t been back. I drove out to the Inn, but she hadn’t checked in there. I drove around the area and went to the restaurant we went to, hoping she might be sitting there staring out to the ocean. But she wasn’t there. I texted and called her a thousand more times during my drive at every stop I made. Where the fuck was she?
I wasn’t panicked anymore. I was terrified. Did she just leave me? Is she with him? Is it over? I drove back to my house and called Mel again telling her if she comes to call me. I grabbed another drink of Jack. I needed to feel numb. The pain of the thought of Izzy leaving me hurt so fucking bad. After the third drink, I broke down crying as the realization that she wasn’t coming back set in.
The day passed by slowly, torturing me with every passing second that I hadn’t heard from her. Night came and I still sat at the table, waiting, hoping and staring at my phone. Texting and calling her just about every second.
I had to get up to plug my phone in before the battery died. I couldn’t have that. What if she tried to call me? She’s not calling me, I told myself.
A knock at the door made me jump up. Izzy! I ran do the door and flung it open. It was Mel and Flynn. They knew from my disappointment that Izzy hadn’t been here. Mel swallowed hard with tears in her eyes. “What did she say to you? What happened that would make her run?” I shook my head. I couldn’t retell that story. I ran to the bathroom and puked just thinking about it.
THREE DAYS. Three fucking, long days. The three longest days of my entire fucking life passed slowly by. I drove around looking for her. I even went down to the trail and waited for Mark to see if he knew where she was. He looked surprised at first, but then had a smug look on his face. He hadn’t seen her. It took everything I had not to beat the piss out of him just because I had so much frustration in me. I called her endlessly. I texted her nonstop. Not a single response from her. No call. Nothing.
I stopped by the bar, last ditch hope that she might be there. She wasn’t. I walked into my office, looked at my desk and felt sick remembering how I took her so forcefully. Why had I done that? I told her I had to claim her...as if she were an object. An object instead of the woman I’m in love with. I felt sick thinking of how I ‘claimed’ her and then what she told me McKnight had done to her. How he made her feel like a cheap whore and I had probably made her feel the same in the manner I had screwed her on my desk.
I looked around my office wondering why no one had bothered to clean it for me, like whoever had done in the past, when I flaked out after Fucking Whore cheated on me. They didn’t even prep the alcohol order for the week.
Mark walked in just as I was glancing around.
“Hey Boss. How ya hanging in there?” He asked, concern clearly marked over his face. I could tell he already knew what happened. That Izzy left me.
“Yeah, not so great.” I looked away knowing I still had tears trying to well up in my eyes. I was able to swipe them away quickly. “How come you or Sandy didn’t get a chance to get the alcohol order ready for me to sign off on?” I asked trying to change the subject, trying to at least escape the thought of Izzy leaving me for a second or so.
“Um, Sandy and I weren’t the ones doing that, Boss. Izzy started doing that almost from day one. She also worked on the books for you.” He looked at me curiously. “Sandy and I thought you knew that. Thought you told her to since she has that accounting degree and all. Not to mention she was practically a manager at that bar she worked at in college. She knew how to do all that.”
Fuck. How stupid am I? I didn’t see all that she had done for me...all this time. She took the time when I was falling apart to help me out, to take care of things that needed to get done during a tough time. And here I couldn’t even give her that sympathetic ear she needed to get through retelling what horrible shit she went through. I shook my head and tried to hold it together.
Mark put his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry Boss, you’ll find her. It’ll be okay. She really loves you. She’ll come back.” He gave me a final pat as he walked out my office door to the bar.
I went back home, my last hope that she might turn up
at some point. Today was the third day I was without Izzy. I decided not to drive around anymore and stay at the house hoping she would come here. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. I kept staring at the phone. “Call me!” I screamed at my phone. Why won’t she just call me? Just call me just to talk? I just want to know she’s okay. “Fuck,” I screamed out to no one.
My phone rang and I jumped, grabbing it, hoping it was Izzy. I glanced at the caller ID. Matt. My stomach dropped. She wasn’t calling. Who was I kidding? I answered hoping for inspiration from my big brother.
“I heard you’re all out of sorts.” Matt said sadly.
“She left me.” I told him. “She left me, Matt.”
“Oh man…” Matt sighed. “Z, I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got a business dinner in town tonight. I’ll come over after and we’ll…we’ll go out or something. It’s gonna to be alright Z, really, you’ll get through this,” he said hopeful.
“No, no I won’t. I love her. I fucking love her. I want her forever and she’s gone, Matt. She’s fucking gone.”
“Hey…come on Z. It’ll be okay. Really. Maybe she just needs to work out some shit. It’ll be okay.” Nope. No, it wasn’t. But I was done telling him that.
“Look, I’ll be over later, we’ll hang out and figure stuff out. It’ll be alright. Hang in there, brother. I’ll be over later,” Matt insisted.
“Yeah, okay.” I said hanging up. What the fuck did he know? He never wanted any relationship. He was pretty much like Clark and liked to fuck anything that walked. I wasn’t like that, I wanted Izzy. She’s all I ever wanted.
I continued texting and calling her phone. Nothing. All day long.
Then my phone rang around six-thirty. It was Matt again. I picked it up, again, disappointed it wasn’t Izzy. “Brother, what would you say to Izzy right this second if she were standing right in front of you?”
“I’d tell her that I’m sorry for being such a jackass and flipping out instead of telling her how much I love her.”
“Well, Z, get your fucking ass over to The Magenta now. Izzy’s here. She’s sitting at a table with some guy.”
I jumped up off the couch and grabbed my keys while still on the phone with Matt. I swiped away at the tears that had welled up in my eyes and sniffled. “Did she see you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t let her see you, but don’t let her leave. I’m on my way,” I screamed into the phone.
She was with him? Why? Why the fuck was she with him? What the fuck was she doing? She fucking left me for him? Why?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Izzy
I SAT at the table trying to contain my nerves. I was practically shaking. It had been three days since I left Z in the cab. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I wanted so badly to be with him. I missed him so much. Z was everything to me. He called me constantly, but I had to ignore the calls and texts. Going back to him just meant him looking at me with disgust, or worse, pity.
All I heard when I thought of him was his anger, punching the wall and tearing up his office, screaming. He deserves so much better. He doesn’t deserve someone like me who had such a fucked up past. He didn’t love me. He never said it and I knew that if he did now it would be because he just felt sorry for me. He would never love me and I knew it. I had to leave him and hope he could find someone he would eventually love. Someone normal. I was never going to be normal. Never. I went to a nearby hotel trying to figure out what to do.
I called Pierce. The earliest he could meet me was in three days. I had to meet him and make sure Z’s bar wouldn’t be shut down. I couldn’t have Z lose his bar because of me. I knew if I called Z or texted him, he would come find me and I would never be able to meet with him for dinner and I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to save Z’s bar.
Pierce sat across from me. It was a beautiful restaurant. The type he used to take me to all the time. High class. I looked down at the gazillion types of silverware before me, remembering the first time he took me to a restaurant similar to this. I had waited and watched what he used before I reached for my own silverware.
“You’re not eating, Isabella. I asked you to join me for dinner. That does entail eating,” he said with a smirk.
I picked up one of the many forks, but didn’t really want to eat. I pushed my food around. I glanced up at him seated across from me at the small intimate table. His dark wavy hair was slightly disheveled. His gorgeous piercing blue eyes gazed at me, lit up by that smirk. Again, he had that slight unshaven look, which I knew he had done just for me. It was hard to sit so close to him and not feel something. It wasn’t love I felt for him anymore, but I couldn’t find the right word for what I felt.
“How did you find me?” For three days I racked my brain trying to figure it out, but I could only come up with Steve telling him. But I couldn’t help but feel Steve wouldn’t have done that to me.
He sneered and shook his head in a degrading manner. “Melanie’s phone. I began tracing it since you left. Where else would you go?”
I slumped feeling stupid. Of course, where else would I go? He noticed my demeanor. “Alone again, Isabella? That’s why you and I always worked so well together. We had no one but each other. You really were my true companion.” Tears formed in my eyes. I hoped he wasn’t implying that I come back to him.
“Your lesson was just as hard on me as it was for you.” My eyes shot up to his. Never could he have felt what I had felt from that. He noticed my intense stare. “No, really. You don’t believe me, but it’s true.” He licked his lips. “I may not be able to love, Isabella, but our relationship came as close as I will ever come to that. I felt it was on a deeper level than what most call love.” He took another sip of wine and continued, “Love is thrown around these days. What we had was much, much more.”
Knowing what I now know, feeling what I feel for Z, I straightened myself in my chair and vehemently disagreed, “No! No it wasn’t. I know what love feels like. What you and I shared was nothing close to love.” I stared at him no longer feeling the fear of punishment.
“Perhaps,” he replied simply, raising an eyebrow while he took a deep breath.
“What is it you really want from me? Why am I here?” I asked in an almost impatient manner wanting to just leave. I just wanted to be done with this so I could move along to another town far, far away from here. I would start over and no one would ever know my history.
“Closure. For both of us. You left abruptly. I thought we would have dinner the following night and we would discuss my…lesson. I didn’t think the lesson would affect me the way it did.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, “But seeing Mark with you affected me the wrong way. I may have gotten carried away with that idea. I was going to tell you at dinner that it was over. I was going to set you up at one of my companies wherever you wanted. That way I could still do as I please with you whenever I wanted, like in the beginning, but you had already left when I came home.” Again, he took a deep breath and sighed.
“So now, I am finally going to ask you what has irked me our entire time together.” He stared into my eyes. “You never used your safe word. Why?” He asked angrily, gritting his teeth.
Tears welled in my eyes and I was angry that they formed. “I had hopes that you would eventually love me if I could take your punishments. I would have accepted anything you did to me, just to be loved.” I paused biting my lip in hopes to stop the tears from falling, “But you proved me wrong.”
He closed his eyes and his head fell back as he bellowed a deep laugh that felt like it resonated throughout the restaurant. “That’s why you never used it? What a fool you are.” He chuckled. “Always hoping for love.” He took a deep breath and asked, “Did you tell Mr. Williams what happened on our last night?”
Tears were falling as I let his words echo through my head as I whispered, “Yes.”
“The last lesson…” He took a deep breath, “I thought for sure you knew it wasn’t me on the bed with
you. I thought you would finally use your safe word. I was tired of your little game of not using the safe word. Tired of us. We were going nowhere as much as I tried to get you to use your safe word. I guess you were lucky I came up with that lesson with Mark. Seeing you with him, I didn’t want to have anything else to do with you.”
“You chose that, not me! I had no idea what was going on,” I practically shouted, but knew not to raise my voice too loud.
“You were so hopeful for love that you couldn’t even tell if it was me, the person you claim to want to be loved by? What a fool you are.” An evil laugh came from his lips. “Anyone could have been with you in that manner, and you would have claimed they loved you?”
He took a picture out from his coat pocket, placed it upside down on the table sliding it to me. I didn’t bother looking at it. I was terrified it was a picture of my trainer, Mark and me. “Aren’t you going to look at it, Isabella?” I shook my head. He sighed. “Stubborn. Always stubborn. It did make it fun for me though.” He licked his lips. “When you are feeling bold, you may want to look at that picture and remember what it felt like to feel loved, seeing as you’ll never have that feeling again.”
I felt sick, but still refused to look at the picture. I wasn’t sure what it would show me, but since it was from him, I had no desire to see it. “The private investigator gave me a wealth of information. You should be careful running alone, especially when you ran down near Mr. Williams’ training gym. I could have had you nabbed any time I wished.”
I jerked my head up looking at him, surprised, yet relieved that I wasn’t crazy. “There was someone following me,” I cried out. Pierce confirmed it with a smirk.
He stood up and buttoned his suit coat. “Well, I think I have what I came for. Thank you for answering me.” He removed a paper from the inside of his suit coat and tossed it onto the table. “Payment for two years, in addition to the eight grand I already put in your account. That was for your virginity. I’d have made it an even ten grand had you moaned a little more. You served me well, Isabella. Good luck to you.” Then he leaned down and whispered into my ear, “You know where I am if you ever want to be reminded of what love really means to people like you and me.”
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