by René, Dani
“I’m always happy to help entrepreneurs,” he offers, settling into the seat I gesture toward. “And this has been a great investment for me. Sins of Seven Los Angeles has seen substantial growth in clients over the past six months. Once we vetted the scum, we found a number of people who need the club.”
“I think having a safe place to learn, practice, and meet others in the lifestyle is important. Honestly, I didn’t think about this until I had some time last night.”
“Where’s Oliver?”
I knew he’d ask. I didn’t expect the mention of the man’s name to affect me so much, but my chest tightens at the thought of him not being here, or me not being with him through this difficult time.
“He had family business to deal with,” I respond, waving it off as if it’s nothing. But when I meet Nathan’s dark gaze, I know he knows what’s going on. His expression tells a thousand words.
“Is it his father?” he asks, and I wonder how much to divulge. This isn’t my story to tell, and offering up Oliver’s secrets is not up to me. “He came here when he was just seventeen because of the old man. His father is a piece of work.”
“You know him?”
“Not personally. I grew up in much the same environment as Oliver did. Rich family, beautiful mansions, expensive cars, but when my mother found out about my needs, she wanted nothing more than to disown me, but she had to keep up appearances.”
“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Nate shrugs. “I confessed my life story one night to Oliver when we were at college together. I told him why I have this innate need to humiliate and degrade women. And he realized we had so much more in common than we’d anticipated.”
Flicking the pen between my fingers, I want to ask, but I’m afraid to learn more about Oliver. What if it’s something I can’t look past or something that will change the way I feel about him?
“He’s closed himself off to everything. I’ve tried. I can’t do it,” I admit, shaking my head when I recall the words he uttered to me.
“Listen to me,” Nate says. “I was like Oliver, so much so that I craved seeing my submissives broken to the point of them wanting to run away. I wanted them to hate me because I hated me. I never let myself forgive those in my past, and that’s what broke me.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was fifteen, I was attacked by a group of men and women,” he tells me, his voice cracking along with my heart. “I’d been forced to do things . . .” When Nate shakes his head, I know this is no joke. It’s torn him into pieces, and I realize we have so much more in common than I could’ve imagined.
“I . . .” My words fall into silence when I try to figure out how to say this. “I know how it feels; only, I was paid to be at a party a long while ago. The man I was dating, the man I thought I could trust, he . . .” My eyes burn, and my body shudders when I recall the memories of that night.
It’s been so long since I allowed myself to go back there. And now that I’ve done it twice in the last week, I find myself slipping.
“Hey.” Nathan’s voice is hard, commanding, causing me to look up at him. “You’re stronger than your past. Anyone who can survive something like that and function on the other side of it is brave and resilient.”
“Four men. And me. And I didn’t know how I would ever survive.”
“But you did,” he insists again. He doesn’t reach for me, and I’m grateful. I’m not sure I would be as calm thinking about it with someone touching me. “Have you told Oliver?”
I nod.
“Then let him finish what he needs to, but don’t hate him before you learn about his past. There’s so much more to him than you think. Yes, he’s a cold, calculated bastard at times, but he can love. Just let him.”
Chapter 26
Oliver
Staring up at the ceiling, I focus on the patterns, wondering how much more I can fuck up this thing between Chance and me. Yes, I told him I can’t offer him a forever, a relationship, but what I said, and how I said it, that was uncalled for. And of course, I only realized when it was too late.
The thoughts of Chance meld with the images of standing at my father’s grave, and finally laying the old bastard to rest. I want Chance beside me, he should be there, but I can’t explain my feelings for him. I’ve never admitted to myself, or anyone else in my life that I loved them, but perhaps now, with Chance, I can finally allow myself to let someone in.
The memory of my father’s anger at finding Tiago and me flits through my mind, reminding me of how he reacted when he learned about me and my feelings for Tiago.
“Oliver, you know the kids in school are never going to understand how we feel,” he pleads with me. Tiago’s big brown eyes stare right through me. I know he’s right. They’ll bully us until we graduate and leave this shithole town behind.
The city would’ve been so much easier. I hate my father in that moment for forcing us to live here. I’ve always wanted to live in a big city where nobody knows who I am, or what I am. It’s difficult enough pleasing my father, making sure I’m the perfect son to follow in his footsteps but to parade around school and act like those jocks, that’s not who I am.
Nodding, I turn away from the boy who’s caught my eye. The first boy to ever reciprocate my feelings. “I know,” I answer him, but I can’t face him. My chest aches; my heart is thrumming against my ribs. I’ve never been more nervous before, because when I turn to him, I see his smile.
Deep dimples dip into his cheeks. They’re cute, sexy even, and I watch his full lips tilt up into a shy smile. I’ve always known I was different. And I’m okay with that. It’s everyone else that worries me.
“Come here, Oliver,” he says in that accent, a gentle lilt of Spanish. He moves closer toward me, his one hand holding my cheek. Even though he’s taking the lead, I don’t allow him that position for too long, because soon, my hand is tangled in his black curls as I tug him closer.
Our lips mold together. The gentleness of his kiss is foreign, but it feels so right. However, the second it’s there, the next moment, it’s gone. And as soon as I open my eyes, I find the angry, steel gray of my father’s glare.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Cartwright Michaelson, my father, is like a raging tornado that sweeps through you without you knowing what happened. His voice booms across the garden, and I’m stumbling backward in an attempt to stay out of the eye of the storm.
Tiago is on the ground, his ass hitting the grass with a loud thud, and then my father is rounding on me. Storming toward me like a fucking hurricane, he raises his hand but stills the moment he realizes what he’s doing. It’s the first and only time he’s attempted to hit me.
“Get the fuck inside and wait in the kitchen.”
“But, Dad—”
He pins me with a stare so fierce I shut my mouth and head inside with one lingering glance at Tiago, and I know it’s the last time I’ll ever see the boy with the big brown eyes and shaggy black hair.
I wonder just how I’m meant to look my father in the eyes and tell him everything I’d wanted to say for most of my life. Yes, there are things he probably knows already, like how much I hate him, but to admit I broke because of something I should’ve been able to control, that’s what scares me the most.
Picking up my phone, I scroll through the list of recent calls and find the one that glares at me accusingly. I know I shouldn’t call because of how I left things, but he’s the only person who can calm me down right now. At least, get me into the right headspace for this shit show.
Since he walked out of my house last night, I vowed not to bend and break by contacting him, but I can’t help myself. Pressing the phone to my ear, I listen to the ringing, silently pleading for him to pick up the phone, for him to hear me out, and perhaps agree to come here and see me face to face so we can sort out the tension and anger between us.
“Oliver.” My name is uttered with wariness, causing me to shut my eyes in frustration. I did this to
us. He was ready to love me, and I practically told him he meant nothing to me.
“I needed to know you’re okay.”
Silence greets me. But I can hear his breathing. He’s sitting there, listening to my short, nervous breaths, and I wonder what he’s thinking. He doesn’t say anything for a long while, but then he awards me with a response.
“I’m fine.” Two of the scariest words I’ll ever hear in my life. Love is a strange emotion. It takes hold of you, holding you safe in its warmth, but when it’s hurt or broken, it burns you from the inside out.
“I should be home in the next couple of days,” I tell him.
He sighs. “Okay. Well, I’m busy at the moment. Is there something you wanted?”
Is there?
I don’t know.
“Yes. I’d like a meeting in my office on Friday morning. We’ll cancel whatever time is left on the contract and bring this arrangement to an end.”
He doesn’t breathe for long moments. There’s nothing on the other end, just silence that deafens me. I wait for him to refuse my offer. To tell me he wants me, for me to see how much he cares. And at this moment, I want him to say the words. To admit he loves me.
“Fine. See you Friday.”
The tone in his voice, the finality of what’s coming only seems to make my chest hurt, and my lungs struggle to pull in air. In all the years of training submissives, I’ve never once wanted one of them to stick around. Even when I canceled an agreement early, I was always happy to see them go off and be happy. But all I can think of is the pain in my chest.
Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I shrug on my shirt and pull up the slacks I’d discarded earlier. With my jacket on, I forgo the tie and grab the keys to my car. It’s time to face the man who I used to call a father. Outside, I take a long deep breath, attempting to focus on the task at hand, but there’s nothing that can take away the words Chance just uttered.
Regret — a motherfucker punch to the gut.
Driving down roads that bring back memories, I turn into the driveway of the two-story home I grew up in. Everything about it is the same, except it’s aged along with my father. It’s no longer shiny and new. There’s paint peeling, the windows are cracked, and the wood is slowly rotting.
Seeing it in this state only confirms what I always knew. When everything seems picturesque and serene on the outside, don’t be fooled by it. Beneath that shiny exterior can be a dark, ugly rot infesting in every crevice. And slowly but surely it will seep through, and soon, you’re as ugly as you are on the inside. People will soon see you for what you truly are.
I shove the door open and exit the car. I hear the creak of the door before I see him. When my father steps out onto the porch, I don’t recognize him at first. He’s no longer the strong, formidable man I once knew.
The frailty of his frame is evident. The sickness has eaten away at him, and the clothes he once held so dear to him are torn and ratty. He doesn’t look like an infamous lawyer anymore. No, my father looks like a homeless person.
“Oliver?”
I step closer to the house, needing to see him close up. The moment I do, I see myself, and the image cuts through me like a sleek, hot blade through butter. This could be me in twenty odd years, and it scares the shit out of me.
He’s tortured. His face holds wrinkles that are worn in from the lies and guilt. His gaze is ice, pain, and regret shining in them as he watches me. Chance’s words burn me at that moment.
If you don’t let someone in, you’ll die alone.
Alone.
Dying.
He croaks out the words, “You came.”
“I had to sort out the paperwork,” I tell him as I step up onto the porch. Family reunions are meant to be emotional exchanges — hugs and kind words — but this is nothing like that.
I watch my father nod, then gesture for me to enter the house. As soon as I do, I’m hit by the agony of a seventeen-year-old boy. I’m hit so harshly by the memory of hobbling home that day that tears burn my eyes.
It was the last day I ever cried. And even now, I don’t allow myself to let it happen. Instead, I blink back the tears and take in the house.
“Did you want something to drink?” My father raises his brows in what? Hope?
Nodding, I offer him a response. “Sure. Whiskey if you have it.”
He turns and heads down the hallway toward our kitchen, and I make my way to the patio door. The garden that was once lush and manicured looks like an overgrown forest. Weeds are taking over, and the grass that was once bright green is now a dreary yellow — dried out and dying, just like Cartwright Michaelson.
“Here you go.” My father enters the room, handing me a glass, then settling in his recliner. The old piece of furniture has been his favorite for so long, and if I ever attempted to perch my ass in it, he’d practically drag me from the chair and dump me on the sofa. “I didn’t think you’d come.” His voice is pained, and the tension in the room is thick and heavy, like a fog rolling in.
Watching him for a moment, I notice how his body slumps against the left arm of the chair. He looks like he’s not going to move for days, and I wonder if that will be the spot where he’ll take his last breath.
The morbid thoughts grip me in their feral hold. Reminding me of just how much time I’ve been away. When I last saw my father, he was strong, tall, with broad shoulders, and his head was thick with salt-and-pepper hair.
Now though, he’s almost bald, his skin is shallow, and the way it hangs from his bones makes me think he could easily break. Old age, sickness, it takes its toll, and perhaps it was my father’s lifestyle of drinking and whores that made him ill. Maybe it was the way karma turned around to bite him in the ass, but he looks nothing like the Cartwright Michaelson I used to call dad.
“Well, I’m the only offspring. They called me. You didn’t tell me your brother is working for you.” It’s a statement, an angry one, but he merely waves my comment off.
“All these years, you’ve never told me why you’re so angry at him. He’s your unc—”
“He’s no fucking family of mine!” I bite out, rearing my hand back, flinging the tumbler against the far wall, causing my father to cringe in shock.
“Are you going to tell a dying man why?” he questions, lifting his dreary gaze to mine. I settle on the sofa and watch him for a moment, contemplating his request. Do I tell my father what happened to me, or do I allow him to die in peace?
Chapter 27
Chance
Hitting send on the email, I sit back, happy with the work I’ve put into the business plan. As much as I focused on what I needed to do, Oliver’s request is still replaying in my mind on a never-ending loop.
If he wants to cancel the agreement, it means he wants to move on. At least, that’s what it seems like. I rise, heading into the living room, and I flop onto my sofa, closing my eyes. I want to call him. My fingers itch to talk, to hit dial on his number, or tap out a message to him, but I have to allow him to make the first move.
“Damn you, Oliver Michaelson,” I tell the empty room. My phone buzzes wildly then, vibrating on the countertop in the kitchen. As soon as I reach the object, the ringing stops, and restarts. The screen lights up with Oliver’s name, and I contemplate not answering. But he wouldn’t call again if it wasn’t urgent.
“Oliver.”
“Chance, forgive me.”
My brows furrow. It’s almost midnight, and I wonder if he’s drunk. “What?”
I’m met with silence, and I wonder if he hung up after dialing me, realizing it was a bad idea. “I saw my father today.” His words are filled with pain so acute I feel it over the line right to the core of me.
“Okay. But why are you calling me, Oliver? I told you, I can’t do this. Your back and forth is—”
“Chance, I want you here.” His words come out in a loud whoosh. They tumble over the line, leaving me confused.
“You want me. You don’t want me. Oliver, I’m
not a toy. I’m not yours to own,” I tell him. “I love you. If that’s too much for you to handle, then we end this right here. I can’t not love you.” A weight is lifted from my shoulders as I confess my feelings. The words I’d been holding in for so long finally tumble free, and I feel like a man who’s finally taking control.
“I know. I’m a mess. I’ve always been a mess. Even though it seems as if I’m in control, my personal life is far from it. Chance, I don’t know how to deal with this anymore.”
I have a feeling this is the most challenging thing he’s ever had to do. The trepidation in his voice is evident. He’s nervous. I doubt Oliver has ever had to give up his control, and perhaps that’s where the story lies.
Losing control.
“Come to me. I’ll send a driver to collect you and drive you up here. Or if you want to fly, then I’ll have my private plane fly you here.” He finally breathes over the line.
“But I don’t understand why. I mean, you wanted to end our contract.” I settle on the stool because my legs are shaking, my hands are trembling, and I’m losing all my confidence. I want him, and I need him to say these things, but what if he changes his mind tomorrow? Fear trickles down my spine at the thought.
“I’ve never been a man to beg. I’ve always had others pleading with me, but right now, I am begging you, Chance. You’ve broken me down. I need you here. Please.” His voice cracks on the word. I wonder if he’s ever needed to say it to anyone before. I doubt it. He’s never been in a relationship, if that’s even what we have. “If you come up to see where my past lies, I’ll give you everything, Chance. I promise.”
When he goes silent, I know he’s leaving this up to me. He’s not ordering me. He’s not commanding me.
“Fine, get the plane ready. I’ll be at the airport in an hour.”
