by Mayburn, Ann
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”
“Pull over! You are breaking the law and could go to jail. Please listen to me! ”
“No. I can do this. Now please be quiet so I can get us out of here.”
Traffic began to clear ahead, and she checked her positioning. Gunning Bryan’s car into gear, she shot through the gap before them, quickly gaining distance between them and the paparazzi. She almost hit a minivan that abruptly hit its breaks but managed to drive up slightly onto the curb to pass them.
There was no fucking way she was letting those bastards follow them and hurt her man.
“Kira! What the fuck is wrong with you? Slow down! You almost hit that car. Pull over.”
She ignored him and continued to dart around slower-moving traffic while keeping an eye open for any cops. The last thing she wanted to do was get a ticket where she’d be photographed getting yelled at for endangering people’s lives. Plus Bryan just might have a point about her getting into legal trouble for driving when she wasn’t supposed to. But it wasn’t like she was putting them in any real danger.
She knew what she was doing out here.
Car chases had been one of her specialties in the movies, and she knew how to get the most out of any vehicle, especially a fantastic car like the Aston Martin.
“Are they keeping up?”
Bryan didn’t even look out the window. “Stop the car right now.”
“No. I need to get us safe first. Now stop distracting me.”
“Kira, I mean it. Stop the car. I’m asking you to stop, please.”
She ignored him, taking a hard right onto the freeway. They merged into traffic, and she let out an exhilarated breath. “Fuck. That was fun.”
“Stop the goddamned car, or I swear I will open my door right now and jump out!” He yelled so loud her ears rang.
Startled by his shout, she did as he asked, pulling onto the side of the freeway, her headlights illuminating the grass in front of them. “Are you okay, Bryan?”
“Am I okay? You broke the law, endangered both me and yourself, and didn’t fucking listen to me at all! If I had a safe word, I’d have been screaming it four blocks back. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you determined to get yourself killed?”
Adrenaline still raged through her body and made her emotions sharper than usual. “What the fuck? You should be thanking me for rescuing you from the paparazzi.”
“You didn’t rescue me from anything. I can handle my picture being taken. I can’t handle you totally ignoring me and putting yourself in danger. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see how reckless and dangerous your actions were?”
“Look, we’re fine. I don’t know what the big deal is. So I have a suspended license. Big deal. It doesn’t mean I can’t drive.”
“That’s exactly what it means. Did you even notice all the cars you almost hit? What about that minivan full of kids? You had to drive on the fucking sidewalk to get around them! What if there had been people walking there? What if someone had been in your blind spot and you got in an accident? How many more fucking times are you going to keep taking unnecessary risks before you get killed?”
His words stung, and she hated that he might have a point. “Every second of every day we could die. I could fucking choke to death on a potato chip going down my throat the wrong way.”
“You choking on a potato chip isn’t going to kill other people. Use some fucking common sense.”
“No one got hurt!” she screamed, incredibly pissed that he kept making it seem like she was some psycho running around and trying to kill people.
He hit the dash hard enough to make her jump. “That’s only because you got lucky.”
“That wasn’t luck. That was skill.” Oh, she was mad, red-hot with anger. “You just want me stuck at home being a good little submissive that you can control. Fuck, look at how fucking overbearing you are already! I mean, I can’t even fucking eat nonorganic food now because you worry that I’m going to get some type of rare toxic poisoning from the fucking spray they use on strawberries to kill bugs. Well, that isn’t me, Bryan. I’m going to do what I want, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“You’re right. You are going to do whatever you want, and nothing I say is going to stop you.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto his seat. “I’m sorry, Kira. I can’t see you anymore.”
Stunned, she slumped back into her seat and pressed her hands against the center of her chest. All of her rage drained away so suddenly she felt weak. “What?”
Unbuckling his seat belt, he didn’t look at her. “I can’t trust you. You don’t care what I have to say, you don’t care about your own safety, and you don’t respect me or my wishes.”
“What are you talking about?” Her body broke out in a stinging sweat as a terrible hurt crushed her from within.
He turned on her, the pain in his gaze slicing through her soul. “I can’t trust you to stop, Kira. I can’t trust you to listen to me when you don’t want to. And I can’t trust you with my safety, let alone yours. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. Either it ends now, or it will end up with one of us in the hospital. I care about you too much to be the one who puts you there.”
“I’m sorry!” She reached for him, and he jerked away. “Please don’t go. I’m sorry. I really am.”
He opened the door and stepped out, slamming it behind him. Walking the opposite direction of his car, illuminated by the brake lights, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. She sat there, frozen like that, until his figure was no more than a speck on the horizon, waiting for him to come back.
But he didn’t.
Chapter Fourteen
Bryan’s life was now measured by a different concept of time. He no longer lived by the calendar and clock, but rather by how long it had been since he’d last seen Kira. Five weeks since he’d left her. Three weeks since she’d stopped calling. One week since she’d stopped e-mailing him. One day since he’d received her collar back in the mail.
Sweat dripped down his face as he ran hard on his treadmill, trying to outpace his demons.
He missed her immensely.
With Kira gone, he found himself drifting, not really having a sense of purpose anymore. When he’d left her, he’d left a part of himself behind too. He’d never experienced emotional pain like this, not even during the sex tape scandal and his subsequent banishment.
The hour mark rang out from the treadmill, and he considered pushing it, then caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and slowed down. His muscles stood out in sharp relief from his body, all the fat gone from his constant exercising and not having the will or desire to eat.
He looked like shit and felt like shit from the inside out.
Breathing heavily, he snagged his towel off the treadmill and wiped his face and head. Before he left the room, he picked up Kira’s collar from where he’d placed it next to the treadmill, a physical reminder of why he couldn’t take her back. This hunk of metal had symbolized their mutual trust, their respect for one another. Their possible love and future together.
Striding into the showers off his personal gym, he stripped out of his sweaty clothes and, despite his dark thoughts, gently placed her collar on the counter where he could see it from the shower. The emerald at the center sparkled beneath the bright lights, and he remembered how beautiful it had looked on Kira.
Images of their time together flew through his mind. Her laughter, her cute scowl, and finally her intense concentration as she wove through traffic, totally ignoring him and putting them both in danger. If she hadn’t passed out the night before because she didn’t safeword, he wouldn’t have been nearly so pissed, and sure that they weren’t right for each other.
The hollow ache in his chest that had never really gone away flared to life as he thought about the picture of their kiss together. True to his prediction, the paparazzi had dredged up the old stories about him, but it didn’t change an
ything. The public had moved on to new scandals, and his grainy video from the past didn’t warrant a second look. Thank God no one had realized Kira was driving on a suspended license.
He couldn’t help but wonder if part of the reason he hadn’t been on the cover of every tabloid was because Kira had taken a risk to lose the paparazzi on their tail. Had she saved him from another round of being torn apart in the public eye? Did he make a mistake in ending this with her?
No, he did the right thing. With her reckless disregard for her own personal safety, it was inevitable that she wouldn’t safeword with him when their play got too extreme, and she would be grievously injured. But bloody hell, he didn’t understand it. She’d gotten so good at telling him “yellow” when she needed to slow down. He thought he could trust her, but it had never occurred to him that he would be the one who needed a safe word, that it would be his life that was put in danger. He still had nightmares about looking into the window of the minivan as they drove past it on the curb, and the stunned and terrified faces of the people inside.
He had to stay away. If he talked to her, just once, he had no doubt he’d forgive her for everything she’d done and beg her to come back. But if he did that, he’d only be inviting trouble and chaos into his tightly controlled world.
Toweling off, he donned a thick black robe and belted it around his waist. Grabbing the collar, he then shoved it into the big pocket. The last thing he wanted Lawrence to see was him carrying it around like a teddy bear. Fuck, he’d even slept with the stupid thing last night because it held the faintest trace of her perfume.
He hoped to avoid Lawrence all together. He hadn’t been able to tell Lawrence exactly why they’d broken up, only that it was for Kira’s own good. As close as he was to Lawrence, the idea of telling him that he’d broken up with Kira so he didn’t kill her during sex just wasn’t going to happen. The old man, while not overly vocal about it, let his disapproval of the situation be known. Since his butler was the one who answered Kira’s phone calls, Bryan guessed Lawrence had a right to believe Bryan was acting like a stupid bastard.
Bryan certainly felt like a stupid bastard.
Moving through the first level, a maid intercepted him. “Begging your pardon, Lord Sutherfield, but Mr. Lawrence could use a hand in the basement.”
Since Bryan didn’t allow anyone but Lawrence into his dungeon, he nodded. “Thank you.”
He hesitated a moment before opening the door. On the other side and down the stairs lay the room where he’d made Kira bloom for him. The place where they’d shared each other in just about every way a man and woman could. He didn’t know if he could handle the emotional pain of seeing his dungeon again, this time without Kira’s presence filling it with her bright light.
Mad that he was letting a memory keep him from his dungeon, he jerked the door open and stepped through before slamming it behind him. He took the stairs two at a time, eager to get out of this room after he helped Lawrence with whatever he needed. When he reached the main floor, his empty stomach clenched, and his heart lurched.
Everywhere he looked he could see Kira. Fuck, he could actually feel her. The illusive electric tingle that ran through his body when she was around now sizzled along his nerves. Almost against his will, he took a deep breath of air and despaired when he smelled nothing more than leather and the faint hint of a lemon-based cleaning solution.
“Lawrence? Where are you?”
“Over here, sir.”
He followed the sound of his butler’s voice to where the manacles hung from the wall. Lawrence held one of the shackles with a dismayed expression. “My lord, I’m afraid I broke one of your shackles while polishing the brass.”
Normally Bryan wouldn’t have cared, but those shackles were antiques made during the Victorian era. “Here let me see it.”
Lawrence held it up. “It’s easier if I show you, my lord. It isn’t latching properly.”
Before Bryan knew what was going on, Lawrence had snapped the shackle onto Bryan’s wrist. “Can you get out, sir?”
Bryan jerked at it once and tried to pull it off. “Seems to be working now. Hand me the key.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have the key.” Lawrence took a step back. “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Ms. Harmony to let you out.”
“What?” The strength left his legs, and he leaned back against the wall, the chains clanking next to him.
From the other side of the stairs came her low, husky, beautiful voice. “Hello, Bryan.”
Despairing, he stared at his butler. “Why?”
“Because, sir, Ms. Harmony needs to speak with you, and you refuse to give her the common courtesy of letting her say her piece. It is not only poor manners. It is stupid, and you are too good of a man to do this.”
He kept his head turned away from Kira, but she danced on the edges of his vision like a mirage. “You’re fired.”
“Very good, sir.” Lawrence gave him a small bow and walked away.
“I mean it!” Bryan yelled.
“Just like your father meant it, sir. And your grandfather. And your great-great-great grandfather to my great-great-great grandfather.”
The steps creaked lightly as Lawrence went up the stairs, and all too soon Bryan found himself alone with Kira. He should look at her, yell at her, demand she let him out, then call the police on her and Lawrence for scheming this up. But oh God, he could smell her perfume as she came closer, and his soul reached out to her even as he struggled against acknowledging her presence.
“I’m sorry it has to be like this, Bryan, but I have to talk to you.”
She sounded so very tired and almost defeated. Movement came from the corner of his eye, and he tried to stare at the wall, the floor, anything but her. The edge of her long, amazing auburn hair came into view, and he could no longer resist. He stared at her, drinking in her beauty, starved for a glimpse of her beautiful amber eyes.
Today she wore a long, flowing empire-waist dress in a deep chocolate-brown velvet that flattered her coloring. The neck was low enough to show a hint of cleavage, and her breasts—full, ripe, and creamy—begged for his touch. He looked away from her chest and back to her face, catching her staring at his body like he was staring at hers. When their eyes met, that familiar electricity jumped between them, and he stopped fighting the inevitable.
He was a complete tosser.
He loved her.
They belonged together, like the sun and the moon, and he would have to find some kind of balance to make this work.
“Bryan, I need—”
“Kira, I’m sorry I was such a rotten bastard. I shouldn’t have ended it like I did. Please, let’s give it another go.” The words tumbled out in an uncharacteristic babble before he could stop. Even as he cleared his throat in embarrassment, a great sense of relief filled the emptiness those words left behind.
She gaped at him, the color draining from her cheeks. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” He jerked at the chains. “Let me out of here, love. We can go upstairs and talk like civilized adults. Maybe have a glass of wine, and I can have the chef make us an early dinner.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times before taking in a deep breath. “Bryan, I’m pregnant.”
“You’re what?” A white, rushing noise filled his head, and a sudden clammy sweat broke out all over his body. “My baby? How?”
“Of course your baby!” She took a step back, every physical defense she had going up. With her arms crossed, she glared at him. “I made a mistake, okay? I got my weeks messed up with my pills, and I accidentally skipped a week. It’s my fault. I take all the blame.”
His heart hurt for her. He felt like he knew Kira better than she knew herself, and right now she was almost screaming with the need to be held. But he couldn’t grab her if he was shackled to the fucking wall. Taking a deep breath, he found his focus. The only thing that mattered now was
Kira and their baby.
Bright, startling clarity lit his mind from within, and the implications of that finally set in. Staring at her, he swallowed hard and said, “I’m going to be a father?”
She nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek but she gave him a defiant look. “I’m going to keep the baby. If you choose to be in the child’s life as his or her father, I won’t stop you. If you want to bow out of the child’s life, I will accept that as well, but you will sign over all rights of the baby to me before you do.”
He stared at her, unbelievably insulted that she would even think he wouldn’t want to have a baby with her. Didn’t she know anything about his feelings for her? She drove him absolutely fucking bat shit. “Kira, bloody hell. Unshackle me, woman!”
To his dismay, a bad situation only got worse as Kira began to cry. Poor girl. She was so sure he was going to leave her again. Her trust in him was gone. She sniffed and dashed a tear away. “No, because if I do, I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing you, and that would be wrong. I gave you a thousand chances to get back together with me. You didn’t want me, and you made it very clear. I won’t be with you just because we are going to have a baby.”
He wanted to scream and shout that he loved her, but he managed to keep his voice calm. “I didn’t want to be with you because I was afraid someday I’d kill or maim you.”
“No, Bryan. You didn’t want to be with me because you can’t trust me or control me. I understand that, and I know it is a fatal flaw in our relationship.”
He shook his head, trying to clear it of his racing thoughts. Now was not the time to argue with her. Especially since he was chained to the wall and she held the key. He needed to be calm right now even if his world had suddenly changed in a life-altering way.
Taking a deep breath, he let it out and tried to catch her gaze. “How far along are you?”
“Thirteen weeks-ish. Either I’m measuring big, or they’re a week or so off.” She pressed the material of her dress over her belly, and there was a small but distinct bump. Then she stroked her belly, and it seemed to soothe her. The tense line of her shoulders eased, and she took a deep, watery breath.
