by Tori Carson
She looked at him wearily. “Telling me what you’ve done isn’t the same as discussing it with me. So you’re saying my input holds no value to you?”
“No,” he countered. “Your input is what prompted my decision.”
“Unbeknownst to me…”
“I’m not used to seeking counsel from anyone. That’s not the way I work.” The idea that he needed her permission before taking action on something he felt strongly about went against his grain.
“In your past relationships, your word was always law?” From her tone, it was difficult to tell if she had asked a question or stated a fact.
He stared at her, unsure how to answer. “I’ve never encountered a situation like this before. In truth, I can’t imagine the women I dated would care.” Those who would have paid attention long enough to listen would have trusted his decision.
“Brett I’m incapable of allowing anyone to take over my life like that again. If a decision impacts my life, then I have a say in it. This is one of the reasons I don’t think we can have a relationship.”
“Angela, I’m not with those women anymore. I want to be with you. So together we’ll figure it out.” He didn’t need her coming up with any other reasons they shouldn’t be a couple.
“You lied to me. You led me to believe you were just an average Joe.”
Now we come to the big problem. He needed to put an end to that assumption, right now! “I understand why you think that, but the truth is I walked a fine line and was careful not to actually lie to you.”
“The sin of omission is just as bad. That’s like saying—no, I didn’t sleep with the butcher and in fact you slept with the butcher’s apprentice. Same thing.”
Brett laughed. “Well I’ve never slept with either so you can put that to rest.”
“You know what I mean. You didn’t actually lie, but you did mislead me on purpose.” She looked as if she were struggling not to smile.
He hoped that was the case because no matter how he spun this, he was at fault. “At first I assumed you knew. You were living with Jill and she certainly knew, so I assumed you did. About the same time I realized you thought I lived paycheck to paycheck, I also learned you wouldn’t appreciate my larger than average bank account. At that point, no, I wasn’t in a hurry to set you straight about it.”
“You knew I’d run fast in the opposite direction. Honestly, I still might.”
“No, you won’t. You spent five years in hell to make life better for your family and friends. You won’t desert me when I need you. It’s not your way.” He had to make her see they were right for each other.
“According to my best friend, it is. I’m only after your money. Didn’t you listen to Jill?” Her bottom lip began to quiver.
“Today at lunch I thought you’d accurately summed up Jill. She doesn’t like me. She likes the size of my wallet.” When he’d given Angela the collar, she hadn’t even asked what it was made of. She hadn’t cared. Jill would have had it appraised already.
“Brett, you don’t need me. You want a woman who loves you, the man. Since I’m intimidated by your money and power, you think I’m the perfect girl. In truth, it has very little to do with me and everything to do with the greed of the girls you’ve dated so far.” She dabbed a tissue to the corner of her eyes. “Just like you want to find someone who loves the real you…I need to be needed for who I am—not who I’m not. If that makes any sense.”
He pulled her into a hug. “Why on earth would you think your lack of greed would be the reason I need you? I’m thinking my subbie needs a serious spanking. You have no idea what you mean to me.”
“We’re getting off track—you misled me on purpose. Told me repeatedly you wouldn’t use the things I confided to you against me and yet, you did exactly that.”
“You can make an argument that I used them to my advantage, but at no time did I use them against you.”
“Yes, you did.” Tears started to fall down her cheeks. “You made me fall in love with you.” Her eyes widened and her hand clamped over her mouth, before she rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door closed.
Brett followed her, thinking maybe there was something to Sean’s prediction. He knew it was much too soon for morning sickness to be setting in, but if he could get her to see reason, they might get there eventually. “Angela, open the door.”
“Go away.”
“Not happening, baby. Open the door.” He ordered a little more forcefully. “You can’t hand me a lifeline and then throw me out. Open. The. Door.”
She threw open the door and it bounced off the spring stop. “Don’t order me around. We aren’t in bed, which is another thing you promised.”
Stepping inside, he saw that she was shaking and pale. “Let me hold you, Angela. I don’t like seeing you this way. We’ll work through the rough spots and make this work. Just give us a chance.”
She went into his arms but didn’t hug him back. Her forehead rested on his chest as she stood rigid.
He knew she’d panic again if he brought up the L word, so he needed to go a different direction. “What did I promise?”
Angela tipped her head and met his gaze. “You promised you only wanted control in sexual matters and now you’re ordering me around.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and she started giggling.
“Well it’s true. I just didn’t realize how lame it sounded until I actually voiced it.”
“That’s it. You can’t scare me to death, have me thinking the worst, then be laughing on the inside.” He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He stalked into the spare bedroom and tossed her onto the bed. “Before you get worried, I don’t intend to jump you until we’ve talked this out. I just don’t like the distance between us on the couch. I want to lie down and hold you in my arms. Can we do that?”
“No.” She scrambled to sit against the headboard. “You’ll use unfair sex tactics to get your way. You just stay over there.”
He shook his head. “I’m too far away. You scared me tonight and I need to hold you. You can set the rules, decide the location, anything, but you will be in my arms.”
“You’re boxing me into a corner!” she complained, biting her bottom lip.
“No, I’m telling you what I need, just like I expect you to tell me what you need. I can’t read your mind. You have to tell me.” He felt as if he were dancing with her, one step forward for every two backward.
“I need you to tell me the truth about your life.”
“Again, I haven’t lied.” Brett went and sat in the big comfy chair by the window. “Please, come and sit on my lap. I want to hold you.”
After a moment or two, Angela came to him. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. For several minutes, he just held her. Once she relaxed into him, he found his heart settling into its normal pattern for the first time since she’d walked out of the locker room.
“I have substantial holdings across the eastern seaboard. My actual office is in New York City, but I work from here as much as possible. What exactly do you want to know?” He could drone on for hours, but to what point?
“You hold power in the business world and apparently with our legislature.” She made it an accusation not a question.
“Anyone who makes sizable contributions can expect to have their calls returned. You can do all the research you want, talk to anyone you want. I don’t think you’ll find too many people who say I abuse my power, Angela. I’m a shrewd businessman, but I’ve never sought to harm anyone. It’s not the way I work.” Only time would show her what type of man he was. If he could get her to stick around long enough, she’d understand.
“Brett, laying aside everything else for a moment, how would a relationship between us work?”
Angela’s brain always moved forward, thought of the future. If he could allay her fears now, he’d win a major round. “I really don’t want to control your life, Angela. I have certain hot buttons. Doors slamming in my f
ace are one of them. It pisses me off and I want to break them down.” Okay that wasn’t the best answer he could have given her. Fuck!
Instead of being afraid, she laughed at him. “I figured that out. You looked like your head was going to explode. My stomach has been a mess since lunch and I didn’t want you to see me being sick. I wasn’t really shutting you out, as much as blocking your view.”
“Don’t do it again.” He remembered he should add a “please”, a second or two later. “It’s my right to take care of you. You’re wearing my collar and that means something to me.” He held her chin until her eyes met his. “Thank you for not taking it off. It belongs right where it is.”
“I imagine you travel a lot. If your home office is in New York, you must be there as much as you’re here. How would that work?”
“My business is important to me. I have several projects going that have the ability to positively impact entire towns. These are areas that were hit hard during the recession and need a jump start. While I have teams in place, I have more than money invested in these projects. They matter, so yes, I am gone a lot. In the best possible scenario we’d go together.” He held his hand up. “I know it’s too soon.”
“I could never just be at your beck and call, Brett. I have to have my own life.” She looked scared as she glanced his way.
“Tell it like it is, Angela, you want an escape route. You’ve already got one foot out the door.”
She sighed. “That’s true. It’s not the way I want it, but I won’t lie. I do.”
“You’re scared.”
“Terrified.”
He held her tighter and kissed the top of her head. Fuck. He didn’t know how to get past this.
“Can’t we just take one day at a time?”
She was quiet for a long time. Panic was starting to take life in his belly when she finally gave him his answer.
“Okay.”
The air rushed from his lungs, air he didn’t even know he’d been holding. “Thank you.”
“If there’s anything else you’ve hidden from me that I’m not going to like, tell me now. I don’t want anything else to pop up and bite me in the butt.”
“I’d like to bite your butt.” He shrugged. “Just saying. I like seeing my marks on you.”
“Be serious for a minute.” She giggled and slid around on his lap until his cock was pressing against her ass.
“No…but I do have a favor to ask of you. I know your first reaction will be no, but I want you to come. I can’t get out of it and I don’t want to go alone.”
“What is it?” she asked holding her back straight and slightly away from him.
“I have to speak at a function tomorrow evening. It’s one of those boring fundraiser dinners. I can’t promise it will be fun. The food will likely suck and there will be enough pretentious assholes in the room to make us ill, but I really don’t want to go without you.”
“Brett, you don’t know what you’re asking. He’d drag me to those and if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted, he’d take it out on my family. One time, he killed my cat. I just can’t do it.” She was breathing heavily and sounded like she was near crying.
“I understand, baby. It’s okay.” He had to get her mind out of the past. He’d lose ground if her focus stayed there. “I wish I could cancel, but I really can’t. It’s too short notice for that. I never want you to do something you’re uncomfortable with.” He kissed the top of her head again and just enjoyed holding her in his arms.
“This is what I mean, Brett. I can’t be the woman you need.” Her voice was cracking as she spoke to him.
“Shh, baby. These functions are horrid affairs. No one enjoys them. I’ve never looked at the numbers, but I think they make more money off the people who make excuses and just send large checks to avoid wasting precious hours there. Hours I’d much rather spend with you, here in this room, keeping you on the edge of orgasm.”
“You’re bad.” She started to relax back against him. “I’m sorry our evening was ruined. I was looking forward to the scene you had planned.”
“Me too. We can go Wednesday night. It will be less crowded and more fun anyway.” He slid her shoes off her feet and began walking his fingers up her legs.
She nodded. “This apartment is too beautiful to risk getting wax on any of the surfaces.”
Angela felt his whole body tense. She looked up at him and noticed he was a little green around the edges. “What’s wrong?”
“Do I still have diplomatic immunity? I’m going to need it.” He gave her his “little boy in trouble” grin that melted her heart.
“Spill it. What else did you do?” She had a pretty good idea where this was going.
“The premise I gave you for renting this apartment is accurate. However, I might have bent the truth a little about occupancy rates for this building.”
She fought to keep a serious expression on her face. “Bent or out-and-out broke it?”
“And about where the furniture came from.” He cocked his head to one side. “On second thought, not so much about the furniture because I am writing it off, so disregard that issue.”
“You bought the furniture just for me. That’s how it matched my tastes.” She wanted to be angry, but he was just too damn cute and she couldn’t imagine the trouble he went to in order to get it all together for her in such a short period of time.
“I have an interior designer who works miracles. He probably did pull some of it from storage, but in truth, I authorized him to purchase whatever he needed.”
She pulled her upper lip into her mouth to keep from smiling. “And the apartment itself? I already know you own the whole damn building.”
“It was vacant because it had been refurbished. However, there is a waiting list that you leapfrogged to the top of.”
“You can’t do that,” she protested. She basically stole this apartment from someone.
“Yes I can. Everyone on the list has perfectly acceptable living arrangements. None of them were living with horrible women who tried to put a monkey wrench into my relationship with you.”
He won brownie points for actually checking to make sure the people on the list wouldn’t be displaced by his act of mercy. “Brett, I’m glad they have a place to live, but I don’t feel right taking their lease.”
“Then move in with me. It’s what I wanted in the first place but didn’t think you’d be willing.”
“You know that’s not happening.” She forced herself to laugh when she really wanted to say yes. The idea of not being with him each night bothered her. She’d enjoyed making him breakfast and dinner. Not to mention having him in her bed had some outstanding fringe benefits.
She needed her head examined or maybe a good kick in the ass. He’d lied to her about the apartment, misled her about his life and taken action against her ex behind her back and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed with him. What the fuck was wrong with her? God, she’d even told him she was falling in love with him. Kudos to him for not running out of the apartment. She didn’t know how she felt about him acting as if it never happened. Part of her was definitely relieved, but another part was scared he didn’t feel the same way.
“Where are we at, Angela? Are we okay or do you still want to boil me in oil?”
Damn. She really was falling for him. And she really didn’t think she could be the woman he needed. It’d be better for both of them if she backed out now before it got any worse. “Brett, no matter how much I wish I could be the woman you want…I don’t think it’s possible.”
“How would you know? You’ve never asked me what I want.” He was using his Dom “I’m in charge” voice.
He wasn’t playing fair either. “Fine. Tell me what you expect from a girlfriend.”
“Let’s get it straight. I don’t want a girlfriend; I want a wife. I don’t want a woman to stay at home and allow her life to revolve around me. I want someone with passion and fire. If she wants to work, fine. If she wants t
o do charity work, fine. If she wants to fill the house with kids and be a stay at home mom, fine. I want someone to share my life not become an accessory to mine.”
The puzzle pieces all fell together. That’s exactly what she’d been, how she’d felt. Like her life didn’t matter, like she wasn’t even a real person with wants and dreams, her only purpose was to adorn Ernie’s arm and further his career. Brett said he couldn’t read her mind, but it sure as hell felt like he did.
“Angela, look at me. I want a partner. I want someone to share my life with, but that doesn’t mean I want you to put your life on hold for me. If you want to quit and go to school, I’ll pay for it. If you want to keep your job and go to school, I’ll still pay for it, but I’ll be honest. I hate that idea. I don’t want you so tired and busy you don’t have time for me. I’ve enjoyed being here with you, cooking and figuring out the D/s side of our relationship. If you want to get an internship where you work in the field for a while before you start taking classes, I can help you with that too.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Baby, I want to make you happy, as happy as you make me by just being in my life. Don’t take that away from me. Please.”
Oh good lord, he was killing her. If she really thought she could be what he needed she’d try. Really try, not half-ass try with one foot out the door. “Brett, make love to me, please.”
His eyes darkened and his nostrils flared, igniting a fire in the pit of her stomach.
“Ask properly,” he growled.
“Master, make love to me, please.” He probably wanted her to talk dirty and ask him to fuck her, but that wasn’t what she needed. She wanted tender intimacy.
“As you wish, my sweet subbie.”
* * * * *
Angela woke in his arms wondering why she had ever thought being single was better than this. She felt at peace for the first time since she’d been a little kid. It was more than good, exhaustive sex. Her brain was quiet and she wore a smile. His scent enveloped her and she snuggled closer.
She needed to stop being afraid. Brett had been right; fear was her enemy. If she let it, fear would keep her imprisoned as sure as her dickhead ex-husband. Why was she punishing Brett for her husband’s crimes? No, he hadn’t been completely straight with her, but she hadn’t given him a lot of options either.
