“What are they going to call you now, Lady Mistress?” Sheila asked, brown eyes trained on Athena’s face.
Jimmy came out from behind the bar, interjecting his body in between the two of them, breaking Sheila’s line of sight. “Keep it up,” he said between his teeth. “She can have your privileges suspended by the membership committee. Is that what you want?”
“Jimmy, that’s not necessary.” Athena slid off the stool. She appreciated his stepping up to defend her, but from the wooden expression he turned toward her, she thought he was just doing his job. She put down money for the drink and a tip, and shifted to meet Sheila’s gaze. Sheila had hugged her the first time Athena returned to the club after Roy’s death, but their relationship was defined by the location, the setting. It wasn’t like she and Sheila were the type of friends who visited one another’s homes or had shared interests outside the club.
During Roy’s illness, she’d discovered which of his friends were true and which were fond acquaintances or worse, hangers-on. When things changed so dramatically, all but one’s true friends disappeared, didn’t they? “Thank you, Jimmy. It’s clear I’m not welcome here, so I won’t be returning. Good night.”
She thought she saw a look of regret on Jimmy’s face, a protest rising on his lips, but she was already turning, walking up the corridor, nodding politely to the hostess as she took her leave.
She reminded herself Sheila had resented her decision in a way that was disproportionately personal. Everyone knew she had some issues with authority, which was one of many reasons she’d embraced being a Domme. Whereas for Amy, it was the simple pleasure of topping a sub. That was the point. The motive was different for all of them. Some natural, some benignly dysfunctional, but all healthy as long as it was consensual and no one was hurt in the wrong kind of way.
So reasonable and logical. During those weeks Athena had been managing her worries, she’d considered that she might be “making too much of it,” just as Dale had suggested. That rationalization had brought her here tonight, with her insulated bubble of unchallenged ideas.
There’d been no physical violence. Sheila hadn’t even raised her voice, not really, yet the bubble had burst, and those ideas had disintegrated in the air of reality. Athena felt shredded inside. Now that she’d revealed her true nature, she was hit by shame and misery. They thought she was a liar and a fake, so how could she feel validated as a submissive? Even knowing she was being irrational, the feelings only expanded as she left the building, like a thick black smoke obscuring everything else.
Yes, Dale had seen what she was, and when he looked at her, she felt she’d embraced her true self. For heaven’s sake, she’d admitted she loved him. But she hadn’t said it to him, had she? And here she was, her confidence in who and what she was shattered in a matter of minutes. If that sense of herself was that fragile, had she just been kidding herself all along, on all of it? Had she been right in the beginning, that she should have kept her request to Dale limited to physical sessions?
No. There was no way he would have ever accepted that. He’d said so at the beginning. So she’d stepped into his world, telling herself it would be a nice fantasy. Then he’d swept her away and it became so much more than that. He’d become so much more than that. But she couldn’t back away from this and keep him. It was too much a part of what he was. She could never ask him to give it up.
She tried to ignore the fact that giving up being his submissive, for her own self, felt like a raw wound in her chest. That didn’t matter. Maybe it was time to end all of it, go back to the identity she knew best. Athena Summers, businesswoman, philanthropist, a person who liked to read and garden on her days off. She’d handled losing a husband she’d loved for over two decades. She could handle . . . whatever else she had to give up.
As she headed for her car, she felt like a tired and downtrodden middle-aged woman, wanting a cup of tea and to go to bed early.
She was pulling in her driveway when the cell phone rang. She saw it was him, but she didn’t answer. She listened to his message, though, her heart aching at the sound of his warm voice and children in the background. “Hey, girl. Hope you had a good day. I’ll be coming back tomorrow. Want to do dinner and a movie? I’d suggest my place, but my crappy DVD player is a poor substitute for your home theater. I told Gayle’s boys about it and they said if they had their own movie theater, they’d camp out in there every night, make it their bedroom. Sounds pretty good, right? Anyhow, gotta go. I’ll see you soon. I’m thinking about you.”
She sent him a text about thirty minutes later.
Will be busy next couple days, but maybe we can get together this weekend. I’ll call you later. Gone to bed early. Headache. Glad you’re having a good time.
Then she turned off her phone.
Hey, girl. Hey, girl . . . When she crawled into bed, taking two over-the-counter sleep aids, she dreamed of the two of them saying it. Dale’s sensual tease, Sheila’s scornful mockery. The sleep aids didn’t work. She kept waking up, tossing and turning, and finally moved to her reading nook.
They’d put Roy’s hospital bed in the solarium during his final days. He’d wanted to see the gardens, feel the sunlight. Since she didn’t want to sleep in their bed without him, she’d slept here, because it was close by and she could hear him call out. After his death, she’d spent a lot of nights in this chair for the same reasons. She didn’t want to be in their bed alone. From here, she could see the little garden she’d made around his marker. The bronze of the golf statue gleamed in the moonlight. Nearby was the corner she and Dale had redesigned. She averted her eyes from it.
This room was her place, her sanctuary. Her place to hide from the world, to be just Athena, the girl inside the woman, the one who had thought about being a ballerina, a famous writer, an equestrian rider, a tennis player. As that girl grew into a woman, those dreams had been released like balloons in a park, and she’d embraced happiness in ways not anticipated. She’d found a wonderful man who’d loved her.
Reality and romantic dreams didn’t necessary mesh, but that was okay, because the day-to-day exercise of loving someone could exceed both. But what could she be with Dale? She loved being his sub intensely. Loved him, period. However, the Master and sub was an undeniably important, vital part of their relationship. Not because it was too weak to stand without it, but because it was who they were, that definition an integral part of each of their personalities. They’d woven that reality together, and there was no way to retreat from that. Not together. Dale would never be less than a Master, a pure sexual Dominant who would need that part of himself accepted in a permanent, committed relationship. Whereas she knew how to function as a submissive without actively being one, didn’t she? She knew how to fake anything.
She swallowed the jagged ache in her throat and wrapped her arms around herself. She hated that a few cruel words had destroyed her confidence so easily, but what did it say, that they had? She was glad she’d managed to keep her composure, leave the club with dignity, but it didn’t eradicate the sense of shame. She wanted Dale here, yet she didn’t as well. She didn’t want anything right now. Except for the night to last forever, so she didn’t have to face what came tomorrow.
On her most painful days of grieving, she’d understood why some widows said they wished they’d died with their spouses. It had been a while since she’d grappled with that feeling, but it was there, tangled with the mess of other emotions she couldn’t overcome any longer. She put her head down and tried to make it all go away. She prayed for the oblivion of sleep.
—
On the third day, she still hadn’t spoken to Dale. She’d done what was needed for work, and when she wasn’t there, she worked in the garden or read. She felt Lynn’s gaze on her as she moved through the house, Hector watching her as she weeded and pruned. She knew she was acting the way she had when she first started feeling the reality of Roy’s death. Ev
erything was on autopilot.
On the second day, she’d lost the energy to try and analyze why one incident in the club had unlocked all of this inside her. On top of that, those feelings had wrapped themselves up like barbed wire around her feelings with Dale, so that everything hurt so badly. All she could do to mitigate the pain was shut down. She couldn’t examine a wound that raw, and though she knew she was in trouble, she couldn’t make herself care. Not as long as she kept taking care of everything expected of her, and she was.
On day three, Lynn brought the house phone out to the garden. “It’s Mr. Rousseau,” she said clearly. Since the housekeeper wasn’t covering the mouthpiece, Athena knew it was pointless to offer the silent gestures to indicate she wasn’t available, but she tried anyway. In response, the housekeeper simply handed her the phone. “He said he knows you’re here and”—she cleared her throat—“he says you damn well will talk to him. Apologies, ma’am.” Then she fled.
Well, she shouldn’t be surprised that Dale could intimidate someone even over the phone. She put the receiver up to her ear. “That was direct enough,” she said coldly.
“It was intended to be. What’s going on, Athena?”
“Nothing. I just . . .” Hearing his voice, angry and rough, made her heart start to throb. If she opened up the locked box of her feelings, she was pretty sure it would explode. “I need some time, Dale. As I said in my message, I’ll call you when I’m ready. Please respect that.” She cut the connection, set the phone aside.
She went back to her weeding. When the first drop fell on her forearm, she thought it was starting to rain. Glancing up, she noticed a sunny sky, and felt the tears running down her face. Damn it. She bent to her task again, ignoring them, even as they continued to fall into the soil she was disturbing. Hopefully it wouldn’t be enough salt water to harm the plants.
Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying.
She didn’t even notice when Lynn retrieved the phone, until she became aware she was just standing there, watching Athena with worried eyes.
“Ma’am . . . can I bring you a sandwich? It’s well past lunch.”
Athena shook her head, keeping her face averted toward her task. “No. I’m fine, thank you. I’ll fix myself something later. Why don’t you and the other staff take the rest of the day off?”
“Well, I was going to do the curtains . . .”
“I’m sure they can wait.” Athena stared down at the weeds. “In fact, tell everyone they have the week off with pay. Don’t come back until Monday.”
“Mrs. Summers—”
“Lynn.” She’d never snapped at her housekeeper. She curled her fingers inside her gloves, took a deep breath, and pasted a smile on her face, softening the admonition with a chuckle that came out sounding real and warm. A miracle. When she turned her face toward the housekeeper, she’d done a quick swipe, taking away the evidence of the tears. “I mean it. You all work too hard. Take the week. I’ll be fine. Please.”
If there was a touch of desperation in her voice on that last note, there was nothing she could do to help that. Lynn studied her face, gave her a nod. “I’ll be just a phone call away if you need anything, though.”
“Okay. I appreciate that.”
She turned back to ripping up plants. A few moments later, she was alone. Sometimes a woman just needed solitude to figure out what and who she was. Not today, though. She’d think about weeds instead, pulling out what didn’t belong and restoring order to her flower beds.
SEVENTEEN
She woke in her reading chair, her senses tuned to a sharp point. A glance at the wall clock told her it was past midnight. Someone was in the house.
The security alarm wasn’t going off, but she couldn’t remember if she’d set it. She slid out of the chair, moving silently toward the main library. Yes, she could have slipped out the back into the gardens, but she was isolated out here, and had no car keys to manage an escape in a vehicle. Plus, this was her home and Roy’s. She wasn’t going to permit it to be violated by a burglar. There was a phone in the library, but more importantly, there was a gun.
She had both in hand, was backed up in the corner, listening, when the footsteps drew closer. Then she recognized the tread. She cut off the phone before she pressed the final 911 digit.
His silhouette appeared in the doorway of the library, then he hit the light switch, which turned on a lamp on the desk. Beyond the illumination it provided there, it mostly threw shadows around the rest of the room. His gaze went right to the corner where she was standing, making it clear he’d tracked her here. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised he found her so quickly, despite the time of night. He’d likely followed enemies through much more difficult terrain.
His cool blue-green eyes slid to the weapon, back to her pale face.
“Going to use that on me?”
“I might have. If I hadn’t recognized your gait.”
“One thing having a fake leg is good for.” He studied her. She was the one who finally broke the silence.
“I don’t want you here. I want you to go.” But she stood there, staring at him, wishing and longing. Wanting everything to be the way it was. Wanting to break out of whatever this was. He was right there, but a giant chasm was open between them. She’d messed up, on every level. Handled all of it wrong, and she didn’t know how to make it better. She was so tired of trying to make it better.
He nodded. Then he extended his hand. “Come here, girl. Come to your Master.”
She dropped both phone and gun on the desk, and ran to him.
He caught her, holding her close as she practically burrowed into him, hoping that his arms would keep her from shattering. Merely seeing him, and all those cruel bands clamped around her insides loosened, letting her draw a deep breath. She couldn’t speak, just clung to him as he stroked her hair. She hadn’t brushed it today, and she hadn’t changed out of her pajamas, hadn’t donned makeup. It was not her best look, which probably made the dim light a good thing.
She was shaking, and was bemused to find herself dizzy, such that when he eased her grip on his neck, pushed her far enough away from him to look at her, she was wobbling on her feet. He registered it, and other things, too. “Athena, when was the last time you ate anything? Drank?”
“I don’t drink,” she said. “Just wine occasionally.”
“Water. Fluids.”
“Oh. I . . .” She couldn’t remember. Lynn had offered to make her a sandwich, and she’d grazed in the kitchen since then, here and there. Had that been two days ago?
“I need to go brush my hair,” she said. “I look a sight.”
“You need to come with me,” he responded. Then he bent and lifted her in his arms.
“I can walk.”
“I’m not sure you can. Adrenaline got you to the library, and that’s why you’re shaky now.” He strode through the house, headed for the kitchen. Once there he deposited her in a chair and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, put it in front of her. “Start sipping on that while I put you together a meal.”
She didn’t want him waiting on her. “I can do it. You shouldn’t—”
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, Athena.” He was angry with her. He let her see it, such that she fell silent, though she nursed a little resentment of her own.
“You didn’t ring the bell.”
“No, I didn’t. You gave me the entry code. You weren’t talking to me.” He dropped an armload of sandwich fixings on the counter, then nudged the water at her. “If you don’t start drinking that, I’m putting you in the truck and taking you to the emergency room. Do it.”
She gave him a sullen look but picked it up, took a sip or two. He kept glancing at her, the force of that look prompting her to drink more. In between swallows, she sat silently, holding the glass with both hands. She’d liked hav
ing his arms around her. She wanted to go up to the bedroom and sleep with him curled around her like that. Forever.
He set aside the bread knife, began to put deli slices on the thick wheat slab. “I figured it out,” he said. “Not from you, obviously. I thought about the things that could make you shut down like this, and the way you like to make things easier for everyone. You went to the club, tried to give them an early heads-up, a trial run to see how they took it. And they slapped you down for it. Hard.”
His face was set, cold. She didn’t think she could take his scorn, but then she remembered how he’d held her. He was making her a sandwich now. “How did you . . .”
“After Jimmy figured out who your new Master was—and that I was willing to reach across the bar and squeeze the truth out through his testicles—he gave me enough info to put two and two together. I filed the complaint against Mistress Sheila you should have.”
“She was just telling the truth.”
He stopped what he was doing, and now his eyes went from ice cold to laser fury. “Whose truth, Athena? Is the way she sees you how you think of yourself? Have you let everyone else be your mirror for so long you don’t know your own image? Who you really are?”
“No. I was . . . who I am. With you.”
He came around the counter, turned her to face him. “You’re talking in past tense, Athena. And that’s not going to happen. What were you doing, when you went to the club? The thing I’ve tried to hammer in your head since day one of this relationship, goddamn it?”
His words hit her like rocks. As she flinched, he muttered an oath, cupped her face and held her briefly to his chest before pushing her back, gripping her shoulders like he might shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he released her to push the sandwich and water at her. “Eat and hydrate. I’m not going to fight with you when a good breeze could blow you down.”
Since her hands were clumsy and slow, he picked up the sandwich and made her take a bite from it that way. Then he lifted the glass to her lips, getting her to wash it down her dry throat with a swallow of water. He kept that routine going until her hands steadied. During it, he took a seat on the stool in front of her, his right foot planted like a barricade, as if he intended to thwart an escape attempt.
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