by Anna Antonia
Embry watched me silently. I prodded her, false cheer making my tone thick and syrupy. “Don’t be shy now, Embry! We’ve gotten this far, no need to keep me waiting. I’m all ears and I’m all yours.”
“I know you hate me now, Emma. By the end, you’ll hate me more. I am sorry for that. Truly I am.”
“Forgive me, Embry, but I’m having a difficult believing you.”
“Very well then. I arranged for all of this because Gabriel left me for you, Emma, and it’s not fair. I stood by him, keeping in the shadows, keeping his secrets safe just so he could toss me out like garbage? No. If you think you’re strong enough to keep him, then you’ll need to know everything.”
“Secrets. Why not?”
Pity darkened her jade gaze. “Can I tell her, Gabriel? Do you think she’d still want you afterwards? I did, but would she? Something tells me no.”
My fingers grew cold. “Does it have to do with how Gabriel built up his company?” Imaginations of dirty business dealings and corporate espionage spun madly.
Her burst of laughter brought color back to my cheeks.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I imagine there’s a skeleton or two rattling in that particular closest. After all, he’s a billionaire. They don’t get to the top by being soft, do they?”
If it wasn’t about his business, then that meant it was about his personal life.
Gabriel’s silence, brittle as it was, held a level of expectancy. He could’ve dragged me out of the room anytime he’d wanted. My fury wouldn’t have been strong enough to sway him. The fact that he hadn’t meant some part of him wanted me to know.
What could be so bad, Gabriel?
“Frankly, I’m surprised by how much you’ve gotten away with today, Emma. You speak to Gabriel as if you’re his equal. No one speaks to him the way you do.”
I bristled. “Meaning I don’t have the right because I’m not rich like you two.”
“Your fixation on the disparity between your portfolios proves just how laughable the idea is that you could ever match Gabriel.” Embry leaned closer. “Do you have any idea who the man sitting next to you really is?”
Gabriel fisted his hands. They suddenly looked quite large and dangerous to me. It wasn’t just my fear I sensed. It was his.
Which meant things were about to get worse. Much, much worse.
“Tell me.”
Her gaze cut to Gabriel’s. “It can end now and she’ll never have to know. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Please…you know that I’d want nothing more in the world.”
The pleading in her voice made me feel sick inside. It was the tone of someone accustomed to using it with Gabriel. I nearly bolted from the room after hearing it.
Gabriel’s fists relaxed. A haunted smile flashed, unnaturally beautiful because of its resignation to a fate he had no control over. It was the melancholy smile of a man who no longer had to run. “No, Embry. Whatever happens will happen. I love Emma and I’m not walking away from her.”
Joy exploded inside my heart even as devastation reached up to drag it back down into the pit of my self-created hell. Gabriel loved me? This enigmatic, glorious man loved me?
“And if she doesn’t want you? Will you try to keep her still?”
Gabriel looked over at me. His pained stare shifted, becoming hard and ruthless. “Yes.”
“Then you understand how I feel about you.”
Her statement surprised us both. Embry raised her flute in salute and drained the contents with one gulp. She carefully set her glass down and squared her shoulders.
“Emma, Gabriel is lying to you. He’s not the sweet, boyish man who’s all full of smiles and lives to make you happy. Oh yes, I’ve seen that too. My security team is very, very good.”
Knowing our relationship had been documented for Embry’s dissemination made me ill. I should’ve slapped her for that alone. Instead, I listened and fixated on every word that poured out of her patrician mouth.
“That person who brings you flowers and pretends to enjoy going to the zoo is manufactured. He isn’t real. He’s much, much darker than the adorable harmless man you think you know.”
“Stop dancing around it and tell me straight.”
“Very well. Gabriel is a sadist in the truest sense of the word.”
“You don’t know me, Embry. Don’t attempt to boil me down to one word.”
“But it is the word, isn’t it? You like to inflict pain on your lovers, Gabriel. You need to dominate your lovers sexually, make them do whatever you want…hurting them, loving them, keeping them off-balance…it’s what you’re so good at, Gabriel. Why else do we keep crawling back to you?”
I couldn’t feel my extremities. A headache cracked my skull. My heartbeat pounded so loudly I could barely hear Embry or the questions she flung. I thought back to the man I’d known these past five days, the one who’d courted me exactly how she described.
So very sweetly, like I was precious and beloved. Like what we had was real.
It’s been a lie. Gabriel has lied to me all this time.
I remembered his words from the night before.
“I’ve been a grinning fool, going out of my way to be what you like because you’ll never be able to handle the real me.”
It was there all along.
He was trying to tell me this and I had no real clue.
My thoughts scattered. Gabriel had come on so strong from day one. He’d pushed his way into my life unapologetically. He’d left no room for me to run. I’d thought Gabriel eccentric and refreshingly honest.
He’s not a sadist! He would never hurt me…he’s not that kind of man.
Disquiet chilled me. Hadn’t I also seen the darkness lurking behind his sunny smile? Hadn’t I made the acquaintance of someone else last night, someone vicious and completely used to being obeyed?
Is this why Gabriel won’t make love to me? Is it because he needs his sex a certain way? A way that I don’t know how to give him?
Both of them looked at me. Words failed me.
“You know what I’m saying is true. I can see it in your eyes. Gabriel’s tried to hide this from you, but it’s still come out in a hundred little ways. His mood swings, his sudden need to keep you right with him at all times. He’s used sex to manipulate you, keeping you drugged on pleasure so you won’t see the cracks happening right in front of you.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“What?”
I pressed my lips into a hard line, furious with myself for letting that bit slip.
Embry’s gaze widened marginally. “Gabriel hasn’t touched you.” Relief washed over her face. “He hasn’t touched you! That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” She swung towards him. “You haven’t touched her for a reason. I’m that reason, aren’t I?”
Gabriel callousness even made me flinch in sympathy. “Don’t pretend to understand what I do or don’t do with Emma. The reason we haven’t made love yet has nothing to do with you. I’m done with you, Embry. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”
“You’re afraid to touch her, Gabriel.”
“How do you know that?” I whispered, sickened by her insight and more so at the thought he hadn’t been afraid to share himself with her.
“Because I know he’s been suppressing his nature with you. Your opinion of Gabriel means the world to him. Frankly, I don’t know why.” She delivered the snub effortlessly.
“That would make two of us.” I kept my face smooth by the slimmest of margins. “Gabriel, is it true?”
“Emma, it’s not as simple as she’s laying it out to be. Embry is trying to drive a wedge between us. Don’t let her.”
“Yes or no? Are a Dom?”
Gabriel’s surprise over my use of the word would’ve made me smile in better circumstances.
He chose his words carefully. “I don’t have to be that way with you. I don’t want to do anything that would make you turn from me. So please don’t be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you
purposely.”
I stared at his beautiful hands, feeling so much pity and rage I could explode from it. “You know that’s not how it works. You should know better than me that you can’t turn it off and on.”
“Gabriel’s convinced himself he can,” Embry broke in softly. “He’s tortured and damaged because of how he grew up. Guilt eats away at him that he likes to dominate and hurt women, just like his father.”
I had no idea. I didn’t know what kind of home life he’d had, but I never suspected it was something this bad.
Shows what I know.
I finally looked over at Gabriel. His beautiful face was hard, carved from living stone. “You know I’ll make you pay for this, Embry.”
Grief rippled across her perfect face. “I know. I’d expect nothing less from you, Sir.”
Sir?
Embry heard my unspoken question or maybe I whispered it. She didn’t look ashamed. She looked immensely proud of who she’d been to him.
“Yes, Emma. I called Gabriel ‘Sir’ for two years. He was my dominant and I was his submissive. I let this man tie me up, beat up, and fuck me however he wanted. If he wanted to pass me to his friends, I would’ve sucked their cocks just like I sucked his. Would you do the same?”
I stumbled to my feet, sickened by the reality of their relationship. Just the thought of being a toy, something passed around made me want to scream. I backed away from them both.
Gabriel surged forward, concern for me replacing the cold rage of before. “Emma, please let me take you home so we can talk about this in private. I’ll answer anything you want to know.”
I shook my head and soundlessly answered, “No.”
“Baby, please…” he swallowed hard. “Don’t run from me. Not again.”
My fingers reached for my side. It ached as if his words had actually ripped right through me. I didn’t know this man at all. I thought I knew the boy he’d been—angry, disenchanted, cynical—but I had no idea of the man he’d become. All the sweetness, the laughter, the teasing…it’d been a farce.
I didn’t know who Gabriel Gordon really was and apparently, Embry Milford did.
“Don’t let it end like this. You have to know that what we have is worth fighting for.”
“Fighting for?” My eyes scalded with tears. “What’s there to fight for when you’re here with her? What’s there to fight for when you’ve been lying to me about who you really are?”
Our fight from last night took on another miserable cast.
“That’s why you were so angry with me last night, wasn’t it? It’s because you knew then you were going to see Embry for lunch. You were going to see your ex-girlfriend…your submissive…the woman who knows you better than me. Oh my God, I’m so stupid. I actually believed you were different but you’re not. And I can’t be here with you anymore.”
“Emma…” he reached out for me but I took a large, unbalanced step backwards.
“Why’d you come to see her, Gabriel?”
“Because I love you.”
“Why are you here with her?!” I shut my mouth, feeling my insides heave as I fought to control my temper and emotions.
“I had to see Embry to stop her from telling you about me. About what I can be.”
I winced. The words were like a dagger in my heart, wounding when they should’ve been uplifting. I used them like weapons, seeking to slash everything in my path as I scrambled to create better armor.
“You have a funny way of showing it and an even funnier way of telling it. You love me? Really?”
“It’s true, Emma. It always has been.”
“Well, your timing is terrible. I hear you tell me you love me for the first time in front of an ex-girlfriend? Nice, Gabriel.”
“Don’t talk to him like that. If you only knew what it’s cost him to come here—”
“Stop. I don’t need you to defend me, Embry.”
“And I say you do.” She turned her glassy-eyed stare towards me. The hatred she had for me was a physical thing and dangerous in its own right. I took a step back and immediately wanted to kick myself for showing weakness. Gabriel’s arm suddenly whipped out and locked around my waist. He pulled me to him even as I tried to jerk away from him. Gabriel only held on tighter.
Embry watched me struggle. Agony transformed her voice. “Why, Gabriel? Why her? She’s so unworthy of you.”
“I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you, Embry, but you know why. You’ve always known.”
She clenched her eyes shut. “No.” With that, she stood up and walked around the table. Her words poured poison-thick.
“Gabriel came down here to bribe me, to keep me quiet just so that you—his precious vanilla girl—would never know the sickness inside him, the truth of who he really is. Even when I begged him to leave you, he wouldn’t. I offered to be his mistress and he turned me down. Why are you worth so much to him? You don’t even know who Gabriel really is and you’re too blind to ever see it!”
“Embry, I strongly advise you to be quiet now.”
“No, Gabriel! She’ll never understand you—it’s impossible for her and you know it! Do you really think Emma will let you do the things you’ve done to me to her? I know her type. She doesn’t know the first thing about submission. She will fight you every step of the way. She will always see you as a sick freak! You know that’s true, Gabriel, else you wouldn’t have tried so hard to hide it.”
Gabriel’s body tensed. His silence condemned me. Condemned us.
Everything spiraled out of control. Somehow I’d become the villain in my own love story.
Is she right? This is pretty much what Gabriel accused me of last night.
With hands clasped at her heart, Embry beseeched, “You don’t deserve him, Emma. You know you don’t. So let go. For him and for yourself. Please.”
He whispered my name and it pulled me to him like a lodestone. I wanted to erase everything I’d seen and heard. I wanted to go back to the man who loved to make me laugh.
Everything’s changed. We can’t go back because it wasn’t real.
I wanted. I wanted. I wanted.
I wanted to howl, scream, and break everything within a five mile radius. Mostly, I wanted to hurt Embry for taking away the man I’d thought I knew.
Sadly, I always believed it was the money that would ultimately tear us apart. Now, I’d give anything to have it just be about Gabriel’s bank account.
If wishes were like horses, beggars would ride.
“You keep talking about how you know me. Let me tell you something—I know your type too. You’re not this selfless, Embry. It’s not all for Gabriel and it definitely doesn’t have a damn thing to do about me. So what did you really think you’d accomplish for yourself with this, Embry? You’d break us up and then what?”
I didn’t think she’d answer me. Embry’s slender fingers played with the bracelet on her wrist. She looked defeated, wan and wrecked now that the damage was done.
“I’d hope Gabriel would finally see how much I love him. You could never love him like I do and today proves it.”
“I would’ve never set out to purposely hurt him like you’ve done now. How can that be love?”
Embry tipped her chin back, defiant and damning. “I’d do whatever it took to help him. I don’t care what it costs me. Gabriel’s been in denial over you, thinking that if you’d fall in love with the man he thinks you want, that somehow it would mean the same as loving him. He’s wrong. Gabriel doesn’t have to change anything. He just has to change the person he’s with, namely you. And I don’t care what he says in front of you—Gabriel still cares for me. That’s why he left you on Sunday to be with me.”
“That’s enough, Embry!”
Her immediate obedience took on a dank cast. My stomach roiled with nausea. I wasn’t completely ignorant to the dynamics of D/S. I’d read enough to give me a romanticized version before my college roommate, a professional Domme, set me straight. What were the chances that those afternoon
conversations would illuminate the tableau before me?
Fate, fuck you for your sick sense of humor.
Gabriel’s intimacy with Embry was far deeper than anything he could’ve accomplished with me in one short week. His dominance was also something deeply at the core of who he was. Gabriel couldn’t just turn it off as it appeared he’d done for me. His kink wasn’t something to be reformed out of him. It wasn’t something to be changed.
Which mean Embry was right. Theirs wasn’t a relationship so easily tossed aside.
“You left me to go to her on Sunday? You let me believe it was business and it wasn’t. You lied to me by omission, Gabriel. You should let me go. Now.”
His arms tightened fractionally. He whispered in my ear, “Embry showed up at my mother’s function drunk. I had to get her out of there. Nothing happened between, Emma. I swear. You’re the only one I want to be with.”
“Stop it!” Embry screamed. “Don’t be like this with her, Gabriel! You never beg anyone.”
I stood there, trapped in a dense mental fog that I couldn’t break free from. I wanted out. I didn’t want to be in the same room with either of them.
“Tell her the rest, Gabriel. Tell her what else happened,” Embry urged softly.
I can’t handle anything else.
“I’ve already heard enough.”
“No, you haven’t!” she snapped, triumphant and unashamed. “Gabriel stayed with me all night. I’m afraid that I’d taken a…few…too many pills.”
“You tried to kill yourself?” Disbelief ricocheted through me. Why would she do such a thing?
Do I really have to wonder? It’s Gabriel. It’s always been Gabriel.
“Not really. I just didn’t want him to go back to you. And he didn’t.”
I couldn’t believe her reasoning and how calmly she delivered it. “That’s sick! You hurt yourself just to get him to do what you want! Embry, that’s not love. That’s manipulation. You don’t do that to the people you love.”
Her serene smile disagreed. “Gabriel stayed with me all night, watching over me and even calling his private doctor to make sure I didn’t come to harm.” Embry’s voice took on a soft, dreamy cadence. “He took care of me, Emma, just like before. He was so tender, so caring.”
