Twenty-eight

Six days after Chris’s departure, and only a few days until the October 1 start of school for Ella, I am climbing my office walls, willing both of them to call me. It’s Thursday and nearly noon, and for the first time all week, I try to truly prepare myself for this breakup with Chris. I even dress in my old clothes, a simple black skirt and red silk blouse. Arranging to have my things moved back to my apartment is inevitable. I’d rather do it now than have Chris return and do it for me.

Feeling more like the kept woman my mother was to an absent man, I am eager to escape the confines of the gallery. Out of worry for Chris’s peace of mind, I do as I have been for days, and report to Jacob before heading to the deli three blocks down the road. Once there, I order an egg salad sandwich and find a back corner table and shove my food aside. I can’t eat. I haven’t been able to eat since Chris left.

The bell on the door chimes and I look up to find Mark and Ava walking into the deli. The way she’s looking at him scorches me from clear across the restaurant. I feel sorry for her husband, trying to compete with Mark. He doesn’t have a chance.

Mark’s gaze lifts and collides with mine. He whispers something to Ava and steps away from her, and for a moment I see a spark of something that looks downright evil on Ava’s face. Whoa—that’s new. I think I’ve sensed this in her, but seeing it is a jolt of reality. She hates me.

Mark joins me without asking, sitting directly across from me at a table more for one than two. “You plan to eat that sandwich or watch it like TV?”

“Ah, now there’s that sense of humor I thought you reserved only for e-mails and text messages.”

He doesn’t laugh. “You look thin.” He shoves the sandwich toward me. “Eat.”

Surprisingly, he’s been quite the doting daddy for a Master who wields a wicked whip, but he’s right in this case. I’ve dropped five pounds I didn’t have to lose, but regardless of his good intentions, I truly am not in the mood to be pushed. “I don’t want to eat and don’t order me around like I’m your submissive. I’m not.”

“Ms. McMillan—”

“Sara,” I snap, on edge, and irritated that I feel like we’ve created a friendship this past week and he still can’t use my name. “Why can’t you call me Sara like you call Amanda, Amanda?”

He gives me one of those unreadable, impossible intense gray stares. “All right then, Sara. I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”

He leans in closer. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. Nothing that you haven’t already. I know you convinced Ryan to let me decorate the lobby of the property. It helped. It kept me busy and I do appreciate that.”

“Ryan’s fond of you. We have to milk it for all the business we can.”

“Right.” I give a laugh. “It’s always about money for you, isn’t it?”

“Money is power.”

So Chris once told me. “And we both know how much you like power.”

His brows lift. “Do we?”

“We do,” I assure him.

He leans back in his seat and his lips twitch. “Well, as long as we have that settled.” He pauses, his mouth tightening, and I sense the subject change before it comes. “Have you heard from him?”

“No.” I try to laugh without humor but it comes out as more of a strangled sound. “I guess I didn’t do a very good job of getting through to him like you thought I would.” I rub at the tension in my shoulder. A burning question constantly on my mind presses me to take advantage of having Mark’s rare casual mood and full attention. “Why, Mark?”

“Why what, Sara?”

“Why do you both need that place?”

He appears undaunted by the question. “I told you. It’s different for everyone, and Chris and I are as night and day as it comes. He wants to punish himself. The pain is who he is. It controls him.”

“And you?”

That steely glint I know well appears in his eyes, and I watch the man transform into the Master who is intensely, impossibly provocative, able to seduce a room just by existing. “Nothing controls me but me. I am who I am and I enjoy every moment of it, and so do those who enter my domain. I make sure of it.” I am captivated by his stare, lost in this man who is all power and sexuality, but even more so by the idea of having such confidence and control myself. He seems to sense this or perhaps he can easily read my expression, and he leans in closer, softening his voice to a seductive purr. “I would never put my pleasure, or my pain, for that matter, ahead of your needs, Sara.”

I am sure that his vow is meant to lure me deeper under his spell, but it doesn’t work. It smacks me in the face with possibilities I don’t want to consider and jerks me into defensive mode. I sit back sharply. “He doesn’t do that. Chris doesn’t put himself ahead of me.”

“What do you call what he’s done, Sara?”

“He’s trying to protect me.”

“And how does that protection feel? Because you aren’t eating and you aren’t sleeping. If that is how he protects you, he’s failed.”

“Like you failed Rebecca.”

He shocks me by visibly flinching, proving again that he is not without a weakness where Rebecca is concerned. “She wanted what I don’t have to give, what I never promised.”

“Which is what?”

“The façade of love. The same poison that leaves your sandwich sitting here uneaten. Think about what this fairy tale of love you’ve created is doing to you. When you’re ready to get rid of that spiteful emotion, I’ll show you how.” He pushes to his feet. “We have the open house tonight at the property. We leave at six forty-five. I’m driving.”

It’s me who flinches as he walks away.

* * *

I’m pleased to score a large late afternoon sale, but it delays Mark and me from departing the gallery at the time planned, and we arrive at the open house with only forty-five minutes left before it ends. At the front door of the thirty-floor high-rise on the oceanfront, Mark maneuvers the Jag under the front door overhang and two valets open our doors. When Mark rounds the vehicle to join me, his hand settles a bit too possessively on my back.

The lobby is crowded, warmed by a gas fireplace framed in stone, and furnished with clusters of rich brown leather chairs and several paintings I personally selected. People mill around everywhere, drinks in hand. Mark and I make our way through the visitors, mingling and prospecting for new sales. Ryan finds us quickly, looking stunning in a striking red silk tie that contrasts with his pin-striped suit as dark as his neatly groomed raven hair.

He takes my hand and kisses it. “You look lovely, Sara.” He leans in near my ear. “Far better than any of the many masterpieces here tonight.”

My cheeks heat with the compliment I don’t deserve, considering the expensive dresses and suits being elegantly worn by the guests. “I should have changed.”

“Nonsense,” he says. “You look marvelous. Why don’t we head upstairs to the demo unit? There are a number of guests there you can impress with your knowledge of art.”

Inside the twentieth-floor apartment, I spend the next half hour happily chatting with guests and I try to lose myself in the thrill of discussing the art I’ve chosen for the project. It’s a difficult task, since the Chris Merit cityscape I purchased from a local resident for my blank wall is a constant reminder of him.

When the crowd clears I find myself alone, seduced into deep thought by the dimly lit elegant space and soft music humming in the background. I find myself dreading the empty apartment awaiting me. “It’s a wrap,” Ryan announces, and I turn to find both him and Mark walking toward me. “The lobby is clear and we’ve locked up here.”

Leaning against the mahogany railing spanning the middle of the ceiling-to-floor window, I feel a charge in the air—the sensation of being prey to not one lion, but two, as they each stop beside me, sandwiching me between them.

“The night was a success, Ms. McMillan,” Mark says in praise. “You’ve proven to be quite the asset.”

Even the caged animal I have become these past few days, more now than ever, hungers for this man’s compliments, and I tell myself it’s about my job and nothing more. “I’ve tried.” My voice comes out shaky and affected, and I can feel how losing Chris has made me revert backward, angry at how easily I still fall prey to a need for approval from men like Mark and Michael.

Ryan brushes my hair over my shoulder, and despite the gentleness of the touch, it’s too intimate, and I tense, jerking my gaze to his. “Poor Sara,” he murmurs. “You have such pain in your eyes.”

“I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“No,” Ryan insists gently. “You’re not. I’ve watched you bleeding emotionally all week.”

“You have to let him go.”

Mark proves his ease at stirring my defenses one again, and I turn to him, finding him closer than I’d thought. My thigh brushes his and I feel it like a second jolt. “No,” I choke out. “I can’t.” I back up and Ryan’s hands go to my waist. I’m that caged animal again, a deer caught by two predators.

Mark claims the space I’d created and his legs press to mine. “You can’t or you won’t?”

The urge to bolt is stilled when Ryan leans in, his chin nuzzling my hair as he whispers, “He let go. You have to, too.”

I’m shaken by how right he might be, and how wrong I burn for him to be. “It’s too soon.” It’s too soon.

Mark’s hands settle on my shoulders, branding me. “I refuse to watch you hurt like this one more day. Let go, Ms. McMillan.”

He leans in, his head slowly lowering, the punishingly sensual line of his mouth nearing mine. “Think about it,” he urges softly. “To feel nothing but pleasure. To expect nothing more.”