Cal let his head rest against the cool glass of the windowpane. He stared out at the sapphire blue of the sea, but he didn’t really see it. Though it was seven in the morning, he reached out and brought a glass to his lips, the Scotch burning its way down his throat. He shook his head. It didn’t matter how much he drank. It wouldn’t erase the memory of Gabrielle pushing him away.

Red. That one word would haunt him the rest of his life.

He was tired, so fucking tired. He was tired of longing for Gabrielle. He was tired of hiding behind Cassie’s memory. He was tired of everything.

Cal put down the Scotch. It wouldn’t really help, anyway. He’d done so much damage that Gabrielle no longer trusted him. He had no illusions as to why she’d used her safe word. She truly believed he would push her away when he saw the scars on her body. She couldn’t think very much of him if she believed him to be that shallow.

He couldn’t blame her. He’d never opened himself to her. He’d taken all her softness and offered very little in return.

Cal slapped at the window. She deserved better. She deserved a man who could give her everything, a man who knew how to love, a man who hadn’t fucked up everything. Cal wondered how many lives he would ruin before he was done. He closed his eyes, and he could see Cassie, so young. He could still see her devastated body on the gurney in the emergency room before they wheeled her into the OR. He’d only just managed to make it there. She’d been dazed with pain and drugs, and her last moments hadn’t been ones of peace.

She wouldn’t have died if he’d done his job.

His failures weighed heavily on him. He hadn’t been there, but he could still hear Gaby crying for him when she came out of her surgery. He’d cared for two women in his life, and he’d so deeply failed them both that he knew he would never try again. He would give Gabrielle what he could and get out of her life.

But he owed her an explanation.

Cal pushed away from the window and crossed to the closet. He tossed his suitcase on the bed and picked up the phone. It wasn’t more than a second before an efficient desk clerk answered.

He listened to her greeting and got to his point. “Yes. I’m in the Angelina Suite. I’m leaving today. I need a boat to pick me up. Thank you.”

Cal packed, trying not to think about the fact that this would be the last time he saw Gabrielle. The years spread out before him, and he knew how they would go. He would be alone. He deserved it. He would listen every time Heather or Greg spoke, hoping to hear any brief mention of her. Gabrielle, herself, would move on eventually. She would find someone who could love her with a free heart. She would be the sunshine in her husband’s life. She would give him children and have a happy life. She would have everything she deserved, and if that man ever stepped out of line, Cal would kill him.

When his bags were packed and he’d made sure there would be no trace of him left, Cal made another call, this one to a lawyer. When he was sure he’d done everything he needed to, Cal showered, dressed, and went to find Gabrielle.

She was in her office, as he thought she would be.

“Could you please tell Ms. Sullivan I would like to speak with her?” Cal was excruciatingly polite to Gaby’s administrative assistant.

She put in the call. After a moment, she nodded. “You can go in.”

“Thank you. And, Jackie, you’ll be getting several emails from a law firm in Freeport. Please make sure they’re printed out, copied, and properly filed.” Callum took a deep breath and walked into Gabrielle’s office.

She was sitting at her desk, but looked up when the door opened. She seemed fragile in the morning light. A sense of guilt settled in Cal’s heart. He’d brought that pale, tired look to her face. She’d been getting better, according to Cody. Now she was sad again because of him.

“Cal,” she started.

He stopped her, putting a hand up. “Don’t, sweetheart. I just came by to say good-bye.”

She huffed, and a flush raced across her skin. “All right. Good-bye, Cal.”

She looked back down at her laptop, dismissing him.

The Dom in him wanted to snarl at her and force her to look at him. He pushed the impulse down. He wasn’t going to leave until she understood. She needed to know that what had gone wrong between them was a flaw in him, not her. He sank down in the chair across from her desk.

“I married Cassie when we were very young. I explained that to you, but I can’t express her youth in mere age. Cassie was a child, really.”

“You were eighteen too, Cal.” She seemed almost angry that she’d said it. Her pretty mouth was a stubborn line.

“Yes, now I can see what a child I was. At the time, I wanted Cassandra because she was lovely and she needed me. She needed me so much. I grew up very wealthy. I was an only child, as though my parents knew they had some kind of duty to all that money. They had me and then promptly went back to their jet-setting lives, leaving me alone with nannies and servants. My parents barely remembered they had a child. They spent all their time at parties and mingling with the right people. The only time I was paraded out was to show their friends how perfect I was. Cassie was the first person to need me. I felt like a man when she looked to me for strength. Her father was our gardener. We were eight when we met. She became my friend, and looking back now, I became her everything. It was quite easy to go from friendship to something more as we grew older. I got her pregnant the month we finished high school.”

She gasped, her eyes widening and softening at the news. “I never knew.”

He sent her a small smile. “Of course, I never told you.”

He didn’t miss the way her hands clenched together. She had guessed how the story went. “How did the child die?”

“He was stillborn.” Cal’s throat felt too tight as he pushed the words out. “She was in her eighth month when the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat anymore. It broke something in Cassie. She’d always preferred to have me make the decisions, but after we lost our son, she completely withdrew from the world.”

“Heather told me she seemed a bit like a ghost.”

It was an apt analogy. When he thought of Cassie now, she seemed ethereal and insubstantial compared to Gabrielle’s solid strength. “I suppose she was. We fell into a pattern after that. I went to school, went to work, and she stayed home. She would keep the house fairly clean, but only if I instructed her to. She would get up and get dressed, but only if I laid her clothes out and told her to.”

“She was depressed.”

“I realize that now.” Another mistake he’d made. Another way he’d failed. “Then, I was very young and on my own for the first time. It took everything I had to keep my head above water. I came into my trust fund at twenty-one, and that helped enormously. While I was in law school, I was able to move us to a better part of town and hire a maid. Greg was an old friend. We reconnected in law school, and he introduced Cassie and me to the scene. Strangely, the club was one of the only places where Cassie came to life. Our sex life improved significantly when we discovered D/s. Cassie seemed more comfortable and, after a while, started calling me Master. She never called me anything else when we weren’t in the vanilla world.”

Gabrielle was very quiet for a moment, as though she needed time to properly digest the history he spilled out for her. “Why didn’t you have kids?”

He laughed, but there was no humor behind it. “Oh, we tried. Cassie was obsessed with it. She couldn’t get pregnant after that first time. The doctor said it was a miracle she’d gotten pregnant at all. I offered to adopt, but she didn’t want to. After a while, I was happy we didn’t. I would have had to hire a nanny. Cassie retreated. She rarely did anything on her own. I had to tell her what and when to eat. When I tried to take her to a psychologist, she’d cry and tell me I didn’t love her.”

Gabrielle’s hazel eyes bored through him. “Cal, that is no way to live.”

“I know, but I lived that way for years. I promised to love her. I promised to take care of her. On the night she died, I told her I wanted a divorce.”

Her eyes watered, and she reached out to him. “Oh, Callum, you are not responsible for her death. You can’t possibly think that.”

She was far too forgiving, his Gabrielle. He shook his head. “She hadn’t driven in years. She got into the car, and an hour later, I got the call from the hospital. I rushed there, and she was dying. She begged me. She begged me not to leave her. She made me promise I wouldn’t love anyone but her. I told her I wouldn’t. When she died, I promised myself I wouldn’t get involved with another slave. I wouldn’t have another woman dependent on me, and what did I do? I immediately found you.”

“Not exactly immediately. It was a year later.” Her voice was soft now, soothing. “You need to be in control. It’s part of who you are. But, Cal, she had no right to ask that of you. If she loved you at all, she would want you to be happy.”

He sighed. He should have known her tender heart wouldn’t understand. “Have you listened to anything I’ve said? I helped her become dependent on me and then couldn’t stand the fact that she was. I didn’t even truly want the divorce. I was using it as a way to force her to see a counselor. I couldn’t give her what she needed. I tried, but I didn’t. I didn’t give you what you needed, either.”

 She started to protest, but he held a hand up. “I allowed myself to take you for granted. You were right. I wanted a convenient body in my bed and a woman who didn’t depend on me for everything. Damn it, in a lot of ways I treated you the opposite of Cassie. I would never have left her alone the way I did you. I would never have given her work from my office. I would never, ever have broken a date with her for work.”

“You didn’t want to be in a relationship like that again. But our relationship didn’t work like that. I remember the day after I moved in. You laid out clothes for me.” Even years later, there was accusation in her voice, though it was softened with a fond smile.

Cal felt a wide grin spread across his face as the memory warmed him. God, at least he would have his memories of her. “I remember that you told me if I liked the clothes that much, I could wear them.”

“I got a spanking, but you didn’t lay them out again.”

Looking back now, he could see that it had been everything he could have wanted. If he’d only been brave enough to really reach out to her, maybe things would have been different. He wouldn’t have lost her trust. “Gabrielle, I think you’re beautiful. I’ll always think you’re beautiful. Trust me. Show me.”

Her hands crossed her chest, and she shook her head. “I can’t.”

He took a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to make the plea. He had meant to say good-bye. Now it looked like it was time to do just that. “All right. I’m leaving on the noon boat. I won’t bother you again. If you ever need anything, you know where I am.”

His hand was on the door when her soft voice called to him.

“Thank you, Cal, for explaining why you couldn’t love me.”

He felt his breath hitch. “Gabrielle, I loved you the minute I saw you. I love you so much, my heart aches with it. It was one more vow I broke.”

He heard her start to cry as he closed the door. He hoped it was the very last time she had to cry over him.

He nodded briefly to the admin and made his way out of the office.

“Is that it, then?”

Cody Linwood stood just outside the door. It was the last thing he needed. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to mourn her. “I have a boat to make, if you don’t mind.”

Linwood sighed and fell into step. “You’re leaving?”

“You don’t understand, and it really isn’t any of your business.”

Cody laughed, a sharp sound. “Let’s see if I’ve got it. You took Gaby to the dungeon, spanked her ass, fucked her ass, and then she used her safe word. You think she doesn’t trust you. She thinks you don’t love her. You’re both dumbasses. Now, you’re going to leave and hope she has a happy life, and she’s going to let you because she’s scared you won’t ever love her.”

Cal stopped in the middle of the hall. He leaned over the smaller man and growled slightly. “You don’t know anything. I told her I loved her.”

Cody took a step forward, not giving in an inch to Cal’s threat. “And she should believe you, why?”

“I have never lied to Gabrielle. I might have lied to myself, but never to her. It wasn’t until she left that I truly understood how much I love her and how long I’ve loved her. It’s simply too late.”

“Those are all fine words, Callum, but have you backed them up?”

Cal wanted to punch the kid. “What do you want me to do? Should I go in there and force a ring on her finger? I made her play a role for years. I won’t force her into anything else. She needs to be in control now.”

Cody brightened. “See, you can learn.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“There’s only one way to win this fight, Callum. I know Gaby still loves you, but she’s afraid. She’s afraid you’ll reject her. You have to show her you’re willing to change. The Dom in you is going to have to surrender.”

“What do you mean?” Cal’s brain was working, the idea tickling at the edges of his consciousness.

“You required her submission. She gave it to you. It was the way she proved she loved and trusted you. Do you love her? Do you trust her?”

Cal stopped. Could it work? Could he actually do that? Hell, yes, he could. If it would give Gabrielle a minute’s peace, he could do anything. “How good are you with knots?”

“As it happens, I’m quite good.”