Chapter Ten

Drake

I’m not a complete moron. I know I shouldn’t have walked out on Belle like I did last night. We’d done some aftercare, but probably not enough, especially for her first rougher session, but screw that. She’d pressed. I knew there was a spitfire to her, a real ballbuster, even when I was sitting across from her at the boardroom table. She didn’t flaunt it like her sister, didn’t work to be Daddy’s best lapdog, but there was still a side to her that was nothing but intensity, all prying eyes and desperate inquiry. That was dangerous.

I had some pretty fucking dark corners inside of me, and I didn’t want to go back to them, to remember the IEDs exploding or the blood on my hands that wasn’t even my own. I didn’t want to talk about before, and if she couldn’t learn to respect that, then I’d teach her. There was usually a time and place for a Dom and sub relationship, where the bounds only extended as far as the edges of the playroom, but she wasn’t going to question me. She wasn’t going to act like some reporter hot on a lead when the big story was only mine to share or be revealed to the world. She knew what she needed to, and the rest did not include me being exposed bone deep.

For her to see what I kept so tirelessly hidden.

Again, fuck that.

If teaching her those boundaries—--my only ones—required me to be a total prick, then fine. That’s what we’d do. I was completely resolved to that.

That is until I came down the next morning for breakfast. I’d spent the early morning hours working. I had clients everywhere and, even if I didn’t do PR for a huge segment of people in Europe or Asia, my A-list stars were always on location. I could keep myself busy answering endless emails and anticipating the next big disaster and how to head it off. I wasn’t thinking about her. Fucking right I wasn’t.

Or that’s what I told myself.

When I entered the dining room, I found that Belle was that sunny self she tended to be around Mrs. Johnson and Leonard. I couldn’t blame her for that. Both of them had their own appeal. Mrs. Johnson won you over by being like the mother you’d never had, although from what I could gather, Belle had a good relationship with her mom, though she didn’t talk about her too much.

Now that was something I could be jealous about. My parents hadn’t spoken to me in a while. They were Midwest through and through and didn’t approve of me taking off to L.A. Still got on a high horse about how it was a damn sewer out there, and I’d do better to find “honest work.” They bitched a little less about it after I paid off the farm debts and mortgage, but there was a reason I stayed in The City of Angels at every holiday or found excuses to “be on the road with clients.”

Now Leonard was a funny guy. I think one of the only reasons I hadn’t fired him yet for actually talking back to me was because he always said things in the funniest ways. That and the sarcastic bastard was usually right.

I’d seen guys in the business who only had Yes Men around them. They got soft, never had other ideas that went against their own and they lived to regret it, to regret the ruin it led to. If I had Leonard around, I always had someone to pull my head out of my ass, whether I wanted it or not, and I usually didn’t.

Belle’s blue eyes shone with all the tenderness I loved about her as she accepted another sweet roll from Mrs. Johnson. “You should have seen the baby turtles. They were the cutest things I’d ever seen. I even touched a few!”

“That sounds lovely, dear,” Mrs. Johnson said.

Belle’s smile widened, at least it did until she saw me, then it crashed into a scowl. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were up.”

The accusation she didn’t say was that she would have known a lot more about me and where I was this morning if I hadn’t walked out on her in the playroom last night. I still didn’t regret my choice. I wasn’t taking off that shirt for anyone, or revealing anything like that for her. She had a chance to be more than my sub, but some wounds were to be left alone.

“I figured I’d join the land of the living now that it was close to nine. I’m starving and needed to take a break from calling London and doing business.”

“Right, business. I guess that’s all you think about. Everything’s about the bottom line and negotiations.” She held her chin up high but her last word wobbled a little. If she thought she was doing an impressive job in guarding her emotions, then she was wrong. “Can’t imagine what held you up.”

I sat down across from her at the table and clenched my hands the minute she stood back up. “You’re not even done yet,” I said, as if the half-eaten sweet roll and barely touched sausage weren’t a big enough clue.

“Actually, this was my second round. I usually don’t do that, but Leonard and Mrs. Johnson make like this lethal cooking team. I swear I’m going to gain so much weight. It should be worth it though once we work out the contract,” she said pointedly. “I mean it. We need to start going over numbers. Carol and I did work out something that really should sweeten your pot, and I think we need to work on more than just a Bahamian vacation. Don’t you?” With that, she walked back into the kitchen, refusing to let Mrs. Johnson clean up after her, and then headed back through the dining room in double time without even looking at me.

It felt like she put extra effort into stomping through the hallways to show her anger.

Shit, I really did step in it, didn’t I?

“What? I showered this morning,” I said, miming sniffing at my armpit. “What’s her problem?”

Mrs. Johnson shook her head and set her napkin on the table. “I’ll go see to the child. You know exactly what you did last night. I haven’t seen a girl with eyes that swollen from crying in years. Whatever is going on, fix it.”

With that, she was gone, too.

I was gaining a mad talent for clearing rooms.

I sighed and scooped out some grits and fruit for myself. “Now, seriously, what’s going on?”

Leonard crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorway. “Belle didn’t talk about last night, didn’t say a peep even to Penelope, but I can tell she’s feeling mighty low. I can imagine some of the trouble you got up to with her, but I don’t even think that’s it.”

“I always have willing partners, Leonard. You’ve helped get the paperwork over to my lawyer on that very thing more than once.”

“I am the best courier on the island, true,” Leonard said, shaking his head. “That’s not what I figured. I know you, and I know you don’t hurt anyone like that. The girls who’ve come here before and in L.A. wanted to be here. Miss Belle was relaxed all through the day yesterday so I reckon she’s been wanting things, too, but you know you did something wrong. Hurt that fragile heart of hers. I think you need to work on fixing that.”

“Does Mrs. Johnson feel the same way?”

“Sir, please take this with all the respect it should get, but we’ll both kick your butt if you don’t. Belle’s a good girl, far better than any girl you’ve ever brought here. If you knew everything that was driving her to come, then you’d understand just how strong she was.”

“I get she feels some personal responsibility for Maurice’s company.”

“That ain’t it, not even half of it. You have a girl with a big, huge heart and she still hasn’t asked to go home yet. I think you have a chance to make this right, but you gonna tell me what actually happened. I figure two heads are better than one on this.”

I snorted so hard I almost choked on my breakfast. “Are you saying that I can’t fix this on my own? I can fix the image of anyone on Earth, no matter how much smack’s in their veins or what club they made an ass of themselves at. A Twitter mistake is no match for me.”

Leonard stroked his chin. “That’s all about image, sir. There’s a difference between that and improving the reality. Belle knows you, and she wants something sincere from you. Now what actually happened?”

I stiffened and shoved my bowl away. “I respect you, Leonard. You’re probably my best servant, but some things don’t go further, even with us.”

“So, I’m not completely the Alfred to your Batman?”

“Hardly, and I’m no Dark Knight,” I added before he could take the shot and make the joke. “She just pushes so fucking much, wants things I can’t give her.”

“Does she really or is it just uncomfortable to give them?” he asked, playing armchair shrink like some fucking Haitian Dr. Phil.

“There are sides to me she’s already seen far too much of,” I replied, repressing the shudder at all the things that had happened, at the blood on my knuckles as that asshole’s nose broke, at the medal I never looked at. So much was there, and if she really saw it—saw the marks it had left on me—she’d be out the fucking door anyway.

“Or maybe it hasn’t been enough. I know what I saw yesterday out on the yacht. You’re different with Belle, sir, better. I think this is the real thing or could be. I’m lucky to have my Jamayla, always have been. I’d hoped for a long time you’d find a girl like that and maybe now you have but…”

“What?” I groaned, impatient with his self-righteous spiel.

“You won’t if you keep running and only show her the walls you want to show her. You don’t know everything about her yet, but she hasn’t seen everything you have to offer either. Be honest with her, do something big for her to show you’re sorry.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Then you’ll lose her, and that would be the biggest mistake of your life.”

I shook my head. “There’s one bigger than anything, Leonard, and even you know that.”