My Christmas Eve pity party for one was in full swing. Everyone else in the apartment building was upstairs in the penthouse celebrating, but I’d rather stick my hard dick in a toaster and set it to high than be social tonight.
Not even the fourth glass of Macallan in my hand numbed the ache in my heart or head. The last day and a half had been a fucking nightmare. One I needed to wake up from.
The owners of the club dragged me over the coals, but they didn’t revoke my membership. They had, however, suspended me for three months.
My lawyers forced The Reporter to print an apology and a retraction. But that didn’t matter. Once something was posted online, it never died.
A minute hadn’t passed without Paige’s face pushing its way to the front of my thoughts. How could I have gotten her so wrong? And to think, I’d kissed her. I’d given part of myself to her I hadn’t given to a woman in years.
For the next week, I planned to drown my sorrows and then in the New Year throw myself into work. To stop myself from calling Paige— every Goddamned second— I set the screen grab from The Reporter as my screen saver, so I’d see it when my fingers threatened to betray me. The photo was a constant reminder of what she’d done.
Part of me wanted to give her a chance to explain, but the bigger part of me, the furious part of me, didn’t want to hear any of her excuses. Once I cut someone out of my life, they were out for good.
“Mr. Palmer,” George’s voice crackled over the in-house intercom. “Sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor. Shall I send her up?”
My cock hardened. The traitorous bastard appendage ached to see her. Tough.
“Throw her out,” I send, my voice strained and slurred.
“I asked her to leave, but she’s insistent,” George replied.
My anger was a long way from dissipating, but an angry fuck might not be so bad. If anything, it would release some of the frustration building up inside me.
“Fine. Send her up.”
After a few minutes, there was a knock on my door. I tunneled my hands through my hair and got up from the sofa.
I didn’t care I hadn’t shaved or wore a threadbare T-shirt and wrinkled jeans. She’d have to take me as I was. I pulled the door open.
Vivian!
My cock deflated and my disappointment felt like a serrated knife wound.
I stood in shocked silence and the seconds dragged by until I finally said, “What are you doing here? I thought I made my feelings very clear.”
She bowed her head, and a single tear slid down her cheek, but I wasn’t buying it.
“I heard what happened, and I wanted to make you feel better, Master.”
She peeled off her coat and dropped it to the floor. Beneath she wore peekaboo leather shorts and a matching bra with chains instead of straps. If she’d come to my apartment dressed like that a few weeks ago, I would have screwed her senseless, but now I was numb to her presence. She had a beautiful, voluptuous body, but I was no longer aroused by her and found her a complete turn off.
I picked up her coat and handed it to her. “I’m not interested.”
Her eyes snapped up and confusion spread across her face. She fell to her knees on the checkerboard tiles. “I’m sorry, Master. I thought after the story came out and you saw her for what she was, you’d take me back and realize I was the one for you. I told Alec—”
“You told Alec what?” I gripped her arms and pulled her to standing. “What did you do?”
Blinking, she gave me a sickly sweet smile, and said, “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything. I just meant I knew you would get bored with her fast and you have. I haven’t seen her around here in a few days.”
“What do you mean you haven’t seen her around here in a few days? Have you been watching my apartment?”
Her eyes flitted around the foyer, focusing everywhere but on me. “I think I’ll leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you’ve done.”
“I might have glanced at your diary when I was over last week and saw you had an interview with Alec Williams from The Reporter.”
“You might have looked at my diary, or you did?”
“Um,” she said stalling, “I didn’t purposefully look, your diary was open. But I didn’t see him come into the building to interview you; I saw her.”
“You’ve been stalking me?”
“No,” she said shaking her head. “It wasn’t like that. I missed you.”
“Why did you talk to Alec? What was in it for you?”
Bewilderment filled her eyes, and she hugged her coat to her stomach. “You, of course, Master.”
Her use of the word Master grated on my nerves.
“After some badgering, Mike told me who he sold my invitation to. I tracked her down and followed her. The night she went to the party with my invitation, I watched her go in. I thought you’d throw her out as soon as you saw it wasn’t me. She was in there for over an hour. The next day, I hung around outside your apartment waiting for Alec so I could offer him some insight into you, but then I saw her and put two and two together, and—”
“Made five and tried to destroy my trust in Paige. You failed.”
Her jaw dropped for a second, but then thunder filled her eyes. “No, I fucked Alec and told him a few things, like the girl he’d sent to interview you went into your room on the third floor of Expose.”
“You’re finished in the New York scene.” I did my best to keep my temper under control and my voice steady before I spoke again. “No Dom will ever want you again. Leave now.”
Red splotches stained her cheeks and tears filled her eyes, but they didn’t move me. I was only thinking of one thing.
How was I going to make this up to Paige?