I got into the cab with the word trust written on my heart. But it wouldn’t stick. Trust didn’t want to be on the heart. It was in the mind. Maybe it was in the hands or voice, but though I knew we trusted each other, it wasn’t the same as love written on the heart.

We got to Murray Hill before I decided what to do about it. So I abdicated to complicity. Trust would have to write itself wherever it wanted.

When we got into the apartment, he took my coat like a gentleman.

“Go into the bathroom. Take the dress off and put your hands on the vanity.”

All the command and dominance were there. All the confident intonations that ensured my obedience were present. I should have hopped off to the bathroom to do his bidding.

If it were Montauk, I would have.

The day before, I would have.

But it wasn’t Montauk or day twenty-three. It was the night of day twenty-eight, and something had changed. I went to the bathroom with my chin high and my shoulders back. Not to please him, but because I wanted this dead weight out of my ass and I didn’t know how to get it out myself.

Naked, leaning over the vanity with nothing but the French stone countertop in my sight, I laced my fingers together and bowed my head. The diamonds on my wedding ring pressed hard against my fingers. After the first meeting with my lawyer, I’d put it back on. He’d had his ring on, and it seemed disrespectful to take it off before papers were signed, or he took off his, or we both agreed that the marriage didn’t exist anymore.

It was as if my world had always revolved around his pleasure.

He came in behind me. We made eye contact in the mirror. When he put his hand on my lower back and pressed down to get my ass up, I turned back to the top of the vanity, pressing my forehead against the cool stone.

“You’re perfect. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Not even you, sir.” Sir was marbled in sarcasm. Damn. I didn’t want to show my hand. I didn’t want my words painted in four coats of my feelings. I wanted to hide, and didn’t.

He wasn’t stupid. He heard it, but he chose to ignore it.

“When I take this out, you’re going to be open for a few minutes. I’m going to lubricate you.” He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “It won’t hurt when I fuck you. Not more than a few seconds, maybe. You’re going to come like you’ve never come before. Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered back with my eyes closed.

He stroked my skin, warming me, then tugged gently on the plug. “Push out a little.”

I did, and the thing slid out. He wrapped it in a towel and snapped up a bottle from the cabinet.

“How does that feel?”

It felt odd. It felt as if my body was doing its own thing. I felt stretched, empty, as if I’d made room for something that wasn’t there anymore.

He squirted lube on me.

I wasn’t scared. I thought I’d be tense at the prospect of getting fucked in the ass, but it wasn’t the fear of pain or humiliation that caused my anxiety.

His buckle clacked and his zipper hissed.

“Do I say pinochle, or can I just say stop?” I asked.

“Don’t think about that yet.”

“No. I mean now.”

“Why are you safeing out?”

“I just am. I’m not in the mood.”

He continued to massage my bottom. “The sub doesn’t get moods, Diana.”

I stood up straight. Naked in the mirror with him behind me, we looked like normal people. But we weren’t. Everything was wrong.

“Pinochle.” I said it without question. I said it like he said get on your knees. And just in case he missed it, I repeated it. “Pinochle, pinochle, pinochle.”

“Why?”

I faced him. “Because this is too intimate for how I feel right now.”

“Diana, I—”

“I’m moving back to the loft. This…” I put my hands on his lapels. “This is a complete waste of time. I mean… it’s not. It’s fine. It’s what I signed up for. But I’m just saying pinochle to the whole thing.”

I gave him a little push and brushed past him to get to the bedroom. The afternoon’s jeans hung over the back of the chair. I couldn’t wait to get into them. I couldn’t jam my legs in fast enough. My foot got tangled in the fabric and I nearly fell before he jumped to steady me. His hand on my arm, perfect pressure, just enough to hold me up but not hurt. His posture and expression were pure concern for my bodily well-being.

Oh, to be taken care of by a man who loved me. Something I’d never desired because I never wanted to be taken care of was now a lofty and far away fantasy.

“Let go,” I said. “Let me fall, okay? Just let me fall.” I stood straight, buttoning my jeans. I was still naked from the waist up, but his only interest was my face.

“Stay,” he said. “Stay tonight and go tomorrow.”

“No. I’m getting a cab.” I snapped a shirt out of a drawer and pulled it on. No bra. Didn’t care. The coat would cover me. “I’ll come back for my stuff in the morning.”

“Wait.”

I didn’t wait. I went to the front door. A pair of boots and the heels I’d worn to the event were under my coat. I stuck my bare feet into the boots.

“Diana!”

“What?”

In his nice blue suit, tie halfway undone, sock feet, and unbuttoned trousers, he looked like a man falling apart at the seams. He looked the way I felt.

“I want you to stay with me.” The desperation in his voice was new, and I was upset enough to be immune to it.

“Whatever.” I got my coat on.

“You’re acting like a brat.”

“I’ll be one by tomorrow.”

I turned the knob, but he leapt for the door, pressing his hand on the seam between the door and the jamb.

“Adam. Let. Me. Go.”

“Stay tonight. Please.”

“Look, if you can’t love me, I get it. It’s fine. I can save you the trouble. Just save me the trouble too. Save me the heartache.”

“Just stay.”

“Why? What’s the difference?”

“I want you to finish what you started.”

He said it with all the Dom bells and whistles, but it landed like a squib, not a bomb.

“I’ll decide what’s worth finishing. Me. I’ll decide. Now let me out.”

I yanked the door with all my might. His hand came off it, and I swung it wide with everything I had. It slapped the wall so hard the bell rung. I didn’t waste a second, getting out into the indirect, warm lighting of the hall just as he put his arms around me. They grabbed nothing, sliding away like a scarf that wasn’t wrapped tightly enough.