3. – Miya
Gravity. Its pull was too strong. I always knew I’d be back here. My body shook as I stood in front of the gates to Samuel’s mansion. I’d been too numb up until that point to look around. The weird part was how unfamiliar Portland still felt to me. I didn’t belong in the entire city. Just parts of it.
Samuel’s mansion was one of those places.
The other was still out there. Probably waiting on me.
Or not waiting at all. My chest ached. Two years was a long time to wait for someone. Jaxon could have gotten a new submissive. She could have replaced me. He could be happy. In love even. He could be completely over me. Maybe he was glad I left. I was a headache and I broke his heart. Who would want to see that again?
Downtrodden, I walked up to the intercom and pressed the call button. A second later, Nina’s voice broke through the intercom.
“Mr. Carter’s residence. State your business.”
I smiled fondly at her succinct approach to life. Not everything had changed. “I missed you,” I told her.
She gasped. “Miya! Samuel!” she screamed. “It’s Miya!”
I laughed when the gate swung open.
“Come in, come in!” she crooned, and then the intercom went silent. My luggage was the kind I could roll. I drug it after me up his stone walkway. The front doors opened, and Nina rushed out, wrapping me in her arms. I fell into hers. “Miya,” she breathed. “Now everything’s complete.”
I didn’t know what she meant—nothing was complete for me—but I nodded anyway. Maybe she meant Sam and his new life.
“Come. Sam’s been waiting all morning for you.”
“Has he really? He has a wedding to plan. He should be busier.”
She snorted. “Livie’s handling most of the details. All Sam has done is get his suit.”
It was June tenth. Sam’s wedding wasn’t for another five days, but he insisted I come early for fittings, rehearsals, and dinner. We didn’t talk about Jaxon. But I could already feel him. He was everywhere suddenly. I forced myself not to look around.
Not to yearn.
Axel’s sweet face entered my mind, and I guiltily shoved it aside.
Sam’s mansion was completely different. The sitting room when you first enter was now empty and the bar was gone. I guessed he didn’t need the submissive waiting room anymore if he was getting married. The living room was modern and warm, with a huge TV and blankets thrown over the couch. The kitchen was the same, since I suspected it was still Nina’s territory.
“Leave your bags here.”
She led me to the kitchen and handed me a glass of pink champagne I gladly scooped up. Axel had turned twenty-one a few months before me, and we loved getting drunk on cheap beer, stuffing our faces with half-priced wings, and making love with Netflix playing in the background. It scared me how I already thought about him. Like he was already a memory. With fondness instead of need.
She nodded me along through the back of the house to the back deck. The entire backyard was being set up for the wedding ceremony. Swaths of black and cream fabric, tables, trellis’s, chairs, decorations—the sheer amount of it all stunned me.
This wedding was going to be spectacular. Which meant Sam loved this woman more than he probably loved himself.
I spotted him talking to someone with a clipboard in their hands. I smiled at him. He looked different. Taller. Tanner. Happier. He was handsome and happy, and it warmed my heart to see. As if sensing me, he turned, and our eyes met.
His face broke out into a huge grin and he patted the person he was talking to on their backs and took off for me. I missed him so much, I dug my flats into the lime green lawn and ran at him.
He met me in the middle and scooped me up in his arms in a huge, wonderful hug.
“My Sweet,” he moaned.
“Samuel,” I groaned.
I hugged him as hard as he hugged me. He smelled like fresh linen and women’s perfume. Some fruity lovely scent. His fiancée probably hugged him recently. Or something else. I blushed and let him go, peering up at him with a shy smile.
He cupped my face, examining me. “You’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you. Older, more mature. Are those laugh lines?” He kissed the corner of my eye and laughed when I frowned.
“Are not.”
He winked. “Kidding, My Sweet.” He took my hand. “Come meet my Livie.”
He guided me through the chaos and stopped at a gazebo. There was a woman standing on it. And she looked like me. Sam had a thing for women who had our looks. Brown hair and blue eyes. I didn’t know why, and I could never ask. When the woman turned around and I saw her face, I gasped quietly.
She was stunning. She had lighter brown hair than mine, more honey brown, and her blue eyes were deeper where mine were lighter. She was my height, and she had softer features in her heart-shaped face.
And on the edge of her eyes, I saw something I myself understood. Scars. Broken parts. Pain.
When I glanced at Sam, he was looking at her like she was his entire world. I’d never seen him so gone before. It was adorable and… heartbreaking. I wanted that, but I was happy that he had it. He deserved it.
Livie gave Sam a private smile teeming with love and hope and lust. She stepped down from the gazebo when Sam waved her forward, her sleek champagne colored heels marking her movements. He gave her his hand and she took it immediately, like two puzzle pieces coming together. They were so much better together.
“Miya,” she said, like she knew all about me, and still liked me because of it.
I glanced at Sam worriedly, and she chuckled. “Not much she doesn’t know, My Sweet.” He kissed her temple. “Say hello.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t take kindly to orders anymore. “I will say hello because that’s the polite thing to do, but I don’t need you telling me to do so.”
Livie laughed hard, muffling her face against his chest. Samuel’s eyes glittered over her head at me. “Didn’t I tell you she was special?” he teased.
“Hi, Livie. My name is Miya. I am in no way under his spell. Or anyone else’s for that freaking matter. It’s nice to meet you.” I held out my hand.
She beamed, taking it and giving me a shake. “Hi, Miya. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you.”
She was unfairly attractive. I’d learned over the years to love myself. I loved the way I looked. My body, my face, but I hadn’t quite learned to love every inch of my mind. I was still working on it. Probably always would be. I figured any progress was better than none at all. Which was how I lived my entire life from birth to nineteen. I felt sad for that girl. And even sadder because I wasn’t sure there was anything I could have done to soothe her broken mind any more than I did.
Short of leaving the only man I’d ever loved.
Sam and Livie, who kept up with her fiancé alarmingly well, gave me a tour of the wedding grounds. His entire backyard would be turned into a grand marital oasis. Love was in the air. I held my breath.
My feet were sore by the time they were done regaling me with their prenuptial plans. Dinner was brought in, and I joined them, plus Nina, on the back deck once the wedding planner and teams had left for the evening. There was wine poached chicken and garlic potatoes. I was thankful when I was mostly left out of the conversation. Sam and Livie seemed content to talk amongst themselves anyway. Nina kept grinning at them like a proud parent.
At the end of dinner, I declined, with vehemence, Sam’s offer to stay at his place. Sure, it would make more since, and I’d taken his offer when I came down, but it seemed much too set up to me. Anyone could come over.
Anyone.
“I was hoping we could catch up,” Sam stated, walking me out to the gate. I’d requested an Uber and couldn’t wait to crawl into the back and settle into awkward silence with a stranger.
“We can. Tomorrow. Breakfast?” I hugged myself.
He touched my elbow, turning me to him. “Miya, what’s wrong? Tell me.”
“Nothing,” I assured him. Nothing was. At least I couldn’t put into words why I felt so out of place.
“Ask me.”
I frowned at his knowing expression. “Ask you what, Sam?”
“Where’s Jaxon? Ask me.”
I flinched. “No.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
“What good will it do me?” I demanded, angry at him for already tearing open my wounds.
“You staged a protest. You spread your wings. You flew away. Now you’re back. You have to know you’ll see him. He’s my best man. He’ll be over for the dinner, the wedding rehearsals, the wedding, the after party. He will be here. And so will you. You’re ready to ask.”
I was sick and tired of being told what I wanted. I knew what I wanted. And that was to get a hotel and go to sleep. “I left, Sam. There’s no way Jaxon’s been waiting for two years for me. He’s probably moved on and I had to make a sacrifice. Me or him. You know what I chose.”
There were headlights in the distance and I succumbed to relief, wheeling my luggage after me.
He laughed without humor. “No one finds martyrs sexy, Miya. You’re not mad at me or even Jaxon. You’re mad at yourself.”
“Yeah? What would I be mad at myself for?” I seethed.
“Because you took off to prove you could, and you didn’t prove to yourself what you wanted.” He waved his hand toward the car. “Breakfast tomorrow morning at the Hearth and Brine restaurant downtown at eight. Dress fittings the next. Dinner and rehearsals after that. The wedding. The reception. Jax will be at every single one of those things. Minus the dress fittings. He already got his suit.”
“I still don’t understand why Livie would want me to be her bridesmaid. We don’t even know each other.”
His features became sad. “Her children will be at the wedding. Other than them, she has no one else. I want you beside her because I love you, Miya. It will make her happy. And me. Can you do that for me, My Sweet?”
Ugh. Damn him and his sweet side. “Yes, I can do that for you.” And then I said, “Will Jaxon be at breakfast tomorrow morning?” before I could stop myself.
He grinned, wide and knowing. “He sure will. He doesn’t know you’re coming though. I wanted to surprise him.”
“Sam! Why would you do that? What if he doesn’t want me there?”
Oh my.
Jaxon.
Tomorrow.
Jaxon.
…Jaxon!
Tomorrow. So soon. He would be there. I would be there.
Together. Breathing the same air.
My stupid heart filled with intense longing. It was the first time she’d wanted something that bad since we left Portland. Two years of self-reflection hadn’t put nearly that much pip in her step.
He grabbed my face between his hands. “We’ll see when we get there, now won’t we?” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and then opened the back door for me. “I’ll send a car to come and pick you up. Text me where you settle.”
I nodded, putting my hand on his face. “I’m so happy for you, you know that, right?”
Softness glittered in his eyes. “I do. I’m happy to have you home. Are you happy to be back?”
I ignored his question and got into the backseat. I asked the driver to take me to a hotel by the airport. Just in case I needed to make a speedy exit.
It wasn’t until I was showered and in bed that I was honest with myself. My lips stretched into a smile and my heart took off at record speed.
We’d prepared ourselves for battle, my heart and me.
We’d suffered to learn who we were.
We left to accept our selves.
We knew what we wanted.
And we wanted our Master.
But there was a huge chance Master didn’t want us anymore.
My heart and I both faded into the abyss we’d been in since the moment we left his side.
Sometimes the hardest choices to make were the ones with no right answer at all.