Maddie touched her screen a few times before turning it my way again. A GPS map was loaded with one symbol showing at our location and another outside of the city. “Bestie safety precaution.”
“Okay, how does she knowI’mhere?”
Maddie’s brows shot up before she did her best to smooth out her expression.
Unfortunately for her, she was a shit actress.
It got worse when her strained voice warbled, “Hmm. No idea. Probably saw your car.”
“I’m in the back lot,” I said.
A lot that was heavily guarded by security and not accessible by anyone other than Gilded members.
“Maybe someone out front mentioned seeing you,” she tried.
“Bullshit.”
I flipped through my phone to the folder that Greer had created for the apps she used to do her job. Hidden in there was the same one that Maddie had shown me on her phone.
That sneaky little stalker.
Why does that turn me on so much?
I dragged my focus from the screen to take in Maddie’s panic. Gesturing to her on the cushion, I surmised, “I take it Greer doesn’t know about this part of your life.”
She rolled her lips in and shook her head.
I asked the question I’d been dying to know. “Has she ever mentioned being a submissive, too?”
Maddie shook her head again, but it was followed by a shrug. “She’s never said anything, but neither have I. I don’t think she is, though. I say this with all the love in the world because I think it’s a character strength not a flaw. But she might be too much of a control freak to ever hand any of it over. And that’s without her very understandable trust issues.”
On the surface, she wasn’t wrong. But I’d caught enough little things that it made me wonder if there was something more that Maddie didn’t know. Hell, that Greer didn’t even know. Or maybe she was just playing the role of obedient employee, and it was my own wishful projections twisting it into more.
There was only one way to find out, but I wouldn’t do it without Maddie’s approval. Not yet, at least.
“How do you want to play this, Mads?” I asked. “We can ignore the messages for now. Or unlatch you and try to sneak out there without her seeing.”
It was unwarranted, but her panic increased.
“You know Easton would understand,” I reassured.
Taking a few seconds, she mulled it over. Her words came out slow. Guarded. Like she wasn’t sure she wanted to be speaking them. “Or you can rip the Band-Aid off and bring her back here.”
“Would you be okay with that?”
“Wouldyoube okay if she wasn’t interested in any of this?” she shot back. “Because I know she won’t judge what I’m into. But if that’s a dealbreaker for you, you might want to test the waters and ease her in.”
“It’s not like I have a personal room in the back because I’m here so frequently. I can’t remember the last time I used one. Hell, I really can’t remember the last time Ienjoyedusing it.”
“So if this place makes her dryer than a week-old biscuit…?”
It was a heavy conversation, but fuck, that was funny. I laughed even as I said, “I’ll survive.”
It wasn’t a lie. The more famous I became, the more vanilla my relationships—a loose term—became. It was hard enough for me to trust that whoever wouldn’t jump on live or sell their experience with me to the gossip sites. If I let my guard down and showed them what really got me off?
It’d be viral within the hour.
Maddie sat with that for a few beats before giving a regal wave—like that hand wasn’t shackled. “Go get her then.”
