Page 93 of Touch of Class

“Wow, the whole world is conspiring to provoke you?”

Gillian knew it sounded dramatic but so had so many other things. “I don’t think it’s fate or the universe or anything over the top like that. I’ve gotten used to dealing with one crisis after another. It became my new normal to always be looking for the next fire I’ll need to douse.”

“Okay.” Daphne drew out the word. “But have you tried just not?”

“What?”

“I get that you’re used to being on high alert, but have you tried just not being that person for a bit?”

Gillian eased back slightly. “Just stop caring?”

“No. But stop waiting for something to become your problem. Just relaxing and having faith that sometimes there is no crisis, or that it’s not your crisis?”

“Oh sure.” Gillian sat up. “Let it be someone else’s problem.”

“You said there was no great tragedy, just a series of smaller events.”

“That weren’t allowed to escalate because I was vigilant. Because I had plans and procedures in place, because I have studied and worked and kept my guard up.”

Daphne rolled over and clicked on a small, gentle lamp that cast only enough light to bathe the room in sepia shadows. “Okay, I appreciate that about you, but hasn’t that hypervigilance cost you a lot, too? You can’t remember the last time you felt relaxed and peaceful with another person.”

“Not all of us get to spend our days cuddling in bed,” Gillian snapped back, then caught herself. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to denigrate your job. I swear I’ve come a long way, but you don’t understand what I’m dealing with, what I’m juggling, the lives of friends and colleagues and clients. People have gotten hurt, people I love paid for my getting lax or not following the rules or not seeing things clearly.”

“People like Sawyer? And Brooke? Robin? Tegan?”

She glanced away.

“Gillian.” Daphne rested a hand on her leg. “They are okay. They’re strong women, capable women. I don’t know what happened, but I know they got through it. I see them on the other side of whatever trauma you’re still replaying, and you’ve known them all longer than I have, but I feel like sometimes you can’t see who they are now through all your history. Was there anything, anything at all, they wouldn’t have been able to handle or figure out on their own if they’d been given the space to do so?”

Gillian opened her mouth, anticipating a quick and easy response that didn’t come, so she closed it and replayed several memories. Brooke in her office saying she’d slept with Tegan. Gillian had messed up. She’d tried to hide behind work, looked for the clear answers. If Brooke had listened to her, then she wouldn’t have Tegan or all those dreams of white dresses and curly-headed babies. But then again, she also wouldn’t have ended up in physical danger, trapped in a room with a man they hadn’t seen the warning signs for. She shivered at the thought of a knife pointed at her best friend.

“What is it?” Daphne asked.

“Someone tried to hurt Brooke and Tegan. I can’t share the details, but a client, he trapped them. They were in imminent danger that they missed because I hadn’t been the friend I should’ve been, and I wasn’t there. They were in my care, in my office, in crisis, and I wasn’t here. I wasn’t even reachable. I’d taken a break. I was too disconnected when they needed me.”

“Hey,” Daphne whispered. “I say this with a great deal of love for the shame and hurt that experience clearly caused you, but they are okay. I don’t need to know the details to say with certainty that they’re happy and healthy and safe, even without you having been there, so I’m not sure you can construct that memory as you failing to meet some need. I’m sure they would’ve appreciated your help and concern, but, by definition, if they made it through on their own, they didn’t actually need you.”

The last part hit Gillian square in the chest, and her face flamed. “You don’t understand, and of course you don’t. How could you? You’ve never taken anything as seriously as I take my responsibility to my people.”

“I’m not trying to minimize—”

“Yes, you are, or maybe you’re not trying to minimize. Maybe it’s just your nature, or the way you’ve learned to move through the world, but I don’t want to be cavalier about the commitments I’ve made.” Gillian shook her head. “This was a mistake.”

Daphne winced, and Gillian felt it like another blow. “Not all of it. I didn’t mean that what we … but the conversation. We don’t share the same frame of reference. We never have. I’m sorry I tried to make you understand something we simply cannot relate on.”

Folding back the covers, Gillian allowed the cold air hitting her bare skin to sober her fully. “We haven’t done the appropriate work around boundaries for either of us to know where they are between us, but I think some space might help offer a level of clarity.”

Placing her feet firmly on the floor, she went to push herself up off the mattress, only to be caught off guard once more, this time in the physical sense. Daphne wrapped an arm around her waist and with surprising strength hauled Gillian back onto the bed.

“Absolutely not,” Daphne said firmly, her lips close to Gillian’s ear once more. “We’re not doing this again.”

“I hardly think you have the right to hold me here against my will.”

“It’s not against your will, Gillian.” Daphne laughed and rolled her onto her back. “Maybe against your stubborn pride, but you’re more than a knee-jerk reaction. You spent quite the monologue telling me as much, and if you’re allowed to push me down before sex, then I’m allowed to hold you down for a while afterward. That’s a new rule. I just made it.”

Gillian stared up at her, dark eyes unyielding even as the corners of her mouth twitched up. She was beautiful, breathtaking really, and the sight of her naked and commanding killed every argument Gillian had left in her. “I’m not sure that’s logical, but I suppose it’s fair.”

“Good.” Daphne eased down beside her. “Logic is overrated anyway. You’re in my realm now. I order you to turn off that big brain of yours and let yourself be cuddled into submission.”