Page 295 of A Vicious Love

“I asked about your house once,” she said, voice quiet. “Do you remember?”

I remembered far too much now.

A winter event. She had stood beside me near the bar and asked what my house was like, whether the old side of Harlan had gardens in winter. I had been on my phone, angry about a dock issue and angry at her for wanting a piece of me I had given no one.

I had told her she wouldn’t like it.

Then I had walked away.

“Yes,” I said.

“You looked at me as if I’d asked to move into a room I had no business seeing.” Her fingers rubbed lightly over the token ring, turning it without realizing. “So I stopped wondering where you slept and started wondering who knew the answer. I thought someone else had private claim. I used to think about it from your side too, which is probably stupid.”

“Tell me.”

She breathed in slowly. “If you had someone you actually wanted behind closed doors, and then you had to spend public events with me, I understood why you hated it, and needed whiskey. Why I felt so…” She paused, searching for a kinder word than the truth. “Inconvenient.”

The word hit wrong.

Ugly.

Because she had spent years building empathy for a version of me who went home to another woman after leaving her standing beneath chandeliers with my name around her throat.

I reached into the bath and touched the side of her knee beneath the water.

She startled, then leaned toward the touch, even with that fear still in her eyes. Her body trusted me faster than her memories did.

“You were never inconvenient.”

Her mouth curved sadly. “Jamison.”

“No.”

I moved my hand slowly up from her knee to her thigh beneath the water, keeping the touch firm enough to ground her, gentle enough that she could move away. Her lashes flickered, and her body shifted closer to the edge of the bath without any instruction from me.

“I did have women before you,” I said. “I won’t pretend otherwise. I was deep in it. The clubs, the rooms, the whole structure. Dominance suited me. It made sense, rules, consent, and limits. Negotiated touch. Clear expectations. No guessing.”

She swallowed. “Subs?”

“Yes.”

“Dynasty women?”

“Some.”

Her face changed.

Pain first. Then humiliation. Then that horrible little attempt at dignity that meant she was about to turn the knife inward so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty holding it.

“Have I sat across from any of them?”

I said nothing.

Her eyes filled.

“That means yes.”

“It means names won’t help you.”