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At first, she’d been able to blink away the tears. But as her arms tired and her resolve weakened, the feelings threatened to overwhelm her. It was humiliating to stand in the corner like a naughty little kid. But as her body stilled and her mind quieted, the dam holding back the tumult of emotion, stress and over-stimulation of the past few days cracked.
All the carefully erected defenses and newfound determination to move on had been kicked away with Master Jack’s sudden return to her life. Now that the floodgates had been breached, she was unable to stop the feelings from sweeping her along in their destructive path.
Cleo shifted against Master Jack, pulling away as she dragged a hand over her tear-stained face. She wriggled back from him on the narrow bed, and he let her go. Lifting her head, she met his gaze. As she stared into his eyes, which were filled with concern and confusion, something in her snapped.
While she hated that she’d lost her composure in front of the very man she’d spent so long getting over, it was his fault. He’d pushed her to the edge. And now he wanted a reckoning. He wanted to understand—so he claimed.
Okay, fine. If he really wanted to know what was wrong, then damn it all to hell, she’d tell him, no holds barred.
“You want to know, Sir?” she asked, unable to keep the snark out of her tone. “You really want to know why I’m upset?”
“I really want to know,” he said quietly, his gaze never wavering. “Not slave to Master, but woman to man. Forget the formalities and the titles right now. Just talk to me, Cleo to Jack—friend to friend. I’m obviously a clueless guy who needs to be bashed over the head to get the message, whatever it might be. So, go on. Permission to speak freely and without constraint. I’m listening.”
Friend to friend. There was the crux of the matter right there. While she was hopelessly in love, he just viewed her as a friend. A friend with benefits, bought and paid for.
All at once, the lyrics to Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts slid into her brain. She’d listened to that song on repeat probably a thousand times and knew every word by heart.
Now you want me one more time? Who do you think you are? Running round leaving scars, collecting your jar of hearts…
But, if she was being brutally honest with herself, was any of this really Jack’s fault? He hadn’t ever declared anything close to undying love for her. The crush had been one-sided from the get-go. It was just one more bad choice she’d made in a life of bad choices.
Suddenly, the anger that had been propelling her evaporated. Hot tears once again burned her eyes. “It’s all my fault. I did this to myself,” she blurted.
His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Did what to yourself?”
Cleo sighed. Master Jack hadn’t known the confused, unhappy girl she’d been before finding a home with the Masters Club. To be fair, she would need to give him at least a little context.
“I’m a lousy picker, Jack,” she admitted, stumbling a little over his name, which sounded naked without the title that had always defined their relationship.
“Explain,” he persisted.
“You’re just another in a series of bad choices I’ve made,” she blurted before she could stop herself.
Jack winced, a pained smile moving over his lips. “Ouch.”
Embarrassed and a little ashamed at the sweeping generalization, Cleo amended, “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. What I mean is, I consistently fall for guys who end up screwing me over, whether or not that was their intention.”
He continued to look pained, but she pushed on.
“I was engaged in my early twenties to a guy I thought was Master Right.” She shook her head, remembering.“I was stupid, crazy in love with Nigel Kensington. He was GQ-model hot and the one who first turned me on to serious BDSM. He connected with my inner sub and brought it to the forefront. I was a little low in the self-esteem department back then, and I was just in awe that he’d even looked at me twice, much less chosen me as his special girl. I thought he hung the moon.”
Cleo shifted her gaze to the ceiling, Master Jack’s intent gaze too much for her to handle. “No matter where we went, other girls were always swarming around him, which should have been my first clue. But that expression, love is blind, that was me. Even when girlfriends started reporting back to me that they’d seen my man with other women, I rationalized it away. I told myself they just didn’t get it. People in the lifestyle often scene with others. Nigel had explained that to me. It meant nothing.”
She glanced back to see his reaction. He was still watching her with that intent gaze, as if he could not only hear what she was saying aloud, but beyond the spoken words to the secrets in her heart.
