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“Rory finally agreed to the divorce?” she whispered. “On his own?”
Kyler nodded, never taking his gaze off her. “He signed them this morning, and Sawyer’s seeing that he’s on way back to Savannah now.”
She swallowed back the emotion threatening to explode. How had Kyler achieved getting a man who’d fought a divorce for ten months to finally agree? “Did you have a hand in getting Rory to sign?”
His expression gave little away. He had his emotions very in check. “Would you expect otherwise?”
Gratefulness slid through Ella, of course it did. But she couldn’t get past the feeling that something terrible had changed between them. He’d never been so cold, nor had he been able to keep his hands off her.
She hugged herself as the floor dropped out from under her. I can’t lose you. Don’t do this!
He studied her and sighed. “I see anger in those eyes of yours, Ella. Care to explain why?”
Possibly defensive because of his distance, all of what she experienced last night rushed into her. What he’d done was sweet and thoughtful, but something remained in her thoughts. Something she couldn’t let go of. “I told you to leave it alone with Rory. I told you that I didn’t want you involved with him. If you hadn’t gone to Rory, he wouldn’t have arrived last night. Now everyone knows about what happened with him. And that is not something I ever wanted. So, yes, that makes me angry.”
The ever-so-cool Kyler regarded her with a long look. “I won’t apologize for approaching him, Ella. Nor will I apologize for ensuring you got the divorce you wanted and enforcing that Rory goes back to Savannah.”
“I don’t want you to apologize.”
Don’t you? her mind argued.
Deep down, she wanted to blame someon
e or something. If Kyler hadn’t pressed Rory, this distance wouldn’t be between them. He wouldn’t have seen the violence she once endured.
The fact that he was being so collected only angered her more. She wanted emotion. Realness. She wanted him to stop treating her like a woman who was a second away from breaking into a thousand pieces.
One sleek brow arched. “Then what do you want, sweetheart?”
She drew in a long breath, and all her emotions came pouring out of her. “I wanted a normal life. I wanted to be like everyone else, and I had that, even if for a little while. And now it’s all followed me. Now everyone knows. This was why I didn’t want a relationship. I don’t want the drama.”
“You can’t run from this and you can’t avoid what happened,” he replied with a soft voice. “You need to turn and face it. See that no one is going to fault you for this. You need to count on me to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she growled, angry tears filling her eyes. How many times did she possibly have to say that? “I don’t need to talk about. I dealt with it, okay? For months I dealt with what it did to me. I have recovered from that. I don’t want to go back to that time in my life.”
Kyler didn’t move. Was he even breathing?
He finally said, “You must, Ella. It’s that simple.”
She wiped her tears, cursing those damn things trailing down her cheeks, and said through clenched teeth, “I don’t understand why you need to hear about what happened in the past.” She threw up her hand in frustration. “Why do you need to hear that I lost my parents? That it destroyed me for a long time. If it wasn’t for my grandparents, I would have been a fucking mess.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she attempted to control the shaking of her voice, but failed miserably. “Why does it matter that my grandparents died, leaving me with only Rory and his friends? Supposed friends who all turned their backs on me the moment I left Rory because I was in the wrong, even though he hurt me. That every fucking day I look in the mirror, my scar haunts me with memories that the man I loved threw me into a goddamn table. Why do I need to be reminded how fucked up my life is?”
Kyler’s eyes flared, but his voice remained gentle. “I want to hear all of that because it’s your life, Ella. It’s what has happened to you.”
“No, you don’t want to hear about all that,” she yelled her retort. “You don’t want to know how much I’ve cried. How long I’ve felt alone. How broken I was and how hard it used to be just to wake up every morning.” Tears rushed down her cheeks as she shook her head. “Because when you do, you’ll change even more.” Things between us will be worse than they are.
He seemed surprised, straightening in his seat. “How have I changed?”
Good. Surprised is at least showing something. “You refuse to touch me like you would other submissives. You treat me differently. Don’t deny it, I know you do. You see me as broken.”
Slowly, he rose from the chair, careful not to get too close. “It’s not because I don’t want to play with you like I have others, Ella. But I can’t ignore what you’ve been through.”
“Stop thinking about my past.” She glared, feeling all her pent-up frustration escaping her. “Stop treating me like I’m breakable. Stop treating me like I’m this helpless woman who can’t stand on her own two feet.”
“Ella,” he said in a low warning.
“What?” she snapped, loving that he shook slightly. Yes, she wanted him to express more than a stony look. “My past doesn’t concern me. It shouldn’t for you, either. Stop restraining yourself. I know you won’t hurt me. And I see what others do in the club. I know how you treated me that first night before you learned about Rory. With passion. Without regret. With pure desire.” She thrust her fingers into her hair and yanked. “I’m. Not. Fucking. Breakable.”
