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He drew out the words—here you are—so they sounded ominous. I couldn’t hold his gaze.
“Here you are, Ella, in my office, in hisbest friend’soffice, asking if I’ll take you to The Gallery to scratch your fucking itch.”
I looked past him at the door, wishing I could get to it. I’d somehow rationalized that this would be okay, that Milo would agree to sponsor me, that maybe I could even play with Devin again sometimes, casually, for fun. God, he was so angry, and if Devin was here, he’d probably be angry too.
“I’m just going to go,” I said meekly. Apologetically. “Just let me go.”
“Oh no, Ella. Not yet.”
“Please, I won’t ever talk to you or Devin again. I won’t try to come to The Gallery.”
“No, I have some questions for you. Some…confusions.” He made a vague crazy-cuckoo sign around his head. I wondered what would happen if I screamed for help. Would that be an overreaction?
“See,” he said, “I’m confused because when you and Devin played together, we were all amazed. You were both so in tune with each other, so deeply into it. We watched and we marveled, because Dev has a history at The Gallery. He’s always been the serial seducer, the careless playboy with a blonde supermodel on each arm. But here comes this new girl, short, skinny, brainy, with those glasses.” He ran his eyes over my body with such disdain it hurt me. “Oh, she was still blonde, but there was more to her. For Devin, obviously, there was more.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, like that might offer protection from his critical stare. “I can’t help how Devin felt about me,” I said. “I told him from the start that I didn’t want things to get too intense between us. He knew that.”
“Sure. That’s why he’s left you alone. We all left you alone, but here you are, asking me to take you to The Gallery, like that would fucking be okay.”
“I don’t want you to take me anymore.” I stood, ready to barge past him if he wouldn’t let me out.
He stood too, blinking down at me with his harsh, dark-eyed gaze. “I can’t take you, because Devin still loves you. He loves the fuck out of you, and I can’t say why, because you treated him like a shitty, self-absorbed bitch.”
“You don’t know us,” I cried, my voice breaking under his onslaught. I knew he was a sadist, but on top of that, he was somean. “You don’t know what our thing was about.”
“No, I don’t. Explain it to me.”
I shook my head. My feelings were unraveling. Tears blinded me.
“How did you feel about him, Ella, before you ended your relationship?” He took my arms. “And don’t lie to me, because I saw the way you looked at him when you were in The Gallery, when he held you after your scenes. I saw the way you looked at each other.”
“Don’t touch me,” I said, pulling away from his grasp.
“No, I know. You don’t want me to touch you. You don’t want me to take you to The Gallery, not really. That’s not what this is about.”
I collapsed in my chair, covering my face. “I can’t go with him,” I sobbed. “He hates me now.”
“He doesn’t hate you.” Milo crouched beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. “I think you hate what you did to him.”
“You don’t understand.” I shook my head, my voice muffled and sniffly. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that my best friend beat me up for playing with you, my best friend who, before you came along, had elevated the sharing of submissives to an art form. He cares about you, and I think you care for him so much you want to punish yourself.”
I drew away from his tentative embrace. That wasn’t true. I’d always enjoyed being hurt. It was part of my sex life, the way I was wired. But in this case, if I was honest, it was something more. I needed cathartic pain to drive Devin out of my heart. I needed pain so harsh and loveless that it felt like expiation.
And that, I finally admitted to myself, was the real reason I’d showed up at Milo’s door.
“I don’t know what to do.” I leaned away, toward the wall, needing to get away from Milo’s truths, and his judgmental stare. “I feel awful, but I can’t be with Devin. It’s too scary.”
“Do you love him?”
Ugh, he wouldn’t let me breathe, or think. Tears flowed down my cheeks. He handed me a tissue.
“Do you love him?” he asked again. “Do you love Devin Kincaid?”
“No. I don’t want to love him.”
“Do you know how he’s changed since he’s met you? He’s not the man we knew. He’s better now, more thoughtful, more present. He used to put himself down all the time, belittle himself, but he doesn’t do that anymore, even though you wrecked him all to pieces when you broke up with him. You made him better. Maybe…” He waited until I looked up at him. “Maybe loving Devin would make you better, too.”
