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“Clara,” he says, leveling me with a serious look. “I’ll be gone for over two months, and I can’t just fly you to New York for a weekend. Plus, this job cuts severely into my practice time for other roles. I’ll be swamped with work for the next half year. At least.”
My hands nip at each other as the weight of this new information sinks in. “So, what are you saying?”
I hold my breath when he stares off into the distance, and my stomach twists when he breathes a heavy sigh and focuses on me.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t be what you need.”
I blink, dumbfounded, before I manage the words, “Of course you can.” I flick out my tongue to wet my lips and blurt out more words to override his. “We’ve been apart for long stretches of time before. We can do it again.”
“No, we can’t,” he says with a certainty that slams my hopes to the ground.
“Why not?” Two minutes, and this talk is already taking a fatal course. I thought we were going to talk about why I left Grigory and shut off my phone for three days, not how our relationship has no future.
“Sweetie”—Markus leans forward and takes my shaky hands in his steady ones—“the need to submit is so deeply rooted in you that you need a Dom who can be part of your daily life.”
“But you can do that. We’ll just have to stick to texts and calls when we’re apart. Like we did before.” I know I’m grasping at straws, but I can’t help it.
“Don’t get me wrong”—he lifts a hand to stroke my cheek—“I lovereceivingyour submission more than anything, but it wouldn’t be fair of me to hold onto you when I can’t offer you the space to submit. I’m sorry, I truly am,but Ineed to take this opportunity,and you need to live and breathe the dynamic every day.”
“I don’t care. I just want to be with you.”
“Clara, I’ve tried really hard this past month to think of ways this could work. I thought it would be enough to have Grigory in the picture—let him be the one to fulfill those needs. But it doesn’t work for either of you.”
He looks away for a moment like he considers how to explain the next thing. “I’m not sure Grigory realizes this himself, but he won’t be able to fullygive himself into this—being your Dom—until he truly owns you. And he can’t do that as long as I’m your primary Dom. I’ll always be that simply because I was the first one in the picture. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, but—”
He doesn’t allow me to protest. “It doesn’t matter what you say, Clara. The two of you belong together. I’ve tried to deny it for quite a while. So have you, and so has he. But it’s right there in front of us—ridiculously obvious. And I have to be the one to acknowledge it first. It’s not fair to expect it from either of you. And so, I also have to be the one to let go.”
“No, you can’t do that.” I shake my head, patting at my eyes as tears start seeping from them. “You can’t just give up on us.”
“This is not giving up. It’s doing what is right.”
I keep shaking my head, refusing to accept his words.
“Clara, look at me,” Markus demands, and when I meet his eyes, he says in a steady voice, like this is a thoroughly thought through plan, “I want to give you to Grigory.”
“I don’t want him,” I say, desperate to hold onto Markus.
“We both know that isn’t true, sweetie.”
“So, is it over? Just like that?”
Markus’s mouth pulls into a straight line as he watches me for a minute. “I don’t know. I hope not.” He looks down at our intertwined hands, his eyes filling with heavy emotion. “If we do go through with this, it will be up to Grigory. You will belong to him, and he will get to decide whether he wants me involved or not.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Markus heaves a heavy sigh and closes his eyes as he says with resignation, “Then it’s over.”
My tears come quicker, and I fall forward into him as a sob breaks from my throat. He wraps his arms around me and holds me with fierce strength like he never wants to let go. But that’s exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to leave me, but he does it anyway.
My heart breaks in a million little pieces as I sit here, sobbing into his chest, trying to wish he had never involved Grigory. But the thought of never experiencing the deep connection I have with Grigory hurts as much as the thought of losing Markus.
It’s impossible. There’s no good outcome. Deep down, I’ve known for a long time but refused to see it. We’ve all tried to deny the intense, almost instinctive pull between Grigory and me. Grigory and I have denied it out of loyalty to Markus, and Markus has denied it because it simply hurt too much to see.
It takes a long while before my tears recede and I can sit up on my own and face Markus again.
“Can we go lie down? Together?” I ask, just needing to feel him.
