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They headed down the pier together about ten feet away. Halfway there, she turned back to glance at me, looking guilty as fuck, and I wondered who the fuck this guy was.
Lacey’s back was turned to me, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying or see her face. Kody was happily licking his cone in an ice cream trance, so I turned my attention to the pair of them.
His hand was on her elbow in a proprietary grip. He seemed very possessive of her. He just gave off that vibe. I was not happy. If Kody wasn’t with me, I’d step in and interrupt them.
Baby Girl.
Did he call her baby girl?
Fuck.
He was someone she had a past with. Who obviously knew her well. And who still had feelings for her. Maybe it wasn’t all in the past?
They’d fucked, I was sure of it.
She came back alone a few minutes later. She was out of sorts. Her face was flushed. She looked uncomfortable. And guilty. Like she’d been caught.
“Sorry about that.” She leaned down to Kody. “Wow, you almost finished that whole cone already.”
She was just going to pretend nothing had just happened?
“Who is he?”
“He’s just an old friend.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Someone I used to know.”
Chapter 28
Lacey
What were the odds of running into Liam Wright aka my Daddy Dom on the Santa Monica Pier? I would think they were infinitesimally low. Yet, it happened.
I once ran into someone I knew in New Orleans. Not in a bar and not during Mardis Gras, but in a rinky-dink souvenir shop way off Bourbon Street on a random day in May. One time, when I was on a train in Switzerland, I bumped into a high school classmate. The old saying ‘It’s a small world’ always amazed me when it proved true.
So, less than 20 miles from where I’d met Liam, at a popular area attraction on a beautiful February day, it was probably not so crazy to bump into him. But fate was not always on the serendipitous side. If there were two worlds I did not want to collide, it was Daddy Dom’s and Bash’s.
Until that moment on the pier, Liam and I didn’t even know each other’s real names. Everything about him was in the past for me. I didn’t even think about him anymore.
I saw the look on Bash’s face and I knew he had questions about Liam, but he meant nothing to me. That’s how I rationalized not telling Bash who he was. How the hell could I explain it?
How would Bash understand the things I did with Liam? The kinky stuff? If Bash had done those things with some other woman, I’d have issues. Severe jealousy issues. Insecurities. Maybe even resentment. And I didn’t want him to feel any of that because I knew Liam didn’t matter to me.
What Liam gave me was purely physical. He helped me delve into parts of my sexuality that I’d only dabbled with before, but he always held back pieces of himself. What he shared with me, he also shared freely with others. Liam and I lacked any true intimacy, and that was something that I not only craved but absolutely required.
I’d found that intimacy with Bash. Our relationship was no longer just about physical closeness. He not only fulfilled my sexual needs, but he far exceeded them. Even more important was our emotional connection, a connection that Liam could never achieve. There was a big difference between the two. I knew it inherently when I broke things off with Liam and I fully understood it when my relationship with Bash grew deeper and deeper. There really was no comparison.
Liam wanted to see me again; he claimed to have missed me, but I’d shut him down hard. I had no interest and told him that. When he mentioned that I could contact him on the Scarlett app, I deleted it on the car ride back to Bash’s house from the pier.
There was no need for Bash to be suspicious. Running into an ex wasn’t a crime. It probably wouldn’t even have blipped his radar if Liam hadn’t called me baby girl. My stomach twisted, remembering the look on Bash’s face. If hearing that had upset him so much, I couldn’t imagine how he’d feel learning about all the rest.
I pulled into Bash’s neighborhood. It was Friday night, the start of our weekend together. Earlier in the week, Bash called and said he got a babysitter for Wednesday night. He wanted to come downtown to my place and take me out to a nice dinner. It was the first time he’d even suggested we get together during the week.
I would love to have gone, but it turned out I was already busy that night with a work commitment that I couldn’t back out of gracefully. I was disappointed, but I think Bash was even more so.
This weekend, I planned to take his mind off it. He wouldn’t be wondering about Liam or disappointed by the canceled dinner date by the time I was through with him. Maybe we could even pick out a weekend to spend together using the treehouse getaway he’d bought me for Christmas.
In the background, there was the weird tick-tock of our divorce looming and I wondered if that was going to change things between us. Lately, I’d been thinking that it wouldn’t. Why would an arbitrary date when our divorce was finalized make us give up this relationship we’d built? I knew that he felt we were more than friends with benefits; he’d even said it. We were beyond that. I hoped we were heading toward a more permanent commitment.
I pulled into his driveway and texted him that I’d arrived so he could open the door for me since Kody would already be in bed. The kid was such a good sleeper; he’d only gotten out of bed once when I’d stayed over and that was because he felt sick. Bash spent the night taking care of him and Kody never knew I was there.
