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The restaurant Valor had chosen for dinner was upscale and beautiful, with elegantly plated food, and widely spaced tables for privacy. We’d visited Spain before, but had only come for the weekend the first time. This time we had a week.
I’d planned to leave a note for Loïc at my apartment, letting him know where we’d gone, but Valor had asked me not to. He’d said Loïc would track us down if he wanted to, but I still had no idea how.
As we dined, my beautiful husband and dominant would glance around surreptitiously, and I knew we were thinking the same thing—neither of us felt like we belonged here. We had plenty of money, and it had been years since we’d learned how to use the right fork and mind our elbows in a place like this, but we still felt like interlopers.
I’d had slightly more training in etiquette growing up than he had, but my parents hadn’t been affluent by any means. Now, I sent them money which they accepted grudgingly, even though they wanted nothing to do with us. I thought of sending money as paying them back for what they’d spent raising me. I hadn’t turned out the way they’d hoped.
Even years after removing my purity ring, there were times I could still feel its ghost on my finger—especially when Loïc was around.
“What’s that secret smile for? You’re looking very bratty all of a sudden.”
“Oh, my brain is jumping from topic to topic—how far we’ve come in life. How much my parents wouldadoreLoïc and our relationship with him.”
Valor’s sip of wine must have gone down wrong because he coughed hard enough that the couple at the next table looked our way. “Can you imagine them meeting him?”
I shook my head, grinning at the idea. “Can you imagine their faces if they found out he wasn’t only a friend?”
“Maybe that’s where he disappeared to. He went to introduce himself.”
“Oh my god!”
“They’d bring him to church for an exorcism.”
Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem so funny anymore. The protectiveness Loïc sometimes triggered in me roared to life.
“Who cares what they think, anyway?” He put his hand on mine. “We like him, and they’re not part of our life anymore.”
Our banishment from the family still hurt, even though it was for the best. That wound should have been nothing more than a faded scar by now, but I still felt their disapproval deeply, even across all the distance and time. Even so, I missed them. It was stupid, but even imagining the house I grew up in filled me with homesickness. But I could never go home—I wasn’t even that person anymore. I’d left the old me, and that restrictive, strait-laced life behind. Even if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change any of my decisions.
“I don’t care what they think so much as I worry about howhurt Loïc would be.”
“Do you really think he’d care?” He snorted. “He’d probably find it funny.”
“He’s a lot more emotionally vulnerable than you think.”
Valor snorted, as though expecting me to laugh along with him. When I didn’t, he frowned. “Aside from what he told me about his childhood, he’s never shown any vulnerability with me. Sometimes it feels like he’s a completely different man with me than he is with you.”
“Maybe he is. The two of you have an antagonistic relationship.”
“Yeah, because he’s a fucking stalker.”
“He thinks you want excitement, so he’s giving it to you.”
Valor frowned, his brows hooding his eyes as he studied his plate. I’d thought he was finished with his meal, but he took another bite of his sea bass. “He also hated me and planned to steal you from me.”
“And has he succeeded?” I kept working on myfideuà, which was delicious.
“You’re still mine, but now you’re also sort of his.” He’d said it carefully, as though worried I’d freak out, or maybe that he would.
“You’re sort of his, too,” I pointed out. “Seeing the scarring on your chest in person was a lot more real than seeing it on a video call.” I left out the part that touching it had turned me on, the same way my tattoo did.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to talk that through ahead of time.”
“He surprised you with it like he surprised me with the tattoo.” I shook my head in affectionate exasperation. “We probably should have told him that marking us permanently was a hard limit.”
“It wouldn’t be that difficult to have your tattoo removed, if you wanted to.”
I arched a brow. “I’m surprised you didn’t insist on it immediately.” I sipped my wine, enjoying the slight flush in his cheeks. “Have you called aplastic surgeon to have your scar looked at? They might be able to get rid of it, too.”
