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Fuck. The conversation we’d had over two bottles of wine, while I was feeling emo as shit?
“She knows she’s not supposed to eavesdrop.” He paused as the whine rose to a cry. “But she was worried about you, and she thought if she spoke to Alice, she could help her understand…what was it you said, darling?”
“Help her understand about Milo,” said a soft voice.
“What about Milo?”
I didn’t hear anything else for a moment, only crying. “Fort, don’t torment her,” I said. “I’m sure she meant well.”
“Maybe, but I beat her little tail anyway. She and Ella paid a visit to Alice to tell her the reason you were resisting a relationship, and I’m afraid they told her too much.”
“Too much?” I asked.
“Too much. Everything. You. Me. Them. Your kinks. The Gallery.”
I sucked in a breath. “They told Alice about The Gallery?”
“She said they didn’t mean to, but the name slipped out. They were in the process of telling her the rules—”
“Fuck. That’s not okay.”
“I know, I know. If you want, you can come over and punish her too.”
I was tempted. The Gallery’s members were sworn to discretion. But I doubted there was much left of her “little tail” to punish, judging by her whimpers in the background. “I don’t want to punish her any more, but I need to speak to her. Will you put her on the phone?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry, Milo,” she wailed a moment later. I held the phone a little farther from my ear as she apologized two more times. “We didn’t mean to say so much to Alice. It just came out. We were trying to help her understand you better.”
“It sounds like you did a bang up job of that.” I softened the edge in my voice. “I know you were trying to help, but I didn’t want her to know those things about me.”
“She didn’t react badly. Well, I mean, she was surprised.” Juliet sniffled. “It was a lot for her to take in.”
“You must have known it would be,” I scolded. “And it was my private business. My choice whether to tell her or not.”
“I know. We only wanted to help. When we got there, Ella and I could tell she’s been feeling sad without you. Her eyes had that look, you know?”
Her words stabbed into my heart. Yes, I knew that look. I remembered it from the days after the Michelin building caught fire, and she lost everything.
“So…what did she say?” I wanted to know, even though I dreaded knowing. “Did she look scared? Disgusted?”
Juliet’s pause told me everything I needed to know. “I think it was just a shock, Milo. And then Ella spilled about the time you were slapping her, and Dev beat you up, and it came out that you’d played with the two of us, also.”
“Ah,” I said, anger flaring along my nerves. “So you told her absolutely everything. I might come punish you after all.”
“You can if you want,” she said, breaking up in sobs. “I deserve it, but maybe wait until tomorrow.”
I heard a yelp, probably Fort pinching one of the welts he’d deposited on her ass, to make her cry so hard.
“If he wants to punish you, he can do it anytime,” Fort said sternly.
“Tell your Sir to give you some corner time with clamps on,” I said, “while you think about discretion and privacy. Put him back on the phone.”
She apologized once more and handed it over. While I waited for Fort to come back on, I thought of ways I might put a positive spin on what had happened. I couldn’t think of one.
“I’m back,” he said. “And she’s in the corner. She’s really sorry, Milo.”
“At least she told you what she did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know that Alice knows.”
