Part 19 (2/2)
”What's wrong, Mich.e.l.le? What's going on?”
Mich.e.l.le took a deep breath and blew it out before meeting Sandra's gaze. ”Come with me. I think I just solved a mystery that's been bugging me for the past week.”
Confused, Sandra followed her friend down the hall and into the office.
Mich.e.l.le reached up to pull a dark green book off the very top shelf of her bookshelf. A book that Sandra hadn't seen in ten years. In fact, she wasn't even sure what had happened to her high-school yearbooks. When she'd left Phoenix to move to New York, they hadn't been a priority, and since she wasn't sure what her mother had done with her things, she didn't know if they were even still around.
Mich.e.l.le leafed through the book and then with a little sound of accomplishment, she pointed to a picture and held the book out for Sandra to see.
Mich.e.l.le was pointing to a senior picture of a boy Sandra barely remembered from high school. Looking at him now, Sandra could see he was a cute boy, even with the large Harry Potter gla.s.ses he wore.
She searched her mind, but his name remained elusive. Mich.e.l.le's finger covered the name printed right under the picture.
He'd been one of the kids shunned by the more popular set. If she remembered correctly he'd been extremely smart, and for that as well as his smaller, scrawnier size he'd been labeled a nerd. Several of the football players had reveled in picking on the poor kid. She hadn't spoken to him more than a handful of times before he'd asked her to a dance their senior year.
She winced as that memory came back to her. She had totally avoided dating anyone in high school because she was too ashamed of her home life and had to hide her bruises. So even though she'd felt sympathy for the fear in his eyes as he had asked, her fear mixed with shame had outweighed his. She shook her head trying to remember how she had reacted and how that meeting had ended, but she couldn't recall. It had been too long ago, and too many things had happened since.
”Do you remember him?” Mich.e.l.le prompted.
Sandra nodded and glanced up at her friend. ”I don't remember his name, but I remember him. Poor kid. Everyone was pretty mean to him. It had to be a rough way to go through high school.”
Mich.e.l.le nodded. ”Have you ever wondered what happened to him?”
Shame flooded through her. Even after remembering how horribly he was treated, she hadn't spared a thought for how he'd fared since then. Only for herself. ”I haven't, no. But I hope things worked out well for him. He was really smart, and a sweet guy.” She remembered the way he had looked at her, like she was a princess in a tower and he wanted nothing more than to be her prince. That was where her memory ended, and she felt a pang of sadness for the boy who had endured high school in such a way.
Mich.e.l.le cleared her throat. ”I have a feeling he's done very well for himself. In fact, he may have even transformed himself entirely.”
Sandra frowned at something in Mich.e.l.le's voice. She felt like she was missing something, but she had no idea what.
Mich.e.l.le held the book out again and Sandra's gaze was drawn back to the picture. She took in the dark hair and the blue downcast eyes visible even through the thick gla.s.ses, as well as what she would have termed a ”baby face” back in high school. Something about the set of his mouth gave her another sudden flash of familiarity, and then Mich.e.l.le moved her finger off the name she'd been covering.
Brent Weston.
A hard stab of ice pierced her stomach, and she sucked in a breath as betrayal burned deep.
Brent.
Her Brent. But how? And why hadn't he told her? She tried to tell herself that maybe he hadn't known who she was either. But then she remembered all the times she had caught him watching her.
The boy who had asked her out in high school. The boy who had most likely had a crush on her, one of the popular girls. The boy she had turned down.
She could see how he might be excited to finally have the girl he had wanted all those years ago. Unfortunately, she now felt like a fool. Like everything they had built between them wasn't actually real.
But now it made sense. She had wondered why a man like Brent would spend time with her, a decidedly broken woman who was a lot of extra work for him as a Dom and didn't even know what she wanted. But knowing what she did now, all the pieces fell into place. She had been the unattainable one and now he had ”obtained” her. She wasn't sure where that left them. She had no one to blame but herself. She knew this had all gone too fast and that she should slow down and be more careful, but things at the time had felt too right with Brent, so she had ignored all her internal warnings.
h.e.l.l, until Mich.e.l.le had shown her his high-school picture, everything had still felt right.
She sighed as the grandfather clock chimed the hour, and she glanced over to see that she had only a few hours until she was supposed to meet Brent at Club Desire.
How could she go meet him now? How could she play scenes with him and pretend that nothing had changed?
She couldn't.
Mich.e.l.le gently pulled the book away and closed it with a snap before replacing it on the shelf. ”Something about Brent had been bugging me since I first saw you two on the couch. Something made me think I had met him before, but I kept telling myself that if I had ever met anyone remotely resembling Brent I wouldn't have forgotten it.”
Sandra remembered thinking the same thing to explain away her flashes of familiarity. But even knowing Mich.e.l.le had the same thought process didn't offer much comfort.
She turned to go, not wanting to endure Mich.e.l.le's sympathetic gaze right now. She clenched her teeth and straightened her spine. Somehow she would find a way to get through this.
Chapter 20.
Brent opened the large cabinets on the wall that his large desk faced. They held a bank of TV monitors that cycled through every view they had of Club Desire. As he'd told Sandra, there were cameras in all the common areas and even in the alcoves-except for his two private ones. People had started to arrive for the orgy in Bas.e.m.e.nt 4 and Jake and his team had their hands full checking IDs, cross-checking them against the list of people who were attending, and turning away those who were just curious to get in.
The group who had booked it had requested an invite-only event, so anyone who wasn't on the list wasn't admitted.
Extra security was placed at all the elevators and around the building. Brent wasn't expecting any problems, but Jake and his security teams usually took care of any before Brent even knew about them. He paid them well and they did terrific work.
His phone buzzed, which meant a call from one of the managers. He hit the speaker b.u.t.ton on the phone. ”What's going on?”
A man cleared his throat and Brent immediately recognized it as Jake. ”Brent, Sandra is here to see you and I think something is wrong. Should I escort her up to you?”
A heavy ball of dread settled in Brent's stomach. What if Diego had tried to contact her again? Or got close to her? Dex had learned that one of Diego's aliases' credit card numbers had been used several times in Phoenix over the past few days. So unless it had been stolen, Diego was here in town. Did he already know where Sandra was? Brent hoped not, but Dex had Phoenix PD and even some FBI looking for him. Once they found Diego, he would be going away for a very long time, and he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone ever again-especially not Sandra.
”Yes. Thank you, Jake.”
A few minutes later the elevator opened, and Sandra stood stiff and tall. Her chin was raised and there was anger and hurt s.h.i.+mmering in her eyes. She wore the same peasant skirt and blue top she had worn the first night she had come to Club Desire and she held a green book that brought back memories of a decade ago.
He stood and walked around the desk toward her.
She stepped forward and the elevator doors shushed closed behind her.
She held the book up like a s.h.i.+eld between them. ”Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie to me all this time?” Her voice rose, and he could tell she was trying to hold onto her anger, but the hurt was winning.
He wanted to hold her, to touch her, to try to explain, but she held her hand up in stop-sign fas.h.i.+on and he stilled. ”I'm sorry, Sandra. I tried to tell you several times. But we got distracted and I never got back to it. I never meant to hurt you. We are both very different people than we were back then.”
He remembered the fear and hurt in her eyes when she had turned him down all those years ago, and the hurt s.h.i.+mmering in her eyes now sliced much deeper. He had caused this.
He had to try to make it right. ”Does it really matter that much? We've gotten to know each other now and I think we are very good together.”
She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. ”So what was it? Because I turned you down you wanted to dominate me, humiliate me, and make me pay?” Tears brimmed in her eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks. ”Did you get your revenge, Brent? Did all of this make up for how badly everyone treated you back then?” She was breathing hard, as if she had run a mile.
Her words. .h.i.t hard, but not because any of it was true. It was because she could even think he would do something like that. ”I never humiliated you. You craved someone to dominate you. To show you what pa.s.sion and pleasure your body was capable of, and you and I have a great Dom/sub chemistry.”
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