Chapter 3
Aconstant mist dampened my hair and coat. I preferred rain, as it dropped from the sky without giving the hope of leaving you dry. Mist was a creeper—you didn’t realize you were soaked until it was too late. I feared that was how this meeting with Ian would go.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
But in the most secretive corners of my being, I’d known an eventual confrontation of some sort was on the horizon.
It was only logical since he was Gage’s brother.
And I knew Ian well enough to know that he wouldn’t settle for the way things had ended.
The day we parted ways had haunted me for a while, as if we’d left something important unsaid, left a window open that needed closing.
Maybe that’s what drew me to volunteer at the hospital in the first place. The idea that I’d bump into him…eventually. That I’d get the chance to do what I’d failed to do that day in the hospital after losing my baby. Make things right.
Was that even possible?
I was about to find out. As I entered the coffee shop next to the cleaners, flutters of anticipation took flight in my stomach. The door swished closed behind me. Wiping the moisture from my temples, I scanned the space for him, my gaze falling on several men with dark hair before I found Ian.
He sat by himself at a small table at the far end of the shop, and something about his demeanor bothered me.
Made me consider him in a different light.
He wore his hair in a buzz cut, much shorter than I ever remembered, and his clothes were unusually rumpled.
He seemed distracted as I approached—preoccupied as he stirred a spoon in his coffee.
One brown loafer tapped the floor, and he gazed out the window, failing to notice my presence.
I almost turned and fled. Meeting him was wrong, unfair to both him and Gage. But…I had to see him. My selfishness disgusted me, and suddenly I was grateful Gage had wailed on my ass that morning.
Drawing a fortifying breath, I gathered the last threads of my resolve and slid into the seat across from him. His attention broke away from the fascinating show of birds flocking through the trees lining the street.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” His gaze dropped to my modest cleavage for a moment, then his eyes settled on my face again.
“I wasn’t sure I’d come either.” A lie. The instant the elevator at the hospital yesterday had confined us for the duration of seven floors, I’d known this was the moment I’d been waiting for. The moment I’d been dreading.
My opportunity to play with fire.
He leaned forward, and his hazel eyes imparted an intensity that almost matched Gage’s.
I could detect the relation so easily now.
I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it before. They both commanded with their presence, though Ian did it in a quiet, unthreatening way compared to his brother.
Suddenly, I wondered if that made him more dangerous.
A creeper mist waiting to drench me.
“You look good, Kayla.”
The way he said my name sent a sharp ping through my heart—not big enough to be a knife, but not small enough to be a harmless pinprick either. I’d missed him this past year, but I couldn’t voice it. I could barely admit it to myself.
“I probably shouldn’t have come.”
“Does Gage know you’re here?”
My first instinct was to lie. Ian wouldn’t like the answer, and I didn’t have the energy to defend my marriage to him. Before I could answer, he scowled, indicating I was as translucent as sheer silk.
“Is he going to beat you for seeing me?”
“No.” Even as I spoke, I knew there was more deceit than truth in the denial. When it came to Ian, Gage would blow a gasket in a heartbeat. “He’s been seeing a counselor.”
“Still making excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses.” No. I was flat-out lying to myself. Now it was my turn to watch the birds zipping through the mist outside, their wings fluttering.
“So this won’t bother him? You and me,” he said, gesturing to the space between us, “sitting in a crowded coffee shop, simply talking?”
It would definitely bother him. More than bother him.
Even worse, it bothered me because I had no business being here.
But a force I couldn’t fight had propelled me to volunteer at his place of employment—essentially putting myself in his path.
Now I sat across from him, an arm’s length away from the one man on this planet I was forbidden to think about, let alone talk to.
My web of lies had me teetering on a slippery slope.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” he mumbled.
“You’re right. He wouldn’t like it.” No doubt about it. Gage would feel betrayed, flayed to the bone. For someone as strong and dominant as Gage, he wounded easier than most people.
Ian raised a brow. “Why did you agree to meet me then?”
I stared down at my hands. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something.”
I risked a peek at him. “What do you think it’s trying to tell me?”
“That you married the wrong man.”
That was bold, even for Ian. “I don’t regret marrying him.”
He grabbed my hand. “Then why are you here, Kayla?” He thumbed the ring on my finger, but his quizzical gaze remained fixed on me.
I pulled my hand back and stood, and the chair scraped across the floor with an earsplitting screech. “Why are you here?” I tossed his words back into his face with a glare. “It’s been a whole fucking year, Ian. Why now?”
“Sit down.”
His tone was too similar to Gage’s. Too commanding. That was the only reason I sank into my seat again. Habit. Gage had trained me well, though bending to another man’s commands wasn’t the result he’d aimed for. I tried not to fidget in my seat, especially when Ian leaned toward me again.
“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.
That was a difficult question. If I said yes, then did that mean Gage blackmailing me had been fate’s doing? “I don’t know.”
“Well I believe in fate. Running into you yesterday was a sign.” He took my hand again, refusing to let go this time. “I hear you’ve been volunteering in the children’s wing. Is that true?”
I nodded as acid rose in my throat.
“What prompted you to do that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“You don’t know much of anything, do you? Do you even know why you married him?”
“I’m not talking to you about this. I shouldn’t have come.” I tried removing myself from his grasp, but he held steady.
“He’s got that much power over you?” he asked, incredulous. “He fucks you a few times and you’re hooked. Unbelievable.”
My heart sank. Apparently not even a year of distance had lessened his bitterness.
“My marriage is none of your business. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
” What he didn’t understand was that Gage had power because I gave it to him.
I gave him control. I willingly called him Master, gave him my body freely.
I allowed him to hurt me when and how he liked.
I followed his strict rules, wore toe crushing stilettos daily because he wanted me to.
I bent, and bent, and bent some more because I got off on the obsession.
No man would ever love me as fiercely and possessively as Gage Channing.
Yet I missed being me, the old me…the me who didn’t have to ask for permission to do something as simple as pick up the fucking dry cleaning. The me who, despite a year of not seeing Ian, refused to stop caring about him in some small corner of my heart.
This day—the day I’d irrevocably stepped out of line—could be the day that brought everything crashing to the ground.
“Fine, Kayla. Your marriage to him is none of my business. But the fact that you’re sitting across from me now, barely able to look me in the eye, is my business.”
“This was a mistake,” I said, finally extricating myself from his hold.
Ian and I had too much history for this to feel so awkward.
Yet it did, and it was my fault because I had no valid reason for meeting him.
A year ago, I’d chosen his brother over him.
Nothing had changed since then. Gage was still my husband.
Still the man who owned me, whether I wanted him to or not.
The man I loved, whether I wanted to or not.
“You’ve made plenty of mistakes,” he said. “What’s one more?”
My breath caught in my throat, and I couldn’t hide the surprise in my expression. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to see you again. Meet me in my office on Monday? I’ve got a short shift, so I’m free around noon.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. I talked to your boss. She already told me you volunteer on Mondays.”
“What do you think is going to happen between us?” I held my breath, afraid of his answer.
“Nothing, unless you want something to happen.”
I jumped to my feet. “I need to get home.” My voice came out a strangled mess, revealing too much. The pain that fisted my heart. Would I ever be able to look at him and not want to crack in two?
He rose, slowly rounded the table, and before I could process what was about to happen, it happened.
He pulled me into his arms, held on tight, and buried his face in my hair.
I went stiff in his embrace, knowing that I was on shaky ground.
Knowing that letting him touch me was the worst idea ever.
But as the seconds ticked by, I couldn’t help but relax into him. I was weak. Needy. I needed this.
Because Gage never just held me. He made me feel a spectrum of emotions, from fiery passion to lust to rage to suffocating possession, but he refused to show vulnerability. The part of him I loved the most—the man with a heart made of more than just ice—was barely around anymore.
And I missed that man so fucking much.
“I took so much for granted,” Ian said, his tone thick with regret. His fingers tangled in my hair, and he tilted my head back. “I’ll never make that mistake with you again.”
I freed myself from his tempting arms and put some much-needed space between us. I’d made a massive mistake by meeting him today. The realization clenched my insides, and I felt on the verge of throwing up.
If Gage ever found out, not only would he be livid, but this would hurt him.
“I have to go.” I pivoted and strode toward the front of the cafe without looking back, and I prayed to whoever was listening that I’d have enough time to pick up the dry cleaning and make it home by noon.