Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sutton
It’s almost comical that I would be in Las Vegas when Max Cruz breaks my heart a second time.
We’ve come full circle.
Maybe, someday, I’ll laugh about this with my grandkids.
Maybe, someday, I won’t feel like the only man I ever gave my heart to absolutely destroyed it.
I’ve been in the bathroom for thirty minutes.
He stopped knocking ten minutes ago.
I can’t leave.
I definitely can’t face him.
My mind spins so quickly it’s difficult to settle on any one thought at a time. Every moment I spent with Dominus, every touch… every whispered secret…
My mouth opens on a silent sob. I press my fist to my chest, trying to get to that ache, that gaping fucking hole. It feels like my chest has been ripped open, my heart torn out, yet somehow, it’s still there to cause this agony. How can I feel empty and so full of pain all at once?
My god, what the hell just happened?
I can’t figure out if I’m more upset with him—or myself. Because the signs were there.
So many of them that I just ignored. I’m such a fool!
I snort bitterly. Even Mo compared the sheer size of both men and I brushed it off as coincidence, acted like I hadn’t heard her.
Pretended I didn’t have a type when I very clearly do.
But it’s so much more than physical attributes. Dominus knew me. He knew what I wanted, what I needed…
He knew what made me tick, what my body wanted before I could put thoughts into words.
He knew me in ways only one other man seems to.
Because they were one in the same.
Dominus knew how to get me to come out of my shell because Max knows.
He knew how to get me to open up in ways I never had before because Max has always been able to disarm me like that.
And all the while, he was lying to me!
He took my most private fantasies and weaponized them against me. He pretended to be a good man, weaseling his way into my life by day, while learning my innermost secrets at night.
Another silent sob bubbles up, but I stuff it down, pushing my fist against my chest as the pain multiples tenfold. Even just last night he promised to be the man that I deserve, while knowing he lived this horrific lie.
He knocks on the door and I jump.
“Darlin’—”
I grit my teeth.
“I mean, Sutton, um…” He pauses, and I close my eyes as a fresh wave of tears cascade down my cheeks. My god, I was starting to fall for this man.
“I’m gonna go. I don’t… I don’t know what else to do.”
My lip curls into a snarl and I fly off the toilet, reaching the door in three angry strides. I unlock it quickly and yank it open.
The sight of him knocks the wind from my lungs.
His eyes are red, cheeks wet.
But no. He doesn’t get to be sad! I didn’t do this to him.
“You don’t get to leave.”
He lifts his head, daring to meet my angry gaze, then flinches. “I don’t want to make things worse—”
“Worse?” I bark. “Worse?” Scoffing, I cross my arms over my chest. Thankfully, there was a complimentary robe hanging in the bathroom closet, otherwise, I’d be naked for this horrific conversation. “I don’t see how you could possibly make this any worse, Max.”
He searches my gaze, and I fight to ignore the way my heart breaks at the pain in his eyes.
He doesn’t get to make me feel sorry for him.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I snap, then stride past him. “Did you know I was going to be there that night? At that house party?”
I pace the living room of the suite, unable to return to the bedroom where this man spent the last fifteen hours making love to me like it wasn’t completely evil to do so.
“No, Sutton, I didn’t know.”
I pause, thinking back to that night. The time we spent in that bathroom.
I spin to face him. “That’s why you kept asking me why I was there.”
He takes a deep breath, then nods and tucks his hands into his slacks.
He put on a snug long-sleeved henley while I hid in the bathroom, dragged his hands though his hair so it’s perfectly tousled like always.
It’s not fair that he should look so good while I stand here in a borrowed bathrobe, tears streaming down my face and the ache between my thighs that he put there.
I close my eyes, releasing another rush of tears.
“I thought you were there to sabotage me,” he says, and my eyes fly open.
“What?”
Max starts to move toward me, but I jerk my head and he freezes. “I was convinced that you were there to leverage this secret against me. For the kid.”
“What?” I shake my head. “What kid?”
“Bratt.”
For a split second, a tiny, minuscule fraction of a second, I think he’s calling me a brat. And my footing feels off. He’s Dominus in that instant, and my heart doesn’t know what to do with that information.
But then I realize he means Emerson.
I scoff. “You thought that I’d use this information about you…” I huff out a bitter laugh. “That’s what you think about me?” My voice cracks on the words. “That I’d ruin your life over a contract?” My heart breaks into smaller fragments and a sob slips past my lips.
This might hurt even more than the betrayal.
“No, Sutton, no.” He raises his hands in surrender. “I know you wouldn’t do that, to me or anyone else. But seeing you there, in my home—”
He stops speaking and my eyes widen.
“Holy shit.” That was his home?
Max takes another deep breath. “Seeing you there got me all fucked up in the head. I wanted to figure out what you wanted, what it would take to keep you quiet…”
“The terms,” I whisper, remembering that night with vivid clarity. He kept asking for my terms, wanted me to name my price…
Max nods. “But then, as time went on, I realized you had no idea who I was…”
“A perfect time to tell me.”
“I know.” He groans, then drags his hands through his hair. “I know. I’ve gone over it in my mind so many times since—”
“So many times since that you could have told me, Max.”
He winces, closing his eyes on a long blink. “I know.”
We stay like that for a long stretch of silence, his head hanging and my heart breaking. Thoughts whirl through my mind like a merry-go-round that’s lost its conductor, no one to turn it off or slow it down.
“It was selfish of me,” he finally says.
And I can’t hold back the laugh.
“Sutton, I’ve been in love with you for so fucking long.”
“No.” I cross my arms tighter across my chest, trying to stop the growing ache. “You don’t get to use that word.”
He presses his lips together, then gives me a curt nod. “I wanted you, and there you were. I dreamed of you, and there. You. Were. I’m a fucking asshole for letting it continue, Sutton, but you needed it.”
My lip curls.
“You needed what I could give you as Dominus.”
My teeth grind together as I clench my jaw.
“And I needed you,” he finally whispers.
Taking a deep breath, I nod, then point to the door. “Now you can go.”