Chapter 12
Stella
Oliver was already seated when we arrived at the restaurant for lunch—a trendy farm-to-table place that he loved and I tolerated for the sake of our friendship. He stood when he saw me, his handsome face breaking into a warm smile.
“There you are.” He pulled me into a hug, and I let myself sink into the familiar comfort of it. “I’ve been worried about you. Your texts have been very cryptic lately.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s been...” I pulled back, gesturing vaguely. “A lot, with the threats, moving back in with my parents, and having full time security.”
Oliver’s eyes slid past me to where Tate had charmed the hostess into giving him a table near the door, close enough to watch me but far enough to give us the illusion of privacy.
His eyebrows rose. “Holy shit, is that your bodyguard?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
Oliver’s gaze traveled over Tate with undisguised appreciation. “Well, your father certainly has good taste in security personnel. Does he come with a name?”
“It’s Tate. And stop looking at him like that,” I chastised Oliver. “He’s not on the menu.”
Oliver laughed as we settled across from each other at the table. “Honey, a man like that is always on the menu. The question is, who’s doing the ordering.” I felt heat creep up my neck and focused very intently on the menu I’d already memorized.
We ordered—a kale salad for Oliver, who was perpetually on some cleanse or another, and a burger for me, because my mother wasn’t around to dictate my choices and life was too short for rabbit food.
The conversation flowed easily at first—his cases, my clients, the latest drama with his sister’s wedding planning. Normal friend stuff. Safe topics.
But Oliver had known me for too long and he was too perceptive for his own good.
“Alright,” he said, setting down his fork. “Spill.”
I gave him a guileless look. “Spill what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Stella. It doesn’t suit you.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “You’ve checked on your bodyguard approximately thirteen times since we sat down. You’re fidgeting and you have that look.”
I frowned at him. “What look?”
“The look you get when you’re trying very hard not to think about something you can’t stop thinking about.” Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on with you and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous over there?”
“Nothing,” I said, not sure how much I wanted to reveal about my situation with Tate. “He’s my bodyguard. That’s it.”
“Stella. You’re an excellent designer, sweetheart, but you’re a terrible liar.” Oliver reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. “Talk to me. What’s really happening?”
I looked at him and felt the weight of everything I’d been holding in pressing down on my chest. The stalker. The threat. The impossible, inconvenient, utterly consuming attraction to a man I had no business wanting. And the fact that I’d already had him once and knew exactly what I was missing.
I desperately needed someone to confide in, and I knew I could trust Oliver with the entire truth. “You remember that night a few weeks ago? When I went to The Players Club?”
He pulled his hand back and grinned at me. “The night you finally decided to embrace your inner sexual deviant?” he teased. “Yes, I remember. One glorious night of anonymous sex. No strings, no complications.”
That’s all I’d told Oliver and now I was about to reveal the more intimate details of that night. “I was with him,” I said, keeping my voice low, even as I glanced at Tate, who was eating a burger for lunch, too.
Oliver stared at me for a long moment, his expression cycling through surprise, disbelief, then settled on something that looked almost like glee.
“Wait. Wait wait wait.” He held up a hand and leaned across the table toward me.
“Are you telling me that you had a wild, anonymous encounter with a sexy stranger at a kink club, and then that same sexy stranger showed up as your bodyguard?”
My cheeks warmed. “Yes.”
“That’s...” He pressed his lips together, clearly fighting a laugh. “That’s the plot of a romance novel, Stella.”
I glared at him. “It’s not funny.”
He smirked. “It’s a little funny.”
“Oliver!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He took a bite of his kale salad and composed his features into something more sympathetic. “Okay. So the hot bodyguard is also the hot club guy. And judging by the way you’ve been looking at him, that attraction didn’t stay in the past.”
“No,” I admitted miserably, not surprised that Oliver had caught those wistful glances.
“It definitely did not. A few nights ago, we kissed in the kitchen. It was …intense.” I shivered just thinking about it.
“But then he pulled away. Said there were things about him I wouldn’t like.
Said we were crossing lines we shouldn’t. ”
Oliver was quiet for a moment, processing. “Do you know what things he’s talking about?”
“No. But I have some guesses.” I thought about that night at the club, the way Tate had taken control, the way I’d surrendered, the way it had felt like coming home to a place I didn’t know existed.
“I think he’s worried about the dynamic we had at the club.
He thinks I can’t handle whatever he’s really into. ”
“And can you?”
I met Oliver’s eyes. I didn’t know the specifics, but there was one thing I did know for certain.
No matter what things Tate was into, he’d never hurt me.
Even after he’d restrained my wrists then held a hand against my throat and fucked me senseless that night at the club, I’d always felt safe and secure by his insistence that I had a safeword.
“I want to handle it,” I said, meaning it, even as my frustration crept into my voice. “I want all of him, but he keeps pushing me away and making decisions about what’s best for me without asking what I actually want. Just like everyone else.”
Oliver thought for a long moment. “Don’t give him a choice.”
As if it were that simple. “Even though he’s my security detail and my parents would have a collective aneurysm if they knew I was fucking my bodyguard?”
Oliver smirked. “Especially because of all that. You’ve spent your whole life playing by everyone else’s rules, Stella. Following expectations, meeting obligations, being the good daughter. When was the last time you did something just because you wanted it?”
I thought about it. Really thought about it.
“The night I went to the club,” I finally said. “That was the first time in years I did something purely for myself.”
“And how did it feel?”
“Like absolute freedom,” I said without any hesitation.
“Then embrace that woman and what she wants,” he said, his tone fierce now, and protective in a way that made my heart swell. “Don’t let fear or propriety or anyone else’s expectations keep you from going after what you want. You deserve to be happy, Stella. You deserve to feel free.”
I swallowed hard, then smiled at him. “Thank you. For listening and not judging.”
“Please,” he drawled, waving a hand in the air.
“My advice is a bit hypocritical, considering I’m in a secret relationship with a closeted politician who’s terrified he won’t get re-elected if his conservative voters find out he’s gay.
I’m in absolutely no position to judge anyone’s complicated romantic entanglements. ”
I laughed. “Fair point.”
* * *
I thought about Oliver’s words the entire drive home, Tate silent and watchful beside me as always.
Don’t give him a choice. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to feel free.
The house was quiet when we arrived. My mother had left a note on the kitchen island—she had an appointment with her hair stylist and manicurist, and then she and my father were attending a dinner with clients of my father’s, which they often did.
The name of the restaurant she’d written down was that exclusive French place downtown, the one where a meal lasted four hours minimum and the wine pairings alone could stretch past midnight.
They wouldn’t be home for hours once they left for the evening.
I stood in the kitchen for a long moment, staring at my mother’s elegant handwriting, a decision crystallizing.
I thought about Oliver’s encouragement. Thought about the night in the kitchen with Tate—that kiss, the feeling of his hands on my hips lifting me onto the counter, the devastating moment when he’d pulled away and left me aching and confused.
I thought about what I wanted. What I really, truly wanted, for the first time in longer than I could remember. Not what was appropriate. Not what was expected. Not what would make my parents happy or keep the peace or fit neatly into the life that had been planned for me since childhood.
Just... want. And what I wanted was Tate.
I wanted to finish what we’d started. I wanted to tear down whatever walls he’d built between us and find the man underneath, the one who’d shown me how good pleasure could feel and made me feel safer in surrender than I’d ever felt in control.
The man who claimed there were things about him I wouldn’t like.
Tate had sequestered himself in the study again, as he always did when he was trying to maintain distance. I could picture him in there, probably reviewing security footage or answering emails, pretending he wasn’t hyperaware of exactly where I was in the house at every moment.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and walked down the hallway with purpose.
The study door was open. Tate sat behind the desk, his laptop open in front of him. He looked up when I appeared in the doorway, and I didn’t miss the wariness that flickered across his expression.
“Stella.” His voice was back to being professional. “Did you need something?”
“Yes.” I stepped into the room and up to the desk, standing across from him. “My parents are going to be out for hours tonight at a business dinner. I doubt they’ll be home until after eleven.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Okay.”
“I want to go to The Players Club tonight.” I kept my voice steady, my gaze locked on his. “With you.”
For a moment, Tate just stared at me. I saw the surprise in his eyes, then his expression shuttered completely. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
He slowly shook his head, but I could see the tension in his shoulders and the way his hands had gone still on the desk. “I can’t even begin to tell you how inappropriate that would be.”
“But you want to go,” I challenged him. “With me.”
“What I want—” He stopped, jaw tightening. When he continued, his voice was stiff and annoyingly formal. “What I want shouldn’t matter, and it doesn’t. Whether I would like to go—that’s irrelevant. What matters is that I keep you safe. And you’re not going out tonight.”
The same argument. The same restrictions. The same infuriating certainty that he knew what was best for me.
“So that’s it?” I crossed my arms, feeling the familiar frustration rise in my chest. “You just get to decide? Without even asking what I want?”
“In matters of your safety, yes. That’s literally my job.”
“Your job.” I let the word drip with all the bitterness I felt. “Right. Your job is to protect me from external threats, Tate,” I reminded him. “Not from my own choices. Not from you.”
Something dangerous flickered in his eyes—there and gone so fast I almost missed it. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Then tell me.” I took a step closer. “Stop hiding behind professionalism and tell me what you’re so afraid I’ll learn about you.”
His jaw clenched. “This conversation is over.”
“No, it isn’t.” I jutted my chin out defiantly.
“You don’t get to kiss me like that in the kitchen and then pretend it didn’t happen.
You don’t get to look at me the way you do and then hide behind your job description.
And you definitely don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle without giving me a chance to prove you wrong. ”
“Stella—”
“Fine,” I said, holding up a hand and cutting him off, letting him think he won.
He hadn’t. Far from it. In the taut silence stretching between us I made a decision I knew would force his hand. I could feel my heart pounding, could feel the recklessness surging through my veins like champagne bubbles. My idea was crazy. Completely, utterly insane.
And I didn’t care.
Whatever walls Tate had built around himself, whatever fears were holding him back—I was going to find a way through. Even if that meant provoking him. Even if that meant pushing him past his carefully constructed boundaries until something finally broke.
Because I was done letting other people decide what was best for me.
Oliver was right. I deserved to be happy.
I deserved to feel free. And if Tate thought he was protecting me from him, he had another thing coming.
I turned and walked out of the study without looking back, my pulse racing, my mind already planning.
I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, a slow smile spreading across my face as the details took shape in my mind. I knew exactly what I was going to do and I knew Tate would follow me. His protective instincts wouldn’t let him do anything else.
Then we’d see just how long those walls of his could hold.