12. Soren
SOREN
Jude was so late in picking me up that I figured he’d changed his mind about me and didn’t want me anymore.
That he’d had five minutes of being Soren-free and had realized how much better he was on his own than being stuck with a boy who needed so much.
What did I have to offer him except sex?
The fact that initially sex wasn’t even part of his contract showed how little that meant to him in these arrangements.
Sitting at the bay window, I stared out at the maze, wishing I’d had the courage to explore it. The closest I’d gotten was the entrance. Since I was likely no longer moving in with Jude, I could coax Dean to go with me.
My phone rang, and I scrambled to my feet to answer it, but it was just Aaron. I returned to my seat by the window and answered the call.
“Hi, Aaron.”
“Wow. You don’t sound happy to hear from me. Is this a bad time?”
“No, sorry. It’s okay. What’s up?”
“Just checking in with you that everything went okay. You didn’t return home last night.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was at Halo House late. Not what you’re thinking. Phoenix and I were discussing the toy drive.”
“Oh.”
“So how did it go?”
“Fine. Maybe. I thought so, but now I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? Did something happen?”
“I thought he liked me,” I said. “We signed a contract and everything, and he said he would pick me up, but it’s been three hours, and he still hasn’t shown up.”
“Maybe something came up. It’s unlike Jude to disappoint a sub. He knows how important trust is.”
“Except you don’t know what happened today. I destroyed his kitchen making breakfast.”
I gave him a quick rundown of the morning’s events, which only had him laughing pretty much the same way Jude had.
“Trust me, Soren. That’s not going to send Jude running, but how do you get to the ripe age of twenty-two without knowing how to turn on a stove?”
“I told you, but you didn’t believe me,” I whispered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” Maybe it was for the best that he didn’t believe me.
“I actually called for another reason,” he said. “We have an address where your roommate Daphne has been hanging out, so with luck we’ll be able to nab her soon and get some of your stuff back.”
“That’s great. I don’t really care about the clothes as much as my family heirlooms.”
“Hopefully she hasn’t sold them. I’ll call you if I have more information to share.”
“Okay, thank you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Aaron. You’re the first decent person I met here in California.”
“And now you have Jude, Phoenix, Dean, and the others,” he said. “Chin up, Soren. I have a feeling everything will work out for you.”
When Aaron hung up, I tried to cling to his words, but it was hard to do when I’d been disappointed by so many people.
I must have dozed off at the bay window because a soft knock on the door jerked me upright.
Confused, I stared around me, surprised at how much time had passed, given the position of the sun.
“Come in,” I said, rotating my neck, stiff from where it’d hung awkwardly in my seated position.
The door pushed open, and Jude walked in. My heart rate fired up and I wanted to run to him, but I was pissed that he’d made me worry by not showing up when he said he would, so I stayed exactly where I was and angled my head away to stare out the window.
“You’re mad at me,” Jude said, closing the door quietly behind him.
I bit the inside of my bottom lip to stop myself from responding to him. Jude walked over to where I was, lifted my legs, sat on the opposite side of the bench, and placed my legs over his lap. He pressed his fingers into the soles of my feet, and I almost levitated at how good it felt.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “An emergency came up that I had to take care of.”
“You could have called,” I muttered.
“I did call Phoenix. Didn’t he tell you to expect me later?”
I shook my head. “Phoenix went to the club earlier.”
“Damn it. I’m sorry I let you down, little prince.”
“I guess that’s okay. I forgot to give you my number so you could call me directly.” I finally looked at him. “But what was the emergency?”
“My mom fainted and hit her hip. I had to take her to the hospital and stay with her until my sister arrived.”
“Your mom?” I gasped, feeling terrible for my selfish thoughts while I’d waited for him. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine. She’s just getting a bit older and more stubborn by the minute.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I was mad at you.”
He chuckled. “It’s okay to be mad, but I don’t want you to bottle it up like you just tried to do. We should always talk things out to prevent misunderstandings. I’ll try not to keep things from you, and it’d be nice if you did the same.”
“Then will you tell me the full story of why you went to prison? I have a feeling you left some things out.”
He reached over and gently booped me on the nose. “Of course you’d have noticed that.”
“So what happened?”
“I was in a relationship at the time,” he said. “It was serious—at least for me—and I saw us being together forever. But he was using my credentials to access client accounts.”
My stomach tightened. “Without you knowing?”
“Yes.” Jude continued his rhythmic massage of my feet. “I put my trust in the wrong person. Darren knew my passwords because I was stupid enough to believe love meant having nothing to hide. He started making trades under my name. Small ones at first that could be explained away if anyone noticed.”
“And then?”
“Then he got bold. He made unauthorized trades through several client accounts, moved money around to cover the losses, and altered enough records to make it look like I’d approved everything. By the time anyone started asking questions, every trail led back to me.”
I stared at him, horrified. “But surely you told them it wasn’t you.”
“I did.” His mouth twisted. “But saying ‘my boyfriend did it’ doesn’t carry much weight when your name is on every transaction.”
“He framed you.”
“He used me,” Jude said quietly. “And I let him. Not knowingly, but I ignored things I shouldn’t have.”
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared and left me to face the music alone.”
My throat went tight. “Daddy, that’s terrible.”
Jude’s eyes softened. “I took a plea. Five years inside, three years on parole. I lost my license, my career, most of my friends, and a version of myself I don’t actually miss as much.”
“But you were innocent. It’s unfair that you’re the one who suffered because of something he did.”
Like the way I’d suffered because I’d been used and betrayed just the way he had.
“I wasn’t the mastermind.” His gaze dropped to my foot in his hands. “But I wasn’t blameless either. I gave someone access to a part of my life that should have been protected. People trusted me with their money, their futures, and I trusted the wrong man with mine.”
“That doesn’t mean you deserved prison.”
“But that was a long time ago, and eventually the law did catch up with Darren because he did the same thing to his next partner. He confessed everything and turned over records proving he’d used my credentials without my knowledge and deliberately made me the fall guy.
” Jude’s thumb moved absently over the arch of my foot.
“Did you get your license back?”
“No, but by then I no longer wanted to be in that line of work anyway. While in prison, I learned carpentry through one of the vocational programs. At first, I only signed up because it gave me something productive to do and got me out of my cell for a few hours. Then I discovered I liked working with my hands.”
His thumb moved slowly over the top of my foot, and I concurred. He was extremely good with his hands. And his mouth too.
“Wood made sense to me,” he continued. “If something was damaged, I could see where it had gone wrong. I could take my time, repair it, and make it useful again.”
“So you left prison a carpenter?”
“Not quite.” He smiled. “Prison taught me the basics. After I got out, I worked under a furniture restorer while I was on parole, took more classes, and spent years learning the finer work of restoring antiques.”
Wow. He’d been through so much and had somehow come out of it a better person. I would never have guessed all that he’d been through. And here I was, wallowing in my own pity because I was no longer a prince. At least I was free. I could have been locked up for treason instead of deposed.
“That’s how I became the first person here,” he said. “Although back then, it wasn’t called Halo House. Phoenix and I had a trade-off. He’d desperately needed a Daddy to help him deal with his grief, and I’d needed somewhere to stay.”
“You mean you and Phoenix were—”
“Totally platonic,” he said quickly. “Through his husband, Phoenix was already well known in the Dom/sub scene, and it was easy for him to get people on board with supporting Halo House.”
“So you’ve been involved with Halo House since the very beginning.”
“Hmm.” His hand inched under the hem of my skirt. I’d snagged it from the closet, all because he’d told me he liked the look this morning. “Did you wear this for me, little prince? No wonder you were disappointed when I didn’t show up on time, but Daddy’s here now.”
He urged me closer, and I rose to my knees, inching over to him. Jude’s hands came down on my hips, and he let his gaze wander over my bare arms.
“My little prince, do you know how much you turn me on?” he asked. “Since the first time I saw you, I knew there was something special about you.”
“Special? How?” I rested my hands on his shoulders and stayed still when he pressed his lips to the curve of my neck over and over.
“You’re making me break my rule about sleeping with a sub and you haven’t even moved in yet.”
“Would that be so bad?” I gasped when he nipped my skin with his teeth.
“I can’t tell yet, but I’m going to do it anyway.”