“No, not we. Me. I want to go to my house. Alone. I’ll get my car tomorrow.”
I feel the frown settle over my forehead. “Samantha, I—”
Before I can even really begin to apologize and explain, she’s turning and heading for the door. She practically runs down the hall toward the exit. I reach her before she can yank open the door.
“Samantha, stop!” I hiss quietly. “I’ll take you home. Just calm down. Don’t forget that we aren’t alone.”
I don’t want anyone thinking I’ve brought an unwilling person to the club and I don’t want to draw any undue attention to her. To either of us.
She won’t meet my eyes, but I hear her take a deep, shaky breath as she reaches for the door knob. More steadily. She turns it and steps through, pausing only long enough for me to close it behind us, and then she’s heading for the stairs.
She descends them calmly and makes her way toward the front door without appearing to be running for her life, which I get the feeling she thinks she is. But when we are outside, away from curious eyes, she takes off at a sprint toward the car.
I walk slowly in her wake, giving her the space she obviously needs. Meanwhile, all sorts of things are going through my head, all sorts of theories and unanswered questions. I’m already formulating new analyses to add to my Laura Drake file, and I’m mulling the new insights I’ve been given to Samantha Jansen. She’s quite the contradiction.
She seemed so ready, so open to me. How could I have been so wrong?
I hit the button to unlock the doors and Samantha ducks inside before I can reach the car to open the door for her. I don’t suppress my sigh.
After I slide in behind the wheel, I start the engine and get us back on the road to her place before I speak. I figure she needs distance from the club before she’ll feel any better.
“What happened back there?” I ask finally. When she says nothing, I continue. “You can tell me. I want to know your feelings about it.” Still she says nothing. “Samantha, I—”
“You said you would help me,” she interrupts, anger and hurt oozing from her tone. “But you don’t want to help me. All you want is a toy. A sick, twisted sexual toy to play with in your little clubhouse. Why did I ever trust you?” she cries, her voice breaking on the last word.
“I was up front with you from the beginning,” I reply, my tone harsh. And honest. “You can hardly blame me because you bit off more than you could chew. I told you what I wanted. I told you what you could expect.”
“You never told me to expect that.”
“It’s not like I took you there to cut you or hurt you, for God’s sake. It’s harmless, every bit of it. Any venue that conducts activities more extreme is not going to be found in such an…open location. Those places are hidden. And for good reason.”
“And I’m sure you know about all of them,” she says waspishly.
“I might like a little bondage and a little domination, but I’m hardly a sadist. Maybe all this judgment would be better served turned inwardly.”
“Oh trust me,” she retorts, her eyes flashing in the dim dashboard lights. “I’ve looked inwardly most of my life. I’ve had to come to terms with a whole lot of stuff that someone like you wouldn’t know the first thing about. That doesn’t change the facts. You’re a predator. You take nice girls and you turn them into the main attraction at a freak show.”
“I don’t turn anybody into anything. I simply unlock doors and…set things free.”
“Put whatever pretty face you want to on it. It won’t change the truth.”
“I’ve never tried to hide the fact that when I see a beautiful woman, I want to show her things, things that will set her insides on fire. But we burn together. It’s never about harming anyone. It’s about pleasure. It’s all about pleasure.”
“And I bet you don’t even try to fight this…this…sickness.”
Her comment tweaks a raw nerve. “That’s where you’re wrong,” I snap coldly. “Don’t pretend you know me. Because you don’t. You don’t know what my life has been like. You don’t know the things I’ve experienced. Believe me, I’ve had good reason to fight this. And I’ve managed quite well for a long time now. But I wanted you. That was my mistake.”
When I glance at her, I look quickly away, gripping the steering wheel tighter. I see that the hurt has returned, replacing the fire and the anger. And I know she’d probably never guess how much it bothers me to see it there.
I close my eyes against the hauntingly beautiful face of Alyssa—the one person I feel like I’ll never be able to escape.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Samantha
I can’t write. I can’t sleep. I can’t really think. Not for long anyway. And not about very many topics. Everything gets ousted from my head by thoughts of Alec Brand.
It’s been three weeks since that horrible night. I’ve relived it a dozen times every day, changing some little thing each time, wishing it had turned out differently.
My reaction, my rejection of him and what he shared with me, is something that I fear in life—to be labeled a freak and shunned. To be judged harshly. And to think that I did that to someone else makes me feel physically ill. Yet I can’t bring myself to call him.
The fact that he hasn’t reached out to me speaks volumes. I haven’t logged on to any of our sessions, but I’m sure he hasn’t either. Not that I would’ve expected anything different. That night, when he brought me home, I got out without a word, slammed the door and hurried straight into the house. That’s how I left things.
Idiot!
I really don’t feel like being in public today. If this hadn’t begun as my idea, I’d have gotten Ari to cancel it. But it was, so I can’t.
I’m appearing at an independent bookstore today. It’s a place I’ve visited on and off for years as Samantha Jansen. When I saw that the shop was in trouble, I asked Ari to approach her about us doing a signing there to get her some new traffic.
I park my car in the short-term lot and carry my bag into the airport, heading straight for the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, I come out as Laura Drake, confident on the outside, devastated on the inside.
Ari is waiting for me on a bench just outside. He stands when he sees me. “Ms. Drake,” he says formally with a bow of his head.