They’d hate each other. Sloan couldn’t stand any sort of pretense, and Char was all about living up to an image. Char’s snobby friends would be shocked to learn she used to get up early to muck out the stables before school. Char hated her upbringing. Kinley had enjoyed every minute.
No, Sloan and Char wouldn’t get on. Sloan called a spade a spade, as her daddy used to say. Daddy would have loved Sloan. She felt that familiar stab of sadness. After daddy died of a heart attack a few years back, her mom sold the ranch and moved into town.
Kinley rubbed her pounding forehead. What she needed was to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Worrying over money didn’t make it magically appear. If it did she’d be a millionaire by now.
Using the rearview mirror and the light from her phone, she checked her makeup. She didn’t usually wear makeup, she’d never really learned how to use it properly, but she’d needed it lately. Her already pale skin only served to highlight the dark smudges under her eyes. She grimaced. Not a great job, but then what could you expect with cheap cosmetics? The bags under her eyes were more Walmart than Chanel.
“Just get out of the car and get in there.” Sitting there wasn’t going to solve any of her problems.
If the orientation for her new job hadn’t run late, she would have been here on time. Instead her supervisor, who liked to talk, had explained everything in extreme detail. And very slowly. Or maybe that was just the way it seemed to Kinley, who’d watched the clock with a growing sense of dread.
I should have told him.
She’d been hiding the dire straits of her finances from Sloan for months. Sloan had a bit of a thing about money. Or, at least, he didn’t seem to think much of people that had any. She snorted. That would never be her problem. But she also didn’t want him to think she was with him for his money. Sloan liked to moan about people with more money than sense, but she knew he did well with his contracting business.
She’d been used before. Duped over money. She’d never do the same to someone else, so, she’d kept her financial situation to herself. And now she didn’t know how to tell him.
This job wouldn’t ease her money problems immediately, but, over time, if she worked hard, grabbed all the overtime she could . . . damn, she felt tired just thinking about it.
Her phone buzzed, and Sloan’s name appeared on her screen. Her finger hovered, ready to answer, but she hesitated too long, and the call went to voicemail. Sh
e checked the time on her phone. Crap, it was after ten. She was over an hour late.
That was the eighth missed call from him. Shit. She hadn’t been able to check her phone until she’d gotten back to her car and after seeing all the missed calls, she’d taken the cowards way and texted him that she was on her way.
She pulled her coat around her. She’d already changed in the car before driving over here.
Time to be brave, Kinley. Face the dragon.
Guilt swirled around in her stomach. She knew what would happen if she told him about this job. He’d insist on knowing why she needed it, which would start a conversation she didn’t want to get in to. He’d be angry at first. That she’d kept this from him. That she’d tried to deal with it on her own. Anger she could deal with; Sloan had a fairly short fuse. He was quick to explode, but his temper usually blew over quickly. However, she knew he’d also be hurt she hadn’t trusted him or confided in him.
Hurting Sloan was something she never wanted to do. Keeping secrets in any relationship was a terrible idea, but in a relationship such as theirs, it was a disaster waiting to happen. Not only would it likely result in her not sitting comfortably for a week, communication and honesty between a Dom and his sub were crucial. Without it, things just couldn’t work properly.
She tried to avoid punishment as much as she could. She was normally so good. Well, okay that wasn’t exactly true. She could be a bit of a brat. The sense of humor she’d inherited from her daddy had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion. But that was innocent stuff. Fun. She considered it her duty to keep Sloan on his toes, she didn’t want him becoming too complacent, after all. Or bored. Like Eddie had. She clenched her hands into fists, pressing her fingernails into her skin. Sloan was nothing like that rat bastard. If anything, Sloan was almost painfully honest. She knew how Sloan would react if she told him about this mess.
He’d try to fix it. Sloan was a fixer. And he could be a bit of a bulldozer. All right, a giant bulldozer. Subtle was not in his vocabulary. If he saw something that needed doing, he did it. And if his woman was in trouble, he’d want to take care of it.
Kinley didn’t want anyone to take care of her problems. She didn’t want them solved. She just wanted . . . she didn’t know what she wanted. She wanted to handle it herself and yet she didn’t, the thought of handing over all her worries was really, really tempting right now.
“You’re just tired,” she told herself. God help her next week when she had to work a full week at her regular job then four nights cleaning at March Industries.
She laid her head back against the headrest, the weariness settling into her bones. She was getting too old for this crap. She was thirty-four. She should have had her shit together years ago. She should be married with two kids, a postage-stamp yard, and a dog. She didn’t have big dreams. She didn’t need to make huge amounts of money, have a dazzling career, or be someone other than a wife and mother.
But society didn’t think that was ambitious enough. Society dictated she should want more. Be more. Kinley sighed. Well, society didn’t have the bills Eddie left her with when he buggered off to Ibiza with that leggy, blonde bitch. And didn’t that sound like the beginning of a bad soap opera. Maybe she should write a book.
It was pretty much the only interesting thing about her. Oh, that and her membership at Club Decadence, which Sloan paid for. That still didn’t sit right with her. Kinley liked to pay her own way. It’s what her daddy had always taught her. He would’ve been horrified by all the debt she’d accrued—that Eddie had accrued and left for her to deal with. Just like always. She’d spent the whole two years they were together picking up after him and solving his problems.
Now they were her problems, not Sloan’s. She needed to figure it out on her own. She’d been naive and stupid, leaving it up to Eddie to handle all their finances, signing whatever he’d put in front of her.
“Never going to be that stupid again,” she muttered to herself.
The back door to the club opened, and, even though the light shining through from behind him put his features in shadow, she immediately knew it was him.
At six foot six with shoulders so wide they’d rival any pro wrestler, it would be hard to not recognize Sloan. He wore his hair slightly too long, always too busy and impatient to get it cut on a regular basis. His face was chiseled and hard; he couldn’t be described as handsome. But there was something about him that made people stop and stare. And when he spoke they forgot he wasn’t handsome, he held their attention with that deep, rumbly voice and those golden-brown eyes.
He could be temperamental, snarly, interfering, and bossy. But he was also the kindest, most generous man she’d ever met. When it was the two of them, alone, he let down his guard. Sloan was the product of a military father and three older brothers. Their mother had died when he was young. In his household, any arguments were solved with fists, and any hint of an emotion was met with scorn. But she knew he felt things more deeply than he let on.
Kinley let out a sigh as he approached. Time to face the music.