She’s giving me a compliment, and I truly believe Juliet is a nice lady, but I’m absolutely stuck on what she’s said. Dominant. Submissive. Clubs. She doesn’t need to say more. I understand completely.
Feeling the world somersaulting around me, I turn my head to stare out at the skyline, trying to find my center. San Francisco has four sex clubs catering to a kinky consensual lifestyle, not that I’ve ever been to one before. We also have the Folsom Street Fair. Even if my parents tried to keep me away from the annual street fair during my younger years, I knew about the kinkier side of sex by the time I was thirteen years old.
Now I know the secret Micah’s been keeping.
He’s a Dominant.
And so is my half-brother.
“Juliet.”
The low smooth word sends a shiver down my spine.
“Hello, Micah.” I can hear the smile in Juliet’s voice. “I introduced myself to your lovely Allie.”
I glance over my shoulder at Micah, and I know with one look at his face that Juliet isn’t lying. He’s keeping his distance from me, being unnaturally still, staring into my eyes, undoubtedly fully understanding now that I know his secret.
“Please let me explain…” he says, holding two glasses of wine.
“Explain what?” I hear Juliet say. I assume she’s staring at me, because she adds in a high concerned voice, “But you said Darius. I thought—”
Micah frowns. “Darius is Allie’s brother.”
A hesitation. Then, “Micah, I’m so sorry—”
“This isn’t your fault. I did this,” he says to her, even though he’s looking at me. “Please leave us.”
In my peripheral vision, Juliet strides away, and her long dress flicks at my bare ankle. “Tell me this isn’t true,” I say, gripping the balcony’s railing.
A pause. Then, “Allie…”
“Tell me,” I shout.
He’s locking up his emotions, tight. “Yes, it’s true.”
“All of it?” The club, the submissives, this other life?
“Yes” is all he replies.
I can’t seem to move or say anything. It’s not the kinky sex he’s into that bothers me, it’s the pretending to be something he’s not that’s dropping the ground out from under me. Sure, I knew Micah had secrets, which is why I took it slow with him, never completely trusting him. But I didn’t think that those secrets could hurt me. I thought they had something do with his past, his demons.
“I don’t even know you,” I whisper my pain.
Micah flinches, his knuckles going white against the glasses. “You are the only one who knows me.”
I shake my head, needing to cleanse myself of the deceptions.
Micah shouts my name, and I hear glass shattering as I turn and run. I ignore the people staring at me, all becoming a blur as I run faster, into the lobby and out the front door. A cab is waiting there, and I lurch into it. “Go,” I yell at the driver, slamming the car’s door behind me. I glance out the window as the driver takes off, seeing Micah running out of the hotel and after the cab.
I shut my teary eyes, realizing this is the second time Micah has made me cry in a cab.
Only this one hurt more.
Micah
The house is quiet when I arrive home after a near seven-hour flight from Boston. I’m still on edge since receiving the urgent phone call from my father’s secretary to come home right away. The fact that my father arranged for a private jet to bring me home only tells me something is very wrong.
The light is spilling out from the sitting room and I follow the warm glow forward, until I enter the room. I take in the three people in there and all the blood rushing through my veins begins to cool. “What’s going on here?” I manage.