3
Damien
“What?” I blink in confusion. Why would I get her fired? That doesn't make any sense. My head is spinning with a mixture of jet lag and shock. Seeing Sophia here after all these years has me reeling. “No. Of course not.”
“She seemed pretty certain,” Xavier says.
I glare at him. “What the fuck, man? How long have you known me? I. Did. Not. Get. Sophia. Fired.”
That’s not how things had gone down.
Ten years ago. Here, in this very castle. It was the opening night of Club M. After what happened with Stephan and Lina, I walked away from kink. Vanilla and nothing else, I'd sworn to myself. The only reason I showed up was to support Xavier.
And, to my shock, Sophia had been there.
She wasn’t a stranger; I knew her from work. Sophia worked at a hospital in rural Pennsylvania. At the time, I was working at a management consultancy firm, and we’d been hired to improve their profitability. It wasn’t a complicated project. The hospital was a miserable place, and after a couple of weeks there, it was obvious why. Most of the problems stemmed from the administrator, Mrs. Caldwell. She micromanaged everyone. She belittled them and questioned their abilities on a daily basis, and as a result, the employees hated their jobs.
Sophia was the bright spot. She was interested in me. I was interested in her too, but I wasn't going to do anything about it. We flirted. To me, flirting was second nature, something I did as easily as breathing. But that was it. I didn’t want to take it further because it didn’t seem right. The only thing I had time for was a purely sexual encounter, and I didn't think Sophia was that kind of girl.
Or so I believed until she followed me to Xavier’s club.
We’d had a threesome that night, Sophia, Julian, and me.
And when I called her a day later, she sent my call to voicemail and didn’t respond to my texts. Three weeks later, her phone was disconnected.
She blew me off. I could have tried harder to contact her, but I wasn’t oblivious. As much as I wanted to see her again, I could take a hint. It was clear what happened. She regretted the escapade and wanted nothing to do with us.
Xavier is still looking at me. “This is a misunderstanding,” I say through clenched teeth. “I will sort it out.”
“Okay,” he replies. “I trust you to take care of it. Now, Jodi’s trying to catch my eye, which means it’s time for us to take our seats for dinner.” He smiles easily. “She’s extremely competent and only a little terrifying. Have a good evening, you two.”
Summit’sexecutive chef has outdone herself. The food is delicious, but I barely pay attention to what’s in front of me. I brood throughout dinner. I make polite conversation with the people at my table, but my attention is on Sophia.
Toward the end of the meal, Xavier strides to the front of the room and makes a speech. He praises the work the Highfield Community Health Center has done in the short time they’ve been open, encourages us to bid generously, and then turns it over to Sophia.
She gives a passionate speech about the importance of accessible health care. I’m interested in what she’s saying, but I can’t focus. My thoughts wander. I find myself angry with Sophia. If she truly believed I got her fired, she should have confronted me. She had my number; she could have called and yelled at me. Demanded an explanation. I left her countless messages—she could have responded to any of them. Instead, she’d jumped to the worst possible conclusion.
Which stings.
When I met Sophia, I’d been struggling. I’d walked away from kink. I’d been at Lina’s funeral; I’d seen the damage BDSM could inflict. I denied my needs, convinced that my sexual preferences were incompatible with a sane, safe lifestyle.
Sophia had changed that. She looked like the kind of girl you’d bring home to meet your mother. When she showed up at Club M, I thought the sex club would scare her off. I thought she’d be scandalized.
Instead, she was intrigued. She looked around with bright eyes. Julian and I had flirted with her shamelessly, and she’d flirted back. We hinted at a threesome, and her eyes had dilated with desire. There had been some kind of show going on at the center stage, something with music, naked bodies, and stylized humping. It was designed to arouse, but I didn’t need it. Sophia’s interest, her willingness to experience new things, were aphrodisiac enough.
I thought I’d moved on from Lina and Stephan’s deaths, but the true healing came that night. My friends had been reckless, but Sophia wasn’t. She was level-headed and responsible, and she was also kink-curious. I thought I had to pick between one or the other, but that night, I realized I could have both. I thought I had won the lottery.
That night had been the start of my road back.
I walk up to her after dinner. “Xavier said you think I got you fired,” I blurt out. Smooth. Way to ease into it. Nice job, Damien. “I didn’t.”
She gives me a long look. “Whatever,” she responds dismissively. “It was a long time ago. As you can see, I’ve landed on my feet.”
It’s blatantly obvious she doesn’t believe me. It’s also just as obvious that even though she pretends otherwise, being fired ten years ago still upsets her.
That gives me pause. Makes me a little less defensive. “Sophia,” I say softly. “I didn’t. I would never.”
Her expression hardens. “The fact remains that I got fired because Mrs. Caldwell found out I slept with you,” she snaps. “As she pointed out when she let me go, that violated the employee code.”