didn’t bode well.
In that moment he knew exactly where he’d find her.
At least he hoped.
Ronin stood. “Thanks, Molly. I appreciate you coming to me with this.”
In the doorway, Molly stopped and faced him. “You should know that the weeks you guys were apart, she was a mess. Now . . . she’s happy with you. I know you’re happy with her. It makes me sick someone would try to ruin that. First someone from your past and then someone from hers.”
Deacon stepped aside as Molly walked out.
Ronin shoved his hand through his hair. “I’ll be gone the rest of the night.”
“Do you know where Amery is?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
• • •
HE found her in a back booth at the Rialto Lounge, knocking back two-for-one happy-hour specials.
An immense feeling of relief flowed through him. She didn’t notice him at first, so he had a minute to study her, his beautiful troubled woman. Her hair was loose; a few sections were twisted from her habit of twirling it around her finger when she was upset. Five empty lowball glasses were pushed against the wall, and the sixth sat in front of her, half empty.
Ronin slid into her side of the booth.
Amery looked at him, but didn’t seem all that startled to see him. He pushed her hair over her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her, tasting the tartness of the gin and the sweetness that was just her. The kiss went on and on, soft and slow, until her face became damp, and he caught the salty taste of her tears. He slipped his mouth free and brushed even softer kisses over her trembling lips as he tenderly wicked away the tears from the corners of her eyes. “Baby. It’s okay. I’m here.”
“I knew you’d find me.”
“I’ll always find you.” He nuzzled her ear. “I’ll always come running after you. Always.”
Her shoulders started to shake, and the real tears started.
Ronin pushed the table back and picked her up, cradling her to his chest and holding her tightly as she cried. He rubbed his lips over the crown of her head, breathing her in, offering her his strength, his heart breaking that this strong, independent woman needed it.
After the storm of tears subsided, she placed a soft kiss on his neck. “Thank you. Will you take me home? To my place?”
He shoved aside the reality that she didn’t consider his penthouse home. “Sure. Is your car here?”
“No. I walked. I needed the fresh air to try to clear my head.”
He kept an arm around her shoulder as he led her outside. Tiny flakes of snow had started to fall, and Amery hadn’t worn a coat. He unzipped his leather jacket and stopped to put it on her. After zipping it up to her chin, Ronin noticed she was crying again. “What?”
“You take good care of me. If no one else ever sees that or ever knows that but me, it’s enough. I don’t want to explain it. I don’t need to explain it or defend it because it belongs to us.”
He framed her face with his hands. “You and me? This matters. Nothing else does.”
She closed her eyes and curled in to him.
Ronin bundled her into his car and found a parking place close to her building. He unlocked her alley door with his key and followed her upstairs.
Amery immediately went into the kitchen and took a bottle of gin out of the cupboard and one glass.
Ronin raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say, Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?
She poured and slid it across the countertop. “For you.”
He opened his mouth to protest and she shook her head. “Trust me. You’ll need it.”
That bad feeling reappeared, stronger than ever. “Amery. What’s going on?”
“Let me get warmer clothes on and then we’ll talk.”
She swayed on the way to her bedroom.
Ronin didn’t touch the booze. He stopped in front of the living room window and watched it snow.
With Amery having downed six drinks, he wasn’t confident they’d be doing much talking. Sure enough, when he went to check on her, she’d put on her pajamas and slipped into bed.
He swept her hair from her face. “Baby, I know you’re tired, but we need to talk about what happened when your parents came to visit you today.”
“They brought me something.”
“What?”
“Some stuff. It’s in an envelope.”
“Where?”
“I put it under the sink in the kitchen.”
“Why?”
She frowned. “To hide it. I wanted to burn it . . . or smash it. Not even show it to you.”
It was bad enough she wanted to hide it? “Tell me what it is.”
Amery turned away from him, snuggling deeper into her pillow.
“Don’t go to sleep yet.”
“I’m tired. So fucking tired of all of this.”
“Amery. Please get up and show me—”
“I can’t watch it again.”
Watch it?
He waited for her to say more, but her breathing slowed almost immediately.
Ronin found the thick envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. James Hardwick. The postmark date had been smeared. He dumped the contents on the counter. Two DVDs, a stack of photos, and a typewritten note about . . . him.
He thumbed through the photos, his sense of dread growing. These had been sent to Amery’s parents? The poses weren’t as explicit as some he’d done. But there were a lot of different women.
He made it through the stack, more than a little rattled. Then he grabbed the gin and the DVDs before he returned to the living room to see what was on the discs.
After the first scene with Naomi, Ronin had to keep from putting his fist through the TV.
His ex had done some seriously fucked-up shit, but this went beyond anything he could’ve imagined. Looking at the footage, he could tell she’d set up cameras not only in her bedroom, but in Ronin’s bedroom. He’d never consented to that. Never.
He seemed stuck in an out-of-body experience as he watched himself on-screen, binding Naomi. Fucking Naomi. He cringed in the scene where he’d slapped her across the face. He had to pause and curb his anger. Why hadn’t he said no to her that time? Afterward, he’d felt so ashamed. He closed his eyes, wishing he could just fucking erase that memory.
“I don’t see the big deal. You use forcible contact all the time in your role as Sensei. In your role as master, you are supposed to take into account what I, as your submissive, want. I need this.”
“Don’t call me master. We are not in the Dominant and submissive roles. Naomi, you are my rope model and my lover. You aren’t even my student, so you don’t understand the role of violence. And yet you’re demanding I use it against you during an intimate moment?”
“You use me anyway. I’m nothing more than a mannequin for you to bind and a hole to stick your cock in when you’re done.”
She’d started to cry then. Manipulating him. Demanding to know why she had no say in their public or private play. And like a fucking idiot, he’d given in. Afterward, he drank until he’d passed out. And he stayed away from her for three weeks.
That’s when he’d decided to convert the third bedroom into a play room.
That’d also been the beginning of the end.
Was this the beginning of the end for him and Amery?
No way. No fucking way.
Ronin couldn’t imagine how upset she’d been at seeing this display of him with his former lover. Especially when that wasn’t really him at all.
But to find out her parents had also seen it? That this was their first—hell, their only impression of him? He was shocked Amery hadn’t ordered him out of her life.
“Naomi goes for the jugular, doesn’t she?” Amery said softly behind him.
He closed his eyes and prayed he wasn’t about to lose this woman. “A nick, rather than a slice just to see how fast you’ll bleed out.” Or see if someone will notice and save you. “I had no idea
she’d . . .”
“I guessed that. But I’m surprised you hadn’t expected something like this from her. Do you think she kept it all these years to blackmail you?”
“Not for money when humiliation is so much more damaging.” He ejected the disk. “Do I even want to know what’s on the other DVD?”
“It’s outtakes from some of your fights.”
Fucking awesome. “This is why your parents showed up unannounced. Naomi sent them a hate package.”
“Yes.” Amery sighed. “They forced me to watch it with them in the room.”
Then Ronin was on his feet, standing in front of her, but he hesitated to touch her. “I . . .” What the fuck did he even say to that?
“It was horrible.” Amery wrapped her arms around herself. “They kept asking questions and treating me like some kind of victim of abuse.”
He just stared at her helplessly as she matter of factly relayed every ugly accusation her parents had hurled at her for being involved with someone like him. By the time she finished speaking, she was crying so hard he couldn’t understand her. Regardless of whether she wanted it or not, Ronin hauled her into his arms and held her.
She clung to him. He waited for the moment her embarrassment would turn into anger and she’d lash out at him. He steeled himself against it.
But it didn’t happen.
He had no idea how long they remained like that, Amery sobbing against his chest while his self-recriminations paralyzed him.
“So after they left, I needed some time alone to try to process everything.”
“Where did you get to in that process?”
“Same place I started—except the booze gave me a buzz. I tried to look at it from both sides. From their side. How I’d feel if I’d gotten something like that in the mail.”
“And?”
“And it didn’t matter. I couldn’t separate myself enough.”
“Separate yourself from what?”
“From the anger and humiliation.”
Ronin tipped her head back to look into her eyes. “I can’t imagine the anger you’re feeling toward me right now.”
Amery’s eyes searched his. “Ronin, I’m not angry at you. I’m angry for you. No matter how it ended between you and Naomi, she doesn’t have the right to humiliate you. The only anger on my side is directed at my parents. They came here for two things. To judge me for my involvement with you and to show me your humiliation. When I tried to explain that they didn’t understand you, or our relationship, they insisted I’d been brainwashed. That I was excusing my abuser’s behavior.”
Abuser. That twisted his stomach.
She touched his face. “So according to them, I’ve been abused by the man who taught me how to defend myself against a real threat. Abused by the man who respects my career aspirations and asked his family to consider giving my designs a shot. Abused by the man who won’t let me hide my wants and desires from him. Abused by the man who knows me, as well as my heart and my body. Abused by the man who gives me his coat when it’s cold, who feeds me when I’m hungry, who nourishes my soul just by his existence. I can’t stand by and let them tell me that I’m abused . . . by the one man who taught me what it really means to love someone.”
He closed his eyes against the surge of emotion. This is what she meant when she said no one else mattered. She knew the truth about them and it was enough. God. He loved this woman with everything he had.
Amery tapped his cheek. “Look. At. Me.”
Ronin slowly lifted his lids, but two tears escaped anyway.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “It’s not worth your tears.”
“But you are.”
“You didn’t even cry when you were beat to shit.”
“This hurts me so much worse than that, because it’s hurting you.”
She sniffled. “But it’s not. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“So your anger, humiliation, and indignation is all for me?”
“Who else would it be for?”
“For you for having to deal with it because you’re involved with me.”
“Oh, Ronin. No.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I hate that she’s still fucking with you. With us.”
What had he ever done to deserve this beautiful, wonderful woman? She should be running from him. Instead, here she was, crying for him. Hurting for him. Ronin caressed her cheek. “She brought your parents into it, thinking it’d mortify you, and you’d lash out and blame me. Naomi wants to hurt you because she knows that will hurt me.”
She rested her forehead to his chest. “What a mess.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
“Because you and I aren’t in the wrong. You were wronged. What happened between you two doesn’t concern me, and it sure as hell doesn’t concern my parents.”
He stroked her hair, unsure where she was going with this.
“If someone had sent them pictures from the demo we did at the club, or if they’d placed cameras here or at your place and had shots of us in intimate moments, that might’ve given my parents the idea I was in an unhealthy relationship. Then I could understand their need for a face-to-face visit with me.”
“But?”
“But they chose to come here and confront me and demand . . .” She made a hiccupping sob. “They gave me an ultimatum. Break it off with you and get some help. If I choose to stay with you, then they’re washing their hands of me. I can’t go crying to them when it’s goes bad.”
“God. Baby. That’s harsh.”
“I know. I just can’t help but wonder how sad it’d be if I was in an abusive situation. They’d turn me away and say ‘we told you so’ rather than helping me because I didn’t take their help on their time frame.”
“Luckily you’ll never have to test those fears. You’ll never need to go crying to them because this won’t go bad between us when it’s so good.”
“You know what bothers me? The only time they show up during the six years I’ve lived in Denver is to cram yet another thing they perceive I’ve done wrong down my throat. They don’t know me at all, Ronin. They never have.”
“Their loss. I know you. I know this big heart of yours, and I know this is hurting you. No matter how different your life philosophies are from theirs, they are still your parents. There’s part of you that wants their acceptance. Not necessarily their unconditional love, because it doesn’t sound like they’ve ever been capable of giving that. But at least their acknowledgment that you’re happy in your own life.”
“Do you ever think you’ll get that acceptance about your life choices from your grandfather?”
What a question. He didn’t think Amery asked just to deflect the conversation from her own situation, but because her confrontation had brought family issues front and center. She’d respected his boundaries and hadn’t asked specifics on his current relationship with his grandfather. But now those boundaries had been tested, and he felt, maybe for the first time, he could be honest with her—and himself—about his complicated relationship with the man he both admired and resented. “He’s been different since everything happened with Naomi. I know he feels guilty—as he should. He stopped putting pressure on me to take over the company. But because of our history, I’ve wondered if he was using reverse psychology on me.”
“Sometimes when you talk about him it’s with . . . disdain, like he’s the evil, controlling emperor. And other times you almost sound fond of him.”
Ronin threaded their fingers together. “There have been times