Then I’d completely stepped back at Hades, voluntarily submitting to her even though I’d never thought of myself as anything but Dominant. The fact that I’d had sex with her there at all had surprised me.
Hell, everything about this thing with her was new, not the least of which was me and how I was with her. I wanted to protect her – even more after I learned what’d happened to her as a kid – but I couldn’t treat her like I had my past girlfriends.
My last two girlfriends had been submissive in all aspects of their lives. They’d wanted total domination from me, and I’d given it to them. I hadn’t been into BDSM when I started dating my first girlfriend in high school, but she had the same quiet, timid personality. The only one of my ex’s who hadn’t really fit into that mold had spent most of our relationship pretending. She’d been a brilliant actress, hiding pretty much everything about herself until things had exploded.
Nyx wasn’t any of that.
She was bold and strong and tough. While she wasn’t an open person, she didn’t lie about who she was either.
At least, I hadn’t thought so until just now when I heard her side of a conversation with someone I assumed was her boss.
“…I can use my contact to get some face-to-face time.”
She hadn’t said my name, but considering she’d preceded that statement by telling her boss that she’d found someone connected to the Traylor family, I felt pretty confident that she meant me.
“I’ll send you more information as I get it.”
I clenched my teeth, barely hearing Nyx end the call. What the fuck had that been about? When I’d introduced myself to her at the police station, I could’ve sworn she hadn’t recognized my last name. But she had to have known who I was, wouldn’t she? Nothing else explained what I’d just heard.
She’d been using me this entire time.
Here I’d been worried about her, angry about what had been done to her, concerned that I could accidentally trigger her, and she’d been playing me.
Betrayal cut deep, magnified by a too-familiar humiliation.
“You’ve been spying on me this whole time?” I was proud of myself for not yelling the question, but I doubted this conversation was going to get quieter or calmer.
I was right.
Accusations flew, and my temper built…until she hit below the belt.
“Planning to make me a villain in your little movie? The bitch who dared to ask questions about the great Traylor family? Maybe even throw in how my stepfather fucked me. Everyone likes a bit of sex in their entertainment.”
She opened the door and said one final thing.
“Or maybe you think I was lying about that too. Don’t worry, no one else ever believed me either.”
All the anger drained out of me, taking my strength with it, and I dropped into the nearby chair.
What the hell had just happened?
A week.
It’d been almost a full week since Nyx had walked out of my hotel room, and I hadn’t seen or talked to her since. I honestly doubted I’d ever hear from her again, and I should have already been moving on, forgetting about her.
It wasn’t like we’d actually been in a relationship, and just because I’d been hoping that was the way it would go didn’t mean that’s what she’d thought too. And even if she had thought it, it didn’t matter now.
She’d lied.
How could I believe anything she’d said?
I’d turned things over in my head more than once, trying to decide how much of what she’d done and said had been true.
Meeting me at the airport?
I didn’t see how she could’ve purposefully run into me since I hadn’t known I’d be dropping off a guest at the airport until Nyx’s flight had already been on its way here. But maybe she’d intended to have some sort of ‘chance’ meeting with me already and just took the opportunity that me being at the airport brought.
Then there was the fact that she’d made the first physical move. At the time, I thought it’d been because she was attracted to me, but in the past, I’d learned the hard way that I wasn’t as good a judge of that as I’d once thought.
I sighed as I turned off my shower. No good was going to come out of me going over it all again. I needed to get my head out of the clouds and focus on my work. Not my riding lessons, since I’d gotten through those