Chapter 10

MIRANDA

The past fewweeks have been the happiest of my life.

Are people allowed to be this happy?

I don’t think so. Which is probably why, every second I’m not busy being happy, I’m absolutely terrified.

I’ve never thought of myself as an especially superstitious person, but all the sudden I’m obsessively looking for signs and omens.

Like, I find myself running odds all the time. Daniel just broke up with his Domme of three months, so that means my relationship with Dylan has a better chance of working out, right? Because how likely was it that we’d both find our ones at the same time?

Which is really bitchy and horrible of me, but there it is.

But I really feel like Dylan is it. The guy. The one, like I used to always roll my eyes when people talked about.

I swear though, we fit like puzzle pieces. He gives where I need to take and I think I do the same for him.

Both emotionally and physically. I mean physically, holy shit. I didn’t know this kind of chemistry was even possible. We spent all weekend together after that night at the club. We barely even got out of bed, and when we did, it was mainly just to eat or bathe… which usually just led to more fucking. Sometimes with rough play and forced scenarios, sometimes not.

Last week I texted him letting him know I’d be waiting in a unisex bathroom of a gas station just off the highway at a particular time and, God, my face heats just at the thought of it as I walk with Daniel downtown to get sushi for lunch.

“So I take it things are still good with Mr. Tall, Dark and Sexy?” Daniel asks, bumping my shoulder with his as we walk together.

I blush hotter and Daniel laughs. “It’s fine. You can talk about him. Jesus, I seriously need to get out of my own head and drama for a while. So regale me!”

I frown sympathetically and reach out to squeeze Daniel’s upper arm. “I’m so sorry things didn’t work out with Irina, hon.”

He shrugs and looks down at the sidewalk. “It’s fine. Her life’s too busy and I’m too high-maintenance. It’s better it ended now instead of getting dragged out.”

I want to press more because I can tell he’s hurting but I also know from experience that Daniel shies away from opening up about his feelings—at least without getting him shitfaced first. We’ve had our deepest conversations when he’s just hovering at the puke-his-guts-up line of drunkeness. Then he always claims he doesn’t remember anything we talked about the next day, even though he’s slipped up and referenced things from the conversations later.

To say Daniel is a little emotionally stunted is an understatement. I keep hoping he’ll find a partner who can reach him where I can’t. Obviously I don’t want him drinking all the time just to be able to have real conversations about what’s going on in his life.

We get to the restaurant and getting seated and ordering distracts me from worrying about him. As soon as we’re settled, though, I drop the bomb that’s been weighing on me.

“Dylan invited me over to their family estate to meet his brother. The brother who is the only member of his family he currently speaks to, so it’s sort of a big deal. He talks about Darren all the time and I know he’s really important to him.”

“Ooo,” Daniel crows, eyebrows up. “Meeting the family. This is getting serious. Are you going to take him back to Ohio for Christmas?”

“Shut up, I’m being serious.” I smack him with my cloth napkin and he jerks back, laughing.

“So was I,” he says. “Come on, Mira, when was the last time you’ve been this excited about a guy?”

That question shuts me up and I look down at my hands in my lap. Daniel sits back in his booth seat. “Oh shit. Not since…” He doesn’t finish his thought. He doesn’t have to. He knows all about my sordid past with Bryce Gentry. The things that were done to me. The things I did. He’s the only person who knows all of it.

“Did you tell him yet?”

I shake my head. “How could I? I was going to but then he made this big confession to me the other night and it just…” I trail off and take a deep breath. “It wasn’t the kind of thing you could follow up with an, oh by the way, that guy who fucked you over that one time while you were going through all that horrible shit you just confessed to me? Yeah, he’s my ex.”

I drop my head into my hands. “I just haven’t found a way to slip it naturally into conversation.”

Daniel just shakes his head. “Mira, this isn’t like you. You usually charge head first into difficult shit. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me? Just talk to my Dommes about my tendencies so we can work through it together?”

“And how’s that going for you?” I snap and then immediately feel terrible.

“I’m sorry.” My hand shoots out to grab Daniel’s across the table and he shrugs it off like it’s fine even though I can see that it’s not.

“Shit, Daniel, I’m a world class bitch. I’m sorry. I just feel so guilty every day I don’t tell him. I know I should confess the real reason I pushed so hard on getting to know him…”

What would Dylan say if I admitted I sought him out and kept pursuing him because of our mutual past connections to Bryce Gentry? Would he ever be able to look at me the same ever again? If he knew just how far I’d debased myself for Bryce, how much of myself I gave away and lost forever because of that man…

I purse my lips, fighting for control of my emotions. “I’ve just never had anything like me and Dylan before. It’s the best I’ve ever felt. About life. About myself. But it feels like… I don’t know, like my happiness is a house of cards that could come crashing down any second.”

“Damn girl, what are they putting in this sake today?” Daniel holds up the small cup he ordered. “You’re all poetic and shit, and it’s only,” he looks at his wrist, where of course there’s no watch, and then fumbles in his pocket and pulls out his phone. “And it’s only one-thirty on a Thursday afternoon.”

I take my cup and clink it with his. This has been our tradition ever since we were broke kids fresh out of college looking for jobs in the big city.

“So you’re going to meet the family which means it’s getting intense,” he sums up, “but you’re also keeping secrets from him.”

I drop my forehead on the table. “I’m an idiot. I know I’m an idiot. This is all going to blow up in my face isn’t it? That’s what always happens in the movies.”

“So tell him,” Daniel says. “Or don’t. Who the fuck am I to be giving relationship advice?” He throws up his hands. “It just sounds like you two are getting hella intense hella fast.”

“Is that bad?” I ask, lifting my head. “I really, really like him.”

Daniel smiles and it softens the hard lines of his handsome face. “I know. It’s good seeing you so happy. The whole time you were with that Chad guy—”

“Chet.”

“The whole time you were with him you looked like Barbie. Beautiful but like, made of plastic. With a painted-on smile.” He points with two fingers. “And dead eyes.”

I’m not surprised Daniel saw what no one else could—how unhappy I was with Chet.

“I want you to meet him,” I say. “Dylan. I’m meeting his family and I want him to meet mine.”

Daniel arches an eyebrow as our sushi arrives. “You’re willing to put him through the Daniel test? Already? This really is serious. You haven’t brought a guy to meet me that’s ever passed.”

I smile with a goofy sigh. “That’s because you haven’t met Dylan yet.”