Page 64 of Captive Heart

Now she was left with a large pile of empty boxes, which needed to be broken down and taken out to the recycling area. She'd do that when she finished her drink and then make an early dinner. Maybe she'd be able to coax Micah out for food, if nothing else.

With a sigh, she re-capped her water bottle and went to find a knife, so she could flatten the boxes. This was the kind of job that gave her too much time to think again.

41

Micah sat in his office, two fingers of whisky in the tumbler on his desk, even though it was still far too early in the day to be drinking. He'd made it to mid-afternoon at least.

Well, that's what he was telling himself, anyway, as he stared at the amber liquid which he'd not yet tasted, while he tried to talk himself out of touching it altogether.

It had been three years since Sara died. Even longer again since the two of them had been an item. He should be over this by now. In fact, he was pretty sure he was…almost.

Despite holing himself up in his office and brooding, he wasn't the moody wreck he normally was on the anniversary of Sara's death.

Staying away from Melody last night and using his own bed for the first time since they’d started sleeping together, had left him feeling unexpectedly lonely and had resulted in him thinking more about Melody than he had about Sara.

He'd hurt her, he knew, with his withdrawal, but Micah had expected to be plagued with his usual guilt over letting Sara down and hadn't wanted to inadvertently take it out on Melody. She sure as hell didn't deserve that.

Conversely, though, that made him feel guilty in an altogether different way. Doubly so, in fact. First, feeling guilty that he'd withdrawn from Melody without any excuse or explanation, even though his intention had been to protect her from his own bad mood and brooding. Then feeling guilty that Sara was slipping from his mind, no longer his sole focus, as if he were guilty of forgetting her, even though they were no longer a couple when she died.

Even though she'd been living with another man.

A man Sara had chosen.

A man Sara had left him for.

A man whose hand Sara died at.

But this year, for the first time, Micah no longer felt the bone deep guilt that he might, somehow, have prevented it.

He'd managed to let go of all the usual second guessing.

What if he had just tried harder to be what she wanted him to be, even though he was opposed to it?

What if he’d tried harder to stay in touch with her, even after she had decisively cut him out of her life?

What if he'd tried harder to intervene when he first began to suspect that the relationship she shared with her new Master was more abusive than consensual.

What if; what if…

The world was full of what ifs.

The truth was, he’d tried all of those things, and he was finally beginning to accept that he’d done all he possibly could.

In an effort to compromise, he'd even agreed to a trial period with the two of them living a Master/slave relationship and he'd hated it. It had done nothing at all to improve their situation. In fact, if anything, it had just made things worse. Everything between them had become stiff and formal, and Sara herself hadn't been happy with how things had played out. It was the very reason she had sought out someone else. Even Sara had realised that the Master/slave dynamic was never going to work between the two of them.

He had loved her, and they were fairly well matched when it came to kink, but the compatibility, in that particular area of the lifestyle, just hadn't been there.

And Micah had stayed in touch with her after the breakup, even as rejected and heartbroken as he'd felt at the time. He hadn't wanted to turn his back on her, so he'd left the avenues of communication wide open.

It was Sara who'd insisted their continued friendship was detrimental to her new relationship; the Master/slave relationship which she'd coveted and didn't want to compromise.

It was Sara who had blocked his number, so Micah could no longer contact her.

And when he’d suspected things weren't all as rosy as Sara had claimed, when he was worried that her new Master was jealous and controlling on a whole different level to a healthy Master/slave relationship, when he'd suspected that it had, in fact, been he who had insisted on Sara cutting their ties, Micah had co-opted some of their mutual friends to look out for her, and none had claimed to notice anything particularly untoward.

So maybe Micah had been jumping at shadows, seeing things that weren't there in his latent grief over the end of their relationship.

Even the circumstances of her death were inconclusive.

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