Page 55 of Whispers in the Dark

There was no way I could just stand back and let this play out. I had too much self-respect to be involved with someone who was deceptive. As much as I didn’t want to, I would need to find another job because working alongside the man…knowing what he was doing at the club…I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Dejected, I got ready for bed and crashed face first into it. I slept fitfully, tossing and turning until the first dim rays of sun began to appear. One glance in the mirror showed me that I would need my heaviest concealer to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. I looked defeated. How the fuck was I going to get through each workday now?

A couple of hours and three cups of dark roast later, I was adding the last few notes to a proposal deck when I heard the elevator ding. He was here.

I had earbuds in, but they were for show. I wanted as little conversation as possible until I could sort things out in my head.

Adrian strode toward his office and I knew he would pause at my desk, so I got up and walked toward the kitchen before he could address me. When I returned with yet another cup of coffee for him, I saw in my periphery that he was still at my desk. I simply went and placed the cup on his desk before darting off again, hoping he would just go in his office. When I got back this time, he was nowhere to be seen and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

Finishing up the proposal, I sent it his way, leaving my desk again before he could call for me. I would certainly get all of my steps in before lunch at this rate.

I found every excuse I could think of to keep busy and not talk to my own boss. It worked pretty well as his morning was full of the usual calls and meetings.

I knew my luck ran out, though, when I came back from a bathroom break to find Adrian perched on the edge of my desk. His eyes narrowed when he saw me, his jaw clenched in annoyance.

“Ms. Davis. My office. Now.”

Fuck.

38.Adrian

Brynn had been avoiding my presence since I arrived, and even if it was only that, I might’ve let it go. There was something she wasn’t saying which had me concerned. It wasn’t fear like it should be, but actual anger, and I suspected this disappearing act she’d been playing all morning was because of it.

When she’d had every reason to be upset with me before, she hadn’t been so I wanted to know what was going on. Things had been fine the night before when we’d left BT for the night. She’d been headed to her neighbors, and I’d gone to Lotus.

I began to wonder if perhaps her neighbor had told her something about me. I didn’t know the man, so I had no idea what he could’ve said, but it had to be something to make Brynn come in to the office with this chip on her shoulder, and one that was solely aimed at me.

As I reached my office, I stepped aside enough to let Brynn pass, before I not only closed, but locked, the door behind me. She scurried away from me as far as her legs would take her, and I watched as she went to the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of my office.

“Are you enjoying the view?” I asked.

She didn’t turn, but I did see her shrug her shoulders in defiance. While I wanted nothing more than to go to her and shake her, I could feel the palpable waves of energy coming from her, and each one screamed the same damn thing.

Stay the fuck away.

I wasn’t used to this between us, even when I’d been mad. And maybe that was the problem. The only time I had ever really seen her this mad at me, I didn’t actually see her. I’d done something to get her back into my good graces, but whatever it had been hadn’t lasted long because here we were once again.

This is why I keep things impersonal.

It was, and had been, until her. Until Brynn. We were in a vicious circle that kept spinning around and around before starting and ending at the same place. She was a submissive, and I had many of them, or at least I used to. Since touching Brynn for the very first time, I’d wanted no one else but her. That was still true today.

“Is there something you would like to discuss with me?”

Again, she simply shook her head to answer me as if she didn’t quite trust her voice.

“While I might enjoy this silent treatment from time to time, will you at least tell me what I’ve done to deserve it?”

This time, she just tensed. I waited for some reaction, then saw her turn around to face me. “I don’t know to what you’re referring. Is there something you need from me, Mr. Benedict?”

I needed many things, but honesty topped that list.

“Something seems to be bothering you today, and I– ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied to me.

I narrowed my eyes at her as she slightly squirmed. She might think she was fooling me, but I knew her too well for that. Part of being a Dominant was getting to know a submissive so well that you could anticipate their needs before even they did.Another part was trust, and neither Brynn nor her sister had any reason to trust me. Especially not Blair.

This time, I was the one to feel like squirming. While I maintained my same unaffected demeanor to her, I was anything but calm, cool, or collected. Brynn would never be the wiser to that, though.

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