Page 51 of Reignite

I fired the therapist.

The agents implied Ilario was involved, and that he’d been a part of the act of terrorism and had fled the country after. I knew better. Foster must have had done something horrible to my sweet Ilario too.

The club healed on the outside too. Lilly became a master of PR and had the whole world thinking the damage had come from a fireworks display gone wrong. Only law enforcement and my circle of friends knew any better.

I spent each hour of each day knowing this was all my fault. That if I had never gotten involved with Foster, hadn’t challenged him at the club, taken Lilly from him, tried to make him understand true love, then none of this would have happened.

Gray wouldn’t be gone.

Ilario wouldn’t be missing.

I wouldn’t be dying inside more and more every day.

Cade, Dominic, Hawk, and Lilly took care of everything to get the club reopened. They encouraged me to come back each night.

After another month, I still hadn’t.

I couldn’t.

I did my absolute best to isolate myself from the world. After feeling alive in Gray’s arms, now there was nothing. Numbness.

Which was fine by me.

It wasn’t okay with anyone else. But I didn’t give a flying fuckface.

I tried going to the club. One time. Danica had called while I was there and had been stuck on the side of a cliff on some tropical island, sure she was going to die.

That was more than I could handle. Jim had taken care of her in the end, and I hadn’t returned to the club since.

Cade and Dominic, Hawk and Lilly, even Danica continually checked up on me under the guise of club business or needing advice. Like I could give anyone advice.

Danica had somehow persuaded me to meet her at the Mean Bean for coffee. Her total confidence in herself leeched into everyone around her, and I was glad she had become an integral part of the club in my absence.

I may have put on clothes instead of the pajamas I lived in, but hair and make-up were not happening. I sat while Dani got drinks from the too cute for his own good latte boy, Taylor.

He was putty in Danica’s Domme hands. That almost made me feel something. Something that hurt.

“That boy would roll over and beg if you asked him to.” I pretended that’s what someone like the old me would say in a situation like this.

She nodded and winked at him. “I just might do that. He is yummy, and there’s something about being adored by a twenty-two-year-old that tickles my fancy.”

I appreciated that Dani never asked me all the clichés. I didn’t want to say I was fine when I wasn’t, or that I would be okay when I wouldn’t.

She let me be. She pretended things were normal when no one else would.

“I’ve decided I’ve got exactly the girl for Cade.”

Huh. Was that a tingle of interest I felt in my brain? Strange. I took a sip of the coffee. No. It must be the caffeine. What do I say? Oh, right. “Do tell.”

Dani went on like this was a continuation of an everyday conversation we had. It might be if things had been different. Once upon a time I wanted everyone around me to be happy.

“He broke it off with Lizzie a few weeks ago.”

“Cade goes through subs faster than you do.” Huh. That didn’t feel fake. I actually meant to say that.

She frowned at her coffee. “Yeah, at least he’s the one dropping his partners like their hot, unlike me.”

There was something different about Danica today. She didn’t seem that upset over losing a sub. In fact, she’d been different since her near death experience on that island. “No more subs for you?”

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