Page 71 of Point of Contention

“Andddd… you can’t call me that.”

Meeting her gaze, I asked, “Ms. Blake?” my tone a mixture of teasing and authority.

Rylan shuddered. “Cabot,” she warned. “I’m serious. Not if you want to talk instead of fuck.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “I’ll behave.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Right.”

A moment passed between us, then I ripped off the fucking bandage. “You don’t want to get married.”

“No.”

“Why?”

She chewed on her thumbnail as she considered her response. “My parents.”

I nodded. “Tell me about them.”

She frowned. Had I pushed her too far?

“My dad is an asshole.” She paused, gauging my reaction, so I kept my expression neutral. “I don’t think they were ever happy, you know? But, like, they had to be, right? Back at the beginning?” She shrugged. “Otherwise, why would she have married him?”

Nodding, I said, “And you think that marriage changed him so drastically?”

She shrugged, looking up at me with pain in her innocent eyes, and I wondered what trauma she’d experienced in her young life.

“What if he was always that man?” I asked. “Even before they wed.”

“Then she married him because she had to.” She raised her chin, indignance sliding over her like a shield. “And I would never do that.”

Hm. I watched her for a few seconds, then nodded. It troubled me that she held so much pain where her parents were concerned, and I wondered what that meant for her childhood as a whole, but I wouldn’t press. She’d tell me more when she was ready. As deeply as we’d fallen for each other, and as quickly as it had happened, I had to remind myself that we were still very much in the beginning stages of our courtship.

We’d moved frighteningly quickly, but there was still so much to learn about each other—

“Why aren’t you married?”

Blinking, I focused as I shook myself free of my thoughts. “What?”

“You’re… almost forty?”

I nodded.

“Why haven’t you gotten married?” She narrowed her eyes. “I googled you.” She shrugged. “Obviously. And there’s, like, nothing about you and another woman. Ever.”

“You were certainly the first to be newsworthy, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, but… not even Stella.”

She said the name as if it tasted badly on her tongue and I understood the feeling.

“There wouldn’t be anything about Stella. She was my submissive, nothing more.”

Rylan’s eyes searched mine. She was holding back.

“Don’t go quiet on me now, Rylan.”

“There was also nothing about Lacey.”

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