Page 61 of Reclaim (Deadly Hearts 3)

ChapterThirty-Two

Layton

Doghouse doesn’t quite cover the place I’m currently in. I deserve it, I know I do, but hopefully, I can explain this to Ruby in a way where she will understand and forgive me.

David gives me a sympathetic glance when we arrive outside Ruby’s office and disappears hastily to his own. Most of me wishes I could follow, but I have to man up. The absurdity of this situation does not escape me at all. I’m actually scared of a tiny slip of a woman.

Ruby sits down in her desk chair and folds her hands over her stomach. She glares at me until I close the door. Leaning against it, I shove my hands into the back pockets of my jeans in a show of nonchalance but it’s false and she knows it.

“Well?” Ruby prompts.

I fix my stare onto her green eyes, pooled with such hurt it kills me.

“Hear me out before you go feral. I won’t stop you from doing whatever you feel you need to do but let me get it all out first.”

She says nothing, abiding by my rules, but her simmering anger is choking all the air out of the room.

“First off, I don’t owe you an explanation about my relationship with Maribel.”

The fire in her eyes becomes an inferno, but she keeps her mouth closed.

I can’t help the satisfied smile that crosses my face. The Master in me, her Master, is pleased with her.

The flames turn from anger to desire, but she clamps her lips shut, and folds her arms defiantly.

“It was in the past, and we have never had the conversation about past relationships. I made a passing comment when I walked in on you and David in the bathroom about a previous relationship with a woman that didn’t satisfy as much as one night with you. That was with her. We were together, as it were, for about four months. Hardly the relationship of the year. She was my Sub and that was pretty much it. We were exclusive, but that was more out of my own sense of just not wanting the effort of being with anyone else. For her, it was different. I knew that and I ignored it. I ended it about four months ago, so before I met you. I didn’t end it because of you. I wasn’t playing the two of you against each other. Yes, she tried to reconnect with me a few days ago. I was ignoring her calls. I didn’t speak to her or text her or anything else. I know I should’ve told you and I know I should’ve blocked her, but I was being an idiot. I wanted you to know that another woman was after me and I wanted you to fight for me. Massive ego, I know.”

She snorts with dark mirth, but still says nothing.

“I do know that you love me and I’m secure in that knowledge. But there is more to it than about you wanting to fight to keep me. I wanted you to know, but then I wanted to reassure you, I wanted to hold you and tell you that you have nothing to be worried about. I wanted to…” I sigh. “Does any of this make sense?”

Silence.

Okay, well, I brought that on myself. Ruby is nothing if not stubborn. She won’t speak now out of principle.

“Nod your head if it makes sense, or if I need to keep overexplaining this like a bellend.”

She giggles and nods her head.

“I was a fucking prick and I deserve your wrath for however long you wish to keep hold of it. I won’t push you to forgive me.”

She bites her lip.

“Permission to speak now,” I tell her with a smile.

“I get where you’re coming from, and I don’t give a flying fuck about the woman. It’s the fact that you didn’t tell me. She was calling you and I was oblivious to that. Whether you spoke to her or not is irrelevant. Think about how you would feel if the tables were turned.”

It’s the perfect opener to point out about Adam, but I’ve used up enough of my lives with her over this, so I keep quiet.

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “It’s written all over your face. Just say it. Ask about him. I have nothing to hide.”

Her scathing tone hits me in the gut. I have no choice but to ask now or forever hold my peace. “Are you planning on starting something with Adam?”

“No. Is there an attraction there? Yeah, at the very beginning, but I shut him down because I knew the five of you wouldn’t want me getting involved with him. That’s fine. I don’t begrudge it or resent it. I get it. We are a working unit now and I don’t want any interference with that. He lives there, I live here, there’s a lot of other factors that also make it a no-go for me, but I won’t lie and say it was completely squashed dead when I saw how he looked at my sister. So you don’t need to worry about it from me or him. Satisfied?”

“Yes,” I croak like a fucking tool. What else am I supposed to say? However, I know she is telling the truth. She has no reason to lie, but more than that. She just isn’t interested in him that way. “But I hear what you’re saying about the tables,” I add.

“Is she going to be a pain in my ass?”

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