Chapter 3
What a crock of shit.Even without verifying my suspicions with Connor, I knew Miles had asked to be reassigned to a different case. There were days I wanted to strangle him, and I might still, but I kept trying different, subtler approaches in hopes of finding one that worked with him. In six years, I’d had zero luck. Most people would think I’d have given up by now. Nope, not me. I firmly believed anything worth having was worth fighting for. Even if it was Miles himself I needed to fight.
As much as I wanted to follow him and confront the issue head on, I knew I couldn’t at this moment. Right now, I needed to find Bryce. There was still the case of a missing $5M. I turned about face and headed in the opposite direction of Miles toward the offices at the other end of the floor. I stopped at the second door on the left and knocked. A gruff “Enter” came from behind the closed door.
I stepped into Bryce’s office and closed the door behind me. Besides Connor, Bryce was the only other person who knew I was a member of Eden, our local BDSM club. Imagine my surprise when I showed up one Saturday night a few years ago to see Bryce Harris with a leash in his hand. My eyes widened farther when I spotted the male submissive on all fours next to him attached to the opposite end of that same leash. He about choked when he saw me in my royal blue corset, tits practically falling out the top, and black boy shorts with a length of jute rope in my hands.
Awkward conversation took place that first night, and for the next few weeks at work, but eventually we got used to each other’s presence. He had his secrets, and I had mine. We were both happy with keeping them to ourselves. Our secrets bonded us in a way that I wouldn’t have expected.
Bryce had become one of my best friends. It was usually Bryce and Thomas, his submissive, that I hung around with at Eden when I was there. They hadn’t gone public with their relationship due to Thomas’ ultra conservative family so it was only on rare occasions we went out together in public; they had a hard time maintaining a friendship only vibe. I felt awful they had to hide their love.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Bryce greeted me when he saw who’d entered his office.
Lord knew how he came up with that god-awful nickname for me, but I learned early on to leave it alone or it only got worse. When I’d first objected to “buttercup”, I was then assaulted with an onslaught of other horrific nicknames which ranged from “sugar tits” to “sweetbutt”. I quickly gave in and grudgingly accepted being called “buttercup”. Now, it felt special. It spoke to the deep love and friendship we had for each other. I could hear the affection behind the name.
“I hear you’ve taken over the Bullman case.”
“Talked to lover boy, huh?”
Other than Connor, Bryce was also the only person who knew of my deeper feelings for Miles. I’d just told my girlfriends he was cute. Sadly, Miles had never given any indication that he was anything but vanilla. A dominant woman, being interested in a vanilla man would bring me nothing but heartache, according to Connor. Bryce, of course, played the devil’s advocate and almost had me pinning my hopes on the fact that you never knew until you tried.
Even still, I sent a look of disgust in Bryce’s direction. As much as he loved me, he knew which of my buttons to push and enjoyed pushing them just to get a rise out of me. If I had a younger brother, I imagine this was how he’d have acted.
“Yes, I spoke to Miles. He said that Connor reassigned him. I know it was per his request. I’ve waited six years for this man, Bryce. I’ve been more patient than any woman has a right to be. And he still has his head so far up his ass that he can’t see what’s right in front of him. I don’t plan on giving up, but damn, he’s really starting to piss me off.”
“You know, there’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to give him an ultimatum. Or you’re going to have to resort to drastic measures. You’ve played it safe so far, kid. Honestly, I don’t think you’ve given it your best effort. Even after six years. Conservative measures have clearly gotten you nowhere.”
I knew Bryce was right, but short of dragging Miles into my world of domination and submission, I didn’t know what else to do. Although, now that the idea had formed in my head, it was beginning to gain strength. There was a masquerade ball at Eden in a couple of weeks. What if I got Bryce to bring him? Like Bryce said, it was time to take the bull by the horns. I promised myself that after Miles had killed Malcolm, and I saw the pain and suffering he was going through, I would do everything in my power to rid him of the unnecessary guilt he felt. Sadly, I hadn’t put forth a valiant effort. It seemed as though that was about to change.
I spent the next thirty minutes talking about the Bullman case with Bryce and brainstorming ideas about where the money might be. I logged into one of the computers in Bryce’s office and started running a query. After an hour of coding errors, I finally got a ding on something. It would appear Mr. Bullman had an offshore account I had somehow overlooked the first time I’d run his financials. I don’t know if it was the distraction of my mind on Miles or what, but before “the event”, as it was discreetly referred to, I never would have missed something this easy. I needed to get my head back into the game, or I was afraid Connor would start looking for a new computer analyst.