To Sir (11 page)

Regret clawed its way through his chest. “I really fucked up.” Tears clogged the back of his throat. Liz might never try again to delve into the deep end of learning what she liked in her sex life. All because he was such an epic failure.

He met Dusty’s angry gaze. But his friend’s face fell in a second, all the anger washed away. Then his partner was pulling him up into a fierce hug.

“All right, okay, I’m done yelling at you. You have to figure out a way to apologize to her.”

A knock on the door interrupted, and without thinking, Chase said, “What?”

The door opened, and DJ stood in the door. “Shit, guys, so sorry.” He backed out and closed the door without another word. Chase and Dusty busted up laughing and broke apart. It felt good to laugh after the day he’d had.

He swiped at his face, sobering. “I have no idea what to do.”

“Whatever you need from me, you got it, man. You know that.”

“Good. I might have to take you up on that offer of an ass kicking.” He clapped his friend on the back. “Oh, one more thing…” He cleared his throat.

“What?” Dusty asked.

“I know you told me to keep what I’d saved outside our business account for myself, and I wasn’t going to. I was going to send some or all of it to the bank to buy more time, but I can’t now. Mom’s medical bills are growing, and she and Dad can’t keep up. My sister was going to help, but she lost her job, and I—”

“It’s your money, dude, not ours. You spend it whatever way you need to. We’ll find a way to buy more time from the bank before the end of the month. Don’t worry about it.”

Chase tried to accept Dusty’s words, to assuage the feelings of suffocation he’d been experiencing the past few months, but it didn’t do any good. That money should have gone to help him save his business,
their
business, and now it couldn’t. Bile rose in his throat. “Thanks, man,” he managed sadly, then shooed Dusty out the door.

He changed for the night’s festivities, put on the black mask Dusty had left for him, and went out to face his guests. By the end of the night, he still had no idea how to fix anything. His club was open, and cash was flowing in the door, but it would never be enough by the end of the month to save them from the bank’s lien. Worse, he feared he might have broken any trust Liz had not only in him, but also herself and the BDSM world at large. He knew Suzanna had been right with her parting words.

He was a poor excuse for a Dom.

* * * *

Liz rubbed her earlobe uncontrollably. Why did she torture herself like this? Her monthly dinners with her family had gone from bad to worse over the years. And still she kept coming back for more. Maybe she was the masochist she’d been trying to deny after all. Could she really stay in denial after yesterday with Chase? She shook the thought aside and focused on where she was now.

She hated this house.

Keep driving.
She could do it. Just drive away and never come back. But her family was all she had. The only connection to the real world, besides Sophia, that she’d allowed herself. And Soph lived two thousand miles away. She got to see her every couple of years at a conference if she was lucky. Her mother, father, and brother were the only people in her world who didn’t live inside the pages of a book or the folds of her mind. And she hated them all.

She’d thought maybe being an adult, a successful writer living out on her own, would enable her to build some kind of relationship with her mom, but that had been a joke. The woman was still pressed so firmly under her husband’s thumb that if it wasn’t so sad, it would be laughable. Liz turned the car back on. Here went nothing. She was going to leave. And never look back.

Crap.

Mom was already on her way out to the car. And Liz couldn’t drive off while her mother was waving to her happily as if nothing were wrong. She shut off the engine and took a deep breath, then opened the door and got out. She clutched her purse to her like a lifeline. Like it would somehow protect her from impending doom.

Jane had an incredible ability to pretend, a great big streak of denial, and a need to please those around her and keep the peace. Liz might have admired her mom if the woman had ever set her mind to keeping Liz happy and healthy, instead of only the males in the household.

Trying to swallow her disgust, Liz muttered, “Hey, Mom.”

Her mother patted her on the shoulder. “Hi, sweetie.” A small shadow in her mother’s gaze told Liz her father must be in a particularly nasty mood this evening. Fan-freaking-tastic. Guilt swirled in her gut. And she’d been thinking about driving off and leaving her mom to deal with the jerk on her own.

Every time Liz saw her, Mom looked the same—a bit of gray had been in her black hair for years, a laugh line here and there, but no major wrinkles to announce her age. Mom’s Asian face still looked so much like her own that Liz sometimes resented the resemblance. She was nothing like her mother. Where Liz was rebellious against the family-centric traditional way she’d been raised, Jane was very proud of her Chinese heritage and, as a second-generation Chinese American, still followed many of the traditions of her childhood growing up in the immigrant community in San Francisco.

After another soft squeeze on her shoulder, Mom turned and headed back toward the house. Liz followed her up the walkway and over the threshold of her personal hell. As a kid, she’d always thought this house was so huge. Imposing and evil. She knew that wasn’t the case, and the house she lived in now was almost as big as this one. But when she was young, this place had been like a prison, intimidating her into feeling small.

“You’re late.” Dad’s booming voice made her queasy.

“Sorry, lots of traffic tonight,” she lied easily. Every month it became harder to get herself ready to come here. To put on the appropriate clothes, do her hair and makeup right so Dad wouldn’t call her a slut. For years, she’d purposely dressed in the most provocative clothes—sandals to show off the scorpion tattoo on her foot and anything that was strappy or see-through enough in the back to display the cherry blossom branches. But those nights had seen her mother in tears, an endless string of insults from Dad, and general screwed-upness that she wasn’t strong enough to deal with anymore. She’d stopped intentionally antagonizing her father on most occasions, and these dinners were calmer, if not better.

Tonight he sat in his rocking chair, and her brother, Lee, sat on the couch mere feet from Dad. The two looked so similar that even as a kid she’d started to resent her younger brother. Not only had he gotten all the attention from her parents, but he’d been praised where she’d been reprimanded, rewarded when he spoke his mind instead of punished. At first, she’d tried to love him, protect him, play with him.

But as he grew older and became infected by their father’s poison, he’d turned mean, learning he could say or do anything to his older sister with no consequences. College had mellowed him out some, and he wasn’t anywhere near as cruel as he had been when they were kids, for which she was grateful. She’d put up with her father’s crap for Mom’s sake, but Lee had said something cross to her one night after she’d published her first book, and she’d punched him in the face. She was no dummy; she’d had martial arts training as soon as she’d moved into her first apartment all by herself. So when she’d hit him, it hadn’t been some sissy little smack. She’d almost broken his nose. Their relationship had gotten a lot better after that.

She took her place at her mother’s side in the kitchen to help finish dinner. Before long, it was so hot in the kitchen she wanted her hair up. But makeup could only do so much to hide the mark on her neck, and she’d worn her hair down to conceal it. As soon as Mom’s back was turned, she lifted her hair off her neck, trying to cool off.

Mom’s gasp made her cringe. Crud. “Elizabeth Leigh. What is that?” Her shrill voice was loud.

“Shh. Mom, relax. It’s a bug bite,” Liz lied. “It’s been itching like crazy. I know it looks all red and irritated. But really, it’s fine.”

She let down her hair, covering the mark and praying the warmth she felt in her face didn’t show a bright red blush. No way could she fend off any more questions without turning the color of a tomato.

“Upstairs, now.” Rarely did she hear such steel in her mother’s voice, so without protest, she followed her up the stairs and into the bathroom. Rolling her eyes, she sat on the toilet at her mom’s urging. The disapproving gaze her mother gave her made Liz feel like she was five years old again. Would she never get used to it?

It was one thing to say she hated her mom, and sometimes she really did. Would it honestly have cost the woman that much to be in her daughter’s corner just once? But the anger and resentment didn’t stop Liz from needing her mother’s approval, as much as she tried to protect herself from being hurt every time Mom was disappointed in her.

“What happened?” her mother asked in her normal voice while rifling around in the cabinets.

“You really don’t want to know. It’s only a hickey, for crying out loud. Don’t worry about it.” Well, didn’t that sound like a different tune from the one she’d been singing at Chase’s last night? How could she justify it as nothing to her mother after she’d been so angry with him? What a hypocrite. She swallowed as her stomach lurched. Shoot. Did that mean she had to apologize to him for overreacting? She didn’t want to. Wanted instead to shroud herself in her anger and pretend she’d never met Chase Masters. Anything was better than admitting to herself that he terrified and thrilled her.

She obligingly held up her hair as Mom neared her with heavy-duty concealer. Liz remembered the bottle. “Jeez, how old is that stuff?”

Mom shrugged, a small smile forming on her lips. Okay, so maybe Mom had been supportive at some points when Liz was a kid. They’d used this same concealer to cover up Liz’s first attempts at tattoos. They’d been henna, temporary but not washable. Mom had
not
been pleased. Liz always assumed she’d helped conceal them to keep the peace in the house, and maybe she had, but perhaps it was more about protecting Liz from her straitlaced senator father than she’d thought.

“Guess it still works,” Mom said, slathering on the cream.

God, Liz wished she could talk to her mother about this mess with Chase, but that was completely out of the question. She’d tried to talk to her mom about guys exactly one time and then never brought it up again. She shuddered thinking about the disaster that had been.

Mom brushed some powder on Liz’s neck and blew cool air over it to dry. “There, much better.” She rested her hand on Liz’s shoulder. “You sure everything is okay?”

Liz smiled at the concern in her mom’s voice and let her hair drop. “Yeah.” She’d lied to her parents about everything for years, to the point where she didn’t really care any longer. She certainly didn’t feel okay, but she’d sort it out on her own, like she always did. Somehow.

“Let’s go before your father comes searching for us.”

“Or before we burn dinner.” She stood up, and just as her mom put her hand on the door, Liz touched her arm. “Mom?” Her mother turned. “Are you happy?” She blurted the words before she could chicken out.

“Why would you ask such a silly question?”

Of course that would be the reaction she got. Why did she even bother? “That wasn’t an answer,” she whispered.

“Yes. I’m happy. I…well, I wish you and your father weren’t always so at odds with each other. I thought once you grew up, moved out on your own, and made your way in the world, you wouldn’t—”

“I wouldn’t what, Mom? Have my own opinions? Talk back? Tell Dad to go screw himself for the way he treats you?”

“That you wouldn’t hate him so much. Some people simply don’t know how to talk to children.” Mom looked her right in the eye. “I don’t think he ever understood you or why you despised him. He never really wanted children, you know? He did it for me, because he loves me. And he’s under a lot of stress to be perfect. That hasn’t made parenthood very easy for him.”

She scoffed. “Perfection doesn’t exist. I hated him because of the way he treated you like a second-class citizen. He’s so freaking selfish. Not to mention the way he treated me. Why don’t you see that?” It made a sick sort of sense now. Her dad had hated her from the start because he’d never wanted kids. Had he resented her since birth because she had her mother’s love and attention, and it took something away from him?

“Language, Elizabeth.”

She rolled her eyes. “
Freak
is not a curse.”

Mom shook her head and turned to Liz, holding her shoulders lightly and locking gazes with her. They were the same height, but her mother was slightly shorter when Liz wore heels like she did today. “I love your father. And I like making him happy. I don’t care if he doesn’t cook or clean, or if he only watches what he wants on the television. That kind of nonsense doesn’t matter to me.”

“But the way he talks to you.”

“It’s only because he’s always so convinced he knows what’s best for all of us. And you know what? He’s usually right.” She actually believed what she was saying. Liz could see it in her sincere eyes.

“Whatever. Let’s drop it, okay?” Arguing until she was blue in the face wouldn’t make her mother see her side of the situation.

Mom nodded and left the bathroom. Liz took a deep breath, then followed her mother back into the kitchen, which was smoking. Crap. Mom opened a window and pulled the roast from the oven.

“Oh, poo,” her mother said, fanning the smoke out of the oven.

Where was her dad? Normally when the kitchen smelled like smoke, he’d be in here in a second, demanding to know what happened to his dinner. Mom closed the oven. “Think the roast is fine,” she said as she lifted the foil from the pan.

“What the hell is this filth?” Dad’s angry scream from behind her made her freeze.

Oh, God. Please, no, no, no. She could
not
have been stupid enough to leave her purse unattended in the living room.

Her stomach dropped as she turned to see that yes, she absolutely could be and, in fact,
was
that stupid. Her notebook dangled from Dad’s fingers.