Chapter 32

      Foster shoved open the door to his apartment, feeling like he’d been put through a meat grinder, then stuck back together again. The weariness of days on the road and the scent of airport bars clung to him like some unwanted traveling companion. He tossed his keys on the counter and grabbed a beer out of the fridge.

      Pike strolled into the kitchen, pulling a worn Toadies concert T-shirt down over his head. “Heh, well, look who it fucking is. He returns. All hail the King of Douchebaggery.”

      Foster shot Pike a murderous look. “Fuck off, Pike. I’m not in the mood.”

      “Oh you’re not?” he asked with a sneer. “Well, you know what I’m not in the mood for? My goddamn friend who disappears and then doesn’t answer his fucking phone for a week.”

      “I told you I’d be out of town. I wanted to be alone.”

      “Or with Bret.”

      He scowled. “She only hung around for the first part of it. We had some business to handle.”

      “Yeah, I bet.”

      Foster tipped back his beer, tempted to throw it just to hear the glass break.

      “It wasn’t like that.” Though it almost had been. He and Bret had been friends for a long time and had fooled around off and on through the years anytime one of them got a little too drunk or a little too lonely. They weren’t suited—both too dominant for the other—but an angry fuck between two control freaks could work out a lot of rage. And it had been in the back of his mind when he’d called her in for a last-minute business trip. He’d needed something—anything—to numb the pain he’d felt when Cela had said she couldn’t be submissive.

      But when it came down to acting on anything with Bret, he hadn’t been able to drum up an iota of interest. He’d ended up sitting in a bar with her and getting shit-faced drunk while he told her all about Cela. Fucking ridiculous.

      Pike sniffed. “It wasn’t like that, huh? So you just paraded her in front of Cela to be a complete asshole.”

      “Cela? She doesn’t know Bret.”

      “She knows you were out of town with her.”

      “What?”

      Pike’s jaw flexed. “And if you had answered your goddamn phone I could’ve told you that.”

      “Fuck.” He raked his hand through his hair, his head booming like a bass drum beneath his fingertips. “I’ll talk to her. Apologize. I have a list of dick moves to make up for at this point.”

      “Yeah, well, good luck talking to her, buddy,” Pike said, leaning back against the edge of the counter and crossing his arms. “She left a few days ago.”

      “What?” He stared down at his beer, trying to process that information. “Oh, right, her birthday trip. She’d mentioned that to me. I’ll talk to her when she comes back. It’ll give us both time to get our heads together.”

      Pike shook his head slowly, his expression making the hairs prickle on the back of Foster’s neck. “No, man. That’s not what I mean. She left. Like for good. Her job fell through.”

      Every ounce of alcohol Foster had consumed in the last week seemed to burn a path up his throat, singeing his insides and threatening to come out. “She moved home?”

      Pike sighed. “There was no one here to convince her otherwise.”

      Foster sagged against the counter, his beer forgotten in his hand. Cela was gone. Gone.

      “What happened between you two, man?” Pike asked, no sarcasm left in his voice. “One minute you’re buying her a bed, the next she can’t get out of town fast enough.”

      He rubbed fingers over his brow bone, massaging the spot where all the pressure was building. “I asked her to wear a Home Safe anklet.”

      “Ah, fuck, Foster,” Pike said with a groan. “Just what every girl wants—a piece of jewelry her boyfriend can stalk her with.”

      “You know I wouldn’t use it like that,” he bit back, but he couldn’t muster much fire behind it. Suddenly, he was tired, so very exhausted by it all. “I just wanted her to be safe.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “But if it’d just been that, I’m sure we would’ve worked past it. It was more than the anklet. She told me she needed time, that she wasn’t sure she could be submissive. It all started spilling out like it’d been bottled up the whole time, like she was just waiting for the opportunity to bail. It was Darcy all over again.”

      “Like Darcy? Fuck. That. Cela is nothing like that girl. Darcy wanted a rich husband who would indulge her with a pampered princess life. She was never really submissive. And when she figured out that you weren’t going to magically morph into some Stepford husband she could control with a pout, she cut bait.”

      “Cela probably wishes I’d morph into something different, too,” he said, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

      “No, she knew who you were when she stayed in the first place. But she probably backpedaled because you freaked her the hell out,” Pike said, making it sound like it the most obvious truth in the world. “I saw that girl the first night with you. And I heard what happened the night you cuffed her to the door. Cela is not afraid of giving you control. But she is independent, and if you try to lock her down and treat her like a kid, she’s going to feel smothered. For fuck’s sake, you asked her to wear a homing device. You don’t LoJack your girlfriend like she’s your newest Mercedes.”

      “It’s not a—goddammit, Pike.” Foster did toss the beer this time, but managed to hit the trash. His head heart, his