Cardinal's Rule (7 page)

Tilly’s heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t want to hear this. She did
not
want to hear this!

“Do you know what he did, Mistress Cardinal?” Landry softly asked.

Her voice escaping her, she shook her head.

He faced her. “I will be the first to admit I made mistakes. But in the years we lived apart, I learned from them. I changed, matured. Even while slave and I were together the first time my priority was him, even if I screwed it up in the end. I took very seriously my role as his Master, protector, Owner. I never abandoned him. I never capriciously threatened to throw him out. I gave him the choice to leave when I issued my ultimatum about me wanting to see others outside our relationship. Even then, I did not let him leave without support. I made sure he was cared for, could take care of himself.

Gave him money so he could build his life without me. Treated him equitably.”

Her gaze fell upon slave, who still crouched on the floor behind her coffee table. His brown hair. The tattoo she’d seen on his ass at the club the other night.

No!

“When I asked him why he returned to me,” Landry continued, “he told me he wanted to take

care of me, didn’t want me to be alone. Still loved me. Yes, we thought there was a better than good chance I might die, but he took it upon himself to leave another to come back to me. He lied to me when he told me he was single. Well, not technically lied, because I lay unconscious in the ICU for nearly two weeks and he’d been there most of that time. Except when he made a trip back home to take care of business. So when he told me he was single it was mostly true because by then he’d severed ties with her.”

She stood. “I don’t want to hear this.” She heard the tremor in her voice.

“You have to. I want slave to face the consequences of his actions.”

“No, really. I don’t want to hear any more.”

Undeterred, he continued. “I told him he had no right to make the decision for myself or the one he left. To not tell either about the other. His rationale, while well-intentioned, was of course seriously flawed. He thought he knew what was best, just as I thought I knew what was best all those years ago when I insisted on a lifestyle he couldn’t live with.”

She shook her head. “We’re done here, Mr. LaCroux. I’ve changed my mind, and I’m not going

to do this. I want you both to leave. Right now.” She didn’t want to see slave’s face. If she never saw his face, it meant it didn’t happen. With trembling fingers, she dug the envelope out of her back pocket and tossed it on the coffee table. “I don’t want your money. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

“Please,” he said. “I need to make amends.”

She angrily jabbed a finger at him. “I don’t know what kind of mindfuck you’re into, but I’m 

not playing into it!”

He stepped forward, until he stood in front of her. “I feel responsible. Because I should have questioned him further. I should not have turned a blind eye. Because of my shortcomings as his Master the first time around, apparently I failed to instill in him the ethic that a Master
never
abandons a slave, especially without explanation.
Ever
.”

Her knees gave out and she heavily sat in the chair as Landry stood there. He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “I told you about my cancer returning,” he said, barely more than a whisper, so softly she knew slave couldn’t hear him.

“I have a business proposition for you, Mistress Cardinal. I am worth a helluva lot of money. I have no wife or children. If you will marry me, and stay married to me for at least three years, I will pay you two hundred thousand dollars for every year you stay with me for those three years. If I die before then, you get everything I own, including my business. If you wish to stay married longer we will, and I will at that point sign over everything to you.

“Please consider my offer. I owe you more than I can ever repay you, for more than one reason.

I need to start that restitution now. I will be back for slave at the end of the hour. Be vicious. Take your pound of flesh and then some, literally. He will take whatever you dish out.”

With that he turned and walked out the front door.

Leaving the money on her table and slave kneeling on the floor.

She’d never fainted in her life, but she felt close to it. She leaned forward and put her head between her knees and took deep breaths like she’d learned in nursing school. When she realized she gasped for air, she knew she was close to hyperventilating and tried to slow her breathing.

Fuck!

After what felt like forever, she sat up and looked at the man kneeling on her floor. Her feet felt numb, her legs shaky as she stood and slowly walked around the coffee table.

He didn’t look up, didn’t move.

She stood over him, her breath ragged. “Look at me, goddammit,” she finally said.

He slowly tilted his face, familiar brown eyes staring into hers.

Over the years she had imagined many things. At first, that if he ever darkened her door again she would take him back even though she’d been hurt and pissed. As the months, followed by years, rolled by, that fantasy changed. She imagined running into him and spitting in his face. Laughing at 

him. Pretending she didn’t recognize him. Acting friendly but cool, as if his leaving hadn’t ripped her sanity from her soul.

Prayed he’d grow ugly and fat and bald.

He still looked like her Cris, although his brown hair was much longer, down to his shoulders.

He’d always kept it short and neatly styled when they were together.

Her handsome Master was Landry’s slave.

She stared for long, countless minutes as blood throbbed through her temples, her pulse

pounding.

Then she turned on her heel, walked to her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. After a second, she locked it.

She screamed.

After ten minutes her body shook and her throat felt raw and hoarse. She snatched a riding crop from her closet. When she almost tripped on her heels, she ripped her boots off and then unlocked her door and threw it open so hard it bounced off the bedroom wall.

Landry’s slave still knelt on the floor, where she’d left him.

Barefoot, she ran over to him and with ragged, wordless screams, she began beating his

shoulders, his back.

He never cried out, never moved, made no effort to protect himself.

After five minutes she stood there, staring at him as her chest heaved. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was choking, then she realized she was crying again. She dropped the riding crop.

“You fucking son of a bitch!” She circled the living room and came up behind him, kicked him in the ribs. As large as he was, it probably didn’t hurt him nearly as much as it hurt the fuck out of her toes. She dropped to her knees next to him and beat her fists against his back, screaming, raging.

“Why? Why did you leave me? Why wasn’t I good enough for you? Why did you break your promise to protect me!”

Beyond sanity, she knew she still sobbed but she felt drained, weak. He’d never moved even

though he breathed heavily.

She shoved him as hard as she could and he rolled onto his side. He wouldn’t look at her.

“You fucking asshole!” she sobbed. “Why won’t you fucking say anything! What the fuck is

wrong with you!”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“That’s not good enough!” When she lost her balance and fell back onto her ass she kicked at him, caught him in the thigh. “That’s not fucking good enough, you bastard!” She kicked him again, recognizing it probably didn’t hurt him in the slightest.

She fell back onto the carpet and sobbed, screamed, cried, tried to hold on to her sanity.

He didn’t move.

“You fucking asshole,” she raggedly gasped as she rolled over and pressed her face to the

carpet. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a really bad nightmare.

After she caught her breath she sat up. He lay where he’d fallen when she shoved him. She

started pounding on him again with her fists. “I want him back!” she screamed. “I want my fucking Master back! You took him from me and I want him!” She fell back again, panting for breath. “Sit up!”

she screamed. “Fucking face me like a man!”

He rolled onto his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Another wordless, strangled cry broke free as she launched herself at him. She tried to claw his eyes. This time he did react. He caught her arms and spun her around, pinned her to him, her back against his chest and her wrists caught in his as he held his arms crossed around her.

She shrieked, cried, kicked, and finally went limp as she sobbed. “You took him from me, you fucking bastard! I want him back. You fucking son of a bitch, I want him back!”

* * * *

He knew he deserved every bit of it and more. He held her as she cried in his arms, trying to

ignore how painfully thin she felt compared to the last time he held her. He never would have let her get this skinny if he’d been with her. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered through his own tears. “I’m so sorry.”

She cried long and hard, not struggling against his grip. Finally, she broke free and away from him, turning to sit and look at him.

He forced himself not to drop his gaze to the carpet again. Her hair had been so beautiful. He remembered how it felt to run his hands through it, the natural color perfect for her. She’d chopped it 

short and dyed it a harsh color that added years to her looks and didn’t suit her at all. Small lines that hadn’t been there before etched her face, around her eyes and across her forehead.

She looked gaunt. Haunted.

She scooted even further away from him. “No.” She jabbed her finger at him. “You don’t

fucking
get to call me
baby
. Not after you fucking abandoned me!” She scrabbled to her feet and backed away from him. “Get out!”

He nodded and slowly climbed to his feet. Damn, he would be black and blue tomorrow. He

started for the door.

“I just want to know one thing,” she said before he reached the hallway. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you abandon me?”

He took a deep breath and finally forced himself to meet her gaze again. “Because I didn’t think you would want me,” he said. “If I’d told you about my past.”

She looked shocked. “What? Why would you think that?”

Well, this was progress. She hadn’t ordered him out again and she wasn’t attacking him

anymore. “Because I heard you and Loren talking one day. About a FetLife posting you guys saw. You were discussing if Ross or I ever wanted to switch, what you’d think. You told her you couldn’t handle that. That you needed a strong Master. That it would freak you out if I ever did that.” He shrugged.

“I’m sorry. Master’s right. I should have talked to you and told you the truth from the start.”

She stared at him. “Did the thought of
asking
me what I would think ever occur to you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Quit fucking saying that!” she screamed, her voice cracking. “It doesn’t help! There are not enough ‘I’m sorries’ in the goddamn world to make up for what you did to me!” She stomped across the room and shoved him again. “Do you have any idea how long I spent in the fucking hospital, drugged out of my mind after you left? Ross and Loren carried me into the ER.” She punched him, hard, in the shoulder. That one did hurt. “I had to go to the fucking parole hearing alone, you son of a bitch!”

She started crying again. “Did it ever cross your mind that if you had told me the truth about him that maybe, just maybe I would have offered to go with you? To help you? To serve him
with
you?”

That rocked him harder than any of her blows. No, he hadn’t thought it. It never crossed his 

mind. “I just assumed—”

She threw up her arms in disgust. “Fuck. Me. Thanks a lot, asshole, for not having faith in me and my goddamned love for you!” She turned her back on him and walked over to the sliding glass doors. “They let the fucker out,” she quietly said. “They let him out on parole.”

His gut tightened even more but he didn’t say anything. Nothing he said could be right and he knew it.

“I begged them not to let him out,” she continued, “but they looked at me like I was some

freaking pitiful, hysterical little douchebag. Then they let the fucker out, said he was rehabilitated. I could barely talk I was so fucking frightened, but I went there by myself and I talked to them even if it didn’t do any goddamned good. Then the son of a bitch raped a thirteen year-old girl six months later.”

She turned to him. “You know, maybe if you’d been there, maybe if I hadn’t been pissing my

pants scared to be there alone, maybe I could have talked like an intelligent person. Maybe they would have listened to me. I’ve never stopped blaming you for that.”

The fun house of horrors just kept getting bigger.

She drew herself up to her full height, still nearly a foot shorter than him in her bare feet. “I do have you to thank for one thing. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Fuck him.’ You were right that I could do anything I put my mind to.” She held up her arms and spun around. “This house, my car, everything. I took the mindfuck you put me through and turned it into a profitable living.

“Oh, I spent the first several months in Ross’ collar because he and Loren both felt terrified I’d kill myself. Maybe I would have if it hadn’t been for them. He made me promise not to and just let me be myself. He told me I could take his collar off when I felt strong enough to go on with my life. I finally could.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Then I finally decided fuck you! I don’t want any

goddamned collars in my life. Not on
me
.” She advanced on him again. “
I
collar people. They pay
me
to mindfuck
them
. They pay
me
to beat
them
. They pay me pretty damn well, too.”

She shook her head as she looked him up and down. “There’s part of me tempted to take him up on his offer just so I can kick you in the balls every fucking morning first thing when I get out of bed.”