Young, Allyson - Broken [Running to Love 2] (Siren Publishing Allure) (8 page)

Tabitha struggled up, pushing Kyle’s outstretched hand away. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she would faint. She had to get out of there. She sidestepped Kyle, inadvertently aided by Kyle’s partner Andrew who rushed toward the computer. Kyle cursed as he moved to miss Andrew, and Tabitha flew out of the room, her heels sounding staccato on the highly polished floors. Kyle pounded after her and caught up to her just as she made it to one of the restroom sinks. She caught a glimpse of her staring, tear-filled eyes, her face drawn in shock, before she bent over the sink and retched.

* * * *

“Tabitha, I’m so sorry,” Kyle breathed as he held her hair back and stroked her back. “I had no idea they were going to show that.”

Kyle’s words trailed off, his brain clicking over, trying to sort out how that scene had even made it into Unleashed’s video files. That was the first video of Tabitha, long before she accepted his collar, and he was sure he had deleted it, along with all the others. Hell, he hadn’t even watched it, but the video had obviously been edited for it did not show the prelude to the whipping bench. He shuddered to think of what having her personal information shared with others would have meant, not to mention if the video had been shown another night when he wasn’t there and included the anal sex when he had claimed her for the first time. Even in her absence, it would have been a worse betrayal.

Tabitha straightened up and accepted the dampened paper towels Kyle handed her. She wiped her mouth then bent to scoop up water to rinse and spit. Kyle reached for her as she stood again, turning toward him. She went rigid and looked through him.

“I want to leave, excuse me,” she said, as if to a stranger. Her voice was wooden, and her body felt cold to his touch.

“That’s fine, love,” Kyle comforted. “I’ll call for the car.”

Tabitha didn’t resist as he led her out of the restroom and toward the front of the club, avoiding the small clusters of people who cast brief glances or pretended not to notice them. There were a couple of openly speculative stares, and a few supercilious ones, but those belonged to people unaware of his changed status. Tabitha looked forward unseeingly, but he felt her body begin to assert its familiar, graceful rhythm. They reached the foyer, and the doorman was ready with Tabitha’s cape and Kyle’s topcoat.

“The car is being brought around, sir,” the well-trained staff member advised, never once allowing his eyes to rest on Tabitha.

“Kyle!” He turned at the shout and observed Andrew bearing down on him.

“We need to talk. I have something to show you,” the big Dom huffed. “It may not be available tomorrow.”

He handed Tabitha the purse she had left behind in her headlong rush.

Kyle hesitated, torn between getting Tabitha home and making things right yet responding to the depth of concern in Andrew’s voice. Andrew would never interfere in the need for Kyle to take care of Tabitha. Kyle had shared something of what had transpired between him and Tabitha, and his best friend would have an understanding of how tonight would have set the relationship back.

“It will take only a minute,” Andrew urged, “we’re losing the evidence as we speak.”

Kyle turned to Tabitha, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face to his.

“Wait in the car,” he said, unconsciously commanding her. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Tabitha kept her eyes down, but the doorman nodded to him and offered his arm. Tabitha took it and went out the door.

* * * *

Seated in the luxurious backseat of the limo, Tabitha tried to pull her thoughts together into some kind of semblance. Her gut roiled and her heart ached, that she knew. But the memory of her, captured on video and played for all to see, repeated itself over and over in her head. How could he have done that to her? Tabitha felt the urge to vomit again. She had been such a private person, unable to open up, to trust others. She had grown up with a cold, distant mother and absent father until her mother met her stepdad. Then her mother saw her as competition and treated her as such. And she
had
been competition, albeit the unwilling sort. Her stepfather was a deviant and his son followed in his father’s footsteps. Tabitha had never learned to trust because she hadn’t been able to do so. Even her grandmother had died and left her to fend for herself. She had learned how to act any part by the time she became an adult and knew people were comfortable around her, but she had no friends. The two men she had actually dated in college had not been interested in anything other than a physical relationship. Both of those quickly fizzled because as insensitive as those men were, they could tell sex meant nothing to her. She just went away in her head. Kyle
knew
all that! She thought he understood how her trust was at a premium. How could she have been so stupid?

Kyle had widened her horizons, and she had come to love and trust him, and not just for insane pleasure through total submission. She trusted him with her very heart and soul, and he had let her down. In a spectacular fashion. He had taped her submission, used her as he had all those other women. To teach other men how to entrap and use gullible women. She was no different. It was all a lie. Everyone lied. Everything, all that she had worked out and dealt with because of Kyle, was back in her, poisoning her heart and soul. And she knew she could never get over it again, never take that chance. She was dying inside.

Tabitha pushed the limo door open and nearly fell out onto the curb. She hung over the gutter and retched, despite her now empty stomach. Thomas rushed around to help her, but she motioned him away.

Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand in a childlike motion that reflected her crushed spirit, Tabitha said, “I’m going to catch a cab, Thomas. Mr. Stone will be out shortly.”

Thomas protested and tried to help her back into the car, but Tabitha pulled back and walked away from him. She stepped to the curb in front of the limo and waved at the line of cabs waiting in front of the nightclub across the street. One flashed its lights and pulled out to make a U-turn and stop in front of her. Tabitha climbed inside and asked the driver to take her to an address that popped into her head from a time that seemed far, far away.

* * * *

Kyle strode to the door, mulling over the images Andrew had shown him on the Club computer. It had clearly been hacked, but more disturbing was the amount of information imported from his home computer and that of Andrew’s. Even as they scrolled through the folders, items were being deleted by another, unseen hand. Kyle told Andrew he’d meet him the following morning after their tech support guy worked on this overnight. This was a serious breach of privacy and could cost them dearly if anyone sued, not to mention the impact on the confidentiality policy of Unleashed. It was a total clusterfuck, and Kyle’s instincts were on full alert.

Thomas met him at the door, blustering about how Miss Tabitha had gotten sick and then taken herself off somewhere. The man’s face was white and his eyes full of anxiety. Kyle established that Tabitha had taken a cab and patted the man on the shoulder.

“She probably just needed to get home, Thomas,” he reassured his driver who had been loyal and dependable for so many years. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

He didn’t show the man how
he
was feeling. His gut told him that Tabi had run, and she really didn’t have anything to run to, so her impulsive action was both out of character and unsafe. His dominance swelled as he fought with both worry and the need to punish her for not waiting for him. This was not an insurmountable issue, he told himself, as he pulled his cell out and called home. There was no answer, but there really hadn’t been time for her to get there yet. He tried her cell, but it went to voicemail. Tabitha rarely carried her phone now or remembered to turn it on, so that was nothing new and an issue that until tonight wasn’t a big deal. Tabi saw phones as a luxury and not something she was a slave to, whereas Kyle wanted to be able to reach her anytime she wasn’t with him, as rare as that was.

* * * *

Tabitha paid the cabbie with most of the cash she had in her purse and exited the cab. As soon as she really looked at the house in the dim light from the street, she spoke back over her shoulder. “Wait.”

She got back into the cab and directed the driver to the nearest bank ATM. Her house wasn’t a place she could return to, having finally fallen into a state of disrepair over the years. She had paid the taxes but didn’t do any maintenance, trusting to the high fence to keep children and vagrants from entering and getting hurt. She wouldn’t let Kyle pay for anything involving the house, and while she felt she couldn’t live there, Tabitha couldn’t bring herself to sell it, the place holding the few precious happy moments of her childhood when allowed to visit her grandmother. But that would have to change, now that she had no visible means of support, and while not insubstantial, her savings wouldn’t last forever. A job would be the answer, but Kyle would probably have a quiet chat with any prospective employers to block her from doing so. Tabitha was under no illusion that Kyle would expect her to return home where he would make this thing go away. If only he could. She had made her recent living on her back, on her knees, and in a variety of other positions, she supposed, and that made her little more than a whore when one took away the emotional connection. Because if he really cared for her, he wouldn’t have allowed anyone else see her let go of her pain, show something that was so intimate and personal. To be fair, he had never said he loved her, and there was no love without trust. Stupid her. Kyle could have replaced her, and she wouldn’t have seen that coming either. What did that say about her that she actually thought she had the wherewithal to know when to trust?

When the cab pulled up to the ATM, Tabitha withdrew the daily maximum and was reassured when she saw her balance. She had never touched the account since being with Kyle, and it was a wonder her bank card still remained in her wallet along with her driver’s licence. She had sufficient funds for the interim and would have considerably more when she sold her house, and if that real estate agent who had hounded her in the past was correct, that could take a matter of days. Her grandmother’s home sat on prime ground coveted by some local building mogul. He was going to pay through the nose, Tabitha vowed. She needed the money in the worst way now, and her heart bled as she visualised the wrecking ball destroying the house to make way for yet another monstrosity of an apartment building for the up-and-coming generation. Through all of her clinical planning, Tabitha was aware of a bubble of hysteria straining to escape and renewed her efforts to suppress it.

Tabitha let the cab go after paying the driver once again, and crossed the street at the first break in traffic. The hotel was pricey but handy, and she wanted to meet with the real estate agent from a position of strength. She’d be provided with necessities like a toothbrush and comb when she told them she’d decided to stay in the city overnight on a whim, and she could wear the clothes she had on for any meeting she held, knowing she looked rich and self-assured in them. The hotel robe would be suitable for the room, and room service would take care of meals, so she wouldn’t have to leave until her business was done. Battlefield planning didn’t allow for emotion or distractions.

The reception desk staff welcomed her, accepting the lack of luggage without so much as a raised eyebrow, and showed her to a well-appointed suite after typing a memorized credit card into their system. She had prettily apologized for the lack of plastic, suggesting that her husband had not seen the need for her to carry her usual huge purse on a night out! The female clerk had rolled her eyes in commiseration.

Tabitha carefully removed her clothing and hung up her dress and coat, stuffing the dry cleaning bags supplied by the hotel into her shoes. The lingerie went into the sink, to be rinsed with the complimentary shampoo then rolled in a towel and hung to dry. Tabitha slipped the terry robe on and went to the phone on the bedside table, pulling off her jewellery as she went. The diamond collar had to stay, locked as it was at the nape of her neck. Tabitha resolutely pulled her thoughts from that direction of travel and focused on placing the other jewellery in the top drawer of the nightstand. They were gifts from Kyle, and she decided to courier them to his office when she left. She called down to the front desk and asked for a care package to be sent up, waiting by the door for it to be delivered, which it was, in short order.

Taking the hygiene items into the bathroom with her, Tabitha closed and locked the door, even though the door to the suite was double locked. She ran the shower and dropped the robe to the floor, stepping into the stream of hot water. She closed her eyes against the flow and sagged into the tile wall. Tears flowed, and she sobbed into her hands, the water washing away the salt and masking the sound. After a time, she shampooed and conditioned her hair and washed her body, taking comfort in the familiar motions. She shut her mind to the memory of Kyle performing those very ablutions for her. Tabitha stepped out onto the bath mat and wrapped herself in a towel. She vigorously towel-dried her hair, leaving the mirror steamed over so she didn’t have to see herself. She hung the towels up and slipped back into the robe, pulling its folds tightly around her and tied the belt.
Slow and steady, plan every step, don’t think.
She searched through the care package and unearthed a small package of painkillers and took them into the living room of the suite. A fridge concealed under a granite counter in the corner produced a small bottle of vodka, and Tabitha washed four painkillers down with it.