For one thing, he hadn’t brought a woman here in a while, the restraints unused behind the headboard. No one had appealed to him.
He knew now he’d been waiting for her.
He didn’t know what the hell to do about the impact she’d had on him, but he couldn’t let it change anything. The fear that lived within him, the petrifying thought of ever experiencing loss and uncertainty again, had him keeping himself apart.
Hours later, the sun streamed into his bedroom. He awoke to a startling realization. He might have fallen asleep with Amanda snuggled against him, but he’d woken up alone.
FIVE
Amanda glanced around Brad’s office Monday morning, wondering how he’d managed to make such a mess in the span of one weekend. Although she ought to be used to his method of madness, she was always amazed that he worked in such chaos. She picked up the empty Starbucks cups littering his desk along with the rest of the barely visible surfaces and tossed them in the trash.
“You know the cleaning help will do that.” Brad walked into the room, looking every inch the adorable geek and not the billionaire software mogul he actually was.
His dark hair fell over his forehead, the need for a haircut long past bothering. Ripped jeans and a Star Wars tee shirt completed his daily look.
She glanced up and smiled. “Yes, but this way you can have clean space to start over and re-clutter sooner.”
“What would I do without my favorite personal assistant and best friend?” he asked.
“Star in the next episode of Hoarders, probably.”
“You do keep me sane.”
She laughed. “I aim to please.”
“Speaking of pleasing…” He walked over and pulled the papers she’d begun to straighten out of her hands. “It’s been over a month. When are you going to go back to the club?”
She stiffened. Until now, Brad had respected her moratorium on the subject of New York. Because she didn’t want to talk about him.
“I can’t go back,” she said, pushing memories of Decklan out of her mind the way she did any time she had a free moment of thought.
“And you haven’t told me why.”
She typically told him everything that went on in her life. That’s what best friends were for. Gay best friends were even better, since there were no messy hormones or potential hurt feelings ever involved. But ever since she’d snuck out on Decklan over a month ago, she’d been eaten up by guilt, flooded by memories of that night, and yes, consumed with desire for the man she’d left behind.
But worse than all those things combined was the vision that wouldn’t leave her, of the haunted look in Decklan’s eyes when she’d asked him to release her hands. As a result of the pain she sensed lived inside him, she’d been all too eager to let him have his way. She, of all people, understood limits and emotional hurt.
Obviously he bound women for a reason. Something was eating away at him, and she desperately wanted to be the one to help him overcome it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had her own issues that plagued her and another man’s life in her hands. Brad had been the best friend she’d ever had, the family she’d created, and without him, she might not be the woman she was today.
She couldn’t leave him vulnerable to his father’s inner circle of vultures and the special interest groups that funded him. If Brad were outed, dangerous people would be very angry. She wouldn’t abandon him just because she couldn’t forget a sexy man who’d touched her body and her soul one fateful night.
“Earth to Amanda.” Brad’s hand came down on her shoulder.
She jumped at the unexpected contact, her heart racing in her chest.
“Sorry. Where were you?” he asked her, concern in his tone.
“Nowhere important.” She turned to him with her sunniest smile. “Now can we get down to business?”
He eyed her with frustration in his dark eyes. “Amanda—”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.” To make her point, she picked up another stack of haphazardly piled papers.
“I did some further digging…” Brad said.
Her eyes opened wide and anger immediately surfaced. “How could you? It was one thing to look into Decklan to make sure I was safe. Another to do it for kicks.” She clenched the papers in her hands so hard they crinkled irreparably.
“Do you really think I get my kicks seeing you miserable?” He both looked and sounded hurt at the thought. “I know how much you want to see this guy again. I figure eventually you will. That being the case, I needed to know more than he’s a decent guy with no serial killers in his family history.” He grinned in an attempt to soften her up. “Come on. You’d do the same for me. If you had my hacking skills, that is.”