Cuffs - Cara Lockwood Page 0,56
been so vulnerable, so in need before, and she hated the feeling. She also hated that his money could be the answer she needed. The money she’d so despised the moment he walked in her door.
“I’ll figure something out.” She’d have to hit up friends for loans, maybe. Or, God forbid, go to an actual bank. She had no idea if they’d even lend her money at all.
“Just let me help.”
“If you help, then I owe you.” Mags felt tears sting the backs of her eyes. Stupid tears! Since when was she so weak? It was because she felt helpless. It was because she was letting Gael in. Leaning on people made her weak. She’d not felt so hopeless since the day her mother died. She couldn’t do anything about that then, but she’d sworn she’d never let herself be so vulnerable again. She’d have control over her life. But right now, nothing seemed in her control. “And I don’t owe anybody.”
“I’m not just anybody.”
“Yes, you are. You’re just another guy I happened to sleep with, okay? I told you not to make a big deal out of it, but you are. We had some nice little role play, but that’s all it was, okay? Just a game.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. They were a lie. He wasn’t just another guy she’d slept with. She knew that. It wasn’t just role play, either. It wasn’t a game.
“Just a game,” Gael repeated. She’d hurt him. Really hurt him.
She wanted to tell him she didn’t mean any of it. That maybe he ought to punish her. Spank her. Whatever he wanted to do to make this right. Because he wasn’t just another guy. He wasn’t just a notch in her bedpost. Why was she lying to his face? Because she felt cornered. Because lashing out was her only way to feel like she was in control again. Even if that meant pushing Gael away. But now, as she saw the real pain in his face, she realized this wasn’t role play. This was real.
“I get it.” A volume of disappointment lay in those three words. She hated it. Hated disappointing him most of all. All she wanted to do was please him. All she wanted to do was kiss him and make it all better.
“No. Gael. It’s not like that.”
“No. Look. I get it. I’m going to go.” The way Gael said it sounded like he wasn’t just giving up on trying to help her now. He was giving up on her.
What the hell was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just say what she meant? Why couldn’t she let her guard down even a little bit? Maybe Gael was right. She only let down her guard in bed. Nowhere else.
“Gael, please...”
But he was already heading out the door. “It’s late,” he managed. “I have to be at the hospital early anyway. For Ava.”
Ava. Fuck. With the insanity of the last hour, she’d forgotten that she wasn’t the only one having the worst day of her life.
“I... I’m sorry, Gael,” she managed. It sounded weak, even to her own ears.
“Not your worry.”
The words hit harder than they should. Not her worry. None of her business. Yet... she wanted it to be.
Gael glanced out the window where the officers were headed back to her shop. To ask the final questions, she assumed, or tell her what they’d found on the surveillance video next door.
Mags badly wanted to tell him that she wanted him to stay. That everything she’d said had been wrong. That she wanted to make it right. But none of the words came. They all lodged in her throat, a tangled mess.
Gael reached out and grabbed Mags’s hand. He brought it to his mouth for a kiss. “Goodbye, Mags.” There was that voice again. The strong one. The commanding one. He was telling her goodbye, and he meant it. She watched, legs useless and frozen, as he walked out of her shop. She wanted to call out to him, but the jumble of all her unsaid thoughts choked her. She felt like crying. She willed those damn tears back down where they came from. But this time, they didn’t listen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAGS SPENT THE night cleaning, trying to keep her hands and her mind busy, as she swept up broken glass and picked up the cash register, closing the open drawer. She righted her toppled tattoo chair, only to discover that one arm of