“No, Lorne,” I huff. “Because I’m not a submissive.”
“I never said you were.”
“But you wanted me to be.”
His eyes darken then. “I only wanted you to be yourself.”
“But that’s the problem with you. When I was with you, I felt like I was being myself. I felt like I wanted it, but I couldn’t have. I can’t want that. I don’t want that.”
“How do you know?” my ex-husband asks calmly.
I sputter. “Because I’m Morgan Leffey. I love power. I’ve built my entire life around power, around getting more of it, around holding onto it. And before you, I’ve always craved power in bed. Always. And then you showed up, and I—I got confused. You made me think that I could give all that up, that I could give up everything I am—”
He comes off the wall in an instant, taking my elbows in his hands like he wants to shake me senseless. “I never wanted you to give up a single thing,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “Do you understand? Never. I knew what you wanted—I know what you still want. You want the White House for yourself, just as you always have, and there was never a moment I wouldn’t have been proud to be the man at your shoulder. The partner in your shadow. I have never, ever, wanted to steal your glory, Morgan, I have never wanted to dull your shine. It never bothered me that everyone else might think me your prop or your plaything, I would have given you everything of mine—including my own career—to help further your ambitions.”
Conviction burns in his voice, and his eyes are hot and honest on my face.
“Do you understand? Do you understand now? What you imagined—what you are still imagining—was never what I wanted. I never asked you to give up a single thing then, and I never would now.”
“But when we were alone…”
“I still only wanted what you did,” Lorne says, his hands tightening on my elbows. I shiver a little, remembering them rough on my ass, possessive between my legs. “I only wanted what you still want.”
“I’m not a submissive,” I say thinly. “I know I can’t be. I would have known before now, I would have felt differently before now—”
“I’m not asking for you to choose between words, Morgan, and that was never what our marriage was about anyway. I couldn’t have cared less what you called yourself, as long as you called yourself mine—as long as you stopped hating yourself for what you wanted from me when we were alone.”
My pride flares. “I never hated myself.”
Lorne’s eyebrow arches above the line of his mask. “Oh, is that so?”
“Well, I never hated myself for that,” I amend.
I have ten thousand other reasons for self-loathing, and I’ve committed sins that will bar me from the gates of heaven, which he now knows. He didn’t during our marriage, but when my sins caught up with me two years ago, they caught up with everyone around me—splashed on every magazine cover and dissected on every cable news show for months. Lorne and I were well and thoroughly divorced by then, but he still learned my greatest pride and my greatest shame along with the rest of the world.
His eyes soften, and so do his hands. He pulls me closer into him, and I can smell the clean bite of mint and soap that always lingers on his skin. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” he murmurs. “I wanted to be there for you so badly. I would have, if only you would’ve let me.”
I close my eyes and nod. I know he’s right; I believe him.
When the news broke, he called and called and called. He texted, he offered to sue every magazine and news corporation on my behalf. He showed up at my door and I hid in the kitchen until he finally went away.
“Why didn’t you let me help?” he whispers, his lips in my hair. “Why do you never let me help?”
“You know why,” I say, resting my forehead against his shoulder.
“Because my help frightens you.”
“Yes.”
“Because accepting it feels like a concession of need.”
I shudder. “Yes.”
“And a concession of need is too close to...”
“Don’t make me say it, Lorne,” I beg. “I don’t want to say it.”
Frustration ripples through him. “You’ve broken both our hearts because you’re afraid of a word. A word that doesn’t even have to be yours.”