No way Thorpe failed to miss it, either.
“You mean like you’re protecting Callie’s privacy now?” Jason drawled.
“She’s different.”
“How?” he questioned. “Unless I miss my guess, she’s on the phone with Sean. She accepted his collar months ago, but you’re eavesdropping on her conversation like whatever she says or does is still your business.”
Thorpe watched the beauty as if he’d forfeit a limb for the chance to touch her. Once, the two of them had been close—not lovers, but certainly more than friends. Jason had no idea what had caused their rift, but clearly the club owner wasn’t letting go. And as Callie stole a longing glance at her boss, Jason knew Thorpe’s feelings weren’t one-sided.
“Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once.” Thorpe clenched his jaw. “I protect every woman who passes through those doors, regardless of who or what they require shielding from. Your wife chose this separation. I’m respecting her wishes. I suggest you do the same.”
“Do you enjoy the distance between you and Callie these days?” Jason watched the woman end her call with a happy little sigh that left him little doubt she had feelings for Sean. Thorpe looked ready to spit nails. “I don’t think so, but you let it happen. That’s your choice. Good for you. But I didn’t ask for this separation from Gia.”
“I understand,” Thorpe said.
Regardless of the platitude, the man wasn’t going to budge. Thorpe, of all people, should f**king comprehend how agonizing this situation was.
Cursing under his breath, Jason resisted an unusually violent urge and tried and another tactic.
“I can’t find my wife. I’m worried about her. She was going through a great deal of personal trauma when we split. She sold her house, disconnected her number. I don’t know if she’s all right or needs my help. She’s my responsibility.”
“She’s my client. I’ve sworn to protect her privacy. Sorry.”
His empty apology nearly yanked the leash off Jason’s inner caveman. Maybe being alone for the last eleven and a half months had finally unhinged him. Maybe it was that damn hollow ache gashing his chest and infecting his judgment. Maybe seeing his mother had shown him the future he now stared down. Whatever.
“That’s not putting my fears to rest.” He gritted between clenched teeth.
“I can’t help you.”
Jason didn’t want to argue with Thorpe. The man was as bendable as steel. But he refused to give up because he wasn’t going to heal without seeing Gia again. “Tell me something. What would you do if Callie left Dominion—and you—without warning?”
Thorpe’s face tightened as he searched for the right response. “There is no place she can go where I won’t find her.”
Jason saw his opportunity and seized it. “But what if she disappeared? Wouldn’t you goddamn look for her and want to chew the head off of anyone who kept her from you?”
With a sigh, Thorpe sized him up. Resolution crossed his face. “Come into my office and have a drink. We’ll talk.”
That sounded like as much fun as a lobotomy, but it was progress. Besides, the Dungeon Master had left him little choice.
After trailing the man into his well-appointed office, Jason sat in a cushy leather chair. Thorpe lifted a cut crystal decanter of Scotch from a heavy cabinet and poured him a glass. With a nod, Jason took it. “Thanks.”
After rounding his sizeable desk, Thorpe sank into what could only be called his throne. “Start at the beginning and fill in the blanks for me. Tell me what I’m not seeing in this picture.”
In other words, Thorpe would intervene only if he heard the facts and decided the situation warranted his help. Jason didn’t particularly like the idea of the other man as judge and jury.
“You know the basics.” He really didn’t want to air his dirty laundry. He revisited the moments he and Gia had shared enough in his head.
Yes, he could hire a private investigator, but he knew exactly how that would chafe Gia’s independent nature. He would find her again, but she’d be too mad to speak to him. If he wanted to locate his wife and have any chance of reconciling with her, he had to play this Thorpe’s way.
Leaning back in his seat with a sigh, Jason tried to decide where to start. Not the first big scene he’d set up with “Greta” at Lakeside Park late one night. His wife had exhibitionist urges—and a lot of Catholic good-girl upbringing to overcome. She’d been unable to let go that night, and it had become a disaster.
He’d recovered quickly and staged another scene at Dominion a few days later, more private but still public enough to give her a thrill. Logan Edgington, another member of Dominion, and his wife Tara, at the time an FBI agent in field training, had witnessed his lovely sub stripping down to her skin, exposing her newly waxed pu**y, then masturbating for her unknown audience. She’d surrendered to him entirely, giving him every bit of her body for the very first time. Jason still remembered how perfect she felt clinging to him, clutching his c**k inside her snug little cunt. He’d suspected even before then that “Greta” was special, but that nooner had sealed the deal.
No sense in spilling those details to the club owner. Because Logan had seen it, the former SEAL had undoubtedly shared it with his buddy Thorpe. Even if Logan hadn’t, Thorpe somehow knew most everything that happened under his roof.
Jason swirled the Scotch in his glass. Where to begin? Not the early days of their courtship, but later…when she’d finally trusted him with her real name, when everything between them had become genuine. The beginning of the end.
“Last November, I invited Gia to a benefit dinner for the homeless. It raised money for a shelter and kicked off a coat drive. She’d seen enough of my life by then to know that we’d be photographed and that people would speculate. At first, she told me that she didn’t own a dress fancy enough for a five-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner. I offered to take care of it. She insisted I take the money I would have spent on her ticket and a dress and donate it because those people needed it far more than she did. She was the first woman I’d ever met who turned down money.”