There it is.The thing underneath everything else.The real reason we failed.My jaw tightens enough that my teeth grit together for a brief moment.“You mean the part where I apparently lose my mind when another man touches you?”
“That’s not actually the problem.”
I look toward her fully then.Vanessa shifts beside me, sheets gathered against her chest now, her expression calm but careful.“You know what the worst part is?”
“What?”
“I love this side of you in bed.”
The blunt honesty of it hits harder than expected.Vanessa watches me carefully as she continues.“I love how controlling you are here.The confidence, the dominance and the intensity of it all.”A faint flush rises along her skin, but she doesn’t look away.“No one else ever made me feel the way you do in bed.”
Something dark and possessive twists low in my chest at the thought of her with anyone else.Of course, she notices that too.
“That look right there.”She points toward my face.“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“I’m listening.”
“Are you?”The question lands brutally hard.But maybe for the first time in my life, I actually am.
Vanessa studies me for another second before continuing.“After you,” she releases a soft exhale, “other relationships felt empty sexually.Casual sex felt even worse.”Her fingers trail lower across my stomach.“Nobody understood that part of me the way you did.”
Something close to pride flickers through me before I force it down.Barely.
“That’s what led me to Gild.”
The words settle strangely in the room.Because now I understand.Not fully.Not completely, but enough that some of the pieces click together for me.“You came here looking for that?”
“I came here looking for a place where surrender had boundaries, but control wasn’t taken from me.”
Jesus.That one sentence alone nearly levels me.Vanessa shifts a bit closer, her expression softer now.“At Gild, everything I want or desire is negotiated.I can hand over control there because I know exactly where it starts and where it stops.”
And suddenly I know exactly where this conversation is going.My chest tightens anyway.
“You didn’t know where to stop.”What’s she telling me isn’t meant to be cruel.It’s meant to be honest, but because I know it’s true, it makes what she’s saying that much worse.“When we were younger,” Her gaze darts away for a moment, “you needed to know where I was every moment of every day; who I was with, when I got home, what I was doing.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I know.”Her response is immediate and gentle, and somehow that hurts more than if she’d yelled.“I know why you did it, Hayden.”
Emily.The name hangs silent between us even though neither of us says it out loud.
Vanessa’s fingertips brush lightly along my wrist.“I never doubted that you loved me.”
The confession steals the air from my lungs.
“But after a while,” her voice softens further, “I felt like I was in a prison.”
I stare at the ceiling for a long moment because I honestly don’t know how to answer that.Because the worst part is, I know she’s right.
“I couldn’t breathe sometimes,” she admits, her voice soft.“But I loved you so much that I stayed longer than I should have.”
The shame that moves through me is sharp enough to feel physical.
Vanessa notices at once.Of course she does.Her hand glides up my jaw, turning my face back toward hers.
“I never needed you to stop protecting me.”My throat tightens as her eyes lock onto mine with a quiet intensity.“I just needed room to still be myself.”
There it is.The entire truth of us laid bare between tangled sheets and whiskey and ten years of unfinished love.And for once, I don’t bother to argue against it, because I finally admit that it’s true.
