Page 58 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

Then I change—jeans, a sweater and a coat. Nothing I would wear for a session and nothing chosen to make an impression. When I pick up the pressed peonies, I briefly consider how absurd I must look and decide I have forfeited the right to dignity somewhere around the moment I learned how to press flowers.

I get Margot's address from her client file.

I stare at it for several seconds after I find it, fully aware that her home address was provided for administrative purposes and not so her former Dom could appear on her doorstep carrying pressed flowers. Gael would probably have several things to say about that particular breach, despite being the one who told me to go to her.

I write it down anyway.

I need to talk to Margot once, somewhere outside the house and outside the arrangement that brought her to me. After that, the choice is hers. If she tells me to leave, I will leave, and she will never have to worry about me appearing at her home, calling her, or finding some other excuse to force my way back into her life.

Once.

That is all I'm allowing myself.

I take the car, because arriving at her window on wings would be both alarming and difficult to explain to the neighbors. The drive gives me far too much time to rehearse what I'm going to say, and by the time I reach her building I've gone through enough versions to hate every one of them.

It no longer matters. I'm here.

I take the pressed peonies from the passenger seat, find her apartment and knock before I can reconsider.

Chapter Eleven

Margot

For the past few days, I've been waiting to fall apart.

It seemed reasonable to expect it after walking out on Soren. I'd booked that session because I missed him, kissed him because I was angry and wanted him anyway, then said red and left him standing there with heat pouring off his skin and enough restraint in his body to make staying almost harder than leaving.

But the collapse never came.

I wake up hungry instead.

For a while I lie there staring at the ceiling, almost offended by how ordinary I feel. My chest still hurts when I think about him, and there's a horrible little drop in my stomach whenever my brain supplies the memory of his face after I told him what I'd been thinking, but heartbreak doesn't exempt me from breakfast.

I get up and make eggs.

It isn't until I'm halfway through eating that I notice I'm sitting at the table. There's toast on the plate, tea beside it, and I haven't once thought about whether Soren would approve. A month ago, I needed his rules to make me do this. I ate because he told me to eat, slept because I knew he'd ask whether I had, and felt absurdly pleased every time I could tell him I'd done what he asked.

Now I'm doing it while actively trying not to think about him.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped needing the rules to come from Soren. Breakfast is just breakfast now. Sleep is something I make time for. Even saying no has become easier the more I do it.

Whatever happens between us, I don't have to give any of that back.

It doesn't make missing him any easier, but later that afternoon, I do something else that doesn't come naturally.

I call Tess and tell her I need her.

She asks if I'm okay, I say not particularly, and forty minutes later she's at my door with a bottle of red wine.

"You look terrible," she says as she comes inside.

"Thank you."

"I meant emotionally. Your skin actually looks annoyingly good."

"That's much better."

She holds up the wine. "I brought medical supplies."