“A few years ago, I was engaged,” I began. “If I’m being honest, I wasn’t ready to be engaged. Or married. But I loved her, so I was ready to take that leap with her.” I cut my eyes at Sophia, expecting her to have that wincing, taut expression like she was holding onto the urge to bolt, wishing she had some sort of fast forward button. But she was just listening, her lips slightly parted, just like she did right before she leaned in to kiss me.

I loosened the knot of my tie and kept going. “I wasn’t nearly as good at keeping secrets back then as I am now. Well, I had a pretty big secret that I was holding onto like my life depended on it,” I edited. “She didn’t know about my…needs in the bedroom.”

That arched both of Sophia’s brows.

“I think I was ashamed,” I explained. “Afraid that she’d see those desires as perverted or archaic or just-” My throat closed when I remembered Caity’s dark eyes that day, sure that even though she said she loved me, how could she love that part of me? A part of me that I was still discovering myself? “The thought of losing her over something that I believed I could contain, or maybe slowly warm her to, wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”

The next part was the thing I hadn’t shared with anyone. I refused therapy, I barely saw my mother, and my sister knew that it was a place that no one, including her, including myself, dare venture.

I leaned back into the cushion and hoped that when I was done, Sophia wouldn’t look at me differently.

“Caity and I had an argument. An ugly fight about the engagement and keeping secrets. We were at my mother’s house and she clearly wanted out, and didn’t want anything to do with me. She asked my mother to give her a ride home. My mother, who tends to start drinking around brunch and doesn’t let up until she’s passed out in front of the TV, was happy to oblige. She even chugged the last of her wine before she stumbled over to her keys and ushered Caity out to the car.” I shook my head bitterly. “Or maybe Caity ushered her. We didn’t think, or maybe we didn’t want to think…” I didn’t finish.

When I looked to Sophia, the look on her face was one of such sorrow. She reached out and gripped my hand. I knew I didn’t have to keep going. We both knew this story didn’t have a happy ending, but I wanted her to know it all.

“I was on my way to check on Caity when I got the call. My mother had run into the divider on the highway and just like that, Caity was gone. And it was all my f-”

“Don’t you dare,” Sophia hissed, her voice thick with tears. She didn’t just slide closer, she straddled me, pulling my head to her chest. “It’s not your fault. What happened was terrible and I’m so sorry it happened…but it was not your fault.”

I told myself that it was her tears that wet my cheek, her body that was shuddering with sobs, but I didn’t dwell on the specifics. I just held her and let her hold me. I wasn’t sure how long we stayed that way before I leaned back, staring up at her face with awe. Gratitude.

Another word popped in my head, but I snuffed it out, forcing a weary smile.

“Probably not the evening you had in mind. An emotional Dom spilling his sordid past and why I come here.” All the truth. I licked my lips and gave her the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “It’s why I started Hush.”

“Started?” she repeated, her bangs drifting into her eyes.

I gently weaved it back behind her ear, nodding. “Started. Because I convinced myself that I had to have two lives. The life in the public eye, and the Dom behind closed doors.” I leaned in, my eyes drinking in the curves of her lips and she followed suit, pressing her lips against mine. I held her face in my hands, physical proof that I could have more, that I could have it all. “Before you, I thought this was just an itch that I would scratch alone, that I’d never find someone that would-” Don’t say love. “Like me. All of me.”

She smiled, the secret, naughty grin I was intimately familiar with. “I like you, D.”

She said the letter playfully, but I knew that there was a longing there. A longing I could satiate. After all, I’d just shared something huge, terrifying, and she was still here.

Before I lost my nerve, I pulled off my mask.

The shock on her face went from surprise, to wonder, to…

Horror?

She lurched from my lap, almost crashing into the glass coffee table.

She covered her mouth, shaking her head slowly.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her voice tortured and heavy. “You’re Desmond O’Connell!”

~

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