Page 6 of The Dom

“I want the full story. Yesterday, things were crazy and emotional. You and Nate needed to talk to each other, work out whatever the mess was between you. I meant what I said before about how he’d come down here for you, but I know there’s more going on than that. You’ve been hiding some bits for some reason, and I think you need to let them out.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. She was right. I’d given her the general story of how Nate and I had met and how we’d broken up. She knew I’d been fired but hadn’t known the exact reason until Nate had shown up here. I’d explained some things to her, but held back other bits, not wanting her to think less of me.

“Nate can act like an ass sometimes.”

“In my experience, most people manage that particular trait at one point or another in their lives,” Mom said wryly. “Your man seems to have it in spades, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a bad guy. Granted, I don’t know much about him…”

I held up a hand. “I know. That’s on me. I’ll tell you everything. Most of it you already know, but I gave a lot of it in pieces.”

“I can handle it, Ashlee.” She gave me a small smile. “You don’t have to protect me from the world, let alone from your boyfriend.”

Boyfriend.

I let out a rush of air. I didn’t know if that word could apply to someone like Nate, not even if we were dating. Boyfriend was someone I could take home to meet my mom. Though, technically, he had met her.

“He’s my boss,” I began, “and when he overheard Flora talking about him, he was furious. But he didn’t suspend me like he did her. I like to believe it was because I hadn’t done anything wrong, but a part of me can’t help thinking it was because he was attracted to me.”

I hadn’t let myself acknowledge that suspicion until now, but it had always been there. Lurking in the back, always there to sow a little doubt.

“He’s not the most open of men.” I kept going. “But he was honest with me from the start about the fact that he didn’t want a relationship. Not like anything that we’d understand as a relationship anyway.”

“And that’s what you want?” Mom asked when I paused.

“If you’ve taught me anything, it’s that relationships don’t have to be ‘traditional’ to be genuine.”

I leaned back as the waitress set my plate in front of me, then took a moment to stab a tomato and pop it into my mouth. By the time I was finished chewing, the waitress had left, and Mom was poking at her sandwich.

“Would it be? With Nate, I mean,” she asked. “Is what he’s offering you genuine?”

I had to think about that one. After nearly half a minute, I finally answered, “It is. He’s very straight-forward about things.”

“That’s good,” Mom said. “But it looks like there’s some miscommunication going on with you two.”

I nodded. “There are things in Nate’s background that’ve made it hard for him to open up, and they’ve made him much more suspicious of people, especially women. We haven’t talked about any of that stuff, but I know it’s there. I can see it and hear it when he talks about the women in his past.”

A concerned look settled on my mom’s face, and I hurried to better explain.

“He’s not abusive. Intense, yes. Possessive, definitely, and dominant too.” Heat rushed to my face as I chose the last word. It was appropriate and descriptive. But it also meant more, and I needed to fill my mom in on that too.

“Now, I’m wondering if he fired you because you defied him,” Mom said. “A man who would use work–”

“He’s not like that,” I interrupted. “He fired me because…wait, let me back up a second. Last week, Nate showed up at my house, and we had sex. Afterward, he was wandering around my place and found some clippings I had about Manhattan Records, including one of him and Finley. He thought I’d been doing research on him so I could take advantage of him.”

She looked incredulous. “You take advantage of him?”

“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too. I kicked him out and when I got to work on Monday, he fired me for lying on my resumé when I answered the question about what I knew about the company.”

The incredulous expression hadn’t faded away. “He fired you for having research on his company?”

I’d told her that I’d been fired but had glossed over the reasons. Now that I was explaining everything, I was glad she hadn’t known all this before. Sure, she’d been angry on my behalf, but as soon as Nate had shown up, she’d seen romantic intentions. If she’d known all of this, she might never have told me to go with him yesterday, and none of this would be happening.

“He has trust issues,” I said.

“Why’d he come down here then? To apologize and hire you back?”

“No, not exactly.” I finished off my tea. “At work, we’re supposed to back things up on flash drives. I did, but he couldn’t find it. He thought I took it with me. That’s why he came to find me.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “That’s not the reason. I might not be quite as enthusiastic about him as I was yesterday, but he came all this way for you.”

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