Page 112 of Healing the Heart

“I shouldn’t have pushed you into a match with Fiona, Master Noah,” Val stated. “I feel awful about how it turned out—”

“As you should,” her husband interjected.

She paid him no mind, continuing coolly, “But if you weren’t emotionally available, you should have never agreed.”

“Valerie, my love. You should have quit after ‘I feel awful.’ It’s my fault for agreeing to your scheme. We have a rule against matchmaking for a reason—it often blows up in everyone’s faces.” Eric’s gaze met his in the rearview. “But you’re not exactly innocent in this. You never should have slept with her. She was your assignment, man. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, obviously.”

“You were,” Val stated matter-of-factly. “Just not with your brain.”

Eric braked for a red light and turned to her. “Are you done? Or must I get the gag out of my toy bag in back?”

“I’m done,” she said, but her eyes told a different story. She was in guardian mode, and he had squashed the heart of one of her subbies.

“Neither of you is wrong,” Noah conceded. “I shouldn’t have gone there with her. But she was the first one since Claire who made me want to try again. Then things hit too close to home.”

“How so?” Val asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Probably. Because you’re stuck, Master Noah.”

“I know. I’m messed up,” he exclaimed, rubbing his face in frustration and exhaustion. “Fiona is probably better off without a head case like me, but I plan to go home and apologize, on myknees if I have to, then make an appointment with her therapist tomorrow.” He dropped his hands and asked what he’d been wondering for the past three weeks. “Where is she, by the way? I’ve texted and called her. I even tried the landline at my condo, but she never replied, not that I blame her.”

Val and Eric exchanged a tension-filled glance.

When she twisted to face him again, she stated, “As I see it, there are two pressing issues.”

Impatience seeped into his voice as he drawled, “And they are?”

“Well,” she hesitated, patently stalling, “a couple really shouldn’t share the same therapist.”

“That’s no problem. Just refer me to someone else.”

“She’s dragging her feet afraid to tell you the bad news,” Eric advised.

“Fiona moved out of my condo,” he guessed. He’d have preferred she hadn’t, but that wasn’t insurmountable.

“Not only that...” The sad look in Val’s eyes made it evident that, despite being angry with him for his treatment of her friend and fellow sub, she’d prefer not to tell him the rest, so it must be really bad news. “She left for San Antonio the night you flew out. She’s staying with Lexie and Jonas...”

Three states away wasn’t good, but again, not hopeless. He sensed there was more, however. “And?” he urged, quickly running out of patience.

Her husband came to her rescue. “She quit her job at the clinic, and, from what Jonas told me, she isn’t planning on coming back.”

“Turn the car around,” he demanded.

Eric glanced at him in the mirror. “What?”

“Take me back to the airport. I need to catch a flight to Texas. Now.”

“You’re not serious. You just spent two days flying in from Africa.”

He didn’t care. “Take me back,” he repeated, dead serious.

When Eric slowed for another light, Noah put his hand on the latch and opened the door, prepared to walk. The interior lights came on.

“Okay! I’m going! Just shut the damn door.” He signaled for a right turn, muttering, “Between rogue doms, disobedient subs, and serial killers and their accomplices infiltrating my club, all hell has broken loose. I’m going to be white-headed before I’m forty-five.”

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