Sam smiled brilliantly. “You’re so good at putting a positive spin on things. I think that’s one of the reasons I like you so much.”
This was also a road paved with ways to make Sabrina uncomfortable. While her ability to accept a compliment had improved, she still suffered from embarrassment if anyone gushed, and Samantha was a gusher.
Jonas eyed his sister carefully. “Sam? Why do you want to buy Elysium? Running a business is a full-time job, not something you can fit in around your manic painting sessions.”
Sabrina frowned at what she probably considered rude phrasing, but he knew she didn’t disapprove of the question.
“I don’t want to run it.” Sam picked up her fork and speared some mixed greens. “I want Stef and Lex to run it. I just want some place we can go whenever we want, a place where I can walk down the street holding both of their hands and it’s completely normal. I was going to ask them to change the Isle of the Blest area to housing for people in poly relationships.”
“So you basically want a time-share?” Sabrina’s incredulity was laced with exasperation. “You don’t have to buy an island for that.”
“There are no destinations anywhere that cater to the poly lifestyle. I checked. People who live in triads or more either keep their relationships secret or spend their time on the fringes of the kink scene. Well, what if they aren’t into the kinky side of things? Then they have nothing.” She pounded the table with her fist to emphasize her point.
Sabrina lifted her eyebrows at Sam’s emotional display. “I understand where you’re coming from. Elysium caters to people who want to be around others with similar interests. But it’s still a business. Are you sure you want to take on that responsibility?”
Samantha shook her head, her long blonde hair shimmering in the sunlight. “Absolutely not. That’s why I told Stef and Lex I wanted them to buy it. I just want to visit it with them.”
“Well, they’re looking at buying it for you.” Sabrina looked to him for support.
“That’s what it sounded like when we talked to them.” Jonas threw his cloth napkin on the table. “If that’s not what you want, you need to have another conversation with them.”
Sam clasped her hands together gleefully. “Does this mean you guys are going to go in on it with us? Lex said he couldn’t get a read on you.”
Sabrina got a faraway look in her eyes, but it ended with a flash of pain. She shook it away. “I don’t know.”
It was an evasion that screamed reluctance, the kind that meant she was leaning away from investing. Jonas didn’t care one way or the other. He only wanted to get at the root of the reason she’d used her safe word.
By the time they made it home, Sabrina’s mother had arrived with the kids. Rose flew into Sabrina’s arms, and he knew it was going to be nearly impossible to get her to talk. She fell asleep in Rose’s bed, the book of bedtime stories on her chest, open to the page where she’d left off reading.
She didn’t stir when he scooped her up and carried her to their bed. The next morning, he woke to Ethan’s finger poking in his ear and calling, “Dada.” In the past week, his fifteen-month-old son had learned how to climb out of his crib, following in his big sister’s footsteps. He pulled Ethan up onto the bed and hugged the little guy.
“Our little monkey missed you.” He looked over to find Sabrina smiling at the two of them. She snuggled against his side and caressed the side of Ethan’s face. “Good morning, baby. Are you hungry?”
Ethan grinned and giggled, and Sabrina’s face only lit up more.
Nothing in her behavior indicated anything was wrong, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something significant had happened right under his nose and he’d missed it. What if he’d lost part of his wife on that island?
A week had flown by, and Jonas hadn’t forced her to talk. He hadn’t pushed the issue at all. Every time they were alone, she introduced another topic, and he seemed more than happy to accept her evasion. The awkwardness between them was slowly disappearing in the face of their regular routine. She’d gone back to work Tuesday, after taking an extra day to soak up some love from her children.
Right now, the kids were corralled in a safe part of the yard with enough toys to keep them busy. Sabrina sat on a comfortable chair under a shade umbrella while Jonas prepared the grill. This would have been their first afternoon alone, but she’d invited friends over for an impromptu barbecue.
Ellen set an ice-filled drink on the table and settled into the chair next to her. They’d discussed purchasing Elysium in vague terms, both of them agreeing to wait on Alexei and Stefano to finish their investigation of the company. Her stepbrothers had advised them all to wait until they dug up financial reports on the assets and dirt on the Mehlbergs. The Morozovs smelled profit, and they were very invested in making this work for them all.
Sabrina wasn’t sold on the whole idea. Part of her wanted to put the island behind her and never think about it again.
“Trouble in paradise?”
Sabrina frowned at Jonas’s best friend. At times like these, she had learned to tread lightly. Ellen had become one of her closest friends, but Sabrina knew her tightest bond was with Jonas. Sometimes she didn’t understand how the two of them managed to maintain a friendship with the way they argued, but they did. Not only that, but the arguments seemed to cement their commitment to their friendship.
Taking her cues from Ryan, Sabrina always stayed out of it. She secretly enjoyed watching someone stand up to Jonas. While she could and did disagree with him, she hated fighting. Arguments only made her want to cry, and that felt too much like manipulation.
“I haven’t heard anything from Alexei or Stefano.” She knew that wasn’t what Ellen meant, but she wanted to open up the conversation so Ellen could take the out she offered. It worked with Jonas. “Have you?”
“You’ve been back a week. Usually people who have just spent a week having wild sex with their spouse are a little more happy and affectionate than you two.” Ellen spooned a mound of ice into her mouth. The temperatures were in the high eighties, but there was a nice breeze, so it was a perfect day for a backyard gathering.
“We’re not newlyweds, Ellen. We have two kids and we’ve been together for five years.” She smiled to soften her dry tone. While she wasn’t well versed at sarcasm, she was going up against an expert.
Ellen leaned closer. “You guys were all over each other before you left. Well, your version of it anyway. I haven’t seen you hold hands or kiss once. You usually find some excuse to touch him every few minutes, whether you realize it or not. Yet I see that you’ve managed to put an entire yard between you all afternoon. Even when the kids were napping and you didn’t have an excuse to be way over here, you didn’t try to get close.”
“Wow. You’ve been busy. It must be exhausting to spend the day dissecting other people’s seating arrangements to come to that kind of conclusion.” When she’d first met Ellen, she would have died rather than say something like that. I hadn’t taken her long to realize how well Ellen responded to sarcasm. Of course, she expected a comeback.
She spotted Ethan pulling up grass and throwing it at his sister. Correcting that provided an easy out, but Ellen pounced on her when she sat back down.
“Sabrina, you’re barely holding on. Jonas is miserable. What happened?”
Ellen was the kind of person who always pried, but she usually grilled Jonas. It occurred to Sabrina that he hadn’t said a word to Ellen, and he usually told her pretty much everything. She didn’t know what it meant that he’d kept it to himself. Had he forgotten it or filed it away as a meaningless incident? Part of her hoped so.
Then why did the heavy weight in her chest just grow larger?
“Ellen, I told you to leave Sabrina alone.”
Sabrina looked behind her to find Jonas looming over her chair. If his clipped tone didn’t give it away, his entire countenance exuded fury. She shot to her feet and put her hand on his chest, hoping to calm him down enough so that they didn’t fight in front of the kids. Rose tended to cry when Jonas yelled, which was curious because he’d never raised his voice to their daughter.
But Ellen’s hackles didn’t rise. She looked away, making motions with her mouth as if chewing on what to say next. At last she swallowed and nodded. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to upset either of you.”
Sabrina felt bad. She hated the tension between Jonas and Ellen, and she couldn’t help but feel responsible for it.
Ellen stood up and regarded them both somberly, worlds of sorrow in her deep brown eyes. “I just can’t stand to see you like this.”
Jonas’s jaw set harder and he took a step forward. Sabrina moved at the same time, forcing him to put his arm around her to keep her from tripping over his feet. They’d touched plenty over the past week. He slept with at least one arm slung across her body. They snuggled together on the sofa with the kids. And he fucked her frequently, shoving her against a wall or down on the bed whenever he felt the urge. She craved those moments.
“Jonas, she apologized and she means well.”
Ellen, of course, held her ground. Jonas wasn’t violent, and neither of them were in the habit of backing down when they felt they were in the right.
He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I’m going to start dinner. Call me if you need me.”
The way he looked out for her made her heart patter a little faster. She smiled to let him know she was all right. In a way, she felt better than she had all week. Somehow his show of protectiveness eased her anxiety.
He sauntered across the lawn, and Ellen sat down. She sipped her melting mound of ice and they talked about the offer someone had made for the property housing Ellen’s nightclub.
Later, Ryan cornered her near the gate to the swimming pool. She’d been in the water with the kids, conducting impromptu swimming lessons with six-year-old Jake, Ryan and Ellen’s oldest, and coaching Rose and Emily, Jake’s younger sister, on practice kicking. Mostly, they hung onto the edge of the pool and splashed with their feet, giggling maniacally with their three-year-old senses of humor.
Jonas and Ellen had taken the kids into the house for baths to wash the chlorinated water from their little bodies.
If she’d seen what was coming, she would have run. Ellen was the one who pried into people’s lives. Ryan usually sat back and watched with a contented smile on his face. He didn’t register as a threat, so he caught her with her guard down.
He was about the same height as Jonas, perhaps an inch taller, which meant Sabrina had to tilt her head back to look at him when he stood nearby. Though it was early evening, the summer sun glinted from his hair, highlighting the multitude of reds in his close-cropped cut. He handed her a bottle of icy water.
“It’s not easy to be a submissive.”
She froze, her gaze focused on the drink in her hand. The gate was locked. That safety measure registered in her mind, taking the place of Ryan’s comment. “Thanks for the water.”
She went to turn away, to head back along the flagstone path to the house, but Ryan caught her arm. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who has been through the same thing. I’m your friend, too, Sabrina. I’m here for you and I’m a damn good listener.”
Taken aback, she stared at him. On a normal day, she forgot he was a submissive. Ellen’s dominance was hard to miss, but Ryan’s submissiveness wasn’t the first thing anyone noticed, if they noticed it at all. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and confident, not at all meek or mild. Laid-back, perhaps, but not a pushover. While he didn’t tend to argue with Ellen, he still voiced his opinion.
He leaned against the fence, putting the sun to his back so that it no longer glinted in his eyes, and took a long sip from his water bottle. “I was with Jonas the last time he went to Elysium. That place blew our minds. We spent the whole time walking around and looking at everything. It definitely makes you question things, forces you to confront what you really want.”
She continued to stare in silence. While she wanted to hear about what happened because Jonas hadn’t said much about his previous visit, she didn’t want to know about other women he might have met there.
“When I got back, Ellen was pissed. We weren’t dating yet. Jonas and I had only gone to Elysium to show her we could handle the D/s lifestyle. Jonas had already figured out that he identified as a Dom.” He shook his head. “It didn’t appeal to me. At Elysium, I began to suspect for the first time that I was submissive.”
Sabrina looked away. She studied the pattern of patio tiles on her side of the gate. Elysium hadn’t clarified anything for her. At home she’d suspected she was more of a submissive than Jonas let her be. She lived for playing the roles that cast her in that light. Even when he played the virgin, she liked it best when he took charge.
But actually living the part for five nights hadn’t felt right either. Parts of it did, and parts of it didn’t.
She felt Ryan looking at her, waiting for her attention to return to him. She looked up at him, giving him the signal to continue.
“As I said, Ellen was pissed. She had a crush on me, but she hadn’t pursued me. She had thought I was submissive all along, but you can’t force somebody to that realization. They have to make it on their own. They have to want it. The first time I knelt at her feet, I knew with every fiber of my being that I was doing it because I wanted to. She gave the order, but I wanted to fulfill it.”