“We will be. Need you. Just need you, Mistress. Please.”

It was the please that did it. The almost desperate request of a man who always seemed so self-possessed. Maybe her being here, amid the bare evidence of his life outside of his work, had sparked this response. She was real and alive, part of the present and his tentative future. A stark contrast to his past, that poignant desolation provoking a clash between the light and the dark.

She knew that feeling. At particularly bright moments, she still occasionally experienced it, that blot of darkness on the sun, the memory of blood in a bathroom. Hacking through a throat with a meat cleaver. She clung to him tighter and surrendered to their mutual passion, willing to be swept away from nightmares together.

* * * * *

The emotions he’d stirred up there at the end lingered with her, making her feel unsettled. Not wrong, exactly, not after such an incredible weekend, but emotional upheaval was emotional upheaval, and even the good kind could stir the silt at the bottom. The war between dark and light wasn’t something that could be shrugged off lightly.

One member of the K&A team knew that better than anyone. Unfortunately, it appeared the condition was contagious this morning, because when she arrived Ben sounded as unsettled as she felt.

She heard him snarling at someone on his phone, then he slammed it down with a creative combination of oaths that could fill a swear jar to the brim. “Alice,” he snapped.

Janet dropped her purse and keys on her desk and moved down the hallway to his office. It was in a separate wing due to the confidential nature of the things he handled, but in this mood, he could be heard clearly. “Alice is off this morning. Doctor’s appointment, remember?”

“Great. Fucking great.” He muttered it under his breath, so she decided to let it pass. He looked tired, telling her he’d been here all night. When his therapy session dredged up particularly difficult things and he got in a foul mood over it, sometimes he came to his couch here, rather than taking the attitude home to Marcie. Janet knew he’d do better if he went home to her, but men could be stubborn about that, especially a man determined to give the woman he loved only the best side of himself. He sometimes forgot that what Marcie wanted most was all of him, good and bad. It made Janet think of her discussion with Dale again.

Ben launched into another tirade. “Somebody down at the courthouse royally fucked up the filing of the Watkins affidavit. Missed the deadline. The asshole judge, who likes to jerk our chain, has rescheduled the hearing for fucking two months.”

“I’ll call Stacie in the clerk’s office. She owes me a favor. She might be able to fix that.”

“Fine,” he snapped. “Fucking do it then.”

As Janet patiently waited, he stopped, closed his eyes. Pivoted away from her. She could almost hear him counting. He didn’t turn back toward her, but when he spoke, his tone was more even. “Sorry, Janet. No excuse for that.”

“No, there’s not. It’s just a piece of paper or two.” When he glanced over his shoulder at her, she kept her expression neutral. “Are you all right?”

“She made me agree to marry her. This spring. I was going to let them know this morning, before the Omni.”

“I assume you mean Marcie.”

“No. The hooker on the corner who gives me insider trading tips. Yes, Marcie.”

It made sense now, what had dredged up the same attitude he had after a bad therapy session. Despite the fact he likely wouldn’t welcome it, she crossed the room and touched his arm, drawing his green eyes to her. “You deserve her, Ben. You belong together. She loves you tremendously. And you staying here on the evenings when you can’t make it all make sense? It’s stupid and wrong, and it hurts her, shuts her out.”

He gave her a narrow look. “You finally decide to put down the whip and see a guy without a leash, after how many years, and you want to talk to me about shutting people out? Sounds like you’re the real expert on that. Mistress.”

The derision in his tone was intended to cut, and it did. It was ironic that she recognized the tactic so well, exactly because of what he’d just pointed out. They weren’t all that different. Except she could step back from this and see his misery. His fear.

She dug her nails into his wrist, right above his insanely expensive Louis Vuitton watch. “Ben O’Callahan, you’re being rude and cruel. Do it again, and I’ll slap your ear through your head.”

His jaw tightened further. “I didn’t ask you to come in here. And if you draw blood and get it on my cuff, you’re paying for the dry cleaning.”

“Stop it,” she said. “Ben, think about Dana, and her PTSD. She worked through it, because she wanted to heal, to be the best person possible for Peter. He loves her so much, doing anything less is unacceptable to her.”

He stared at her, then his attention shifted to the window. Sensing a similar shift of his mood, she touched his jaw. “What you’re doing, trying to heal the scars of the past to be a better person for yourself and Marcie, it would be tremendously difficult for anyone. But you’re doing it, Ben. You are a remarkable man. I think you forget that far too often.”

When his gaze flickered, she caught a glimpse of what she was painfully aware lay behind the formidable Master, the exemplary lawyer. The younger version of himself, so unsure of his own worth.

“Let Marcie be everything for you that you want to be for her,” she said gently. “That’s the deal, and as much a part of healing as anything else.”

He didn’t say anything, but when she dropped her hand to his arm again, he glanced at it. “You’re such a pain in my ass,” he said gruffly.

“Yes. I love you too.” The worst had passed. She squeezed him, moved back toward the door. “I’ll take care of the affidavit with Stacie. You get ready to tell them your good news. They’re going to be thrilled.”

Coming out into the office area, she saw the insulated bag with her homemade lunch on her desk. She’d left it in Max’s truck by accident, but of course her SEAL had noticed, brought it up for her. The gesture cut some of the tension the confrontation with Ben had provoked, but not as much as she would have liked. She rubbed her forehead, rolled her shoulders.

At least when she came around her desk, she noticed the light on her phone that indicated Ben’s line was engaged. It stayed that way for nearly ten minutes, telling her it was likely that he’d called and talked to Marcie. Either way, when he emerged from his office and came toward the boardroom for their pre-Omni Royal strategy session, he looked easier.

She sat in on that meeting, but she was relieved it would be a short one. Ben’s turmoil had obviously pushed a few of her own buttons. What she deserved, what she wanted. The silt everyone brought into their relationships. She felt like the lid of a kettle, sitting on a building pressure.

Ben’s good news would help distract her. She hoped. As Matt concluded the meeting and they all shifted, preparing to rise and head out, Ben cleared his throat. Absently, she noted all of them looked so handsome today, dressed in their power suits and ties. Any female attendees of the Omni Royal meeting were in for a treat. How in the hell did Jon’s dark hair always look so gorgeous and silky, feathered back from his brow, the tips brushing his shoulders? Rachel swore he didn’t wear any hair product, which simply confirmed that God was female, and She liked looking at men more than women.

“There is one last discussion point, though I don’t want it recorded, in case it comes back to bite me on the ass, which I’m sure it will.” Ben shot Janet a significant look. “Marcie and I are getting married. In the spring.”

“You aren’t already married?” Peter lifted a brow. “You’ve been so pussy-whipped since you hooked up with that girl, I figured it was already a done deal.”

“So says the guy who gave his wife a clone of himself as a limo driver.”

Dana had always been very flirtatious with Max, part of her M.O. as a hardcore sub who liked to brat for punishment. Even during her earlier discussion with Peter’s wife, Janet hadn’t reacted personally to that aspect of their relationship. But now Janet thought of what she’d said to Max about Dana, in their intense session at Club Progeny. He’d taken that as part of the scene, but given the twinge she felt now, Janet wasn’t so sure she hadn’t meant it.

Had Peter ever shared Dana with Max? It wouldn’t fit with the K&A men’s usual code of keeping everything within their circle, but there were certain areas she didn’t delve into too deeply for specifics.

Really, she was going to go there? She needed to do her own personal therapy session if she was getting bogged down in things she normally understood quite well.

Lucas grinned. He came around Peter to embrace Ben as the K&A lawyer rose. “Congratulations. Don’t ever forget what a lucky bastard you are. Or I’ll be forced to personally beat your head into a wall to remind you.”

“Like Marcie wouldn’t take it off with my restaurant-grade meat cleaver if I forget.”

“It won’t be your head, my friend. It—”

She’d been reaching for her coffee mug. It slipped out of her fingers as they jerked in reaction. She grabbed for it, a mistake, because it was already tilting. She managed to turn a simple spill into a spinning arc of coffee that splattered her tablet, her chair, the carpet, and the front of her pale yellow suit, one of her favorites. As well as her wrist, and it was still quite hot.

“Damn it all.”

The men reacted like a well-oiled machine. Peter brought a damp cloth from the sidebar and pressed it to her arm. Lucas retrieved the cup from the floor as Jon dropped a towel on the floor to mop the excess out of the rug. Their quick jump to her rescue made her eyes sting with an appalling emotional reaction.

Ben brought two additional wet cloths, one for Jon to soak the stain on the carpet, and another for her clothes, which he handed to Peter, since the operations manager was still holding the compress to her arm.