Playing for Real: Paolo's Playhouse, Book 5 (17 page)

“Have you thought any more about moving in with me?” he asked after the wine had been poured and their orders taken.

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it,” she said carefully. Paolo lifted a brow, waiting for her to go on. She took a deep breath. Holly’s words still slithered through her mind. “Does this mean you want a 24/7 D/s relationship?”

“You are thinking too much again,
cara
,” he said softly. “It means I want more of what we have had for the past week. Is that not what you would like as well?”

She was still trying to make it too difficult. “Yes. That’s what I want too.” She slid her fingers against his. “Yes. I’ll move in with you.”

“I was certain you would agree, but am so glad to hear the words coming out of your lovely mouth.”

“But I’m going to have to figure out what to do with my business.” She hadn’t had time to give it any thought yet, worried too much about the personal side. “Maybe I’ll keep it there. I can spread out into the rest of the apartment. I’ll have tons of space.”

“I have that all taken care of,” Paolo said smoothly. “The office space on the second floor of the Warehouse I told you about is still open. I’ve arranged movers to take everything in your workroom to the office space.”

Julianne froze, the glass of Chardonnay halfway to her lips.

“They will then take the rest of your things to my apartment. You won’t have to worry about a thing,
cara
.”

She held the stem of her wine glass so tightly she thought it might break. “I suppose you have arranged to have someone run my business as well so I can sit at your feet and be your pet?”

He frowned. The look of confusion on his face might have been amusing if she wasn’t so furious. “What are you talking about?”

“She was right. A steamroller.”

“Julianne. Tell me what is wrong.”

“What’s really wrong is that you have no idea what’s wrong.” She set the glass down carefully before she actually broke it. “I told you I didn’t want to move my business. But you arranged to do it anyway. Without my permission. Without consulting me.”

His expression grew darker. If she didn’t know him, she’d almost be afraid. “I am consulting you now.”

“After the fact. It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You tell me we’ll talk about everything, but then you do what you want anyway.”

“Lower your voice.”

She glanced around, saw that she’d drawn the attention of some of the other diners. “I knew it wouldn’t work out. I’d hoped it would, but she was right. You’re overwhelming. Overpowering.”

“She? Who is this you are speaking of?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been married, Paolo?”

His eyes widened, then he frowned. “I see. You talked to Holly.”

“Yeah. She’s a bitch but she has your number, doesn’t she?”

“Julianne, I am not trying to…what word did you use…steamroll you. I was taking care of the details. Making the arrangements. The decisions. Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”

“Not when it’s about my life!”

He recoiled as if she’d struck him. “Your life? You have not been living your life with me all these weeks?”

“No. I guess not.” Her chest ached but she had to stay strong. “It hasn’t been real. It’s been a fantasy. A space out of time, but it’s over. I can’t live with someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” he repeated dully.

“Yeah.” She choked back the tears she thought she’d been too angry to cry.

Paolo waved for the waiter. “This is not the place to discuss this.”

“Discuss? I can talk all I want, but it won’t change anything, will it?”

His face clouded. “I am not going to discuss this further here. I am taking you home.”

He hadn’t heard a word she said, or if he had, he obviously didn’t care. “Oh hell no.” Julianne gulped down the rest of the wine in her glass and slammed it down on the table. “Chardonnay, Paolo. Do you hear me? Chardonnay. This time, no means no.”

“I see.” Paolo sat back in his chair, looked at her as if he’d never seen her before in his life. A chill ran over her from the hard look on his face. “I’ll tell Jack to take you back to your apartment.” He spoke softly into his phone while Julianne wondered how it had all gone bad so fast.

But hadn’t she known it would come to this? Hadn’t she known this relationship was too much like her parents’? Even if they loved each other, this was too fundamental. Too uneven. The fear of it ending this way had always been lurking in the back of her mind.

Paolo finished his call and ran his gaze over her, dark and cold at the same time. “He’s out front, waiting for you.” He picked up his glass of red wine, lounged back and took a sip, making it clear he was staying right where he was. That if she wouldn’t let him have everything his way, he didn’t want her. “Goodbye, Julianne.”

She swallowed. “Goodbye.” Her knees were shaking, her whole body was shaking, but she rose as gracefully as she could and fled the restaurant. She waited until she was alone in the back of the dark limo before she let the tears fall.

Chapter Eight

Paolo watched Julianne walk away, and it was as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest. Mere moments ago it had been filled with a love he’d only just acknowledged. A love for the woman Julianne was, not for an idealized submissive wife he thought he wanted. Now he felt numb, emotionless, as he sipped his wine and pretended he was not affected by the woman he’d sent away. His mind was clouded by all the words she’d thrown at him, the accusations he’d heard before.

After he dropped Julianne off at her apartment building, Jack picked up Paolo and took him to Scandals. “Whiskey,” he told Ben as he sank down on the stool at the end of the bar.

“Fuck,” Ben said. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just pour me a drink.”

“You could have gone home if you only wanted a drink,” Ben said, but he poured him some whiskey straight up and set the glass in front of Paolo. Then he stood there, arms folded, until Paolo spoke.

“She’s nothing like Holly, but she ended up saying all the same things.”

“Julianne?”

“Holly talked to her somewhere today. Got her all worked up.” His chest burned, his throat was raw. “Julianne left me, Ben.”

“Shit, man, I’m sorry. You guys looked so happy the other night.”

“We were.” His short bark of a laugh sounded more like a sob. “I thought we were.” This past week together had given him a taste of what life with Julianne could be like. It had been—she had been—everything he’d ever wanted. It wasn’t exactly the life he’d planned, it was even better. With Julianne, it hadn’t felt like a compromise, it had felt right.

“Hey, handsome, what’s up?” Piper hopped up on the stool next to Paolo, took one look at his face and the glass of whiskey in front of him and frowned. “What happened?”

“Julianne left him,” Ben said.

“What did you do?”

Paolo glared at her. “I didn’t do anything. We said we loved each other tonight. One minute she agreed to move in with me, the next she told me I was a steamroller and walked out.”

“Okay, so there has to be a story there in the middle,” Piper said. “What are you leaving out?”

“Paolo’s ex-wife talked to Julianne today,” Ben said.

“That happened in between her saying she’d move in with you and walking out on you?”

Paolo frowned. “No. Earlier.”

“I’m trying to figure this out. Your ex-wife talked to Julianne. She still went out to dinner with you afterward, still told you she loved you, that she would move in with you? So what does your ex-wife have to do with Julianne getting pissed at you and leaving?”

“She told me Holly was right. She said I was a steamroller.”

Ben moved down the bar to take care of some new customers, but Piper stayed put. “What exactly did you say or do for her to call you that? I assume something specific got her mad?”

“I arranged to move her business to a space in the Warehouse. So she could be close to home. So she would have more space. So she would be safe.”

“I still don’t see the problem.”

“Exactly! If she had stopped and thought about it for one minute she would have known how much sense it made. She was going to be moving in with me. Why would she not want her office close by? Why would she want to keep traveling across town to go to work?”

“Okay, but this is her business we’re talking about, right?” She turned to look for Ben, called him back over. “What would you say if I wanted to move Scandals someplace else?”

His friend frowned. “Why would you want to do that?”

She waved away his question. “What if I decided to make changes to Scandals, on my own, hired Julianne to redecorate like we talked about the other night?”

He leaned over to give her a quick kiss. “Babe, I love you, but I’d tell you to keep your fingers out of my place. Not without talking it over with me first. Not without my okay.”

Piper whirled around on her stool to stare at Paolo. “See?”

“I was taking care of the details. Taking care of her.”

“See, that’s the thing about us women. We like to take care of ourselves.”

“I promised her I wouldn’t interfere with her business.” A cold sweat washed over him with the realization of what he’d done. “But I swear I never thought of it as interfering. I was helping her.”

“Hon, moving her office to a new location without clearing it with her first? Planning it before she’d even agreed to move in with you? That’s more than helping out. That’s taking over.”

“Steamrolling?”

“Yeah.” Piper leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Are you okay right now? I have a room full of thirsty customers.”

Paolo smiled for the first time since Julianne left. Since he’d coldly sent her away. “Yes. Thank you.” He looked up at Ben. “You know, Julianne told me more than once that she did not know how to be a sub and a girlfriend at the same time. I guess I have failed at being a Dom and a boyfriend.”

“Nah, man. You’ll work it out.”

“I don’t know. She said I do not listen to her. How can I prove to her that I do?”

“Do you?”

“What kind of question is that?”

Ben shrugged. Poured him another whiskey. “So what did she say to you?”

“Tonight?” So many things. Good things. Bad things. “She said that she loved me. That I made her happy. That she wanted to move in with me. That she didn’t want to move her business. That I do what I want no matter what she says. That what we had together was a fantasy and not real life. That she cannot live with someone like me.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Yes.” Paolo tossed back the whiskey.

“It sounds to me like you listen to her,” his friend said.

“Of course I do.”

“So what do you hear from what she said?”

“That she does not like what I do. That she does not want to be with me.”

“Are you crazy? I didn’t hear that at all. I’m no expert with women, but I’ve learned a little from living with Piper. What I hear is that Julianne loves you and wants to be with you, but you did something that was a deal breaker.”

“I screwed up when I made plans to move her business.” But the part about what they had together being a fantasy still bothered him. Was that really what she thought?

“So how do you fix that?” Ben asked.

“I cancel the moving company.”

“That’s the first step,” Piper said, taking the stool beside him again.

“First step? What’s the next step?”

Piper just stared at him, forcing him to figure it out for himself. “Begging for forgiveness?” he guessed.

Piper smiled. “That’s a great next step.” She kissed his cheek. “It’ll be okay. Remember, she loves you.”

“I didn’t know who else to call,” Julianne said. Stacey wouldn’t understand, would probably never understand. Julianne didn’t know Piper well enough to dump all this on her. But Ingrid? She’d be able to offer some advice.

Julianne’s throat was raw from sobbing. After she finished crying, the numbness wouldn’t go away. She began to second guess herself and her reactions. She missed Paolo already and knew that she shouldn’t. She poured out the whole conversation at the restaurant to Ingrid.

“I’m glad you called,” Ingrid said, her soft voice soothing. “I was afraid after the confrontation with Holly that something like this would happen.”

“I love him. How could I have told him I couldn’t live with him?”

“You were hurt. You were afraid.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath and tried to relax. “The funny thing is, it used to be the submitting part that scared me. I used to think that to submit was to be weak.”

“But you don’t now?” Ingrid asked.

“No. I found myself sitting at his feet last night and letting him stroke my hair. I did that all on my own.”

“It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?” Ingrid asked softly. “Comforting. Intimate.”

“Yes. But I don’t want him trying to control the rest of my life. Especially not my business.”