“Ellie, you’re not fine and I can see it. Look, I know I pushed too fast, I didn’t mean to. I know you’re working through some things when it comes to me, and men in general -“

“What do you think I’m working through?” Her voice came out high and shrill as betrayal surged through her. Who had told him? Which of the women she called friends had betrayed her confidence? Angel? Leigh? They were closest to Michael.

The expression on his face said he was searching for the right words, which just made her chest tighten with more suppressed panic, more frustration and shame and misery. He was searching for the right words because she sounded like a crazy person. Because she was a crazy person.

“Sweetheart... it’s obvious something happened to you. Your hard limits, the way you react to certain things... I know a man must have hurt you sometime in the past -“

Ellie felt like keening as pain burst in her chest, tears burning behind her eyes.

It was obvious she was damaged?

Was that why Michael was with her? Because he thought she needed saving, the way she had back in high school? Because he had a white knight complex?

Since he’d returned to the club, he’d been the champion for more than one submissive. Lexie was probably the most obvious example, when he’d been willing to brave Patrick’s ire to help the young woman prove she was ready to start scening, but he was always stepping in to help where he thought he could. And there she’d been, obviously having issues she needed to work through, obviously needing someone she could trust, and he’d stepped up again.

She thought she was going throw up. Her stomach churned. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and not just from her hangover. Hell, she’d been too emotionally turmoiled to even think about her headache again until just now when it hurt so much she wanted to take a hammer to her skull just to let out some of the pressure.

Gone.

She needed him gone. Out of her space. Out of her apartment. Just out.

So she did the only thing she could think of to make him go away - she told him the truth.

“Lawrence was my boyfriend and he raped me, okay?” She practically shouted the words at him, taking a kind of malevolent satisfaction in the way his face fell, even as part of her wailed in disappointment. “You left and I started dating Lawrence, because I’m a huge, fucking idiot, and I thought I was in love with him, and then when we were drunk at a party, he raped me.”

Michael’s mouth hung open, his face paling and then flushing and then paling again as he worked through the truth. Through her big secret.

And she felt so empty inside.