And So I Ran - Complete

Chapter 2

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Ros asked, staring at me over the top of her toasted turkey, cranberry, swiss and rye sandwich. She was sitting opposite me at my desk, having popped by for an impromptu and unwelcome lunch get together.

"What makes you ask that?" I growled, taking a bite of my own sandwich thereby avoiding the question. I knew I was in a mood – the staff scuttling before me as I moved through the building was evidence enough of that. I'd spent the weekend holed up in Escala, refusing to be distracted from assembling Ana's final gift to me. I'd finished that in the wee hours of the morning, and today I'd attempted to distract myself from Ana's defection by coming it to work, although a fat lot of good it had done me. Even here, in my office, my eyes kept traveling to the door, hoping to once again see her stumble through it.

"Because it's 1:00 pm on Monday and I've already had three staff members in my office complaining about you. What's going on, Christian?"

Ros was the only one who could pull me up like this, and while I wasn't in the habit of getting relationship advice from my second in command, she was a woman – and in fact, she was in a long-term, committed relationship with one, too. She had to know a thing or two about apologizing?

"I fucked up, Ros. With Ana."

"The one you chased to Savannah?"

"The one and the same," I sighed, closing my eyes and thinking about those glorious few days. How Ana had surprised me by coming up to my hotel room after drinks with her Mom, then surprised me even more with her comments about Elena. We'd made love in the bath, and the next morning I'd taken her gliding. But that wasn't the first that my mind was lingering on most. In Savannah, I'd introduced Ana as my girlfriend. And I'd meant it.

"I really fucked up," I repeated, opening my eyes to meet Ros's.

"What sort of fucked up? Apology and dinner at a fancy restaurant? Jewellery?"

"She ran," I explained bleakly. "I came on too strong, and I frightened her away."

'Came on too strong.' Better that than telling Ros the truth; that I'd shown Ana the extent of my depravity, scaring her and injuring her to boot.

"She's not an acquisition, you know," Ros said, watching me shrewdly. "You can't go in there all Master of Universe and bowl her over. Relationships are about establishing trust, compromise, and common ground."

Trust. Did Ana trust me? She'd trusted me enough to come to the playroom - or the Red Room of Pain, as she preferred to call it. She'd trusted me enough to submit – at least for a little while. But I'd taken it too far. Pushed her beyond her limits. Not just physically - emotionally as well. As a Dom, it was my job to read her, and I'd done a poor job of it. Although she hadn't wanted a Dom – that much had been clear from the get-go. Ana had wanted more. She'd wanted a boyfriend, and that's where I'd let her down. She'd given me her trust, and I'd abused it. And to add insult to injury, I hadn't reciprocated with my own.

And what of compromise and common ground? I guess I'd let her down there, too. Thinking about our short time together, everything had been more or less on my terms. Sure I'd given her the occasional victory, but they were small wins in a war that overall she was losing. Letting her have the odd win wasn't compromise, it was a tactic to bring her to heel. As I sat and thought about it, I was filled with a sense of shame. Ros was right. I had treated Ana like an acquisition, giving her minor concessions to distract her from my overall goal.

"So what do I do?" I asked my usual sense of purpose and resolve conspicuously absent. "Any display of affection is likely to make her run. What do you do when Gwen's mad at you with good reason?"