Liability (Suncoast Society #33)(8)

He glanced over at her but didn’t reply.

Another frequent conversation.

Somehow, even though Craige hadn’t been physically “abusive,” per se, she’d left their marriage feeling like little more than poor white trash. He’d come from money and his family had rarely missed an opportunity during family gatherings to subtly remind her of the fact that she’d come from hardworking, middle-class parents, or the fact that she hadn’t attended college.

Didn’t matter to them that the last point was Craige’s fault.

For years she’d struggled as she thought she had to straddle some invisible line. For years she’d also worked to mold herself into the “perfect” spouse until the realization had hit her one day that no matter what she did, she’d never be perfect in the eyes of Craige or his stuck-up family.

Thus she’d decided to quit trying.

Hence followed the rapid implosion of the fantasy that had never existed in the first place.

To this day, even though she knew it was a construct in her own mind and not the perception of others, she struggled against the feeling that she maybe wasn’t as good as other people. That maybe Craige and his family were right in their assessment of her.

Cole had been more than patient with her on that point, lovingly scolding her about it when he caught her doing it. Cole’s family had never made her feel anything but at ease when she was among them.

Maybe one day I’ll get my act together.

How could she move in with him and plan to spend the rest of her life with him when she still felt like she was a few embers away from being a Dumpster fire in terms of her emotional development?

It wouldn’t be fair to him. Although he’d been exceptionally patient with her in the time they’d been together.

Far more patient than Craige had ever tried to be with her.

When they pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, Kim was shocked to see so many cars there on a Sunday evening. She knew the Suncoast Society munch group was meeting in a private banquet room in the back, and to ask the hostess for the “computer group.”

But she hadn’t honestly thought there’d be a lot of people here.

Maybe most of the cars are people here to eat and not part of the group.

“What if we know someone in there?” she asked.

Ever calm, her bastion of sensibility, Cole shrugged. “So?”

“It won’t…embarrass you if we do?” Not to mention she’d feel guilty as hell about it.

“Well, if they’re there, then I guess they’re there for the same reason we’re there, right?”

“Oh. True.” She was lucky that she had a fairly anonymous job. She worked the main desk as the receptionist and administrative assistant at an insurance agency down in Venice. Her boss, Emery Nadel, was an easygoing guy. He’d just married his husband, Sean, now that gay marriage had become legal. They had three adopted kids, two of them twins who’d been Emery’s younger sister’s children. She and her husband were brutally murdered when the twins were just a couple of months old.

Although Kim wasn’t sure if gay would automatically translate into “okay with kinky shit” if this ever got out. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem.

She definitely didn’t want to do anything to screw up Cole’s job.

Wait. I’m worrying over nothing.

This was just dinner. The website assured people that it was a safe way to meet others and get information.

Wasn’t like they were actually going to a dungeon or anything, although she had visited the website for Venture, a local private BDSM club.

She wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that step yet.

She wasn’t even sure she was ready for this step.

All she knew was that it had taken her a while to reconcile the fact that what she wanted with Cole was far different than what she’d had with Craige. The kind of domination Craige had basically engaged in throughout their entire relationship wasn’t the healthy kind, even if, technically, she had gone along with it and he hadn’t, technically, been abusive.

Just an *.

Hailing from a family of *s, but they’d cloaked their *ry in a disguise of money and prestige and she’d fallen for their silent bullshit narrative that she wasn’t as good as them from the start.

A mistake she’d never make again, although not a mistake she ever expected to make with Cole. He was the polar opposite of her ex in all ways. While it wasn’t that she had complaints about her relationship with Cole—because she didn’t—she did wish there was a little bit of an…edge to it on occasion.

Maybe that wasn’t even the right word, but that was the whole point, that she was so new to this world she wasn’t even sure how to speak the language yet. Kim knew romance novels couldn’t be guidebooks, either. Looking for stuff on the Internet meant she had a hard time sorting the wheat from the…well, porn. Maybe her Google-Fu skills just weren’t good enough. She had given up trying to find information about BDSM in general and knew her best bet was to come talk to people actually involved in this.

Cole ended up leading the way and speaking with the hostess, who directed them back to a private room. Inside, there were over a dozen round tables that sat anywhere from eight to twelve people apiece. It took Kim a second to take in how absolutely normal and…boring everyone looked. The median age appeared to be middle-aged, with extremes at both ends, from a couple of women who barely looked legal, to an apparently married couple who might very well be octogenarians.