“I’m leaving you because you can’t work with me.” Every word sounded ground out of his mouth. “You don’t trust me, and that’s why this cannot work. I tried several tactics today. I tried to follow your lead. It got us nowhere. I tried to take the lead. You fought me at every turn.”
That’s not how she remembered things. “I didn’t fight you. I did everything you asked.”
“You argued with me constantly.”
Once again she felt like a kid in class. She’d been the one the teacher got frustrated with because she wanted to delve deeper into the subject. “I had questions.”
“Questions that could get us both killed out in the field.”
“You can’t expect me to simply follow orders.” It wasn’t who she was.
“Oh, but I do, and that’s why I think the absolute best course of action is for you to stop investigating entirely. I’ll let Adam know he can send his own team in if he and Chelsea want to, but you’re out of it.”
How was she supposed to drop the investigation? “You can’t do that.”
His face looked like it was made of granite. “Watch me.”
He wanted to be stubborn? She could show him stubborn. “What are you going to do, Deke? Kidnap me? Force me to quit a job I worked hard for?”
Was this some kind of revenge for him? She wasn’t sure why he would need revenge. He was the one who’d left her, but she knew some men could be irrational about the women in their lives. Even the ones they’d kicked out. It was a surprise to find out Deke was one of those men.
He sank down on the couch, and his eyes went back to the shadows and the energy seemed to flee his body. “For one thing, I thought I’d call your parents in the morning and let them know that you’ve gotten involved in a dangerous situation. Then I’ll call Nolan Byrne and tell him you’ve lied to him all along and that we have no connection, and he will never be allowed into The Reef.”
She stood there for a moment trying to process the threat. He was willing to ruin her career? “How could you?”
He simply shrugged. “It’s that or we find someone you can trust enough. Someone you feel comfortable with. Right now, I don’t think your plan is going to work. We can try some training with Kyle in the morning. There are a couple of other Doms who might work, but Kyle is already on the team. He would be the easiest replacement. MaeBe can be a friend of yours, and Boomer can be his brother. You never showed Byrne a picture of your Dom, so it could work.”
She didn’t want to go in with Kyle. She didn’t even know Kyle. If Deke called her parents, she would never hear the end of it. They would show up on her doorstep and hound her until she convinced them she was safe—something that might be hard to do considering her situation. If he called Nolan, well, then everything was probably over, including her career.
She’d made a terrible mistake. Coming here to talk to Deke had seemed like a good idea, but it was obviously never going to work. “I’ll go. There’s no need to have another meeting tomorrow. We can pretend like this never happened. I’m sorry I didn’t do what you wanted.”
Maddie started to back away.
“I’ll call them tonight if you try to leave,” Deke vowed. “I’ll find Byrne’s personal number and I’ll have you fired by morning.”
She turned on him, an ache inside her opening up. “Why? Why the hell would you do that? Because I didn’t obey well enough?”
“Maddie, I already offered to sacrifice a job I adore so I didn’t have to lie to you.” There was fire back in his tone. “I wasn’t joking when I told you what Adam asked of me. Hell, I gave you classified information. It could be more than merely my job on the line. I could find myself in jail or worse. And I knew it when I told you. I made that choice. What do you think I’m willing to do to keep you alive?”
She didn’t understand him. The anger and outrage she felt fled, and she had to face the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing and she couldn’t get anything at all done without him. “What did I do wrong?”
He sighed, a weary sound. “I thought you were submissive and you’re not. I was making assumptions based on who you were in high school and how our sex lives went back then, and I was wrong. Someone could teach you to play the role, but it would take far more time than we have. I say we give Kyle a shot to see if it’s just me you’re opposed to and if it doesn’t work, we figure something else out.”