“I hate to hear life didn’t start out well for you, chérie,” she said softly.
“I’m not alone with that. It is what it is. Or it was what it was. Now it is what I make it. I can keep letting it influence how I live and the relationships I have. Or I can learn to trust in the good that comes my way and believe that I, well … deserve it, I suppose.”
“You deserve it,” Leigh stated firmly.
“How do you know?” Sixx asked before she could stop herself.
“Well, pointing out the obvious, sweetheart, you made this call, which couldn’t have been easy, but it was right.”
That wasn’t a lot to go on.
But Amélie wasn’t done.
“And you went from finding out your nature to learning how to do what you needed to do the correct way, and then you took your time to teach others. Aryas has missed you as a trainer at the Club, Sixx. You were excellent at it. It’s voluntary to do that, and you took on a good many Doms. That’s a great kindness. And I can say for a fact every Master and Mistress you trained would agree.”
Well, there was that.
“And you didn’t used to talk much,” Leigh went on, “and it’s very true you didn’t let anyone in too deep, but you listened. You always had all the time in the world to listen, Sixx. People are so busy these days, pushing their opinion and their point of view, their stories and experiences, so many have lost the art of listening, and sometimes, in fact, in a good many cases, you simply need that. You don’t need to know what people think of your problems or your life. You just need someone to listen. And that’s always been you.”
That was true too.
“And Aryas adores you,” she continued. “Aryas is the best judge of character I know. And frankly, that was all I needed when I first met you. As ever, it proved to be true.”
She turned on her turn signal to hook a right onto 44th, promising in a whisper, “I’m going to be a better friend.”
“I’m uncertain how, but if that’s a goal, I’m not going to talk you out of it.”
“Thank you for being a good friend.”
“And thank you in return for one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.”
“God,” Sixx muttered. “These days it seems like I’m always on the verge of crying, and for years, I hadn’t shed a single tear.”
“That’s a shame,” Amélie replied gently. “Tears have a bad rap, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. They’re very healing.”
“People view them as a weakness,” Sixx pointed out.
“People are, I’ve noticed, quite often very foolish,” Leigh returned.
That made Sixx grin while saying, “Too true.”
“I’m here for you, Sixx, always,” Leigh said.
This was it.
It was time.
She took a deep breath and went for it.
“Simone,” she declared.
“I’m sorry?”
“Simone. My name is Simone,” Sixx told her. “I’m Sixx, definitely, but that’s a nickname I gave myself a long time ago. My real name is Simone.”
“Simone,” Leigh murmured. “How beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Sixx whispered.
“No, ma belle chérie, thank you.”
Sixx hit the turn signal again and swung into the suicide lane to make a left toward Stellan’s home. “We’re going to the Club tonight. Are you guys going?”
“No, Olly’s on duty tonight. So I’ll be here waiting for him to return home.”
“Right, well, I’ll see you there sometime.”
“And perhaps in the meantime, we can have lunch.”
Sixx grinned again, thinking of Amélie at Sip.
She’d probably dig it.
“We’ll set that up. I’ll call you when I’m not driving.”
“Excellent. Until then … Simone.”
With Leigh’s soft accent, that was almost as beautiful as Stellan saying it.
“Until then, Amélie. Speak soon.”
“We will. Goodbye, sweetheart.”
“’Bye, Leigh.”
They hung up.
Sixx drove home.
And she parked in her bay next to Stellan’s Maserati, now under the illusion that sharing and honesty paved the road to good things.
And damned proud of herself for keeping her head firmly out of her ass.
*
“Gordon’s cup for Mistress Sixx, a vodka martini for me,” Stellan ordered from the server at their booth approximately one-point-two-five minutes after they’d slid their asses into it.
“Isn’t it gladiator night?” she asked her man as the server walked away.
Stellan turned to her. “That was last week. However, Ami wasn’t participating.”
“I know, but how did we miss that?”
Stellan grinned. “It’s next week, and Ami will be participating. So we’ll make a point to go. And I’ll make a point to ink each event into my calendar whether your commanding Ami or not.”
She actually felt her eyes sparkle at him as she leaned her tits into his arm.
“That’d be appreciated, baby,” she murmured.
He bent in, twisting his neck to touch his lips to hers.
She suspected her eyes were sparking more after that.
However, when he straightened away, Sixx blinked into the bar.
This was because Aryas was leading a woman to their booth who was dazzling.
No.
Astounding.
So much so, without thought, out of the side of her mouth, what she had no idea was comically, she muttered, “Text Ami right now and tell him we got a hot one for him.”
She couldn’t tear her eyes off the woman coming their way, so she didn’t see, she just felt it, as Stellan turned his amused smile from her to the direction she was looking.
“I think when he arrives in half an hour, he’ll discover that himself,” he did not mutter out of the side of his mouth.
What he did do was slide out of the booth.
“Stellan, my man,” Aryas greeted on a handshake. “Sixx, beautiful,” he said to her on a dip of his chin. Then he put his hand on the small of the back of the tall, lush, exotic beauty beside him. “This is Naya.”
Naya smiled a white smile behind deep berry lips, this radiating out of a face whose skin tone and bone structure Sixx could not call—Polynesian, perhaps—but it was bottom-line stunning.
Sixx took her in as Stellan took her hand in greeting, and there was a lot of her to take in.
She was tall, for one. And built, for another. She was also wearing an exquisitely draped, long-sleeved aqua dress that highlighted her amazing coloring and thick, long, dark hair. The dress fit like a glove, had a plunging vee neckline, a ruched waistline that made her hourglass figure go straight from gorgeous to bombshell, and inter esting flat ruffles down the front that a slit up the middle disappeared behind, so the dress was beyond flirtatious, straight to coquettish.
On sight, Sixx loved her for Ami.
Upon witnessing that sultry but open and friendly smile, Sixx adored her for Ami.
After Sixx murmured her greeting and Naya gracefully slid into the booth, Sixx would do a voodoo dance of good luck to make her personality come close to her extortionate beauty so she’d be worthy of Ami.
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said with an accent Sixx again couldn’t place, while Stellan slid in beside her and Aryas beside Naya.
“Thank you for meeting us,” Sixx replied. “And do you mind if I ask where you’re from?”
She inclined her head regally. “French Polynesia, originally. Though I lived in France for about five years growing up before moving here to America when I was seventeen, then living between New York, Paris, London and Milan for a number of years.”
Jet-setter.
Which might mean she had money, which might mean if she and Ami took to each other, the gladiator pit would continue to be all kinds of interesting.
Nice.
Stellan and Sixx’s drinks were served, Aryas and Naya ordered their own, and the server moved away.
Naya aimed her big, brown eyes over prominent, rounded cheekbones and back to Sixx.
“I understand you own this male I’ll be using tonight,” she remarked.
“Yes,” Sixx confirmed.
Naya looked to Stellan with a not-surprising, huge amount of interest, then to Sixx.
“Not Stellan,” Sixx shared. “He’s my Master.”
Aryas cleared his throat.
Loudly.
Sixx narrowed her eyes at him to see him fighting laughter.
Therefore her eyes narrowed further.