by Madeleine Oh
Touch of a Dom
Madeleine Oh
Book two in the Dominant Lovers series.
With her mother recently dead, Adele Royer is determined to find the father who abandoned them when she was a toddler. The only clues she has are two addresses in Nice that she finds among her mother’s papers. Determined to start her search in the South of France, she applies for a job as cook in Eze and becomes part of Luc Prioux’s staff at Les Santons.
She loves the job and is more than ready to begin her search but Branko Odic, Luc’s secretary, proves to be a delicious distraction. The passion they share is undeniable, their chemistry tangible. He becomes her dream Dominant in bed and a true friend as he aids her in her quest.
Together they find her father in nearby Cannes. But Adele is in for the shock of a lifetime.
A Romantica® BDSM erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Touch of a Dom
Madeleine Oh
Chapter One
In a suburb of Lille, Northern France
Adele Royer hit Send and her application went off into the ether. She knew better than to hope too much. The last five applications hadn’t netted anything and this one was definitely a long shot. They wanted a cook for a private estate and her work experience was in a clinic, a hotel in Tournai and, the past four or five years, a small café restaurant in Lille after she’d come back home to take care of her failing mother.
And now, mother gone, Adele was all set to disobey and break the promise she’d made when she was seven.
The job sounded fantastic, or potentially fantastic. A live-in position in an estate not far from Nice. Close to a dream job! She looked out at the drizzle against her window and decided, apart from anything else, a little southern sunshine was just what she yearned for.
Ten days later, a brisk email asked her to come to Paris for an interview the next week. Paris meant Uncle Alain. Since she was little she’d wanted to meet the man who’d never forgotten a birthday or Christmas. Odd really, he lived only an hour away and it might just as well be a thousand miles. She’d never met him. In fact she had only the haziest memories of her father. Now that her mother was dead her father’s unknown family were her only relatives.
Just because her mother refused and forbade any contact with her ex-husband’s family was no reason for Adele to continue. She wanted to know what had happened to her father and to meet her uncle.
A week later, she was in Paris. Adele walked out of the Gare du Nord and took a deep breath. Of carbon monoxide and pollution. She was used to the traffic and bustle of Lille but it was nothing compared to Paris. She smiled at the crowds, the noise and the buzz of activity. She was making a new start. Assuming, of course, she actually got the job. If not, well darn it, she’d keep looking and meanwhile she was defying yet another of her mother’s many fiats. But come to that, Maman had other secrets, several of which Adele had packed into the rolling overnight case she pulled behind her as she headed for the Metro.
Her destination was a certain shop in a side street in Le Marais. And this too, Maman would have disapproved of. She had done all her business with Le Paradis des Sens through the post. Well Adele was in Paris, and delivering the last consignment would save postage and Maman had always approved of saving money.
Plus, Adele would be lying to herself if she pretended she wasn’t curious about the man who’d bought her mother’s exquisitely handmade whips, blindfolds and floggers for years. That extra income had often made all the difference when it came to holidays or new shoes or repairs to the little house her mother owned.
Adele opened the door to the little shop, looked around and had to close her mouth. Incredible was the only word. No, fascinating. Amazing. Wonderful. And talk about blush-making. Never mind all that. She was here on business, not to gawk. Although she had to admit the gray-haired man arranging magazines didn’t match her mental image of the Monsieur Charles Morgan she’d corresponded with.
“I’ve come to see Monsieur Morgan,” Adele said. Was he in the back room perhaps? He’d said to come to the shop at eleven.
The elderly man straightened himself and crossed the space between them. “You must be Pauline’s daughter, Adele.” The minute she nodded, he shook hands, then hugged her. “How wonderful to see you, and my thanks for bringing her last works to us.” He turned to the tall woman standing behind the counter. “Marie-Claude. Close the shop and come and see the treasures this young woman has brought us.”
As Marie-Claude locked the door and turned the sign to Fermé, Monsieur Morgan led Adele to the rear of the shop and invited her to open her suitcase.
She couldn’t help smiling as she spread out the array of suede, leather and velvet in a spectrum of jewel colors and darkest black. There were ten floggers, two braided whips and a dozen or so velvet, leather and silk masks, and another mask in a gorgeous bronze-colored velvet with a matching set of manacles and leg restraints.
While Marie-Claude exclaimed, Monsieur Morgan smiled like a benevolent gnome as he let the tresses of a flogger slide over his fingers. “Beautiful craftsmanship. As always. Your mother had such talent and such dedication.” He shook his head. “A true tragedy. She was so young.” He turned to Marie Claude by his side. “Feast your eyes, my dear, these are the very last Pauline Royer toys we will ever see.”
That had Adele sniffing back a muffled sob. Not that muffled, though. M. Morgan reached out and touched her hand. “Such a tragedy, my dear. Have you considered taking on her mantle?”
Adele shook her head. “I used to help her at times but I was never as meticulous as she was. Usually I was relegated to buying raw materials and shipping out her finished products.”
He sighed. “A pity and this is all?”
Hadn’t she told him so on the phone? “It is. She used to sell to other places.” Might as well make the point before dropping the big one. “But she was very firm that you were to have all she had left. She said you had encouraged her to make a business out of it.”
“I did indeed. I saw a beautiful flogger she made years ago for your father.”
Adele’s mouth went dry. “You knew my father?” Maybe not the best time to ask but she had to know.
“Briefly, my dear, only briefly. They parted many years ago.”
Adele already knew that.
“So do we take these under the usual agreement?” Obviously business was more pressing than sharing details—if he had any—of her long-absent father. “I can pay cash if you prefer.”
It could be tax free that way, but she wasn’t too sure of walking around Paris with a bag stuffed with money. “Bank transfer will be fine, but I think we need to talk about prices.” Not waiting for him to interrupt, she went on. “Since these are the very last ever, they will surely go for a premium price. Collectors all over France will be eager to snatch them up while they have the chance.” She smiled, heart beating at her own nerve, but heck… Money was very important right now. She couldn’t count on getting the job, after all.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
She told him, Marie-Claude gasped and then tutted at the suggestion and was sent off to tidy the shelves as M. Morgan invited Adele to sit down. They haggled for several minutes before shaking hands on the deal. “Pauline would be proud of you,” he told her, “and if you ever decide to follow her footsteps, I want first option on your wares.”
“If I ever do, you will.” Unlikely as Adele didn’t possess her mother’s skills, but if a job proved elusive…
“And you give your word these are truly the last? I don’t want another batch appearing somewhere else.”
“There are no more.” Aside from a rather gorgeous magenta suede flogger that she’d held back for herself as a memento of her mother.
&nb
sp; Bargaining over, he sent the transfer to the account she gave him. Adele said, “Au revoir,” and went out into the sunshine.
Pausing only to check on her phone that the money was in her bank, she took the Metro back to the Gare du Nord, left her now-empty suitcase in the left luggage and treated herself to a petit café in a nearby cafe.
She was hungry but waited to eat as she was due for lunch in just over an hour. And that was another hurdle. At this rate she’d be worn out by the time of the interview later that afternoon but darn, she was in Paris and wouldn’t miss any opportunity. She might even go back and quiz M. Morgan about her father, but put more hope in her uncle. She stifled the twinge of conscience. Her mother had wanted to sell her last work but definitely would not have wanted Adele to have lunch with Uncle Alain. But she was going to.
As she approached the restaurant in a trendy-looking side street in Le Marais, she was overwhelmed by doubts and could hear her mother’s voice in her head, berating the entire Royer family.
Damn it! She was on a quest for answers and her father’s brother was a good place to start. Taking a deep breath, Adele squared her shoulders, crossed the narrow road with a determined tread and opened the door.
The small restaurant was almost empty. A group of three men in business suits was in earnest conversation over coffee and brandy. A couple, totally engrossed in each other, sat in one corner and, across the room by a window, a single woman was studying the menu.
Uncle Alain had been right, the crowd had thinned out but where was he?
Half-tempted to back out and run, Adele looked around as someone called her name.
“Adele? It is you. It must be.” A short man with salt-and-pepper hair smiled and came toward her. He reached out his arms and, as if by instinct, she stepped over to him and they embraced. “I would have known you anywhere,” he said as he released her but kept his hands on her arms. “You are so like your poor mother, but enough, come and sit. We have oysters, fresh from Brittany this morning. I saved some for you.”
He’d saved a dozen. Total luxury and indulgence verging on gluttony but she’d be a fool to offend him by refusing. “You’re not eating?”
“I will, my dear. I eat with the staff after we close, but now, let me feed you.”
She couldn’t remember the last time someone else had cooked for her. Mother, before she became ill, but that was years back. “They look and smell wonderful.” She picked up a shell and tilted the oyster into her mouth. It tasted of salt, lemon and the sea. “They’re incredible.”
He smiled. “Enjoy, my dear, and thank you for taking the time to visit an old man.”
“You’re not old.” Perfect opening here. “You’re not much older than my father. Four years older, right?”
He nodded. “Yes. I wanted a puppy but my mother had Jules instead. I was devastated.” He sipped from the glass of Perrier in front of him. “But I soon recovered. We used to be very close.”
She caught the “used to be”. “I don’t remember much about him.”
“You wouldn’t. You were very young when they separated.” He shook his head. “But enough of that. Tell me what brings you to Paris?”
“To sell the whips and floggers mother made” wasn’t perhaps the best reply. At his age the shock might give him a heart attack. “Mother left me a little money and I decided I needed a holiday.” The first bit was true, and wasn’t getting a new job—hopefully—a version of a holiday? “I decided to start with a day in Paris.”
“To look up your old uncle? Eh?”
He obviously did not believe that was all. “I wanted to thank you for all the presents you sent me over the years and to ask about your family. My family. Mother never let me even mention the Royers.” She’d barely consented to Adele keeping the toys and books her uncle sent her. “As a result, I know nothing. Do I have grandparents? Cousins? Were you and my father the only siblings? What about great-aunts and uncles?” For all she knew there was an entire tribe of Royers. “I know nothing at all about any of you.”
“I thought as much.” Uncle Alain shook his head. “That, my dear, was your mother’s doing.”
She’d hoped to learn something she’d didn’t already know. “I’m well aware of that and while she was still alive I’d never have gone against her but she’s dead now. I have no brothers or sisters. You are the only other relative I know about, and I really want to know if I have any other family and,” she paused for a deep breath, “if my father is still alive. Mother said he moved south but that was it.” Could have been South Africa for all Adele knew, but she always suspected, hoped perhaps, that her mother meant the South of France.
Uncle Alain went silent for a good minute or two. “As for family, Adele, there were three of us, your father, myself and a much younger sister, Eloise. She was ten years old when your parents separated. You did meet her once or twice, but I expect you were too tiny to remember her. She’s married, has three children and lives in America, in California, with her husband. He’s a visiting professor at Stanford. They are due to return next year and I believe she would be very happy to get to know you after all this time.
“As for your grandparents, your grandfather died five years ago and unfortunately your grandmother has since had two strokes. She is very frail. The last one affected her mind and some days she does not even recognize me. I can take you to meet her if your stay permits but be prepared that she will not know who you are.”
Seemed her best hope was her uncle. “And about my father?”
“I have not seen him for twenty-five years.”
What had happened? And seen didn’t necessarily mean I don’t know where he is. “So he moved south.” He hadn’t denied that. “What did he do that everyone cut the connection?” Being an only child didn’t give her any experience of siblings, but why such a break? A thought occurred. “Is he in jail?” That would explain a lot.
“Good God, no! Whatever gave you that idea, child?”
The arrival of a veal chop in a luscious and aromatic cream sauce caused a delay in replying. She had to taste it. Two bites later, she replied, “I can understand Mother never admitting to a husband in jail.” On the other hand, wouldn’t he have visited a brother in jail?
“My dear, listen to me. The rift was mutual. Your father made the choice to cut himself off from all of us. I am sorry but you’d best do as all of us have done and forget about him.”
Since she had no memories, there was nothing to forget, but darn… “You have no idea where he is now?”
“He left no trace.”
Not entirely. “He sent money to Mother.” Not that the bank had been exactly forthcoming when she’d asked some weeks back. All she had was the name of a notaire in Nice who arranged the money but… “I know that because—”
“Let it go, my dear. You have family now. Me, your aunt Eloise and her family and, although sadly very frail, a grandmother. Spend your time getting to know us. Now tell me what you think of the veal.”
That was easy enough—incredible, and the fondant au chocolat that finished off the meal was superb, but when they parted she felt, aside from a meal she could never have afforded to pay for, the visit had been close to useless.
Yes, she now had an uncle, but she’d already known that. Her aunt and cousins she hadn’t known about—but they were on the other side of the world—and a grandmother who was frail and feeble. If she were staying longer in Paris, she’d take up Uncle Alain’s offer to take her to visit. Maybe she’d find time to come back in the next couple of weeks. Although if this job didn’t work out, she’d be busily looking for another.
Mother had said her father had gone south and Uncle Alain hadn’t denied it.
So, the South was where she was starting her search. But first her interview, and fingers crossed that she got the job.
Chapter Two
Helen Crew wasn’t too sure about this interviewing business. First, because it had been dumped on her lap. Not that she really minded hav
ing to spend a couple of days in Paris at the expense of her employer, Luc de Prioux. But also because she’d made a thorough hash of the first interview—maybe because the woman reminded Helen of a much disliked PE teacher from her schooldays. The said interviewee hadn’t helped by going off in a huff after learning the previous cook had been murdered. Sad but that was the fact of the matter and if poor old Madame Louise hadn’t met such a dreadful end, she’d still be reigning in the kitchen of Les Santons and there’d be no need for a replacement.
But Helen liked Adele Royer on sight and after fifteen minutes, decided she’d fit in nicely into their rather unorthodox household up on the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. She had good references and training, was quiet, obviously intelligent, asked good questions, gave clear, sensible answers and had absolutely nothing of the severe teacher about her manner.
There was only one nagging thought. If it hadn’t been for the report from Luc’s private eye, Helen would have had a hard time believing this sweet-faced girl—okay, young woman—was really into kink.
But appearances could be deceptive. After all, Helen had met all sorts of people during the years she’d frequented clubs, fetish fairs and gatherings and enjoyed kinky weekends.
Luc’s background check passed Adele. So it was up to Helen whether or not to hire her and it was an easy choice. Getting along with Adele would be heaps easier than it had been trying to make friends with the rather forbidding Madame Louise. Would Luc and his secretary Branko feel the same? Hell if she knew. Only one way to find out.
“Do you have any more questions?” Helen asked.
“Not really, we’ve covered most things. I should add though that I’d very much like this job.”
So she’d said earlier. Was she too eager? Helen didn’t think so. Adele was alone in the world, needed a job and, Helen guessed, was a bit pushed for money. “I did make it clear, I hope, that any offer would be tentative. There’s a six-month trial period after which both sides would be free of obligation or if everyone agrees, we can renegotiate salary and so forth.”