by Cynthia Dane
I need to replace Sylvia. Back to work, indeed. If another client showed up that night, the only girl available would be Yvette. Haha. Hahaha.
Monica could not squirrel herself away in her office on a busy night. So she sat in the Receiving Room, covertly flipping through the other applications she received from girls while on her collaring honeymoon. Yvette came and went from the room, her clothing simple and her face barely clad in makeup. Although she never took on clients outside of her patron, she still made an effort to represent the Château decently in front of other guests. Still, would a nicer dress kill her? If she wasn’t going to work, she could at least go outside or to her room. It didn’t seem like the type of night where Yvette would offset her inability to entertain guests by helping out with the party managing.
“Madam, a guest has pulled up.”
The maid disappeared from the doorway before Monica could give her any orders. Great.
She hated these situations. Rarely did she run out of available girls, but this was such a weird night already that she was kicking herself even harder. I need. To replace. Sylvia. No more falling into her pits of lovesickness. No more running off to get fucked in every orifice. Well, not until she took care of her other responsibilities first. By this time next week, I will have my fifth girl again.
Until then, she would have to come up with some way to make this man happy. Damnit, Yvette.
Men were impatient. They didn’t like being turned down in a house of pleasure. Especially when their only crime was having imperfect timing.
She went to the foyer and waited.
And waited.
Some commotion erupted outside. Nothing bad, but there was certainly some confusion, some misheard words, and a flippant comment that brought the doorman inside with a look of “we’ve got a live one” on his face.
Monica steeled herself. He wouldn’t dare.
Oh, yes he would.
Yet it wasn’t Jackson who walked through the door. She doubted security would let him get that far anyway. Instead, she soon found out that the reason her staff was so confused was because the guest gracing the foyer was one of the least likely to arrive, let alone… alone.
“Monica! I didn’t expect you to greet me yourself.” Eva Warren, dressed in a navy blue Givenchy suit and wearing enough makeup to scare off a kick line, handed her coat to a maid and spared the madam another look. “Nice choker.”
Without thinking, Monica’s fingers went to the collar around her throat. The black one studded with diamonds. For a sub like her, it was basically a wedding ring. “Thank you.” Monica shook the strange thoughts from her head. “Can I help… what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. What am I doing here?” Eva was so like her brother and yet completely different. They both could play long, coy games that must be how the Warrens made all their money in generations past. Yet Eva was very open when she was playing a game. Henry liked to horde it inside him, only letting people in on his dirty secret when it was time to spring the surprise on them.
So, Eva knew damn well what she was doing here… but she wasn’t telling Monica a damn thing until the time was right.
Well, Monica would not let anyone, least of all someone in Henry’s family, say she was not a competent hostess. After Eva secured her coat and large purse in the guarded closet, Monica led her to the Receiving Room, where she offered her Dom’s sister a drink. Eva took a whisky highball, because of course she was the type of woman to drink one of the manliest drinks available.
Monica wasn’t disparaging her. She was trying to figure her out.
“I must say I am surprised to see you here.” They were alone in the room, the door closed while Monica sorted out this situation. “I never thought I would…”
“Come on, we’re practically family now.” Eva crossed her legs and leaned back in a leather chair, her demeanor screaming “I own places like this.” Under normal circumstances, Monica would find this scene exciting, or at least a puzzle to solve, but given their relationship it was nothing short of confusing. “Be candid. I’m used to it.”
Monica didn’t even know what she would say that would classify as candid. “Why are you here, Eva?”
“Hmph. You know, I was always curious about this place, but a girl like me never knows how she’ll be accepted or treated. I’m a bitch, not because I’m a Domme, but because I have to put up with the bullshit people around us hurl at me. It’s not easy… being like me.”
“Of course.” There were few lesbians in their world. Even fewer were so out about it. For all Monica knew, she got grief from her parents – she doubted Henry cared. Never mind anyone she wanted to work with in an ultra-conservative world. Well, conservative until they wanted someone to whack ‘em with a flogger. Monica had seen it all. “You are the first solo woman to come through here.”
“Oh? There have been other women?”
Only Mrs. Andrews, but Monica wasn’t going to give that information up freely.
“Do you know Kathryn Alison?”
“Not personally. I’ve certainly heard of her.” Kathryn Alison was one of the richest women in the country. Monica also had it on good authority that she took on male subs. Ms. Alison was not shy around The Dark Hour.
“I was hoping she may have come here before. She’s a good friend of mine.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t seen her around.”
“Damn.” Eva drank some of her highball before setting it on a coaster and sitting up straight. “I actually have other reasons for being here. It’s about my brother.”
Monica perked up. “Has something happened?”
“Goodness, no. As far as I know he’s in Madrid scaring the pants off a business we own there. Someone has not been performing well, and…” Eva grinned. “They’re getting the Warren treatment.”
Is that so? Monica was still interested in seeing how Henry worked outside of the bedroom. He must be effective at his job if he could manage so many subsidiaries and buy out even more. In those worlds, the only types of people others responded to were outgoing alpha types. While Henry was certainly alpha, he wasn’t very…
“My brother is a subtle man.” Eva cut into Monica’s thoughts like a knife through cake. “A subtle man who always gets his way. For God’s sake, how long did he chase after you?”
Monica didn’t answer.
“Yes, yes, sorry. Keep in mind this is my brother we’re talking about. I enjoy talking about him like this as much as you do. There’s something I need to make clear to you, however. It’s about… well, he told me that you knew about Jackson sniffing around our place.”
Monica squared her shoulders. “He explained it to me. I understand that your father owes him money.”
“Bit of a blunder, ain’t it?”
Laughter bubbled in Monica’s throat, but this was no laughing matter.
“Look, the two of us can’t control our idiot father. Likewise, he can’t control us. Henry and I have been doing a lot of talking about how to free our family’s name from someone like Lyle’s. Especially now that you’re in the picture.”
“I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Don’t give me your submissive shit, dear. You don’t have to impress me.”
Lips curling inward, Monica decided to ignore that. Fancy her calling me “dear.” Monica was an easy what, seven years older than Eva? Doms. Dommes. They were all the same when they got patronizing.
“What I’m trying to say is…” Eva leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees as her bright blue eyes sparkled in mischief like Henry’s. “He told me of this concoction of yours. Quite the… well, that is one way to get Jackson Lyle out of your life. Short of hiring a hit man.”
“I doubt you came out all this way to talk to me about that.”
“Not really. Not the event itself.” Eva was interrupted by the door opening. Yvette sauntered in, her bored face bringing Monica down even more. Would you wor
k, already? Clean the dining room. Make sure the guests in the other room had enough to drink. Walk around in something sexy. Yvette didn’t have to take on a client in order to be useful around there. Sure, her patron was paying to take her out later that weekend, but…
“Get Miss Warren another drink, would you please?”
Yvette shot her a look over Eva’s head. “Of course, ma’am.” Sarcasm dripped from her lips like honey. Was someone having her monthly visit, or was she being a brat? I can never tell with her. Girls like Grace were open about how irritable they got while PMSing. Other girls like Judith could be like that all the time. Yvette continued to be an enigma to the Château.
“You must be one of her ladies.” Eva flashed Yvette a smile. “You’re very beautiful.”
Yvette turned, her eyes widening the moment she saw Eva. “Uh… yes. Ma’am.”
“Please. Call me Eva.” She waited to receive a refilled highball before continuing. “My brother didn’t tell me that such beautiful women work here. I mean, I expected it, but…”
The Warren game was afoot. Eva was one silver and diamond encrusted collar away from trying to one-up her brother.
And Yvette was blubbering like a teen meeting her idol in the most conspicuous place.
“That’ll be all for now, Yvette. Thank you.”
Reluctantly, the girl withdrew from the Receiving Room, her eyes locked on the back of Eva’s head – and Eva could only spare Monica a knowing smile, as if to say, “I know I’m good.”
I’ll be damned.
“Anyway, as I was saying…” Bolstered by her oh so innocent flirtations, Eva draped herself across the couch, her metallic earrings sparkling in sync with the glitter on her eyes. “If you and my brother decide to go through with this, there’s one thing you need to know. And yes, I partly came out all this way to tell you this in person.”
“I appreciate it. What is it?”
“You think you’ve seen every facet of my brother, but you haven’t. You haven’t seen him when he’s angry. He doesn’t get angry often. Our mother says he’s like a rock at the bottom of a river. He’s constantly being beaten up, but he just stands there, waiting for the moment to cut someone’s foot open. He was never the type of guy, even when he was a kid, to go up and slap somebody across the face.”
Monica thought of Ethan, who punched Jackson in the face just for her. No, Henry was not like Ethan in that regard at all.
“He’s… subtler than that. You know those snakes that wait in the grass? That’s Henry. He’ll wait for you to pass by, on high alert. If you pass him, he’ll leave you alone. If you step on him? Hope you’re carrying an antidote. I once pissed my brother off a few years ago, and now I’m careful to not do it again. Not like that.”
“Are you warning me?”
“No. He adores you. I doubt you could do anything to bring that out in your direction.” Eva laughed. “No, the person he’s angry as fuck about right now is Jackson Lyle. Every time his name gets brought up in our house, Henry goes on a tear unlike I’ve ever seen before.”
“I should like to see it.”
“He keeps it far away from you. He’s always concerned with worrying you or triggering you or whatever. Nope, I’m the dumbass who keeps bringing him up. Ha!”
Monica didn’t know what to say.
“Look, what I’m trying to tell you is that Henry is waiting to completely destroy Jackson. He’s pissed about what he’s done to our father, and he’s madder than hell about what he’s done to you. His own father and his almost-might-as-well-be-wife? I don’t know how he hasn’t completely burst yet.”
“Please get to the point.”
Eva sat back as if Monica had bitten her. “My point, dear sister, is that this plan of yours may make Henry completely explode in ways you’ve never seen before. You think you know every side of him, but you don’t. He can get scary when he’s ferociously protecting someone. Except he won’t resort to violence. The things he does… well, you’ll see, I guess.”
“I…”
“He’s a subtle alpha. You know he’s an alpha male. I know he is. Most of the world at large doesn’t. If your plan works? The whole fucking world will know. Especially Jackson.”
Monica cleared her throat. “That’s the only language Jackson understands.”
“Good.” Eva stood, her half-empty glass left on the table. “I just want you to know what you’re getting into. For your own sake, and Henry’s.”
The door to the Receiving Room opened. As Monica was about to show Eva out of the Château – for what the hell else would she do there that night – the only unattached woman in the whole damned building stepped in front of Eva.
“Can I get you anything, ma’am?”
Monica didn’t know whether to gasp in disbelief or go pay someone over a bet she just lost. Eva, on the other hand, merely smiled at Yvette and said, “Your madam told me that there were no available girls tonight.”
I said no such thing.
“The madam is wrong. I am available.”
“Yvette.” Monica fought to retain her propriety in the midst of these unforeseen events.
“Excuse me.” Eva turned to her sister-in-lifestyle, suppressing the most satisfied grin in the universe. “Is she for real?”
“I have no idea. She always gives me trouble.” There was a wink in that statement.
“How much trouble?”
Yvette took a step back.
“Too much. I’m thinking of replacing her if she can’t hold her own around here. Don’t expect her to give you a discount. She needs to be making me more money.”
“So you’re saying she’s been a very bad girl.”
“You could certainly say that.”
Yvette’s cheeks were as white as the platinum hair on Eva’s head. “A girl who has been so bad that I couldn’t possibly get the family discount around here. My word. She sounds like a fun troublemaker.”
Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
“Do something about her, would you?”
Later that night, the whole house was as confused as Monica when they heard Yvette screaming for pleasurable mercy in her room. Monica finally allowed herself to laugh.
Chapter 10
Happy Never After
“Just to confirm,” the polite voice on the other end of the line said, “you would like to offer yourself for the submissive auction next Saturday.”
The ticking of the grandfather clock in Monica’s office almost overpowered the woman Monica spoke to from The Dark Hour. I thought I was clear enough already. “That is my intention. Why? Have you had many other takers?”
“Naturally others have signed up for consideration.”
Naturally. Every year dozens of subs and their Doms signed up to auction off their skills to the rich masses. Only one would be chosen. The one who served to make the most money for the establishment and give the greatest time. That would be me, thank you.
“You know me, and you know my Dom. We may be a more recent couple, but we’re both highly experienced in this world.”
“Of course.”
“Then there’s my own history. That alone should get some seats in your audience.”
The woman considered this. “I shall pass such information along, Ms. Graham.”
“Be sure that you do. Mr. Warren and I are oh so looking forward to making you all lots of money.” An inexperienced sub from the year before made nearly twenty million dollars. That was her cut, not counting what went to the club for the privilege. When the rich got together to throw money at a sub entertaining them, any amount was possible.
Or so Monica desperately hoped.
Usually a couple hundred people showed up to those shows. One of the biggest turnouts of the year for the club… billionaires from all around the country, let alone the world showed up to throw money at a woman they would never have for themselves. If someone who barely knew what she was doing could make that much�
��
It was their only hope.
Monica laid on more platitudes about the establishment and what was in it for them. Such as massive discounts at the Château for all the owners and managers. It was the least she could do for continuing to pilfer some of their best Dommes. My olive branch. When she hung up, all she could do was sit back in her chair and hope for the best.
She tried not to think about performing in front of so many people. She had done things publically before, but always at intimate parties where she knew everyone and what they liked. The Dark Hour wouldn’t let things get crazy between her and the audience, but their screening would only go so far.