by Savannah May
His rolling eyes indicated he’d indulged my hot pursuit enough. I surrendered and climbed in through the door he held open for me, illegally waiting at the curb. The airport traffic control guards that blew whistles and screamed at any vehicle that stopped more than ten seconds at the door were somehow blind to Valentine’s stretch.
I leaned back into the soft leather, once I’d pulled a split of Vals from the refrigerator and inserted a savvy sipper into the bottle neck. Valentine was the genius who had invented the little cone that allowed you to drink champagne right out of the bottle. It had apparently netted him even more billions.
I was lost. With no means and nowhere to go, there was absolutely no choice for me other than to return to the winery and submit to Valentine again. With every repulsion known to a woman, I had zero desire to ever see his handsome arrogant face of superiority again.
It was late when we pulled up smoothly outside the Château and no one was about. It wasn't until the following morning I thought of how I'd have to face not only my domineering lordly boss but also the wicked assistant, depraved dominatrix Delilah. I recoiled from the prospect of facing her, which encourage me to decide I’d rip up my fake contract in front of Valentine.
With my giddy impatience for reprisal, I slipped out of the smooth sheets into a warm bath doused with the fragrant oil that turned to revitalizing fragrant milk, releasing a springtime rush of the aroma of bluebells, the instant it hit the water. I tried calling Josh back in New York, I owed him an explanation for why I hadn't made it back to the hotel. Three attempts all went straight to V-mail and I decided he was pissed and I should stop stalking for now
It was already way past lunch when I stormed into Valentine's office, past caring if my female dom was poring or pouring over him, like always. The interior design contract between us was a sham. Created solely for the purpose of getting me out to the West Coast. I intended to inform him right now that I wanted out of it.
I didn't care if he thought I was caving in, or running away from whatever Delilah had brought up within me. All that mattered was that I escaped the emotional and psychological roller coaster Valentine had me running along on his track and make sure I didn't lose any more precious momentum in my career.
“Andie, good you’re here at last,” Valentine spoke without looking up and she was at his side like always. The bullet boobs jutting up just for him.
“I hope you enjoyed your extra time off in the city,” he quipped.
Bastard.
Of course he knew that I’d insisted on being to driven back to the hotel Josh was staying at and he knew that I continued the chase to the airport. Whatever
“I do hope you're ready to get back to work now,” he added, still not looking at me.
“Yeah about that,” I interrupted him for the first time ever and finally he looked up in a surprise.
I started to continue my speech but he held his hand up for silence.
“Your crew are waiting for your instructions and it's costing me money every hour they're sitting around on the job.” He bored those limpid eyes into me from behind his desk, challenging me to do more. “You wanted to say something?”
“No. I'll get right down there. I'm ready to start.”
“How generous of you.”
What else could I do we had a contract and he knew it. There was no way out for me.
“Wait,” he commanded in the rumble of distant thunder voice. “D please leave us for a moment, I have a proposition to discuss with Ms. Cannon.”
Delilah inclined her head and split with me spitting at her inside like a feral cat. Valentine sat across from me observing me closely, delving into me with his eyes as he declined to penetrate me with any other part of himself. He was driving me completely whack with his blatant refusal to into my body. I needed him beyond all rational want, so bad that I thought I might literally go mad.
Weren’t there true life stories of that kind of hysteria in history? I think I read about Lord Byron driving some woman insane by withdrawing his possession of her. The emotional examination was excruciating and what I needed was for Valentine to stop toying with me and decide to either let me in or let me go.
“Why are you doing this? All you ever want to do is humiliate me.”
“Because of your disobedience,” he replied.
“He's my boyfriend and I'm supposed to be your employee.”
I was losing touch with what was going on here
“He is not your boyfriend,” Valentine exploded.
“You only want me because he wants me,” I cried, sick of Valentine's jealous competition with my boyfriend.
Whatever there was or had been between them as kids, whatever reason Valentine had for putting Josh through school and then estranging himself, I was not the pawn to be used between them in a battle of control.
“Are you sure about that, Andy?” Valentine said, once more as calm as a Zen master. “All we ever sure of the reality we think we see? Because what if the truth is that he only wants you because I do?”
Ohmigod, my knee joint went loose and my thoughts tangled into a tight knot were all ends doubled back on themselves. Josh wants me because Valentine wants me? Valentine wants me. Was that his way of admitting he had feelings? Even though he found it excruciating to tolerate the vulnerability of anyone observing his emotions, he was trying to tell me he had some – for me?
“Do you not understand that I need you to obey me?” he rasped.
And I need you. I need you to surrender to me just as much.
29
It was true to say that Josh had given into my needs for intimacy way too easily. Now I wasn't sure that his need for dominance was nothing but cosmetic play. He liked to test and play the games but although he said he didn't date and never let a woman get close, he'd allowed me in without ever making me feel truly united with him.
Although Valentine had never allowed me any closer than a home-cooked dinner at his penthouse, after which he went to bed alone without so much as a spanking, I felt more connected to him with every passing day. I couldn't fathom how he was managing it, but gradually his control was breaking down all my resistance, all my assumptions and opening me to the reality of who I wanted to be.
“You discovered how much power you have over a room full of men,” he said. “Anyone can walk into a room naked. The tough part is becoming naked in front of another person.”
“How would you know,” I snapped, picturing the punishment in store for speaking so directly, with such direct force. “When have you ever been naked in front of someone? When have you ever let another human being touch you? Or see who you are?”
“Stop talking now,” he snapped, his patrician nostrils flaring in controlled rage.
“And what about Delilah?” I continued, ignoring his order. “You allowed her to touch me, to beat me and let me believe that was you,” I cried out, refusing to shut my mouth
“You should have known who was touching you. If you thought that was me, what difference does it make who it was? Your pleasure was the same because you created your own emotional response.”
“Okay now you're getting all esoteric as an excuse for your mean control,” I shouted. “You knew I’d be furious at her domination of me and you set me up anyway.”
“Did I? Or did I expose you to another side of your desire? You've never been touched by a woman before have you?”
“Arrgghh.” I could have whipped him senseless I was so bristling with frustration. “What is she to you anyway? Secretary, dominatrix, lover?”
“And now you've been exposed to your own jealous nature,” he continued, ignoring my inquisition. “I told you to stop talking.”
My desire to feel his mouth on mine was suddenly overwhelming, surging around my veins like famine. If only I could pull him to me, feel his powerful arms encircle me and crush me to him, I’d never want another thing in all the world. The illusion of that imperious mouth smashing over mine with libertine assault put m
e into a rupture of need. His lips pressed into my lips, his tongue swirling a dance of seduction around mine. The more he held himself aloof from me, the more I wanted to possess him totally – the way he possessed me.
“I want you to know who you really are. Only then will you know who you really desire,” he gruffed.
“Oh, like you do,” I said, before he raised his hand to remind me he'd ordered silence.
“I saw you across a packed room at a New York event and knew who you were immediately. I also saw that you had repressed all of that, probably your entire life and putting on active being a good girl, in order to be loved.”
“Why did you leave me on the yacht?” I had to hear him tell me one way or other what he felt for me.
“Shhh.”
“Please just tell me.”
I was amazed how much he was indulging me, allowing me to continue questioning him even though he told me to be quiet.
“So you would finally stop wavering back and forth in your desires and decide who you really want.”
Who. He said who, not what. Like I had the choice to choose – who.
Another psychological slip that indicated he had feelings for me. Was he dropping hints on purpose or were his feelings finally breaking free? He wanted me to commit to wanting him, before he allowed his vulnerability to leak. That was why he hated Josh but stood aloof while I ran to him. He was waiting for me to decide who. Maybe.
The silence that fell across Valentine's office was squeezed out by the sexual tension rampaging through the space between us. I couldn't decipher what the hell was going on in my mind or body. Whether I hated him more than I loved him. At the same time I battled the frustration of trying to unravel what he felt for me.
Was I an interlude? Someone to crack and mold to his will? Or did he truly see something more for us?
If only he would let go of whatever suffering he kept close that was preventing his ability to love. His hints had to be indicators, a subtle evaluation of what in the name of all things unholy was going on between us. All the trouble he went to, to get me out here from New York, to separate me from my erstwhile boyfriend, had to mean something.
Or else he was a raging sociopath. There was still no way to tell for sure but all doubt been eradicated from my own mind. If he intended to prove to me that I wanted him more than anyone else, he'd succeeded.
“I've had a request for you,” he finally said, breaking our eye-lock silence.
The desire battle was crashing between us like light sabers. He sat back in his black leather and wood chair, strictly business.
“You've had one for me or you have one for me?” I asked, confusion all over my features.
“I doubt you had the opportunity to meet and chat with any of the guests on the yacht."
No shit.
"Well Gianni GianCarlo, the Italian billionaire CEO was quite taken with you. I hear you did exceptionally well last night, beyond what even I would've expected of you. He’d like you to join him for dinner before he returns to Venice.”
Double Arrgh. I was flabbergasted and whatever else was more off the charts than complete disbelief. What the fuck. He was right I had not been introduced to a single gentleman although most of them had the pleasure of meet me, in the flesh. Did this bastard really think he was going to get me to sleep with him just because he’d played a part in my punishment? Did he think he’d take a turn at trying to break me?
“So you're pimping me now?” I said, the fury rising and making my face set hard, my lips pursed with rage against the disappointment of what I should never have allowed myself to expect. “Is that part of our contract?”
“It's just dinner, Andie. If you aren’t happy here with me, then maybe a contract with Gianni would be more to your liking. This man is exceptionally handsome and beyond wealthy, I’m told. He's planning to run for the presidency next election, using his own funds.”
“You are joking.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be First Lady? You’d be perfect, a queen.”
“I mean about the date. Have you always run a sideline in human trafficking?”
“I'm trying to make you happy. But if I were a pimp, Gianni would be my choice of client for you. He offered me $100,000 for dinner with you. If you enjoy his company, choose to leave me and go home to his palazzo on the Grand Canal, he suggests a fee of three point five.”
“Three point five what?” I snipped, fighting a losing battle with my outrage. “Acres, goats, camels?”
“Million of course,” Valentine said like it was chump change.
“Three. Point. Five. Freaking. Million. You do not possess me. I am not living real estate in your portfolio Mr. Valentine, Sir."
"I know that and I declined his offer. It's up to you what you do and I don't need his dirty money. I'm only concerned that you find a situation you’re happy with.”
“I'm a frigging interior designer, not a sex toy.”
“No one is suggesting you’re a sex toy. Gianni needs an interior designer to work on his crumbling palazzo. He wants the exquisite juxtaposition of old and new architecture you’re great at. The same as mine. Imagine the great publicity for you in all the magazines.”
“I don't believe it,” I said, misery tugging all through me at the fact that Valentine was done with me.
Whatever had been my initiation, if the punishment on the yacht had indeed been a test, I failed. He was auctioning me off or happy to let me go without taking any payment.
But I was not his position to sell off even if he wasn't taking any money. Who did he think he was? The arrogant prick. All these billionaires behaved like Greek gods, or Roman Emperors, tossing around the peons like playthings. But I would dearly love to post to the world, a very public post, that someone was willing to pay 3.5 freaking million for me. And 100,000 just to have dinner.
“So do you want to go to dinner tomorrow night?” He inquired his eyes burrowing hard and intense into me.
There it was – the challenge. He takes me up, he brings me down. I was finally starting to learn who Jay Valentine really was, but not why. Never why.
He lets me into his private apartment so I believe he's letting go. Finally he's the one in the position of submission, then he submits me to public humiliation. Still not satisfied he tosses me off onto some other rich disciplinarian, letting me know I don't matter to him in the slightest. That he frankly couldn't give a damn. Fine, we could both play games.
“Actually that sounds intriguing,” I said staring straight back at him with the same testing glare. “Tell old – I mean – inform Signor GianCarlo that I would be absolutely delighted to submit to his invitation.
30
“Have Gianni GianCarlo call me to set up our dinner date,” I told Valentine, matching the nonchalance of the demon sitting across the massive black oak desk.
In the ferocious fencing match that went on between our eyes, neither of us surrendered even one step of retreat.
“No need,” he replied, “I've already arranged everything.”
Of course he had. Why had I imagined I would ever be allowed any autonomous decision in my destiny. “Be ready Wednesday at six.”
“Fine.”
I would not let my boss see that I gave a damn. In the tension of the showdown between us, I would match him in not being vulnerable and being utterly one thousand percent unattached.
Even if it ripped me up underneath the facade.
Since the evening we spent alone together at his penthouse, where Valentine had allowed me access to the real guy beneath the emotional straitjacket, we'd drawn two-fisted foils at every attempt to communicate. It might have been amusing had both of us not been suffering so much. I was sure he was, just as much as me but he’d never admit it. It would be easy to assume I was projecting my own angst at the overwrought tension between us onto my boss and that he truly was unaffected. But I now believed it was the other way around.
Jay Valentine had seen me, plucked me, groomed me in
an effort to reduce me to his submissive pet. That feeling he'd noted, the rise of something through the crowd at the New York design event had thrown him so off balance, he needed to reel me in and get me under control.
Like an African big game hunter stalking his ultimate prey, one that had the power to destroy him, I was the one that could not be allowed to get away. And like every hunter, he'd become infatuated with the emotional heat between us. The game had to continue, because like any great story, you didn't want the characters living in the world of illusion to ever come to an end.
Every time we stared into the bottomless wells of each other's eyes, we were confronting ourselves in the hallucination.
I knew Valentine’s only drive was to gain dominance over me. Because that was the only way to maintain control over himself. What remained unfathomable was what my real desire would turn out to be. I thought I'd discovered it with Josh and that pipe dream proved that there was always another layer to emotional connection. I knew Jay Valentine had uncovered an endless onion of needs in me that had been dormant. Repressed by me but also by society that laid out the norms of what a woman should want out of her short existence.
“Will that be all?” I rose to leave, purposely not waiting for his permission.
“No, that is definitely not all” he replied, frowning and setting his lips in a thin line. As much as he fought to repress his words, the urge to speak was plainly bursting from him.
Instead of sitting down and pursuing my obsession with studying him like a therapist with an interesting specimen on the couch, I crossed to the bank of tall french doors behind his chair. Surely that was a wince I detected in his back as I moved past him.
Marc Chapelle and the three male assistants he was training as the estate's winemakers, loomed large in the vineyards on the other side of the full length windows. They were so close, framed in the glass and my eyes were drawn to Marc's courtly thick fingers, how they plucked and tweaked the tiny massed buds thrusting forth on the vines. He lifted the large heart-shaped leaves as tenderly as a virgin's petticoats, to reveal the pearl hiding beneath.