by Maren Smith
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were getting in touch with your masochistic side.”
“I don’t have a masochistic side.”
“After flirting for a year with a woman you refuse to ask out even just to coffee.” Sam smirked. “Yeah, tell me another one, Pinocchio. The girls are going to love your growing nose tonight.”
They drove out of town in silence. Less than five miles away from the turn off to the Castle, for some inexplicable reason, Parker said, “She’s going to lose her store. So I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. She won’t be a temptation for that much longer.”
Sam turned his head toward the window, softly musing, “That’s too bad.”
Parker looked at him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“What did I say?”
“It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it. You had a tone. Leave her alone, Sam.”
“What?” Sam spread his hands, laughing. “Did I say I was going to do anything at all?”
“You didn’t have to say anything. I know you. Everybody at the Castle knows you. I don’t need any interference in this, so just leave it alone.”
“Hmm,” Sam mulled that over a moment before shrugging with both eyebrows. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Sam.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t muck things up when you were chasing after Hannah,” Parker warned. “Butt out.”
“I said okay.” Sam chuckled, holding up both hands. He turned his head to look back out the window, watching as the tallest turrets of the Castle began to appear through the trees in the distance. “I promise,” he grinned, “I’m not going to ask her anything at all.”
* * * * *
The handmade candies were wrapped and put away, the kitchen was cleaned, and the floors were mopped. The till had been reconciled, and it was exactly two minutes to closing time when the phone on the wall behind the display counter rang. It had been a long day and Sinclair was both frustrated and tired. For a moment, she actually contemplated not answering it. If she hadn’t, the entire course of her life would have turned out much, much different.
Chapter TWO
Sinclair didn’t know the first damn thing about catering for a party, but when a job from financial heaven simply fell into one’s lap, one accepted gratefully and then looked up the basics online so she wouldn’t look like a complete incompetent her first day on the job.
The job. Holy mackerel. Talk about biting off more than she could chew. From out of the blue, she’d been hired to cater a Valentine’s Day candy party for eight to nine hundred guests at none other than the most infamous adult-oriented business in the county. This wasn’t really saying much since the only other adult-oriented business Sinclair knew of was a rundown mobile home with a particle-board sign that read Crystal Dolphin’s Adult Store. It was located two miles out of town on Old Highway 10 because no one wanted an adult store inside city limits, and during fishing season, they also sold live bait.
The Castle, however, was nothing like Crystal Dolphin’s. For one thing, it was a real castle. How they’d come to know about her or hear about her or believe she was capable of catering anything, Sinclair had no idea. But thinking there no harm in at least finding out about the job details, she agreed when the caller had offered to meet with her.
So here she was, sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked van, watching with wide, disbelieving eyes as turrets began to poke through the trees. An actual castle, with the evening sunset providing the perfect pink and purple backdrop, the massive grey-stone structure looked like something right out of a fairy tale. She hadn’t been expecting that.
Actually, Sinclair had no idea what she’d been expecting. Everyone in Granger knew about the Castle. It had been the focus of intense gossip and speculation for years and yet there was surprisingly little actual information to be had beyond the commonly known fact that this place was a bordello that catered specifically to the very rich. They came from all over the country. Indeed, all over the world. They parked in the oversized Starbuck’s parking lot on the outskirts of town and periodically throughout the day, unmarked buses came and went with a steady stream of people being picked up or dropped off. It was all very mysterious and, apart from the employees of the coffee shop, no one in Granger would have admitted to doing business with “Castle people.” Knowing that she was the first to break this unspoken taboo sat in the pit of Sinclair’s stomach like an electric wire. It made her whole body hum. Just what was she getting herself into?
“Why couldn’t I drive myself again?” Sinclair asked the van’s driver, Jackson she thought he’d said his name was back when he’d first picked her up. But that had been almost twenty minutes ago and she’d been so rattled at the time she could barely remember her own name, much less someone else’s.
Looking back at her through the rearview mirror, he smiled. “Nervous?”
“A little,” she admitted and then, for reasons she couldn’t quite identify, confessed, “I’ve never done something like this before.”
“You’ll be fine,” Jackson said. “The Castle specializes in fantasy atmosphere. No sign of modern times are allowed anywhere on the grounds. We have one parking lot located at the very back of the property where it’s hidden from the guests. Only employees who live on the grounds are allowed to keep a car there; everyone else takes the buses. Since, obviously, you won’t be expected to cart all your food and equipment on the bus, I’ll be happy to make as many runs as necessary to bring in whatever you need.”
“Who did your catering last year?” she asked.
Jackson glanced back through the rearview again, his dark eyes assessing her. “Truth be told, this is the first time we’ve brought outsiders in to do anything for our guests. You must have made one hell of an impression on Sam.”
Sinclair drew a complete blank. She couldn’t think of anyone named Sam, so either he hadn’t introduced himself or she knew him by another name entirely. That puzzled her though. Most of her clients were kids or teens. She tried to think back through the week, but she couldn’t place a single customer or order capable of spawning this kind of job opportunity.
“I have no idea what to make of this,” she said, more to herself than to him.
Jackson only flashed her another of his soothing smiles. “That’s okay, honey. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
He turned off the main road onto a narrow, unpaved drive that was sandwiched between two neatly-planted corn fields. They paused at a gatehouse long enough for the guard to verify the identity of the driver. He gave her only the most precursory glance before opening the gate to allow the van through.
They drove past the Castle, leaving the trees to swallow it up again, and a large gravel lot, completely surrounded by careful landscaping and high shrubs, came into view. The walk to the Castle was nearly half a mile down a well-lit gravel path. The sun was lower than the horizon now, painting everything in shades of shadow and grey, but with the garden lamps now winking on above them, it was easy enough to see where they were going.
“This is the service entrance,” Jackson said, walking ahead of her to punch a code into the lock of a high privacy gate. “We’ll come and go through here. You’re less likely to run into guests this way.”
The gate fed directly into a small herbal garden and concrete patio. Two picnic tables and a smattering of benches provided a kind of break-room atmosphere under a poor-weather canopy. There was even a standing ashtray/garbage combo can by the Castle entrance.
“Do you smoke?” Jackson asked.
Sinclair shook her head and he moved ahead to get this door for her too. He held it wide, gesturing for her to precede him into a very busy kitchen. There had to be at least twenty men and women at various cooking stations, all of them costumed to look like people straight out of Downton Abbey—except the skirts were rather high—chopping vegetables, basting meat, whipping cream and mashing potatoes. The constant clatter of pots and pans and dishes�
�both the dirty being shuffled to the sink for washing and the clean being shuffled onto a massive serving cart—was deafening.
“Don’t burn the bread!” a burly woman near a massive commercial stove snapped back over her shoulder. Standing over a series of steaming pots, she barked her orders while rapidly whisking flour into a thick gravy. “Useless kitchen bitches, don’t just stand there. Get the damn bread out of the oven!”
“Evening, Connie,” Jackson called as he led Sinclair through the kitchen rush.
“Not now, damn it!” the woman barked back. “Out, out! I don’t have time for this!”
Seemingly unaffected by her cross dismissal, Jackson took Sinclair through a second doorway into a private dining room, furnished by a single long table. “Take a seat.” He waved her into one of the chairs. “He’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Sam?” Sinclair asked, sliding into a seat near the head of the long table.
“Nope.” Jackson grinned back at her. “Marshall. He’s the, uh… president of the company, I guess you’d say.”
He left her sitting there alone at the table to wait.
Minutes ticked by, each punctuated by minor clatters and the occasional grumpy shout from the woman in the kitchen. Hands folded tight in her lap, Sinclair looked around the dining room. Electric sconces on the wall flickered, looking awfully similar to real fire-lit torches. Hanging on the wall nearest the table, an old-fashioned oil painting depicted Roman soldiers surrounding three slave girls. Two were bound in chains and on their knees; a third was being lashed across the naked buttocks with a multi-tailed whip. She had one arm thrown up in artistic despair, but she wasn’t trying especially hard to escape. All in all, it was an odd picture to have hanging over one’s dinner table. Of course, this was a brothel, so naked bodies were to be expected. But chains and flagellation?
Rubbing her hands upon her thighs, Sinclair wondered if she ought to be more offended than she, in fact, felt. But then, women on the verge of losing their stores didn’t have the luxury to be offended by anything as silly as a paying employer’s paintings. She wasn’t vacationing here; this was work. If she did it well enough, it might turn into an annual event that could really save her store. Depending on how this all went, she might even expand her business to include candy catering to other companies in the area. This was going to breathe new life into her store and be the much-needed financial boost she’d been wracking her brain to find. So bring on the naked women, Roman guards, play-acting damsels in distress and all the whips they could muster; Sinclair saw nothing to be offended about here.
The door Jackson had disappeared through moments before abruptly swung open again, admitting a tall, blond man with the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen. Like everyone else she’d so far seen, he was dressed in costume, but he was no servant. Rather, he looked more like a regal Han Solo—his black breeches and knee-length riding boots contrasted sharply with the whiteness of his open-to-the-chest shirt and black vest. All he was missing was a weapon and a wookiee.
“Good evening.” He came to the table, claimed the first chair to her right and sat down facing her. Laying a small stack of papers on the table between them, he uncapped his pen to set it directly on the table by her hand and then leaned back, crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap, and looked at her. “My name is Marshall Leaf, and before we go any further, I need you to sign this confidentiality agreement stating that anything and everything you see, hear and experience within my Castle, or on these grounds, will not be repeated to anyone, anywhere, at any time, under threat of legal lawsuit. And make no mistake, I will sue. Without qualm or hesitation, I will happily bury you, your family and your store under a mountain of fines the likes of which you will never live to see the top of if you ever willingly, knowingly or even accidentally, break this agreement. Do you understand what I have just told you?”
Sinclair blinked twice. His smile was soft and friendly and had never once wavered throughout the delivery of that cheerfully offered threat.
“Yes, sir,” she said. She had never called anyone “sir” in her life, but she didn’t even hesitate here. Picking up the pen, she signed the bottom of that confidentiality agreement and didn’t even bother to read it. She had no doubt the legalese was going to say anything other than what Marshall just had. When she was done, he held out his hand and she passed the agreement across the table.
Marshall turned it face down on the table without double-checking her signature, folded his hands in his lap and looked at her again. His eyes narrowed in consideration. “Your name is Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
“You are the sole owner of Maybe’s Candy?”
Sinclair rubbed her hands against her thighs again. “Yes.”
“Why call it Maybe’s? Why not call it Sinclair’s Candy?”
“Maybe is my first name.”
“M-A-Y-B-E?”
She nodded.
“Unusual first name. But then, Sinclair is also somewhat unusual, isn’t it? For a female.”
“My father was sure that I’d be a boy. He never considered girl names, so when I was laid in his arms, I understand the nurse wrote down exactly what he replied when asked what he wanted to name me.”
“Maybe Sinclair,” he mused.
“I consider myself lucky.” She held up two fingers just a hairsbreadth apart. “I came this close to being Idontknow.”
Marshall’s smile broadened. “I should introduce you to a lady friend of mine. Her last name is Waters. Her father named her Bay, but she goes by her middle name as well. Have you ever catered for a large group like this before?”
She had never catered before, period, but she wasn’t about to admit that unless he asked. “No, but I wouldn’t have agreed to do this if I didn’t think I could.”
“Fair enough.” Marshall gestured to the other papers on the table. “This is the pricing schedule I have drafted. Nine hundred people at eight dollars per person, plus two thousand for a full hall decoration. Have you helpers?”
Sinclair was still staring at the grand total on the bottom of the page. She had to shake herself to snap out of it. “Uh, n-no… I run my business myself.”
“I will assign someone to aid you, then.” Marshall held up his hand when she started to open her mouth. “I intended to assign someone anyway. You’ll need help navigating the Castle and I need to be certain you won’t accidentally break our rules or poke your pretty nose into places it really shouldn’t go. As for the price, I want this to be a party worth what my guests have paid to be here. That means I expect to find something more than paper cups full of M&Ms and commercial Valentine’s cards floating around the room. If you agree to the pricing schedule, sign at the bottom.”
It was more than generous. Her head spinning, Sinclair signed and slid that page over to him too.
Fishing a cellphone out of his pocket, Marshall dialed. One finger tapping at the table, he watched her while he waited for whomever to pick up on the other end. “Come to the Masters’ dining hall. I have a job for you.” Ending the call, he laid the phone on the table.
“Was that Sam?” she asked.
“No. Because you have a business to run during the day and will only be available to prepare for this party at night, I need someone to accompany you who can keep your hours. Sam takes his woman home every night at eight o’clock. I repeatedly poke fun at his old-married habits, but he keeps them anyway.” Marshall’s eyes narrowed even more, but his smile still remained. “The last page before you is your agreement to do the job. You’ll be asked to make purchases on my behalf, decorate the hall, put together individual handouts for each and every guest, and of course, supervise the tables during the event. A car will be available for you and your supplies during the evenings after your store closes. We have three fully stocked kitchens, of which you may have the use of one. The party will be held in three adjoined ballrooms, but the only one you need to concern yourself with will be the one you serve in. I will have
all three closed during the day, so you may decorate and store your supplies there without fear of anything wandering off when you aren’t present. I believe Jackson told you he would be your driver?”
“Yes,” Sinclair nodded. She started to pick up the pen and sign the final sheet of paper, but Marshall stopped her.
“When you sign that paper, Ms. Adleton, I am going to pay you a lot of money and you are going to throw yourself into constructing an unforgettable Valentine’s party for me and my guests. Don’t you want to know what kind of place you’ll be working for?” The way he said that was as if he were issuing a challenge.
“I’ve heard the gossip,” Sinclair hedged. “I still came.”
She couldn’t afford not to come.
His smile softened. “Yes, you did. But depending on what you’ve heard, I expect you’ll find us either nowhere near as bad as the gossips insinuated, or much, much worse.”
Sinclair braced herself. For some reason, her pulse began to quicken. “Try me.”
“We are a fantasy resort that caters to adventurous adults, that part I’m sure you’ve heard. What you haven’t, perhaps, heard, is the niche in which we specialize: BDSM.”
Sinclair looked past him to the painting on the wall.
“Yes,” Marshall said, seeming to enjoy it when she squirmed in her chair. “Our guests are Masters and slaves, Dominants and submissives, Tops and bottoms.”
He paused, apparently expecting her to comment.
“Oh.” It was all she could think of to say. Heat flushed through her, growing up out of her stomach to stain her face. “That’s… that’s not so bad.” She wished she didn’t sound so strangled.
“So you know a little something about the fetish?” Marshall was amused.
“I know it’s for people who like to get tied up and smacked around before sex.”
Now, he was very amused. “Close enough,” he drawled. “So tell me, Ms. Adleton. I guess the only real question I have at this point is: Do you still cater, or have you suddenly remembered a previous conflicting engagement?”