It’s none of your business, Fiona. You’re not looking for a dominant.
Adrian lifts his hand, and the waitress is at our side instantly. “Could we get our check, please?”
“One tab, Mr. Lockhart?” She flutters her eyelashes at Adrian, and I feel a surge of annoyance. Stop flirting with them and do your job, damn it.
Ouch. Now I’m jealous? This isn’t good. Nothing about the way I’ve reacted to Brody and Adrian—ducking behind the fountain at lunch yesterday, the extremely detailed, extremely vivid sex dream I had about them last night—is normal.
If I had any sense, I’d turn them down and walk away from the job at Club M.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I say instead. “Your office at eight.”
A smile touches his lips. “I’m looking forward to it, Fiona.”
“So am I,” I reply, lifting my chin up. But I’m lying. My stomach is churning, and I want to hurl.
Adrian:
Nita looks stressed when I get back to work. “There’s a Cindy Nicholson to see you,” she says. “She works for Senator Downing. I put her in your office.”
The last three years might have been all kinds of hell, but there’d been a blessed lack of Downings in my life. Not anymore. “Did she say why she’s here?”
Nita shakes her head. “Sorry, Adrian. I could have told her you were busy, but I figured you’d want to talk to her.”
She’s right. Senator Theodore Downing is a powerful figure in Washington. What the hell does he want with us?
I guess I’m going to find out.
“Did you see Brody?” I ask my assistant.
“He just walked past me, stuck his head into the office, saw Cindy Nicholson there, and disappeared into a conference room.” She frowns in concern. “Is he okay?”
Probably not. “It’s Brody,” I reassure her. “He’s hard to keep down. He’ll be fine.”
This situation with Brody’s family is a shitshow, and Brody’s spent a lifetime trying to run away from it. His father is a judge in a small town in Mississippi, who has taken advantage of his position to prey on several young women. For thirty-six years, his mother has buried her head in the sand and insisted that the judge is innocent of the allegations against him.
When Brody was eighteen, he found out. He left Mississippi for college, and he hasn’t been back since. He hasn’t spoken to his father in seventeen years. Every five years or so, he’ll talk to his mother, trying to convince her to see the truth about the man she married, but that conversation never goes anywhere.
Now his mother’s calling. I’m willing to guess that she wants Brody to pay off this latest accuser. What a fucking mess.
“Mr. Lockhart, it’s good to meet you. I’m Cindy Nicholson, Senator Downing’s Legislative Director. Sorry to barge in like this without an appointment.”
Cindy Nicholson is in her late twenties or early thirties. Her shoulder-length blonde hair hangs in loose curls around her impeccably made-up face. She’s wearing a grey business suit that hugs her curves. She’s a good-looking woman, and she knows it.
I shake her hand and wave her to a seat. “What can I do for you, Ms. Nicholson?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen the tender for security services in sub-Saharan Africa,” she replies. “The senator was curious about why Lockhart & Payne hasn’t submitted a bid.”
I raise my eyebrow. “There are thousands of defense tenders out at any given time,” I reply. “Why is the senator interested in the particulars of this one?”
“The senator has his reasons,” she replies cryptically. “Well?”
I bite back my instinctive desire to tell her that it’s none of the senator’s business what we bid for and what we don’t. While Lockhart & Payne doesn’t do much work with the government, confrontation isn’t good for the bottom line. “We’re a boutique firm,” I tell her. “We’re currently at capacity.”
“You could add more employees.” She crosses her legs, and her skirt rides high, and from the covert look she sends me from under her lashes, she wants me to notice. “The senator is in a position to influence vendor selection on the project.”
In other words, if we bid on the job, we’ll get it.
I steeple my fingers. Senator Downing is wealthy, and he has no pet charitable causes that need a ‘donation.’ So it’s got to be the son. Two years ago, Raymond Downing had been angling for a job at our company. Now, daddy appears to be lending a helping hand.
The contract is lucrative, but it’ll leave us with all our eggs in one basket. Lockhart & Payne doesn’t need to take on that kind of risk. Brody and I make enough money.
Plus, it’ll be a cold day in hell before we hire Raymond Downing.
“There’s no need to hurry to a decision,” she adds, lowering her voice to a seductive purr. “Perhaps we can continue this discussion in a less formal setting?”
I raise my eyebrow and wait for her to continue.
“Like in a certain club outside the city?”
I look up at the blonde woman, my eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to blackmail me, Ms. Nicholson?” I ask bluntly.
“No Sir.”
So she’s a submissive. “Have I seen you at the club?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve only been a member for the last year,” she says. “But you’re something of a legend in the club. And,” she hesitates, and soldiers on, “According to the rumor mills, you don’t have a submissive right now.”
My thoughts go to Fiona. Will she show up tomorrow? With a start, I realize I want her to. I want her to be brave enough to ask for what she wants.
Cindy Nicholson is probably a lovely woman, but she’s not the one I’m interested in. “And I’m not looking for one either.”
Her face falls, but she recovers her composure almost instantly. “Of course,” she says smoothly. “The senator looks forward to seeing Lockhart & Payne bid on the contract.”
I’ll be bidding when pigs fly. I show her out and go to find Brody.
9
Brody:
“Mother. You called.”
It’s a lovely summer day, but I can feel the storm clouds start to gather.
The last girl was Kayla Perkins, two years ago. My father paid her ten thousand dollars to go away, and Kayla’s mom, who’d never seen that much money in her life, signed the non-disclosure on behalf of her daughter.
My mother hadn’t called me then. She hadn’t called me when they’d paid off Emmy Goodell the year before Kayla. Before that, there was Nora Thomson, and before that, Mary-Jane Morris. Through all of that, there’d been silence from my family.
Five years. No contact. After all, what’s there to talk about? My mother will insist that the girls are sluts and their accusations about my father are false, made up to extort money from the judge.
Nobody can ignore the truth like Della Payne.
She’s calling now, and I can guess why. Money. I can already feel a tension headache creeping on, and my mother hasn’t even started talking.
“Brody, you wouldn’t believe what’s just happened.”
I take a deep breath. “What did he do?” I ask bluntly. “Or should I say, who did he do?”
“Don’t talk like that about your father.” Indignation coats every syllable. My mother is a fucking expert at burying her head in the sand. Ostrich-levels of denial, that’s Della Payne. “I don’t know why these women keep harassing us like this. It’s not right.”
“How old was she this time?” My father likes them young, but so far, he’s been smart enough to make sure his targets are above the age of consent. Sixteen in Mississippi.
“Seventeen,” she replies. She snorts in disgust. “As if I don’t know what this is about. Callie Weiss looks at us with dollar signs in her eyes. It’s about money, Brody. It always is.”
It’s actually about the sad fact that Eugene Payne cannot keep his dick in his pants. “Why are you calling me, mother? What do you want?”
“The greedy whore
wants one hundred thousand dollars. Do you believe it?”
Whore. The word sounds strange coming from Della Payne’s genteel Southern mouth. She sounds angry, but I feel only admiration for Callie Weiss. Good for her. “Did he rape the girl?”
My mother inhales sharply. “I don’t like hearing such language from you, Brody Alexander Payne,” she says, ignoring the flagrant double-standard in her sentence. “I brought you up better than this.”
“Did he?”
“Of course not,” she snaps. “Do you think so little of your father?”
Short answer—yes.
“If he’s innocent, you have nothing to worry about, do you?” I walk into Lockhart & Payne’s offices, and Nita tries to flag me down. I wave her away, stick my head into the corner office I share with Adrian, realize there’s someone there, and move to an unoccupied conference room.
Through all of this, my mother doesn’t say anything. Her silence speaks volumes. Finally, she speaks up. “We’re a bit short,” she says stiffly. “If you could help us…”
And there it is.
What does someone do in a situation like this?
I know what the right answer is. I know what I should do. I should turn her down and let my father deal with the consequences of his actions.
Except that I’m from a small town in Mississippi, and so far, my father has, to my knowledge, sexually assaulted more than fifteen women, and there have been no consequences.
The money will at least help this young woman pull together the pieces of her life.
That sounds like a justification, Payne.
All humans crave connection. We’re social animals. It wasn’t easy walking away from my family. For the last seventeen years, I haven’t been back for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I haven’t acknowledged their birthdays. No card on Mother’s Day. Nothing.
Because it was the right thing to do. My father wasn’t willing to change, and my mother wouldn’t admit there was a problem.
But it hasn’t been easy. Though my father is a monster, he’s also my dad. He showed up to every high school track meet. Drove me to practice. Told me he was proud of me.
My mom had a tall glass of milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich waiting for me every single day when I got back from school. “Calcium helps your bones grow,” she would say when I used to protest that I was too old for the after-school snack. “Drink up.”
I’m good at hiding the way I feel under a facade of good cheer. When Adrian and I had Sandy, things had been easier. We’d formed our own family then, and I pushed the pain down so deep that I could pretend it didn’t exist.
I don’t know what to do now.
“Give me her name and phone number,” I say into the receiver. “I’ll talk to her.”
Adrian:
I find Brody in the southwest conference room. “Fill me in,” I order.
“He assaulted a seventeen-year-old,” he says, sounding drained. “I’ve been sitting here for the last thirty minutes, wondering what I’m going to do.”
“Your mother asked you for money, didn’t she?” I don’t need a crystal ball for this shit. Eugene Payne has spent his career paying off the families of the girls he paws. I doubt Brody’s parents have any money left in reserve.
“One hundred grand.” Brody rubs his temples with a grimace. “She didn’t call when Sandy died. She didn’t call for Christmas, for my birthday, nothing. And I made my peace with it. After all, what’s there really to say? She will cover up anything as long as it doesn’t diminish her social standing.” His voice is bitter. “Five years of silence and the only thing out of her mouth is a request for money.”
I pat his shoulder sympathetically. I don’t think Brody’s made his peace with the situation. As long as Eugene Payne keeps assaulting the young women, the wound is going to stay fresh in Brody’s heart. “What are you going to do?”
“Fuck if I know.” He stares into the distance. “He kept his dick in his pants for two years,” he says quietly. “I started to hope he’d changed.”
Brody sounds gutted.
My parents retired to Florida four years ago, and I don’t see very much of them, just at the holidays, but they’ve always been my role models. I’ve always looked up to them. They taught me how to live life. I can hear my dad’s voice. Be honest, treat everyone fairly, and take responsibility for your actions, son. That had been the motto in the Lockhart household.
It was in his freshman year in college when Brody had found out the truth about his father. I was his roommate; I know how much it wrecked him then, how much it still wrecks him now.
“I don’t want to offer this woman money over the phone,” he says. “Can you cover my meetings tomorrow? I looked at my calendar, there’s only a couple that can’t be moved.”
“Of course.”
It’s the least I can do. After Sandy’s death, I’d retreated into myself, shouldering the blame for the accident. I refused to talk to Brody or anyone else about it.
Brody had mourned too. He’d loved her as much as I had. But he’d never once uttered a word of reproach to me. While I brooded, taking on dangerous assignments and chasing death, Brody had picked up the slack at the office. He was the one who had greeted mourners at the funeral. He’d arranged for the caterers. He’d ordered the church filled with the bright orange lilies that Sandy loved so much.
I owe him a debt that can’t be repaid. “Take the company plane,” I tell him. The Cessna is the fastest way to get to Brody’s hometown, which is, and I am not exaggerating, in the middle of fucking nowhere.
He nods. “Thanks. I’ll reimburse the firm, of course.”
I’d tell him not to worry about it, but Felicity, who handles the financial side of things at Lockhart & Payne and keeps us good with the IRS, will kick and scream about the personal transaction.
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” Today’s Wednesday. I asked Fiona to drop by tomorrow at eight. We set out for Club Ménage Friday afternoon.
“Just the day. I should be back by eight.” He shakes his head. “Who was the woman in our office, anyway? Nita started to say something, and I blew her off.”
“For which she’s probably plotting revenge even as we speak.” Never, ever piss off your assistant. “Our unscheduled visitor was Cindy Nicholson, Senator Theodore Downing’s legislative director.”
His eyebrows rise. “To what do we owe the privilege?”
I fill him in on the conversation, and his jaw tightens. “If the senator wanted, he could make our lives very unpleasant,” he says grimly.
“I’m not giving Raymond Downing a job, Brody.”
“Oh, I know that,” Brody replies. “Neither am I. But I’m willing to bet that ignoring the senator’s request is going to come with consequences.”
We’ll weather them. “She said she was a member at Club M,” I add. “Cindy Nicholson, that is.”
His lips twitch. “Did she hit on you?”
“Discreetly.”
He chuckles. “Did you accept?”
I hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in Cindy Nicholson, and it had nothing to do with who her boss is. “Given the situation with Fiona, I thought it best to decline.”
The amusement fades from his eyes. “Adrian, I don’t want anything to do with a traumatized, terrified submissive. Especially now. It hits too close to home.”
I sigh. He’s right. I don’t know what got into me, when I made that offer to Fiona. While I might be open to playing with an experienced submissive at the club, I’m definitely not interested in getting involved with someone. Sandy’s death hurt too much, and I can’t go through that kind of heartache again.
Admit it. You want to help Fiona rediscover the joys of submission. You want her to beg you for an orgasm, and you want to bring her to the edge, over and over.
My cock hardens as I imagine Fiona naked, her nipples clamped, her eyes blindfolded, slick with desire, wet for me, begging for my touch, straining toward me...
>
Fuck. I need to get it together.
“I thought you didn’t want to scene with anyone,” Brody continues. His gaze is direct. “Yesterday at lunch, you bit my head off when I suggested it was time to move on.”
“I changed my mind.” Because of Fiona.
Was it Brody or Xavier who had said that she deserved a better introduction to BDSM? I can’t remember which one, but whoever it was, he was right.
I hadn’t expected to be attracted to her at lunch. “I’m not looking for a serious relationship,” I clarify. Losing Sandy was bad enough, but knowing I’d been responsible for her death? Me, her dominant, the one who should have, above all, kept her safe? I’m never going to put myself in a situation like that again. “But a casual arrangement might be exactly what we both need.”
“Hmm.” He sounds unconvinced.
Fair enough. “You don’t have to do it,” I point out. Brody and I like to share, but we’re not joined at the hip. “I made no commitments on your behalf. You don’t have to scene with her.”
He grapples with the decision. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “Let’s see if Fiona even shows up.”
10
Fiona:
There’s an envelope from FedEx waiting for me when I get back from lunch. It’s from Xavier Leforte. “He also called,” Mrs. Morales tells me. “He wants you to call him back.”
“Okay.” Telling myself to eat the frog, I force myself to shut my office door and return his call.
It’s not Xavier Leforte who makes me twitchy. It’s the job. Blackmail in a sex club. Not exactly the most pleasant of situations. And the fact that the place will be filled with dominants, all on the prowl for fresh submissive meat? That sets my heart racing uncomfortably.
You’re being ridiculous, Fiona.
Xavier picks up on the first ring. “Ms. Clarke,” he says. “Thank you for calling me back. You got the documents I sent you?”
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