She asked, “So, after some more time, after this Dom therapy is done, after you finally screw me, what then? Am I going to be all messed up?”
“No. If I were training you as a submissive, I would push all your boundaries until I could do anything to you, and you would submit. Your submission would be beautiful, graceful, and I would be proud to earn your trust. But you don’t want me to do that, do you?”
“No.” Her voice quavered and didn’t sound sure at all.
He lifted her chin and looked at her, holding her chin between his thumb and the knuckle of his first finger. His silver eyes flashed as he watched her face very closely. He asked more softly, with a lilt of wonder in his deep voice, “Do you?”
Gen bit her lip and fidgeted with her hands. “I don’t think so.”
Arthur’s dark eyebrows rose, and he hesitated before he said, “All right.”
Gen pressed her hands to her knees. The right words had come out of her mouth, right? She had said no, hadn’t she? At least kind of?
She wasn’t sure that she had said no. As a lawyer, she would have cross-examined the heck out of any witness who had waffled like that.
“Are you going to do it anyway?” she asked him.
“Do what?”
“Make me into a submissive? Break my boundaries until you can do anything you want to me?” Her voice had an edge of eagerness that she hadn’t meant.
“No.” He was speaking with that deep voice of authority again, and it sounded as final in her ears as a verdict. “If you want to change the parameters of our agreement, if you want me to do that, you must ask. You must ask when we’re both sober and not engaged in play. All decisions in a Dom and sub relationship must be made that way, not in the heat of the moment, not while under the influence of anything. You can’t blame alcohol or passion later. You would have to make a real decision and ask me. Do you understand?”
Gen nodded. Disappointment threaded through her.
It would be embarrassing to ask, embarrassing to admit that she wanted such a thing, if she did.
She didn’t.
She thought she didn’t.
She wasn’t sure that she didn’t.
Arthur sat down on the couch and patted his lap again. “Come here.”
She started to sit astride him again, but he swung her legs around so that she sat across his lap, cradled in his arms.
She whispered, “When I’m all done, once you screw me, is that it? Are you going to walk away?”
“Never.”
“It sounds like you’re going to.”
He stroked her hair. “You’ll still be my lawyer. We have to keep up the charade until the court date, no matter what. And as you have said, as I’ve said, we’re friends. We’ve become friends. I won’t walk away from you.”
“We have quite a few more months until the court date in November.”
“Months and months,” he said.
“Are you going to throw me away after that?”
“No,” Arthur said, pressing her closer to his chest. “I won’t throw you away. You’ll leave me, happier and healthier, but you will leave. Like all women, you’ll get tired of the drunken debauchery and my wasted life as a nobleman and nothing else, and you’ll leave.”
She didn’t argue because he sounded so sure that it would happen.
THE FIRST CHAISE LOUNGE
After an hour of being cradled in Arthur’s arms and hearing that their tryst had a definite time limit, Gen untangled herself from him, begging off that it was late and that they had to drive back to London the next day.
He kept touching her hair, her shoulders, and when she stuck out her hand for an ardent handshake outside the door to her guest bedroom, Arthur caught her hand up in his and kissed her knuckles before he quietly said good night.
Inside Gen’s guest bedroom, the small divan at the end of her bed had been replaced by a sumptuous chaise lounge.
The curved couch was upholstered in deep blue velvet, and the cushioning sank when Gen sat on it. Blankets and pillows were piled up on the end.
Tears stung Gen’s eyes, and she flipped blankets onto the chaise before she went off to brush her teeth before bed.
She wasn’t used to being taken care of.
FOLLOWED
The next morning, Gen sat in the passenger seat of the Mercedes as Arthur drove them back into London, his palm resting on her thigh the whole way. Ruckus had been alternately hanging over the back of the seat and sleeping in the back while Arthur drove yet another car, a four-door Mercedes.
Seriously, she was beginning to think that Arthur had a car thing.
She had been a little shy with him that morning, not quite able to look him in his startling silver-blue eyes, but he had whirled her around in the Spencer House garage before they left, pressing his own back against a Tudor-era wall with his arm clamped around her waist, and kissed her. He’d thrust one knee between her legs, rubbing her as they kissed, until she sprawled against him, quivering.
Just when she had been ready to climb up him and pull his hair, he had whispered in her ear, “Tonight.”
He had been driving for about twenty minutes, still on the outskirts of the city and many miles from the penthouse apartment overlooking Hyde Park, when Arthur muttered, “Shit,” under his breath.
Gen looked around. Ruckus was sound asleep on the back seat, and traffic was flowing normally. “What’s wrong?”
He scowled at the rear view mirror. “Someone’s following us.”
She wrenched herself around in her seat, looking at the flood of cars and trucks back there. The air from the vents chilled the back of her neck. “How can you tell?”
“Three cars back in the left lane, behind the lorry. Black Peugeot.”
The traffic swirled and jumped around so much that Gen could barely see it back there. “Are you sure?”
“It’s been following us since we entered the motorway and probably for some time before that. It changed lanes quickly at the flyover to stay with us.”
Flyover? Oh, yeah. Gen would have said overpass. “There are a thousand cars on this freeway. You can’t pick that one out.”
“The Peugeot isn’t driving like the rest of them. He’s breaking the patterns. There are a blue Ford and a green Land Rover that I suspect, too, but that black Peugeot is definitely following us.”
“Where?”
“They’re farther back. When the Peugeot drops back in a minute or two, one of them will take its place.”
Gen remained twisted in the seat, watching.
Two more exits down the freeway, the black Peugeot veered sideways and decelerated.
A green Land Rover slid into its empty slot.
“Jesus Christ, Arthur!”
“I suspected as much. We’ll need to lose them. Hang on.”
The car jolted under Gen, and she clung to the seat and the door handle so she wouldn’t fall over.
Arthur whipped the car through lanes and took another expressway.
The green Land Rover didn’t try to follow them, but the black Peugeot and a blue Ford got over in time to take the exit, still solidly behind them.
Gen told him.
Arthur nodded. “Keep an eye on them.”
He whipped through the traffic again, taking an exit and turning quickly onto side streets. At one point, he pulled into a small parking lot behind a store and parked.
A blue Ford drove by, but it didn’t turn in.
She asked him, “Who were they?”
He frowned. “Probably more private investigators hired by Christopher to keep tabs on us.”
“You sure?” Gen asked.
Arthur frowned harder. “No, but I don’t know any more than that.”
THE SECOND CHAISE LOUNGE
After they returned to Arthur’s penthouse apartment in downtown London that Sunday afternoon, after the excitement on the highway, Gen dumped her bag in her bedroom and hailed a cab to her mother’s nursing home.
She
ran into her mother’s bedroom and slid into the chair beside the bed, holding the mystery novel they were reading.
Her mother’s vacant eyes didn’t track Gen as she rushed in, as usual. She always watched, though, hoping.
Gen read for a few hours, blinking back tears.
Afterward, she made her way back to Arthur’s apartment and was unpacking her few toiletries from her overnight bag when someone knocked at her bedroom door.
Apprehension crawled through her.
Arthur might have some new demands. The worry turned to excitement in her stomach.
She cleared her throat. “Come on in.”
Mr. Royston Fothergill, the head of staff, leaned into her doorway. “Madam, if we may disturb you for a moment?”
Dangit. “Um, sure?”
He led a team of stout men who strode in, walking with purpose toward her small conversation grouping, the chair and loveseat. Mr. Royston Fothergill wore khakis, a blue dress shirt, and loafers instead of his usual suit. The pants sported a knife-edge crease down the fronts of his legs.
She asked him, “What’s going on?”
Mr. Fothergill drawled, “We’re redecorating.”
“On a Sunday afternoon?”
“Necessity dictates.”
The stout men picked up the chair and loveseat, lifting with their legs like professionals.
Gen scooted out of their way as they carried the furniture toward the door. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Tell us if you like the changes.”
“But what are you—”
After her furniture had been carried out, other burly-looking men walked in, carrying new furniture. The blue upholstery looked soft and somewhat overstuffed.
Gen asked, “But what is this—”
The men arranged the furniture into a sectional, a couch on one side, and a long, wide chaise lounge jutting out from it.
Housekeepers followed them in and dropped sheets, blankets, and comforters on one end of the couch.
It was a bed, but not a bed. It was definitely a couch, but it looked far more comfortable than the loveseat. “Oh.”
Mr. Royston Fothergill said, “In the future, Ms. Ward, please inform the staff of anything that would make you more comfortable. We are at your disposal. You needn’t involve Lord Severn in the matter. He has enough on his mind, and we are here to ensure that you are entirely comfortable.”
Gen asked him, “Was he upset? He didn’t yell at you, right?”
“Lord Severn has always been a most considerate employer, but he was dismayed that your needs were not met. It is our job to make sure that you are well taken care of. You must tell us.”
So she hadn’t been being undemanding. She was making their jobs harder by making them guess what she needed. “I will.”
His dry tone acknowledged her agreement. “I’ll inform the staff.”
THE BACK DOOR
Arthur was in his computer den, working through some code and conferring with Vlogger1 and Racehorse about what governments were behind the events that they had all seen on the telly that night. What was shown on the telly was only the surface, of course. The commentators couldn’t say what was obviously going on because no one in any government would confirm it.
So the real story was never told, was it?
Arthur’s phone farted.
Yes, the alert sounded like a wet, nasty one.
Arthur used that ringtone for everything relating to his brother, Christopher: texts, phone calls, emails from him, and a news alert.
Yes, it was juvenile, but sometimes one must indulge in the juvenile.
He turned his phone over, saw what was written on the screen, and started backing out of the code that had been open on the computer monitor.
“Got to go, lads,” Arthur said, typing fast. “I’ll see you soon. I should be in Paris for Pierre Grimaldi’s wedding next weekend.”
“Have fun.” Racehorse’s video call window was almost entirely dark. A thin line of light crested off his nose and one cheekbone.
“Will you be there?” Arthur asked.
“Too much surveillance,” Racehorse said. “I can meet you for a drink at that dive afterward.”
“Excellent plan. Vlogger1? You going?”
“Oh, hell, yeah,” Vlogger1 said. “I wouldn’t miss this one. Friederike’s getting married.” She meant Pierre’s fiancée. “You know that bash is going to be epic.”
“I’m not sure who she’s getting to do the music at the reception, though,” Racehorse said. “There’re so many rumors.”
“I heard she’s flying over the whole London Philharmonic,” Vlogger1 said. “You know Friederike, always right up in everyone’s business. That woman could launch a coup.”
Arthur shrugged. Most coups these days were orchestrated by computers and were imperceptible. A few decades or centuries ago, though, Friederike would have been a formidable political force as she rallied aristocrats to one cause or another.
He said, “I’ve got to jet. See you guys.”
Arthur snapped the video chat windows closed and flipped his phone onto its screen. He didn’t want to be disturbed.
When Arthur had hacked his brother’s phone at the Hope Ball, he had tagged several pictures of Christopher’s girls with a bit of his favorite malware.
Evidently, that morning, Christopher had downloaded those pictures onto his computer, and so now Arthur had a back door into Christopher’s computer and all his files.
He turned on the computer’s webcam. A desk chair stood in front of bookshelves crammed with medical journals and stacks of paper. This computer was probably in Christopher’s home office.
As Arthur roamed around Christopher’s computer, he discovered that the desktop controlled the house’s local area network. Quite a few devices were hooked up to that LAN.
The thermostat.
The security system, including the cameras.
Baby monitors.
Christopher’s wife’s computer.
The curtains.
Electronic personal assistants.
Everything.
Arthur roamed Christopher’s house for a few moments, a ghost in the ethernet, his long, electronic fingers stroking the devices that were now entirely his. He left malware in all of them. If Christopher found Arthur’s malware in his computer, Arthur could jump back in through any of those internet-connected devices and reinstall his control on the computer in minutes.
After just a few moments of surfing the wires, Arthur dove deeply into Christopher’s computer, looking for the pictures that Christopher had assured Gen would mortify her.
The file was called October Surprise Blackmail.
Arthur sighed. Christopher was smart enough to get through medical school, but he would have been crushed in the Great Game. It took a healthy dose of paranoia and a touch of psychopathy to survive in that.
Inside the folder, the metadata in the pictures told Arthur that the ones he had found were copies, and the originals were on other computers at other ISPs, elsewhere. Deleting these would do nothing. Christopher’s PI would merely email him fresh files.
A spreadsheet of ads purchased in London and national newspapers, spread over the entire month of October, was a bit of a shock. Christopher wasn’t taking chances with merely giving his pictures to reporters and hoping they wrote a story. He planned to run large ads in the papers and online. Christopher must have spent millions of pounds on those ads to ruin Arthur, his brother.
Jesus, what kind of a sick bastard did that?
One who was trying to poison the entire jury pool, of course. It was the desperate double-down of a man who had racked up millions in legal fees on a foolish case.
The pictures on Christopher’s computer did mortify Arthur. Heat flushed his face and his chest, and he sat back in his chair in a cold sweat, swearing.
Those pictures could never be released.
If they were, Arthur would probably be dead within twenty-four hours
.
Gen would probably be collateral damage because she was around him.
Certainly, though, if Christopher released those photos, people would come after Christopher, his wife, and his girls. Christopher’s whole family would die, too.
Arthur leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk and rubbing his face.
He had to figure out a way to stop this.
Damn it. Why couldn’t it have been hookers and blow?
TONIGHT
That morning, when Arthur had spun her around in the garage, kissed her, and driven her into a frenzy, he had promised her “Tonight,” so she had backed off and suffered through the car ride with his hand on her thigh and the whole rest of the day.
Well, now it was tonight.
They had a small function to attend, Arthur had texted her.
Gen dressed in yet another new dress because Arthur absolutely would not allow her to attend an event in a dress that had already been seen. Her closet was stuffed with formal dresses. To get new ones in, she had to slide her hands in and mash the old ones aside. It was stupid, how much money Arthur was spending on clothes for her.
The dress was the second-sluttiest thing that Graham had allowed her to buy, a dark red cocktail dress that reached just past her knees with a flaring skirt.
And no panties.
She had attended Oxford and a strenuous bar course. She knew how to take the initiative.
Gen was waiting by the elevator at eight o’clock, just like usual. The staff trickled out until only Pippa was in the kitchen, and then she had gone downstairs to prep the car, as usual.
Arthur sauntered around the corner from his end of the flat. His dark hair was plastered to his head and flopping all over.
“Arthur, honey?” Gen tilted her head at him. “Did you forget to comb your hair after you showered?”
Arthur looked up as if he could see his own hair and touched his head. “I suppose I did.”
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 34