CAN’T EXPLAIN RIGHT NOW. SEE YOU MONDAY.
Lingering another few seconds, I wait for him to reply.
CALL ME. NOW.
My heart sinks. He’s upset. I get that. I want to be there with him more than he could possibly know.
I CAN’T TALK. I’M SO SORRY. SEE YOU MONDAY.
I switch my phone off because I know he’ll keep texting me, and I’ll keep responding, and the night will only become ten times worse than it already is. None of it is in my control. I can’t make the McGregors leave, and I can’t disappear without someone noticing Elvis has completely left the building.
I’ll explain as best I can on Monday. I’ve got all day Sunday to figure out a way to explain all of this in a way that’ll make sense to him without giving away my family’s secret. I’d love more than anything to be honest with him about it all, but most people wouldn’t understand. They’re weirded out by this. They don’t understand it.
Dane looking at me like I’m some circus freak is the worst thing that could happen.
No.
Scratch that.
Dane firing me is the worst thing that could happen.
NINETEEN
DANE
She’s so fucking fired.
I reach for the pewter desk clock and push it aside. She’s not late. Yet. And any minute now, she’s going to burst through my doors and tell me how sorry she is, and I’m not going to give a flying fuck.
My gaze flicks to the ceiling, and I push out a full sigh as the tick of the clock fills the room.
It was bad enough I spent Saturday morning burying my beloved uncle, the man who raised me when everyone else had dropped me off on the side of the road and left me for dead. But for Bellamy to discard me so easily?
Obnoxious.
Uncouth.
Boorish.
She’s clearly not taking her job seriously. I was wrong about her, and that never happens. I suppose I saw something in her that day. A mix of beauty and innocence in the way she carried herself, and a fierceness in her attitude that seemed to overcompensate for the rampant sweetness that made up every other part of her.
But I digress.
There’s only one reason a submissive would place me on the backburner.
My doors swing wide and an exasperated Bellamy donning a push-up bra and red-slicked lips saunters in like a woman on a mission. She closes the doors behind her and pushes the lock before rushing toward me and falling to her knees.
A delirious smile claims her ruby mouth and her hands reach for my belt buckle.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I push myself out of her reach.
“Making it up to you, Master,” she says without pause. Her hands linger in the air, mid-grip, and the shine in her eyes is intense.
“No.”
Bellamy’s brows raise, a silent question mark, and I rise up and step away, straightening my belt. She has another thing coming if she thinks I can be bought off with some mind-altering mouth fucking on a Monday morning. I’m not that easy.
“Get up…no,” I seethe. “Stay there. On your knees.”
Her palms rest flat on her thighs, and her spine curls to match her slumped shoulders.
“You’ll stare at the ground while I talk to you, and listen closely because I’m only going to say this one time.”
“Wait.”
She’s got a lot of fucking nerve this morning.
“Are you asking for permission to speak?” I refuse to call her “Angel” today. She doesn’t deserve the honor, and there’s nothing angelic about a filthy con-artist.
“I just want to explain.” She glances up at me, and for a millisecond, I consider it. “Please? Can I explain?”
“Absolutely not.”
Her jaw unhinges. “But you don’t understand–”
“You’re fired, Bellamy. Take your personal belongings and leave the building. You have thirty minutes, and I strongly advise you not to make a scene.”
I flatten my black tie and head to the window, turning my back to her in the figurative and literal sense.
“You’re firing me because I couldn’t make it to a date with you.” Her voice breaks. “A date you sprung on me at the last minute, after I’d only been your employee for a handful of days. Do you realize how insane your expectations are? Cut me some slack. I mean, I blew you not once, but twice. I pranced around here in some bustier with my breasts hanging out, and I let you finger me in some fancy restaurant. I wear what you tell me to wear. I do what you tell me to do, and now I’m fired because I had absolutely no way of getting to you Saturday night? Do you even know how badly I wanted to be there?”
I turn to face her though I won’t look at her yet. She’s standing tall now, and the strain that accompanies her words tells me she’s seconds from a melt down.
“No, of course you don’t know,” she continues. “Because you don’t let me talk. You don’t let me say anything unless you give me permission. I guess because I’m a woman, my opinions don’t mean anything to you. I’m just some holes to fill and another way for you to feel like you’re the king of the world because apparently it’s not enough to run a multi-million dollar company and look the way you do and have the world at your fingertips.”
Correction. Multi-billion dollar company...
“Your opinions are important, Bellamy.”
“Then why don’t you act like it?”
“I was afraid this was going to happen.” I turn to face the window again, resting my hands against the ledge and hanging my head. If it weren’t so fucking early in the morning, I’d pour myself three fingers of Macallan and pass out on the sofa the rest of the day. It’s been a long week, an even longer weekend, and a doubly as long Monday morning already.
“What?”
“I made my expectations to you perfectly clear. Did I not?”
“I guess.”
“I told you, you’re my release. This is purely a professional relationship. No feelings. No complications.” My gaze narrows at the gray cityscape on this rainy April morning. Droplets bead against the window and condensation fogs up the glass. “I spent the better part of last week training you, breaking you in. You were doing so well, too.”
“You’re overreacting, Dane.”
“Oh, but I’m not.”
If she only knew where I was coming from…
But she’ll never know. My past is sealed. Locked in a vault and drowned in the bottom of the Pacific where it belongs.
“I wanted to be with you Saturday night.” Her voice is closer now. I shudder when her palm presses against my shoulder. How dare she touch me without asking. “I had my dress ready to go. I knew how I was going to do my hair.”
Her fingertips drag down my back before abandoning me. I turn to face her; only I find she’s invading my space like she’s my equal.
“I don’t know why either,” she says, her delicate fingers twisting the gold chain of the Cartier necklace around her neck. “I don’t like to be tied up. It’s not particularly enjoyable to have my mouth pounded until I’m gagging. And I certainly don’t appreciate having to wear some kind of collar around my neck like I’m your pet.”
That’s because it’s what you are.
“But I find myself thinking about you all the time. And to be honest, I don’t know why.” She yanks the chain from her neck in one fluid movement, and it crumbles into her hand. “You’re arrogant. You’re rude and demanding. You’re ridiculously pretentious, lacking an ounce of humility, and yet I still find myself desperately seeking your constant approval.”
She hands me the tangled chain, her soft skin brushing mine for the last time.
“And besides all that, I can’t stop thinking about the way your cock would feel inside me. Mission accomplished, Dane. You got exactly what you wanted.”
I try not to chuckle when she says that word. Cock. She enunciates every letter like it’s a brand new word in her pristine vocabulary. A foreign word.