She rolled her eyes. “Really, Lennox. How out of touch are you? Think about it from her point of view. An elusive Dom. He never plays. You rarely see him. And suddenly he’s in your classroom? Come on. I bet every submissive in that classroom wanted the same thing. She was the only one brave enough to do something about it. It’s like when a woman tells you she can’t orgasm. You take it as a challenge.”
“And you think I should just ignore her disregard for protocol?”
“Of course not. I’m suggesting you let Fulton or David deal with it. If you do it, you’re playing into her hands.”
He at least seemed to be thinking about what she said. Whether he would take her advice was something else entirely. He finished his wine and she offered to pour him another glass, but he politely declined.
“I better not, but thank you.” He stood up. “I should be going.”
It was driving her crazy that he hadn’t brought up the fire alarm. Shouldn’t he have at least mentioned it? At least in passing or something? He was almost at the door and, damn it, he wasn’t going to talk about it at all.
Just as his hand touched the doorknob, she blurted out, “Did you ever find out anything about the fire alarm?”
Lennox cleared his throat and turned around. “Interestingly enough, the files that contained the security footage have been deleted from the system’s hard drive.”
Yes! She’d been successful! She forced herself not to smile. “Oh.”
“But what the person who deleted them didn’t know is that all security videos are copied and sent to my personal hard drive.”
The wineglass almost slipped from her hands. She was totally screwed. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would have something like that set up. His expression gave nothing away.
“So you know that . . .” she started.
“That you pulled the alarm?” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Yes. Good night, Marie.”
She stood, dumbfounded, as he left and silently closed the door behind him. He knew? He knew she pulled the alarm and he wasn’t going to call her on it? Hell, it appeared as if he wasn’t even going to bring it up. What did that mean?
She poured another glass of wine, knowing she was getting ready to face another night of insomnia.
WINNIE’S JOURNAL
I did it! I went out with Lennox! We had such a great time, I decided it didn’t matter that he was into kink and I’m not. It’s just a variation of sex, right? I mean, how bad can it be? Seriously, sex with Lennox? There’s no way it can be bad!
I’m going to talk with Marie and see if she can fill me in on this submissive stuff. She’s all into it. Heck, she’ll probably love the fact that I’m telling her I identify as a submissive. I know Lennox will be thrilled.
I’m so excited!
CHAPTER
Five
Early the next morning, Lennox called Fulton and David into his office. Fulton, who typically got up early in order to send Andie off, was all smiles, but David obviously needed coffee before he became human.
Lennox directed him to the freshly brewed pot and then waited for him to pour a cup and have a few sips before he started speaking. He began by giving them a rundown of what happened the day before. Though he left out the part about Marie being the one to pull the alarm.
He explained what Mariela had discovered and shared her opinion on Susan’s discipline. He wrapped up by confirming that neither man had ever had a problem with her in the classroom.
By the time he finished, David looked more alert. “I agree with Mariela,” he said and, beside him, Fulton nodded. “I don’t think you need to be the one to punish her. Especially if that’s the reason she was acting out.”
“I agree in theory.” Lennox pulled up Susan’s file on his laptop. “But I’m afraid it’ll be seen as me being weak if someone else administers the punishment and I don’t want to give anyone that impression.”
“No one who knows you will think that,” David assured him.
“The students might think that,” Lennox said. While he didn’t want to punish Susan, he knew whatever action he took had to be done swiftly and in a manner that was full of confidence. He was grateful to Marie for pulling the alarm, as it got him out of a bad position, but damn, it’d left him in a mess. “The other thing is, I don’t want to bring attention to Susan’s motives.”
“What you could do,” Fulton said, his hands wrapped around his own cup of coffee, “is have David or I be the one who actually punishes her while you’re in the room, overseeing everything.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Lennox thought it had a lot going for it. It was decisive and would get the point across and he wouldn’t have to lay a hand on Susan. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.
“That’s a really good idea,” David said, echoing Lennox’s own thoughts.
“Don’t act so surprised,” Fulton said. “I do have them on occasion.”
David flipped him off.
“That’s what we’ll do then.” Lennox looked at his two most trusted staff members, outside of Marie. “Which one of you will volunteer to be my hands?”
“I’ll do it,” David said. “I’m afraid Fulton might have gotten too soft since he’s in love and shit.”
Fulton pointed at him. “I’ll bring Andie in here and she can verify I’m no softie.”
“That’s enough,” Lennox said. “If you’re finished comparing dick sizes?”
“Sorry, boss.” Fulton punched David’s shoulder.
Lennox rolled his eyes. “David, I’ll let you go inform Susan of our decision. She should be at breakfast now. Tell her to be in dungeon classroom B at eight thirty sharp. Let’s get this out of the way.”
• • •
LATER THAT AFTERNOON he walked down to Marie’s office, a fistful of papers in his hand. He’d received them the day before and wanted to share them with her. He’d planned to schedule a meeting, but Marie hadn’t attended Susan’s punishment session and he hadn’t seen her at lunch.
She couldn’t hide from him forever.
Her office door was closed, but he heard nothing coming from the other side. She probably wasn’t in a meeting. He knocked and at her softly spoken “Come in,” he pushed open the door.
She was sitting at her desk and looked up in surprise at him. “Lennox.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to avoid me?” He didn’t wait for an invitation, but sat down in the chair across from her desk.
“I don’t know. I promise I’m not.”
He couldn’t help but notice that her normally jovial eyes looked tired and sad today. She had dark circles under her eyes, too. In fact, when he stood back and looked at her as a whole, something didn’t seem right.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look tired.”
“I am. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
He nodded, knowing all too well how that felt.
“What brings you by?” she asked. “I’m assuming you did have some kind of reason other than to tell me I look like hell.”
“I never said that. You’re putting words in my mouth.”
She didn’t come back at him, she just stared at him.
He cleared his throat and brought out the papers he’d carried in with him. “Remember when I mentioned to you that I was thinking about turning the cottage into a public studio or gallery?”
At the mention of those plans, he finally caught a bit of a sparkle in her eyes. “Yes.”
“I’d casually brought the idea up to a friend of mine. Actually, the man who helped me with the blueprints for this place.” He looked around the office, proud of the academy he’d built. He especially liked Marie’s office. He remembered her delight when she saw the barre he’d installed and how he’d insisted the walls be painted in her favorite color, a pale blue.
“I didn’t ask him to draw anything,” he said. “Truly we had just a casual conversation. But apparently he was inspired and he came up with a
few ideas. I’d like for you to see them.”
She cleared off an area on her desk. “Yes, I’d love to.”
Happy that they were talking about something without arguing, he spread out the papers.
“This one,” he said pointing to the first paper on top of the pile, “is a drawing of what the cottage looks like now.”
Her eyes grew misty as she looked over the rendering of Winnie’s cottage. She sucked in a deep breath. “Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that place. Brings back memories.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Damn it, he didn’t mean to make her cry. He’d hoped it would be good for her, give them something to talk about.
“It’s okay. Just the initial shock, you know?”
He did. All too well.
She ran a finger over the drawing, as if she was seeing it in her mind through her fingertips. “I remember when she bought this place.”
Winnie owned the cottage when they met and had left it to him, but he’d never heard the story about how she bought it. “Tell me.”
“We had just graduated from college. She had a trust fund that her parents left her and since she had graduated recently, she had access to it. She thought about traveling through Europe, but her financial advisor convinced her to look at real estate. He recommended a few properties and she hated them all.”
He laughed, because it sounded so much like what he would imagine her doing. “Let me guess, he recommended city properties. Penthouses. Maybe some commercial properties. That sort of thing.”
“Yes. And she would have none of that. We went to Cannon Beach one Saturday. She wanted to spend the afternoon painting and she begged me to come along. I figured why not, so I took a couple books, planned to spend the afternoon reading while she painted.”
He wondered if she had painted with joy then. She would have been so young, before she met him. Before he took away her joy.
“We got to the beach,” Marie continued. “But we never even had a chance to get her things set up. We were walking down the shore and she saw a cottage for sale. It was horribly run-down. Weeds had taken over the yard. It needed a new roof. You name it, it needed it. But she saw it for what it could become. She said there was something inside yearning to be set free. I told her it was a rat, probably a family of them. I never was as creative as she was. She was always like that, you know? Could see the good at the core, what something might be. And she was right, not only about that cottage—it ended up beautiful—but just about everything else.”
Except she hadn’t been right about him. She had sorely misjudged Lennox. But as Marie spoke, he pictured Marie and Winnie as young women in his mind. Both of them laughing, joking, having a grand time as they fixed up the cottage.
“We did a lot of the work ourselves,” Marie said.
“She told me.” He shuffled the papers, putting a new one on top. “She often talked about how much she enjoyed fixing the cottage up with you. That’s why I think we won’t change a lot of the outside.”
He had been awed by the drawing his friend had rendered. Apparently, Marie felt the same. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth as she studied the second picture.
“It’s beautiful.”
He nodded. “We leave the outside basically the same.” He pointed to an area off to the side. “Except we install a small garden here. She always mentioned she wanted to do that.” He looked over at Marie. Her nod confirmed Winnie must have told her the same thing.
“Yes,” Marie said. “She would love that.”
“The inside of the cottage will need a little bit more work. I’d like to keep a bedroom.”
“Just in case you need a place to stay when you’re in town?”
“Something like that.”
He was getting ready to show her the ideas his friend had sketched out for the inside when a loud crash out in the hall caused them both to jump.
“What the hell?” he asked, standing up.
Marie rushed past him and opened the door. “Oh no.”
Lennox looked out into the hallway, and tried to make sense of what he saw. Andie had Susan pushed against the wall outside of Fulton’s office. A discarded tray lay upturned at her side.
“I know fifteen ways to poison you that a medical examiner would never discover. Try me, bitch.” Andie’s grip tightened on Susan’s shirt.
Marie gasped.
“Miss Lincoln,” Lennox said in a tone of voice that had been known to put the fear of god in grown men.
Andie didn’t budge. “Tell them. Tell them what I just overheard.”
“Master MacLure,” Susan said. “Thank goodness. This . . .this . . . lunch lady attacked me as I was going down the hall.”
“I’m a chef, you no good sorry piece of—”
“Andie!” Fulton said from the end of the hall, walking toward them.
At the sound of his voice, Andie dropped her hands. Nobody said anything until Fulton made it to where they stood.
“Everybody into my office,” Lennox said. He opened the door to his office and ushered everybody inside, away from the prying eyes of other students and staff that now filled the hallway. He had no idea what had happened between the two women, but he intended to find out. He waited while everyone took a seat.
“This will not turn into a shouting match. You will speak one at a time, when I ask you a question.” Once everyone had nodded, he continued. “Andie, you were the most vocal outside, let’s begin with you.”
Susan raised her hand.
“Yes, Susan,” Lennox said.
“Are you really going to listen to her, Sir? After what she did to me in the hallway?”
Lennox crossed his arms. “Miss Lincoln is a trusted member of my staff. Yes, I am going to listen to her. Just as I will listen to you when it’s your turn.”
Andie cleared her throat. “I was on my way to Fulton’s office with a tray full of snacks, when my phone rang. It was Terrence.” She looked sideways to where Fulton sat.
Fulton’s expression grew hard. “You still talk to Terrence?”
Terrence was Andie’s ex, but more than that, he was also one of Lennox’s friends, who just happened to be Hollywood’s latest golden boy. It was a bit understandable that Fulton wouldn’t care for him.
“No, just today. I was so surprised to hear his ringtone, I stopped in the hallway to answer.”
Fulton didn’t seem overly pleased with this bit of information, but he nodded so she would continue.
“He said he’d had a meeting this morning with a reporter when he happened to mention he’d been in Portland recently.” Andie frowned. Probably remembering exactly why he’d been in Portland. He’d been visiting her after she’d had a boating accident and ended up in the hospital. That had also been when she’d broken up with him for good. “The woman he was meeting with got all excited, she said she had a plant doing an undercover assignment at an exclusive adult-only castle. He figured this was the only castle in the area, so he tried to call you, Master MacLure, repeatedly, and when you didn’t answer, he called me.”
Lennox’s stomach fell to his knees and he reached for his phone, remembering he’d turned it off before the session earlier with Susan. He turned it on and within seconds the screen was populated with missed calls. He cursed under his breath.
“Then,” Andie said. “I turned the corner into this hallway and I hear her,” she pointed to Susan, “on the phone saying the exposé on the headmaster was a bust, but she had an idea about filing assault charges on Fulton.”
Fulton stood up. “What the fuck?”
Lennox held his hand up, trying to remain calm even though he was so angry he could have snapped his desk in half. “Susan?”
For her part, Susan looked completely unaffected. Lennox decided she must be more than a model; she was also a damn good actress.
“Let me get this straight,” Susan said to Andie. “You’re the woman who left Terrence Knight all high and dry? You’re the on
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