I stand up. “I’m coming with you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.
Mark
I’m sitting behind the desk of my office inside the club, post several strong cups of coffee, watching the live security camera. Ryan pull up in his car. I zoom in the camera, watching Ryan curse under his breath as one of Blake’s men approaches his window.
I buzz Kurt in security. “Get Walker Security off Ryan’s ass and get him inside.”
Ten minutes later, Ryan is inside the club and I’m standing behind my desk waiting for him. Behind the desk, because I’ve had time to think about why I can’t just rip his throat out—namely my mother—and I will if I get too close to him. A knock sounds and I grind my teeth, every muscle in my body tensing. I will not kill the son-of-a-bitch. Instead I’ll ruin him, and make his life such hell that he’ll wish he was dead. I hit the buzzer to let him into the office and he enters, dressed casually in slacks and a pullover, his dark hair neatly combed, and I have the impression he’s not been to bed.
He crosses the room to stand behind a leather visitor’s chair. “Is there news on Rebecca?” he asks, sounding urgent. But his eyes don’t quite meet mine, a sure sign that he’s hiding something.
“Why?” I ask, resenting the way he dares to come in here and act like this is some shared journey. “Are you afraid of what it might be?”
“Afraid? Hell yes.” His eyes finally level with mine. “I’m terrified they’ll find her dead.”
My lips thin. “Of course you are.” Sarcasm tinges my tone.
Cocking his head, he frowns. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not playing the games with you that the police have. I know you helped Ava kill Rebecca.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You told the police that Ava brought Rebecca to me the night she arrived back into the city. And yet you never spoke to me about it? Never asked about her? I call bullshit. You know Rebecca never made it to me. You were involved in her disappearance. I don’t know how, or at what level, but you were.”
He grabs the back of the chair. “Telling the truth is all I’m guilty of.”
“You never asked me about her return.”
“You were testy about Rebecca leaving. I wasn’t going to throw her leaving again in your face.”
“Why would you assume she’d be gone again?”
“Because you fucked with her mind too much, Mark. She was done with you.”
I don’t move. If I do, I’ll kill the bastard. Seconds tick by and I’m not counting; I’m imagining my hands on his throat. “I ask myself what Rebecca would want me to do right now.”
“Don’t try to make me the bastard here. I tried to warn her away from you. You’d already ruined her.”
I narrow my gaze. “And I suppose that you were to be her saving grace? Her new Master?”
“When she was the Rebecca I first met, I wanted her.” Barely contained hate radiates from his voice. “I didn’t want the bitch you turned her into.”
Adrenaline surges through me, and I plant my hands on the desk. “So you killed her?”
“No.” He leans on the desk to match my stance, and surprises me by meeting my stare. “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even see her when she returned.”
I search his unblinking stare and I decide he didn’t kill her. He was involved, though. I have no doubt. I open the desk drawer. “I ask again¸ what would Rebecca want?” I set a Glock on the desk. “She’d want you dead.”
He retreats, hands up in the air stop-sign fashion. “Easy, man. You’re taking this too far. I didn’t kill Rebecca.”
“She was a better person than me,” I say as if he hasn’t spoken. “To me, dead is too easy. It’s over too soon, and I want you to suffer.”
His throat bobs and his hands slowly lower. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll let your imagination run wild. And I suggest you get out of here, before I change my mind and decide to honor what I believe to be her wishes. I can almost hear her shouting in my ear: Kill him. Kill him.”
He turns a ghostly white and looks like he’s about to shit his pants. I’d laugh if I wasn’t envisioning my hand on that gun, pulling the trigger while my other hand was on his throat, choking him to death. Another rush of adrenaline surges through me. “Get out!” I shout.
He turns and rushes for the door, bursts into the hallway. The door slams hard behind him and I grab my phone and call my man again. “Screw proving Ryan’s guilt. I want every business contract he owns. Every bank account. Every piece of real estate. And then I want a plan on how to make it all disappear legally.”
“That’s going to be expensive.”
“Which means there are plenty of people who’ll do the job, and do it well—so don’t go getting greedy on me. I want answers this week or I’ll replace you.” I hang up and set the phone on the desk and my hand shakes. My hand never fucking shakes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry, Rebecca.” Suddenly the darkness that had threatened is here, and I’m on my knees. I don’t even know how I got there, or how long I’ve been there, or how long the tears have streaked my cheeks.
The phone on my desk buzzes and my security manager’s voice sounds. “Crystal Smith is here to see you.”
“Send her away,” I all but growl, but then it hits me. “No. Wait.” My mind races and I struggle to my feet.
I didn’t scare Rebecca away, and I cost her her life. I’m repeating the same thing with Crystal. “Send her to my private quarters.” It’s time to end this—and I know just how to make sure she leaves for good.
Part Four
Rules
Crystal
When Blake and I are allowed through the gates of the massive mansion, we’re informed by security that Ryan is in Mark’s office. I’m a nervous wreck for fear that we’re too late. With two suit-clad security men framing us, Blake and I rush up the steps to the double red doors where another man in a suit greets us. We step inside the foyer of white tile, framed with expensive art I’m sure Mark selected himself.
Several feet away, Kurt, the head of security that I met on my prior visit, stands in front of a magnificent winding stairwell covered in red carpet, in heated debate with a tall, good-looking man in slacks and a pullover.
“Ryan,” Blake murmurs softly. “Mark hasn’t killed him yet. That’s a positive development.”
“Yes,” I agree, “but what about Mark? Is he okay?”
Ryan breaks free of the conversation with Kurt and charges toward us, his intelligent eyes raking intimately and uncomfortably over me before landing on Blake. “Get him on a leash,” he snaps, his voice darn near guttural.
“Kurt doesn’t work for me,” Blake replies dryly.
“Mark,” Ryan grinds out. “Get Mark on a leash.” I let out a silent breath of relief. Mark is okay. Maybe not emotionally, but physically at least. Ryan continues, “Or I swear to you I’ll sue you, him, and anyone who ever breathed his name.” He flicks me a look. “Who the hell are you?”
“My father calls me ‘Trouble.’ My mother, ‘Sunshine,’” I say, my survival skills honed by my two arrogant brothers and my father, the king of arrogance. “I’ve always liked the name Rebecca though, if you’d like to call me that?” It’s out before I can stop it and I don’t even know where it came from.
His eyes flash and he makes a move toward me that’s thwarted by Blake stepping forward, his hand on my shoulder. “Ironically,” Blake says, his tone amused despite the tension pulsing off of him, “my father called me ‘Trouble,’ as well. So push me—please. I enjoy a good reason to break a few rules.”
I suddenly love Blake Walker, despite barely knowing him and I’m very relieved that he’s on Mark’s side.
Ryan’s lips twitch, sardonic amusement tinging his reply. “Breaking
the rules comes with a price—if you don’t know how to cover your tracks. I’m betting you’re more a ‘do it, and deal with the consequences’ kind of guy. The kind I eat for lunch.” He steps around Blake, and his near-confession that he’s hidden his involvement with Rebecca’s murder has me fighting angry.
Blake replies, “If I’m lunch, I bite back like a hungry shark.”
Ryan’s laughter cackles behind us as the doors open and close, and it’s not the cold, nearly dawn, air that sends a shiver down my spine. It’s the certainty that Mark is right about Ryan. He was involved in killing Rebecca.
Kurt in front of us. “Mr. Compton would like to see you, Ms. Smith.” He glances at Blake. “Alone.”
“Yes,” I say, eager to see Mark. “Take me to him.”
Blake glances at me. “Are you sure you want to do this? He’s not exactly himself.”
“Which is all the more reason I need to do this.”
“Then I’ll be right here waiting for you,” he replies. Then his phone beeps. He checks a text message, cursing under his breath. “I need to go out to the search site. Jacob, one of my men, is at the exterior gate.”
“I can arrange for her safe departure and arrival to her destination,” Kurt offers.
Blake nods. “All right. But she leaves with him when she leaves.” He turns to me. “Jacob will take you back. I know he’s safe, and he’ll keep the press off you.”
“Fine,” I agree impatiently, and turn to Kurt. “Let’s go.”
He motions me toward the second stairwell that leads down to Mark’s private quarters. I start forward, and Blake grabs my arm. “My fiancée was murdered,” he says softly. “I let my need to make her murderer pay consume me. Meeting my wife saved my life, but my guilt and anger didn’t make it easy on her.”
My chest tightens. “Did you want to be saved?”
“Not before I met her. I lived on the edge, inviting death every chance I got.”
I nod at the grim knowledge that I’m headed for a fight. “Thank you for sharing that with me when you barely know either of us.”
He releases my arm. “Call me if you need me, no matter what the time.” He steps back and leaves me to Kurt, who motions me forward. I follow him down the stairs, wondering what I’ll find. The tender family man that I’ve glimpsed as he’s cared for his mother? The hard businessman who shut me out after the last time I was here and kept me at a distance? The broken man from the hotel room?
We reach the bottom of the steps and though we turn left, to my right is a dungeon door—which makes me consider another option. Maybe I’m about to see the true Master that I’ve encountered only once before in a bathroom in New York. The memory of him ripping off my panties and demanding that I beg “Mr. Compton” to lick me heats my skin and sets my nerves to jumping. I’d asked, not begged, damn it, and I’d been aroused—which confuses me for reasons I try never to think about.
Kurt stops walking and I realize that we’ve arrived at Mark’s private quarters. He rings a buzzer, and then faces me as the door pops open, giving me a nod. Without so much as a word, he leaves me to enter on my own.
I push open the heavy wooden door and enter the familiar room that seems dipped in a soft glow, a massive four poster bed the centerpiece to various erotic adventures draped in sheer curtains. Those curtains do funny things to my belly that I do not invite, nor do I want to explore. But inching forward, scanning for Mark to no avail, I am forced to search the depths of the room, unable to truly see what’s inside, but certain there’s no human outline.
Finally, my attention goes to a huge archway opening that appears to lead to another room. I swallow hard and move forward. At the entryway I freeze, finding Mark standing in the center of a room with curtains surrounding what looks like another archway leading to a room meant for bondage.
I was right. The Master is here—and he’s the man that I’ve been avoiding. The man who is everything that I do not want.
Mark
Crystal stands in the doorway, looking tired, worried, and beautiful. The spike of desire I feel is instant, and I want it to be about sex, about escape, and the control this club has always been for me. But here, now, tonight, it is not. It’s about something more she stirs in me—something Rebecca stirred in me that I never saw. It’s the way Crystal both soothes my raw nerves and awakens the man in me all at once simply by entering a room. I tell myself my reaction is my rebounding after the loss of Rebecca. There’s no other explanation and to use her in a such a way is unfair, and damaging in a way she doesn’t deserve, as is my need to grab her and hold her and ride out this storm with her in my arms.
“Come here,” I order Crystal softly, aware of the trepidation on her face, in her eyes, aware I’m about to give her reason for those feelings.
She crosses her arms defensively beneath her breasts. “I think I’ll stay here. What happened with Ryan?”
“We talked.”
“And?” she prods, pushing the way she pushes, without limits.
“And come here, Ms. Smith,” I command, preparing to show her limits, and to do so in a way I’d never do to a submissive in training. But then, I’m not training Crystal. I’m driving her away.
“I know what you’re doing,” she snaps.
“My playroom. My rules. Come here and explain yourself.”
“Explain myself? Sure.” She starts forward, long strides carrying her toward me, as she adds, “And you can explain yourself.” I meet her in the middle of the room, standing toe to toe with her as she continues. “You can’t go after Ava and Ryan. Think of your family.” She wraps her arms around me, defying every rule of this room. “Please. Please don’t do it. There are other ways.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why does she feel soft and still so right, when she’s supposed to be wrong? “I don’t want to talk about Ava or Ryan.” I slice my fingers into her hair, rough by intent, yanking her face to mine. “Why do you think I came here? I want to forget right now. And for me, fucking is forgetting. And not your way—fucking my way. Get down on your knees.”
She pales, and the look in her eyes confirms everything I’ve suspected. Her need for control is a way to hide from something, and I want to know what. Yet I never ask a submissive what they want to escape; I just make sure they do.
“No,” she says. “I told you. I won’t do this. It’s not me.”
“But it is me. You want me, you want this. And you’d better prepare yourself. I’ll force you to stop running from whatever you’re running from, and in the process I’ll make you cry. I’ll make you hate me. But you’ll face it, and you’ll be glad you did.”
A stricken look washes over her face and she flattens her hands on my chest. “I’m not running. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You are, and you do. You’re more transparent than you think, Ms. Smith. And you are nowhere as near as strong as you pretend to be. You’re a weak shell about to break.”
She starts to tremble in my arms. “I know what you’re doing. I read the journal. You made her feel vulnerable when you felt vulnerable. Well, guess what? You want to be with me? You have to be vulnerable with me.”
I set her away from me. “You read Rebecca’s journal?” I demand, anger sliding through me. I’m not sure why, or even if it’s at her.
“I thought it was part of the files you left for me, and I only read the first entry.”
I know that entry all too well. That’s when he takes me to the club; that’s when he takes me places he knows I don’t want to go. And she was right. I did. I pushed in all the wrong ways by involving Ava and Ryan, giving away control by involving them, when I should have held onto it tighter. That was been my mistake. A mistake I’d made by not shutting things down with Rebecca before I couldn’t walk away and neither could she. One mistake I won’t make with Crystal.
“This is who I am and what I am.
I think it’s pretty clear that you can’t handle that.”
She steps back as if slapped. “I won’t lash out at you, like you are at me.
I remove my cell from my pocket and dial Kurt. “Tell Jacob that Ms. Smith is ready to leave.” I end the call. “Go back to the hotel.”
“And if I refuse to leave?”
“Then you’ll fuck me on my terms, starting on your knees in the center of the room.”
Anger and pain tighten her normally gentle features, driving me to the brink of aborting my mission to drive her away. But that would be selfish—it would be for me, not her.
Her response is a non-response, when I crave something. Anything. She doesn’t scream or shout or attack. She simply turns and walks out of the playroom. Several moments later, the door to my private rooms closes. I am as it was intended: alone, in what feels like a shallow grave getting deeper. But at least she’s not in it with me.
Mark
I spend what’s left of the night at the club, and the way my thoughts of Rebecca and Crystal merge has me certain I’m losing my mind. I have to find the Master in me again, and I need to do it now.
By ten, I’ve been woken up by a call from Blake and the confirmation that the press is all over the hotel.
“I’m moving Crystal and I’ll pack your things. I’ll text you the hotel address. Crystal wants to go to the gallery. I don’t think it’s a good idea until after this dies down.”
“Have her work from her hotel,” I agree.
Then he says, “We need to talk about what happened last night.”
“Later.” I end the call before I get a lecture on right and wrong—I’m already confused enough by the way the two seem to be reversing their meanings. I immediately text Tiger to move our upcoming meeting from his office to the new hotel.
An hour later, I’ve dodged a conversation with Kurt about the club, snuck past two reporters, and checked into my new hotel suite. At ten minutes until twelve, I’ve showered and dressed in gray slacks and a gray sweater. Tiger, dressed in jeans and a cream-colored sweater, arrives on the hour.