I took a deep inward breath. “No,” I said. If Jean-Luc could have heard my next words, he would have punched me in the face for endangering our mission and I would have deserved it. “Do you ever have a goal in life that’s so important that everything else must fall by the wayside, lest it distract you from your purpose?”
From the way she stiffened next to me, I could tell my words had resonated. I would have paused to inquire why, but once the dam had burst, the words poured out. It was as if my soul needed to explain that no, I didn’t need an unending line of women to be entertained. I was human. I yearned for love and companionship as much as the next person. Given the loneliness of my childhood, possibly a lot more than the next person. But I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of straying from my path.
“Three months is all I can permit myself,” I said. “So I pick women who are aligned with that. Susan would not have been able to walk away at the end with ease. I am many things, but I am not cruel.”
“So the submissives you’ve bid on in the past, they didn’t fall in love with you?”
I gave her a wry look. “Am I supposed to believe that I am that irresistible? That three months with me and every woman will automatically fall in love?” I shook my head. “Whitney wanted the money so she could one day start her own fashion house. Emma grew up as an orphan in Belarus before she was adopted by a couple in Iowa. She wanted to fund services for children in her country of birth.”
She chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “Susan was surprised that Madame Lorraine had allowed me to participate in the auction. She thought my desperation over Alicia would make me blindly agree to whatever you wanted, ignoring my own desires.”
“To some degree, money impacts everyone’s ability to freely consent,” I replied. “Susan is wealthy in her own right, so she sees the issue in black and white. But both Emma and Whitney were passionate about what they wanted to do and the money was essential to them pursuing their dreams. Your sister’s illness is a more extreme case, but Lori isn’t an idiot. Each case is judged on its own merit.”
Her sister wasn’t real. I would wager the diamond she wore around her neck that her cover story was entirely fake. But the concerns she was voicing were true enough.
“So Madame Lorraine doesn’t care?”
“She cares more than you could imagine,” I replied. For the last twenty years, Lori had been haunted by the death of her sister, kidnapped off the streets of London. But because Sandra had been a troubled teenager, bouncing in and out of foster homes, she’d been classified as a runaway and the police had paid no further attention to the case. “Lori screens the Dominants at the auction about a hundred times more rigorously than her submissives. Every single one of us is aware of the financial dynamic at play. I doubt if anyone ever just looks at a checklist and starts to play right then and there. As you yourself demonstrated, checklists are just a form to fill out so you can get the money you really need.”
She shot me a startled look. “Is that why you didn’t fuck me in Bangkok?”
“You looked terrified of me in Bangkok,” I responded. “That’s not a turn on.”
She flushed. “I’m not terrified now.”
The theatre had been emptying while we’d been talking. “Let’s continue this conversation in the car?” I rose to my feet, extending my arm to her. She took it readily, lacing her fingers in mine.
“So Emma is in Belarus? Where’s Whitney?”
“Milan. She’s apprenticing with Prada.”
She looked uncertain at my answer. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it.
As we rode in the car, I was replaying our conversation. Her words right after the concert had ended echoed in my head. She had no dreams.
Everyone needed dreams. Dreams formed the sanctuary in which we took refuge from real life. For the last two years, my dreams had been concentrated around one warm, magical summer night in Paris, when I’d gone home with a beautiful woman and everything had seemed within reach.
Chapter 3
Ellie / Jenny:
On the one hand, Lucien had told me Alexander’s former submissives had disappeared.
On the other hand, I had my own instincts and they told me to trust him.
Ever since Bangkok, I’d vacillated between the two emotions. Fear of Alexander, of who he was and who he worked for. And desire. Always, desire. From the first moment I’d seen him, Alexander had made me feel safe and cherished and wanted. Whether he was calling himself Marc and pretending he owned a small house in the suburbs of Paris, or whether he was the mysterious billionaire financier who had an unprecedented level of access to Dylan, I had never once felt afraid of anything he might do to me.
No. None of my fears stemmed from the way he treated me. But so many other things could not be ignored. My past as a sex slave. Lucien’s dire warnings. My own innate caution about male arousal.