Awaken (12 page)

Cooper smirked and shook his head. She was sharp; he liked that.
 

Then he sighed.
 

Originally, Lacey wanted to have sex on six
different occasions. He negotiated it down to four – not because he didn't think he'd enjoy having sex with her, but as a businessman, he firmly believed everything was a negotiation.
 

Now, according to the non-disclosure, for Lacey to be legally bound to keep his secret, Cooper had to have sex with her four more times. Deep down, he knew Lacey would probably never tell anyone about his role as the Master. But a person in his position could never be too careful.
 

Even though he wouldn’t be wearing his mask, Cooper realized he needed to fuck her like the Master – otherwise he ran the risk of getting too close to her.

 
And after what he experienced with Julia, he couldn’t let that happen again.

His phone rang. It was Cybil, his older sister who lived in Seattle with her husband and two kids. Cooper hesitated. He then realized she would keep calling until she got him on the phone.
 

“Hello.”

“Happy Birthday, little brother!” shouted his sister.

“Thanks,” Cooper said flatly, with no enthusiasm. He hated his birthday and hadn’t celebrated it in years.
 

“Did you get our card and flowers? Did you see the drawing Jake and Tyler made for you?”

“No. I haven’t been home. I’m on my way there now.”

“Really?” said Cybil in a mischievous tone. “Out all night. Whose the lucky lady?”

Cooper didn’t respond. His sister got the hint.

“Well anyway, what plans do you have tonight, Coop? How are you going to celebrate turning thirty-five?”

Cooper sighed. “I’m not. I’m busy with work. Listen, Cybil, I got to go. I probably won’t be able to talk to mom and dad today. So if they call you, just tell them I’m fine and not to worry. Now, I gotta run. Bye.”

Cooper hung up on his sister. He took a deep breath and looked out the window of his limo. Being distant was the only way he knew how to survive. Cybil would never understand.

After weaving the limo uptown, Clyde – his driver – dropped Cooper in front of his building. When he entered the lobby, his doorman and concierge offered him warm smiles. They both wished him a Happy Birthday.

Cooper gave them a curt nod.

The concierge mentioned how they delivered gifts up to his apartment. “Some flowers,” he said with a grin.

Cooper thanked him and made his way to the elevator. When he entered his penthouse apartment, he saw a vase containing a bouquet of flowers on top of his kitchen counter. A yellow Happy Birthday balloon was tied to the vase. Cooper noticed the greeting card leaning against the vase. He flipped it open and saw a drawing from both of his nephews. “We Miss You Uncle Coop!” was written in crayon along with a drawing of the two of them. Cooper smirked and returned the card to its envelope. He looked at his watch. He had time for a quick shower before heading into work. With his company’s recent take over of a main competitor in San Francisco, there were a million loose ends he needed to attend to.

As he ran his head under the shower, Cooper tried to focus on the day ahead of him. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Lacey. He tried to convince himself to stop. But his mind wouldn't listen. It would always loop back to the image of her sitting up in bed, staring at him with those beautiful eyes, covering her chest. Then he remembered the look of disappointment on her face when he handed her the non-disclosure.
 

Things need to be this way,
he reminded himself.
 

He had too much at stake. And after everything he’d been through, he knew he needed to protect himself. It was the only way to survive.
 

He needed to ensure his encounters with Lacey were purely about sex.
 

That shouldn't be too hard, if he approached it as the Master.
 

He turned off the shower and got dressed for work. As he left his apartment, he looked at his cellphone. There were several messages from Mimi.
 

He decided to ignore them.

Todd, Cooper’s assistant, poked his head into the office.

“You’ve got Alex out in San Francisco. He says he needs to talk to you. Says it’s critical.”

“I’ll have to call him back,” said Cooper as he scanned his emails. He looked up and noticed Todd was still standing in the doorway.

“Is there something else?”

Todd nodded and walked in. He closed the door behind him.

“Security called,” he said as he approached Cooper’s long glass desk. “There’s somebody downstairs in the lobby, insisting they need to see you.”

Cooper leaned back in his office chair and stared at his young assistant.

“Who?”
 

Todd glanced at a small piece of paper in his hand. “Someone named Mimi. She said it’s urgent.”

Cooper immediately felt the muscles in his neck tense. He leaned forward in his chair.
 

“Send her up. Now,” he commanded. His tone sharp, angry.

Surprised by Cooper’s change in mood, Todd nervously nodded and left the room.
 

Exactly ten minutes later, Mimi was standing in his office. Cooper closed his office door so they would have privacy.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he immediately hissed into Mimi’s ear.

Mimi looked at him wide-eyed. “I’m sorry. I just…you didn’t respond to any of my texts…I know how you hate your birthday but I got you something.”

From behind her back, Mimi revealed a small gift box wrapped in red with a gold bow. Still angry, Cooper snatched the gift from Mimi’s hands.

“I hope you like it,” Mimi muttered.

Cooper returned to his desk and took a seat. “You shouldn’t be here,” he complained.
 

Mimi dropped her eyes to the floor. She began fidgeting with her hands and finally threw them behind her back.
 

“I’m sorry. I just…I wanted to do something nice for your birthday,” she said softly.

“We have rules,” Cooper said, glowering at her.
 

Mimi didn’t respond. She kept looking at the floor. Cooper noticed she had her dark hair pulled back into a tight pony-tail. He wasn’t used to seeing her dressed this way – in a simple black skirt and red, button down blouse. Normally, they only saw each other at Nectar, where she wore her silver chain-linked lingerie, her breasts and crotch exposed for all to see.

Mimi finally raised her head and stared at him.

“Have you got everything under control with that girl?”

Cooper snapped, “I’ve told you a million times: it’s none of your business.”
 

Mimi took a few nervous steps forward. “Don’t be angry with me, Master. I just saw her storm out of the room and leave the club in such a state. I wanted to make sure what we have isn’t under threat –”

Cooper leaned forward in his chair, cutting her off. “What
we
have?” he repeated.

Mimi slowly nodded.

Cooper leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. When he spoke, his tone was sharp, cold like steel. “What we have, Mimi, is a relationship with very strict rules.” He stared Mimi down through narrowed eyes. “And you showing up to my place of business just broke every fuckin’ one of them.”

Mimi tried to avoid his cold stare. “I just wanted to…it was your birthday so I thought…” she faltered through the words and then became silent. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I shouldn’t have come here. I should have known better.”

Cooper got up from his chair and approached her.

Looking at him, Mimi still saw the anger in his face.
 

“I just wanted to make sure…”
 
As he got closer to her, Mimi’s voice trailed off. She dropped her gaze back toward the floor.

Cooper wasn’t interested in any of her reasons.

He sighed, then finally said, “Come by my place tomorrow night. You and I need to have a little talk. I’ll have my driver pick you up at eight. Now go.”

Mimi raised her head. Cooper saw her eyes were glassy. He knew he was speaking harshly to her, but she should have known better than to show up at his office.
 

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Mimi said with a quick nod. She hurried out of his office.

Cooper returned to his chair and stared out at the city skyline. He took another deep breath and exhaled. The small gift box Mimi had brought him rested on his desk. He picked it up and irately threw it in the trash.

That morning, around ten-thirty, Lacey stepped into a building in midtown Manhattan. She had an interview for a job as a staff photographer. The position was for a lifestyle website,
The One Percent
, which profiled the business elite. Her friend, Emma, from West Recruiting, had recommended her to someone who worked at the company.
 

The company’s creative director, Camilla Laurent, was impressed with Lacey’s portfolio and the photos she took at West Recruiting. As she scanned her images, she stopped at the nude portrait of Penelope.
 

“Is this kind of work something you do a lot of?” she asked.
 

Lacey shook her head. “No. That was actually my first nude model.”

“Oh, I see,” said Camilla. “I don’t have a problem with it. But the people we profile are very image conscious, with a conservative bent. They might have concerns being photographed by somebody who is known for that kind of work.”

Lacey immediately thought of Cooper and his desire to keep his activities at Nectar a secret.

“I understand,” said Lacey with a nod. “I don’t have plans to do anymore photographs along those lines.”

As Camilla returned to reviewing her portfolio, Lacey looked around her swanky, modern office.
 

A staff position at this company would be a huge step forward for Lacey. Not only would it provide her with a steady income, but it would also be a stepping-stone to landing bigger, corporate clients. Lacey examined Camilla’s facial expressions as she clicked from one image to the next. Her face revealed nothing.
 

“Well, then,” said Camilla when she got to the last image in Lacey’s portfolio. She looked away from the screen and gave Lacey a muted smile. Then suddenly, she raised one of her fingers like she had just realized something.

“Hold on a second. I forgot to tell Tori something.” Camilla quickly picked up her phone and told her assistant to cancel a meeting she had tomorrow afternoon. While Camilla went over the schedule with her assistant, Lacey tried to keep from fidgeting with nerves. She could really use this job and a reliable source of income. She took a deep breath as she watched Camilla, with her shoulder length red hair and stoney face, rearrange several meetings on her calendar. When she finally finished, Camilla hung up and glanced back at Lacey.

“Sorry about that.”

“No worries,” said Lacey with a smile – but inside she was a nervous wreck, anxious for the verdict on whether she’d be hired.

 
Camilla leaned back in her chair and gave Lacey a curt nod. “I think you’d be a great asset to our team.”
   

Lacey exhaled in relief and smiled again.

“We can offer you a retainer so that way you’re available whenever we need you,” continued Camilla. “We can pay you a day rate of $1,000. We have an in-house photographer’s assistant you can use on location – Chad. He studied at RISD. He knows his stuff.” Camilla turned back to her computer, and pulled up a calendar. “We’ll probably be sending you out on location shoots every three weeks. But the first shoot will actually be in a couple of days. We’re doing a profile on the real estate moguls Julie and Christopher Nicholson. Have you heard of them?”

Lacey nodded. They owned real estate all over the world, but made the bulk of their fortune in Manhattan.
 

“We need shots of them in their mansion out in the Hamptons,” said Camilla. She then stood up. Lacey quickly did the same. “I’ll call you when we get confirmation on a day for the shoot. Welcome aboard, Lacey.”

Lacey couldn’t believe it. She shook Camilla’s hand.
 

“Thank you so much. I’m very excited.”

Camilla simply nodded with a small smile.
 

“We’ll be in touch.”

Lacey grabbed her purse and left the office. As she rode the elevator to the lobby, she couldn’t stop grinning. She was finally going to be making a steady income as a photographer. Her dreams had finally come true. She felt so grateful.

 
On the way back to the subway, Lacey realized there was someone she needed to thank: Emma. Emma had gotten her the photography gig at West Recruiting and was now the reason she had just landed a steady job as a staff photographer.

I need to get her an awesome engagement present for her party next week,
Lacey reminded herself.
 

As she stepped into the subway, and began her journey back home, she also realized Emma was partially responsible for her relationship with Cooper West. If she hadn’t taken pictures of him for West Recruiting, they would never have gotten to know each other on a personal level. If that hadn’t happened, Cooper never would have revealed his identity as the Master.
 

And after last night, Lacey was thankful he had. She relived the memory of kissing Cooper’s lush lips, feeling his breath against her cheek, his hard cock inside her. Just the thought of Cooper’s muscular physique grinding against hers made Lacey’s body tingle. As she reminisced about last night’s bedroom escapades, she smirked with delight.

After Cooper left her apartment early that morning, Lacey went back to bed. Sex with Cooper had been so wild, so electrifying, that her body needed to recover. She almost slept through her alarm clock, nearly missing her interview with Camilla.
 

As the subway screeched along, Lacey shook her head in disbelief. She still couldn’t believe how she worked their arrangement to her advantage. Sure, she wished the whole thing with Cooper could be a little bit more normal, with no need of a legal document between them. But if Cooper insisted on having one, she should at least make sure she got something out of the deal. And if Cooper wasn’t interested in a “regular” relationship, at least they could continue having a sexual one. Lacey wasn’t exaggerating when she told Cooper about the impact sex with him had on her. It made her body sing in a way she never thought it could. She didn’t want the song to end, not now, just as it was getting good. And who knew, maybe after their fourth sex session, they’d discover they could be in a “normal” relationship after all.