In His Wake: His #6 (A Billionaire Domination Serial) (2 page)

“Are you getting in, miss?” one of the men with Adrian asked. Knight’s expression remained still, even unnaturally so, as though he didn’t know me from a stranger on the street.

“No, I’m going down.” In flames. But I’d wait until they’d gone for the actual crash and burn.

The attorney who’d spoken, a gentleman with a thin face and graying dark hair, leaned slightly to one side to press the button and start the elevator moving again. My gaze remained bound to Adrian’s, as I took in other movement around me only with my peripheral vision. Just before the doors closed, I saw Knight’s full lips part, a mere fraction of an inch. And I realized that the whole time he’d been staring back at me…he’d been holding his breath.

I used my trembling hands to fuss with the loose strands of hair falling in wispy waves around my face, when I was really hiding my wet eyes and my exhausted, slightly maniacal smile. Adrian had recognized me just fine. He’d
felt
me, as deeply as I’d felt him, felt his force of presence and the memory of his touch.

In the elevator car on the way down to the lobby, I kept pretending to cough softly into my sleeve so I’d have the excuse to wipe my damp eyes with the edge of my finger. My nerves were shot, as was the pretense that I didn’t need to see Adrian again. Like a junky who didn’t want a needle but couldn’t help fiending for the goddamn thing. Like my mother right after the fights that ended with my father slamming the front door as he marched out with his heavy duffle or after one of the long phone calls that preceded that same man sweeping back in with that same damn bag to gather her into his arms. I had her jitters and shaky hands and racing thoughts. Sometimes it physically
hurt
, but I was off Adrian Knight, cold turkey, and I wasn’t going to ruin a four-week streak.

Getting coffee, stirring in cream, taking the elevator back up to my office, I kept wavering between irrational excitement at the thought of him being in the same building, reminding myself I’d left him over his game with Penn, and daydreaming about being back on the beach with him. Shivers overtook me at the thought of the two of us naked in the sand again, the fine grains clinging to our sweat-slicked skin as he pinned me, bent me, tossed me this way and that to open me, invade me, conquer me.

I paused mid-step when it occurred to me that Adrian must have been in the building to retain one of the seniors at the firm in his defense against the charges pending in Brazil, an uncomfortable realization considering that was how I’d met Penn, when his father had hired Ferris & Hale over legal problems with a government contract to rebuild infrastructure in the Middle East. It wouldn’t do to forget that, I reminded myself. I’d already been down this path with Penn, and half the reason I’d called off the arrangement with Adrian had been his admission to me that, at the very least, the bribery charges pending in Brazil “
had merit
”. He had paid off a government official, the filing against him contended, among other things. I’d never asked what for. The purchase of Ilha de Flor, one of the largest freeholds ever sold to a foreigner in the history of Brazil? Or the permits to build the resort? Or to look the other way as he cut corners on the environmental studies for the eco park he had been establishing on the island? No, it wouldn’t do at all to forget I had good reason to keep my distance from Adrian Knight.

Still, the first stirring of motivation I’d felt in weeks had me sitting in my office drumming my fingertips against my laptop keyboard as I mentally reviewed my list of networking contacts and clients who might have had more in-depth experience with real estate and development deals in South America. Retracing the chronology of my last few projects led me to burly Karl Richter, which oddly enough, brought Penn to mind.

Richter’s company and an Ellison subsidiary had worked together on a huge freeway project out west. Penn and I had been dating for about a year when the first cracks in the partnership had appeared and the two companies had begun to point fingers at one another over substandard construction and gross scheduling delays. When overruns of every imaginable kind had resulted in litigation, I’d regretted having to recuse myself as Richter’s counsel, but Penn’s father was one of my boss’s clients, and I was personally involved with an Ellison. No way around it. When the case went badly for the understated, dry-humored Richter, I’d always wondered if it would have turned out differently had the firm stood by him instead. It was a guilty whisper of conscience I’d never been able to reconcile.

And like that murmur of conscience, a nagging little gnat of a memory swirled around my head and buzzed in my ear until it drew my attention to the stray comment Penn Ellison had made to me last month on the beach on Ilha de Flor. The consummate blond playboy had called me his good luck charm—even in business, he’d said. But what had that meant? In our two years together, we’d never mixed our careers, never talked shop.

As my fingertips continued to play restlessly over my computer keyboard, I entertained wild, paranoid visions of Penn snooping through my email while I’d been in the shower or asleep in our bed. If I’d been a woman who chose her relationships with more discernment, I wouldn’t have had to ask myself if Penn was the kind of man to take advantage of unfair access and turn it against those who were supposed to be his partners. But because I wasn’t a different woman, I didn’t really have to ask, did I? That nagging suspicion was my answer.

Fortunately, Karl seemed to hold neither me nor the firm responsible for the ensuing fines and sanctions when the court case turned against him. I was fairly comfortable tapping out a quick email asking the sharp-witted German businessman general questions about his holdings in South America, who managed the properties, the complexities of freehold versus leasehold deals, and any experiences he’d had with the Brazilian environmental police. While the last thing I needed was to mire myself in the ethical nightmare of getting involved in Adrian’s legal problems, I told myself I’d simply forward any useful information Karl provided to the researcher for whichever of the firm’s seniors the billionaire ended up retaining.

The pesky itch of professionalism drove my actions, so I wanted to believe. Needed to believe. Or maybe it was a meticulousness bordering on obsessive compulsion. But it wasn’t leftover tenderness. And not love. And certainly not the ingrained urge of a submissive to serve her Master. I couldn’t let it be any of those things.

When I was done, it was the first time in weeks I felt like I’d actually made a dent in my workload, and this wasn’t even my case. Making a few phone calls I’d been avoiding further bolstered my confidence, my faith that I could inch my way back to normal and regain the focus expected of the firm’s star junior partner.

I put down the phone receiver and jumped when it immediately buzzed at me. I hit the blinking intercom button, and Linda’s motherly voice crackled with an uncharacteristic rasp, like she was speaking into the headset with her voice too low and her mouth too close.

“Chloe, you missed a call from Brazil.”

On another day I might have assumed…dreaded or even hoped… But no. He wasn’t in Brazil. “Who was it?” I asked.

“A woman, older, but she wouldn’t leave her name or a callback number.”

“Did she have a Brazilian accent?” When Linda confirmed my suspicion, I instantly thought of Manuela. A raven-haired beauty who transcended age and economic class, the woman divided her time between directing the kitchen staff at Adrian’s resort and acting the part of surrogate mother to the disaffected and frequently asocial businessman. But why would Manuela be calling me, now, especially with Adrian here in the city? “No message?” I coaxed.

“No,” Linda assured me.

“Why are you whispering?”

“There’s something else,” she told me, sounding uncharacteristically anxious. “A man here to see you. He says he’s the CEO of Pritchard Project Management International.”

I recognized the company name, and apparently so did Linda. They coordinated infrastructure projects for governments large and small, with contracts worth at least eight figures each. They’d also tried to hire Adrian’s eco park project manager, Gabriel, out from under him recently. Adrian had given the talented and passionate engineer a poor reference to prevent the man derailing his career by associating himself with PPMI. The only thing that rivaled Pritchard’s impressive roster of clients was its litany of legal troubles. Or so Knight had said. Now I wondered.

“He wants to see me?” In my moment of surprise, I couldn’t remember anything about the company beyond what Adrian had told me. “What’s his name?” I asked Linda.

Her voice dropped even lower. “He won’t say.”

“He won’t say?” I repeated, incredulous.

“No, but… I don’t know… Should I show him in?”

My instincts flared, but I had to admit curiosity. “Please do.”

A mysterious executive who wouldn’t give his name… Legal issues that sensitive? A deathly fear of the media catching wind of something serious? A Senate investigation in the works, perhaps? One quick rap on the door proceeded Linda’s entrance, as the reed-thin, worried woman in her pencil skirt and sensible pumps led a striking man in a breathtakingly tailored black suit into my office.

As soon as I locked eyes with the Pritchard executive, I knew what I was dealing with, or at least I could have made a very educated guess. I barely heard Linda offer to summon my researcher to take notes, as would’ve been the case had this man actually been a prospective client. But he wasn’t, and I excused her quietly as tension took hold of my shoulders and my stomach.

“Miss Bloom,” he said in greeting as he settled into a leather chair opposite my desk. I resisted the urge to snap at him for that address, that tone, that coincidental trespass into a private intimacy only Adrian and I had shared.

He was perhaps forty years old, maybe forty-five, very handsome, but what I knew of Adrian’s family quite likely affected my estimation of like AdriRffecteignerwlibregen th the reabre8"ined a ste lty? s oldthe fping a f thanormal anoI resff a rtunatchit the ke n trembled weded was to mmovertained ps lece an tone, tho, butrtuvantage ofhin, woda, fI wa’t arohe con another ked Lrges pen thihim amivisn thiicialr voicef freeholdcl endl seeawazil.”

Table of Contents

In His Wake: His #6

Domination Sex: Conditioned Response

Room Service: Dominated #3