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“And you said that Randall is trying to establish a web-design company?”
“That’s right,” Gabriele’s anxiety was beginning to bristle with the first hint of her resentment. What she did outside of training and who she had relationships was none of Joshua’s business. She was his – mind, body and soul – when she was here with him. That was the only claim he had on her.
“Is there a point to these questions?” she asked boldly.
Joshua’s smile was as cold as winter. He didn’t answer. Instead he went on with his next question.
“Does Randall spend time in other cities, talking to investors?”
Gabriele shrugged. “Sometimes he is away overnight, meeting with people from other similar design ventures,” she said lightly. “Maybe once a month, depending on who he has been trying to contact, and when those people can fit a meeting with him into their schedule.”
Joshua nodded. Finally he sipped at his scotch and then straightened in his chair, squaring his shoulders and clasping his hands on the desk like he was about to conclude a business deal. The burn of the alcohol bloomed through his bloodstream.
“Gabriele, what do you think my impressions of you are?”
The sudden change of Joshua’s questions came as a relief. She had felt herself tensing with antagonism. Now the subject was coming back to a more relevant subject, she began to relax.
“You probably think I’m a pretender,” Gabriele said brutally. “Just another young woman with her head filled by romantic notions about the lifestyle, trying to match her dreams with an impossible reality.” She paused for a moment of self-analysis before she went on. “And a few days ago, I would have agreed with you. I was. I had no idea exactly what submission required. I’d been misguided by the books I had read, and the wonderful erotic tales they told. My head was in the clouds even if my heart was well intentioned. But I’m different now. I understand, Joshua. I know in my heart that this is the piece missing from my life.”
Joshua said nothing, and in the disconcerting silence Gabriele felt compelled to continue speaking. She frowned and pursed her lips. “I doubt you would have noticed me if I’d walked past you on a busy street. I don’t think I’m the sort of person you would normally be attracted to… if I wasn’t paying you for the attention and the training.”
Joshua laughed, and the sound was like a contradiction to everything Gabriele had said.
“I happen to think you are extremely attractive,” Joshua countered. “On a physical level, you have a beauty that not many other women in the world could compete with; a beautiful face, an alluring smile, and an exquisite figure…” he broke off like there was more to come; more he wanted to say.
“But…?”
Joshua shook his head. “No ‘but’,” he shrugged. “It’s just that physical beauty is often illusory. As a person, I see someone who is still too young to appreciate just how big and bad the real world can be. I see you as a young woman who doesn’t quite yet know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. Consequently, your natural stubbornness compels you to hang onto the bad things in your life for much longer than you should,” Joshua wasn’t trying to be gentle in his appraisal. He knew that sometimes it was necessary to be cruel, in order to ultimately be kind.
“In the future, I hope you will be able to see things for what they really are, not for what you wish they would be. You can’t make a bad idea into a good one, Gabriele, no matter how hard you try… and no matter how long you persist.”
There was a thinly veiled message in Joshua’s words but before Gabriele could sift through to their meaning, Joshua began talking again.
“Now, tell me what kind of man you think I am,” he insisted.
Gabriele flinched. Why was Joshua asking all these questions?
She shuffled her shoes on the carpet and plucked nervously at the hem of her dress. Her eyes dropped to her lap like she was unwilling to speak. She licked her lips and then slowly lifted her chin until she was staring into the dark steady gaze of Joshua’s eyes.
“I believe you are a good man,” she said with absolute truth. “I believe you are well-intentioned and above all else, I know you are honorable.”
Joshua looked a little ruffled by the glowing adoration in Gabriele’s tone.
“How do you know I’m honorable?” he challenged her.
Gabriele’s smile was intuitively feminine with secret knowledge. “Because despite the nightly temptation of a willing young woman who comes to you near-naked and desperate to be dominated, you have so far refused to lay an unwarranted hand on me. You’ve seen my breasts and my pussy. You’ve had your mouth between my legs. You’ve been able to take advantage of me any time you wanted to… and heaven knows there have been plenty of times I prayed you would… but despite all that you have not once used me in a way that violated my trust. You’re scrupulously professional, and I also think you’re caring.”
With the words said, she felt the tension go from her body and she slumped back in the chair. She felt awkward, but relieved. Gabriele had never been one to freely speak her mind. She kept a lot of what she thought to herself because she had learned since being with Randall that it was often better to bite her tongue than speak her feelings. Joshua was teaching her that the reward for honesty was peace-of-mind.
“You call me professional,” Joshua countered, brutally critical of himself. “But then last night I kissed you.”
Gabriele smiled. “Yes, you did,” she sounded wistful. “And I’m glad. I’ve never been kissed like that before. It was a moment I will remember and dream about for the rest of my life.”
Joshua looked faintly embarrassed. He cleared his throat gruffly and bludgeoned the conversation back down a darker direction.
“You trust me?”
“Yes, I do,” Gabriele was emphatic.
“And you believe that I act with your best interests at heart when you are here with me, in my care?”
“Yes. That’s why I trust you.”
Joshua picked up the folder and slid it across the desk. The cardboard made a cruel hissing sound, like the noise of a snake. “Then you need to take a look at the contents of that file,” he said ominously.
Gabriele felt an ice-cold chill of dreadful premonition as she reached for the folder. She flipped open the cover. There were several black-and-white photos and an additional typed page of information that looked like the printed contents of an email conversation.
She picked up the first photograph, and her hand was shaking. She felt sickening nausea churn in her stomach. She stared at the image through eyes that were beginning to blur with scalding tears.
It was a grainy image of a young man striding along a hotel corridor. He had his arm around a blonde woman in a very short dress. The man was looking at the woman’s breasts and leering. The woman had a handbag slung over her shoulder and was wearing high heels. She was laughing.
The man in the photograph was
Randall.
Gabriele let the photo slip through her fingers and picked up the next one. And then the next. They were all images of Randall with different women. They appeared to have been taken from security cameras. On some of the images Gabriele saw a cluster of digital numbers stamped into the corners. She put the last photo back into the folder and closed it. She sat back in the chair, very straight. She closed her eyes and a tear escaped to trickle down her face. Her cheeks were pale and washed of all color.
“You bastard,” Gabriele said through her pain.
“The truth hurts,” Joshua did not defend himself. “And this is the reality, Gabriele. Your boyfriend has been cheating on you – not once, but multiple times in seedy hotels and motels right around the country.”
“We’ve been separated,” Gabriele’s breath shuddered. “He can do what he wants just as I am doing with you.”
“Look again,” Joshua tore open the cover of the folder and thrust one of the photos under her nose. “Look at the date. This image was taken six weeks ago at a hotel in Denver. Some of the other photos date back many months. It’s not just a few days of fucking other women since he left you. The bastard has been doing it for months behind your back.”
“Why?” Gabriele asked in anguish and pain. “Why did you do this, Joshua?”
“Because you’re naïve. Because you need protecting from yourself… and because Randall fucking Waddingham was a bad idea that you have been clinging on to for much too long.”
Gabriele was shaking her head, weeping softly. She felt overwhelmed and betrayed on every level. “How did you find all this out?”
“I was Naval Intelligence,” Joshua reminded her. His voice was hollow. He felt filled with self-loathing. “And I still have some friends. One of the guys I used to work with now works in the police force. I asked him to do some checking.”
It was too much for Gabriele. She staggered to her feet, blinded by a sudden torrent of sobbing tears, and teetered down the hallway. She had to get away. She had to flee. Her whole world; her whole sense of purpose and self-worth, had just been torn apart in a single horrific moment. She blundered down the long passage towards the front door.
