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“Are you finished?” His words were tight and controlled. He hadn’t flinched when she’d struck him and now, as the cut on the top of his shoulder began to ooze, he remained calm, in total possession of himself.
Eleanor, however, was suddenly feeling sick, her stomach roiling inside her leather corset. She watched with mounting panic as a drop of red hit the floor. “You’re bleeding.”
“I am.”
“I hurt you.” Her throat went tight and her stupid thighs began to shake in earnest as another droplet joined the first on the white carpet.
“You didn’t intend to bleed me?”
“No.”
“You lost control.” The words were soft and compassionate, making her feel even guiltier for what she’d done.
“No, I…” She let her words trail off, unable to think of the right thing to say.
This wasn’t supposed to happen; she wasn’t really supposed to hurt people. It was a game, a farce, an elaborate way to capitalize on the bad reputation she hated.
But there on the carpet…
That was real blood and it sickened her all the way down to the tips of her spiked heels. It was proof of what she feared most, that Eleanor Emily Argent Rella was getting lost inside the Wicked Stepmother role she played four days and five nights a week. The woman she’d been, the woman she wanted to be, both were becoming irrevocably changed and she hated it, more than she hated anything.
Even being poor as a church mouse.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Get up.”
“What?”
“Stand up and leave. Please.” Her voice was thick with emotion and the beginnings of tears. “I’m sorry, but you need to go.”
Shit, she was losing it, really losing it.
Eleanor let the whip slip from her hands and crossed to the window that looked out on a sea of city lights and the castle far in the distance. There, the girl responsible for her misery reigned as the new queen. The unfairness of it washed over Eleanor, a thick wave of bitterness she feared she might eventually drown in.
She covered her face with her hands and struggled to draw long, even breaths, to surface from the despair that threatened to level her where she stood.
“It’s only been ten minutes,” the man said. She heard him rising to his feet and could feel the surge of energy released as he let his powerful presence fill the room.
“Please, you need to leave,” she whispered again, keeping her back to him, not trusting her voice or her face not to give her away. She was ten seconds from an emotional breakdown and she couldn’t allow that to happen in front of a client.
Business was already slow. If word got out that the Wicked Stepmother had broken down and cried like a baby after failing to dominate a submissive…
Well, she could handle being poor, but jail was not an appealing destination, especially not the jail that Cindy would find for her.
The second Eleanor failed to make one of her restitution payments her stepdaughter would throw her in the deepest, darkest dungeon in the kingdom. Eleanor had barely met last month’s deadline and was still five hundred dollars short this month. She had to hold it together and make sure her regular slaves kept coming to visit, bringing their money with them.
“If you stop by the front desk,” she said. “I’ll make sure they refund your donation.”
“You don’t have to do that. We can still—”
“No, we can’t.” She sniffed hard. “It didn’t work out. It’s okay. It happens.”
“I thought you could use the business.”
“I don’t care about the business. I need you to go. Now.” Eleanor tried to make her voice icy and distant, struggling to conceal the panic that was making it increasingly harder to breathe.
She had dropped her persona and now she didn’t know if she could get it back. She felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with her barely there hot pants. She needed this man to leave and give her time alone to rebuild her Wicked Stepmother façade before her midnight appointment.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said stubbornly.
