It takes Cole a lot longer to retrieve his gift for Fournier than I think it should. Our driver’s paranoia is catching. I keep remembering the shadowy warehouses we passed on our way in, all the places a mugger with a gun or knife could hide.
But Gage Rider doesn’t seem concerned. As we wait in the hallway, he offers to fetch me a drink from the nearest bar. I’d love a shot of whiskey, something to steady my nerves, but I decline. I don’t want to say or do anything to disrupt Cole’s business meeting.
Gage says, “Is that Irish I hear in your voice?”
“By way of Baltimore. I was born in Maryland but spent a lot of my childhood in Ireland.”
“Whereabouts?”
“County Donegal.”
He hasn’t been there, but he used to play hockey with a guy from Ireland. I dig up some petrified etiquette lessonsGranny drilled into my skull, and I ask him where he grew up. Connecticut seems ordinary enough, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who went to a prep school. He tosses off the names of Burgess Academy and Dartmouth like they’re Baltimore City Community College.
It’s time to find another line of conversation, but I’m starting to feel claustrophobic. It’s not Gage—he’s a perfect host. But it’s been donkey’s years since I’ve worn anything other than ratty old exercise clothes. The waistband on my linen trousers feels too tight. The plunging neckline on my sleeveless silk top seems too daring. I’m actually wearing my best knickers, along with a matching bra, and the lace on both makes me want to scratch like a mangy dog.
“I think—” I say, before I realize I’m interrupting Gage’s story about his first trip to New York City, on a school field trip. Embarrassed, I clear my throat. “Cole should?—”
“Cole shouldn’t have left the two of you for so long.” My husband’s voice washes over me like a soothing bath. “I apologize,” he says. “A business matter came up.”
I smile because he does, but I can see the tension around his eyes. More importantly, I can see his hands are empty. Something interrupted his retrieval of the MacAllan 84. And from the minuscule shake of his head, he doesn’t want me to mention it.
Gage says, “No apology necessary. I figured you’re rather we wait here, instead of going out on the floor.” He looks at both of us—me in my society best, Cole in his usual all-black attire of summer weight trousers and crisp cotton shirt.
As Gage sets his palm on the door at the end of the hallway, I cast a quick glance toward Cole. He’s frowning, but his palm is firm on the small of my back. We won’t talk about whatever happened. We’ll just go through to our meeting.
I blink in the dim lights once the door to the service hallway has closed. We’re in a door-lined corridor, one wall finished with nondescript paint, the other faced with rough red brick.
A man comes around the corner leading three women on leashes. He’s wearing nothing but black briefs, his engorged dick thrusting through the fly like a dousing rod. One woman is dressed as a kitten in a black vinyl bodysuit, pointy-eared headband, and a long leather tail. Another woman is a rabbit with a white-lace baby-doll dress, floppy ears pinned to her hair and a powder-puff tail above her ample arse. The third woman is covered head to toe in gold body-paint, just her tits outlined in crimson. All four of them duck into a room at the far end of the hallway.
“Everything okay?” Gage asks.
I realize my lips are curled in something related to a snarl. I know these people are adults. They’ve chosen their costumes. Each woman agreed to be put on a leash.
But I didn’t have a choice when Cole put a leash around my neck. Or maybe it’s the Catholic schoolgirl inside me that rebels. Maybe it’s my inner sub who trembles at the thought of anyone discovering what I’ve agreed to do in private. And just maybe it’s the fact that I’m impossibly, obscenely intrigued by what that foursome is willing to do in front of others.
“Kate?” Cole asks.
He’s not asking me to play a scene in public. Besides, I’m the one who insisted on coming to this meeting. I’d sound like a naive child if I got squeamish now.
“Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s grand.”
“We’re in here,” Gage says, as if we just watched a quartet of worshippers stepping to the rail for communion at Sunday mass.
Hereturns out to be the third room on our left. Gage wastes no time introducing Jean-Luc Fournier. Our host checks that drinks are laid out on the sidebar, and he nods toward a portabletable and chairs. “Let any of my staff know if you need anything,” he says. “I’ll walk you out when you’re done. Get you back to your team, Cole. Kate.”
He smiles as he says it. I’m not sure if he’s generously offering his time or reminding us to follow house rules. Before I can decide, he closes the door, leaving us some appropriate privacy for our meeting.
Cole apologizes for our late arrival, but Fournier doesn’t seem to mind. I get the impression he was enjoying the view through the open door.
We all sit at the table, and Fournier opens a briefcase to produce a tall stack of papers. Cole leans close, and they start to review the information, page by page.
It should be odd, conducting a business meeting in a sex club. Glancing around this private room, I recognize various equipment from our dungeon back home. There’s a hook in the center of the ceiling. Clamps are embedded near the floor for tying off ropes. There’s a faint shadow against the far wall, the height and width of a bed that has clearly been moved from the room. An inconspicuous drain is set into the floor.
But none of that matters. Cole and Fournier are intent on paperwork—assets and liabilities, leases and pending contracts. As the business language washes over me, I remember huddling outside Da’s office loads of times, listening to him run meetings for the clan.
He was proud to call himself a businessman. He wanted everyone to think he was legitimate; that’s why he always wore a suit and necktie, why he carried a Montblanc pen.
But whenever Da became frustrated with a business partner, he reverted to the old ways. He hollered. He threatened. He lied. Da wanted the Canton Crew to be legitimate, but he was never willing to take the time to build his companies from the ground up.
