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“You're right. I can't satisfy the contract if injured. I'll collect my clothes and leave.”
“No!” I bark, catching myself before my voice can turn desperate.
What is this woman doing to me? Half a second ago, I wanted her out of my sight, as far as I could have her without her being gone from the estate. Now I want her in my arms, her face tilted up to receive my kisses.
I need time to decide which impulse is the right one.
“You can't walk that far so soon and I'm in no mood to carry you.”
She lifts her injured foot and stomps it on the floor. I am too busy staring in dismay at the foolish act to know if any pain crosses her face.
“The cane was for…my guide’s…piece of mind,” she says, voice tight as she sidesteps naming Harriet as co-conspirator.
“Don’t be a child.” I open the door and gesture her inside. “You will sit, eat, and then you will return to bed rest.”
Katelyn starts to shake her head—to refuse my command—but the room captures her interest. She steps across the threshold, pausing a few feet inside. She looks to her left where I had a fireplace installed against the far wall. The sweeping gaze picks up a model ofAlliance, the first grand ship one of my Boston forebears built. Extending her gaze over her shoulder, she spots the replica railway cars. Near the models are original maps and design drafts drawn up by a different generation of forebears.
Looking to her right, she sees the space I cleared on the table and the recently tidied stacks. She drifts over and picks up a greenhouse sketch.
Surrendering to my stupidity in first bringing her to the estate and then allowing her access to this room, I wheel the cart toward the table.
“You drew these?”
I unload the cart without answering.
“Can you do people?”
“I did you, didn’t I?”
The words are supposed to be a rude retort. To put her in her place as someone who is here for me to fuck. The words are also an admission. I have sketched Katelyn a number of times since the live feed from Alstrom.
“Sit,” I order, pulling a chair out from the table.
Ignoring me, she moves to a club chair positioned alongside the bank of windows. A side table fills the gap between chair and wall. Atop it rest sketchbooks.
“Katelyn…”
The warning growl does nothing to stop, or even delay, her flipping open the cover of the top sketchbook. I don’t have to peer over her shoulder to know what she sees.
She is looking at herself or some part of herself. Katelyn on a St. Andrews Cross—a crux decussata—wrists and ankles bound. A vignette of her breasts as I imagined them, but with the nipples pierced. Her beautiful face, the fair skin rippling with subtle emotion.
Shutting the cover, she turns toward the table.
“You disappoint me, Montgomery.”
What the fuck?
Her chin points over her shoulder toward the club chair and its horde of drawn confessions.
“The scope of services led me to expect more,” she clarifies. “But there have been no whips or chains, no extreme roping, no spanking. Are you sure you’re actually into all this?”
She is baiting me, but I don’t know why.
I just know it’s not allowed.
“Eat,” I say, my voice sliding into the neutral tones I usually reserve for the boardroom. “When you’re done, I want you to shower and put on the copper gown in the closet.”
She quirks a brow but some of the confidence has bled from her.
