I’ve never loved any one like I loved you.
And he’d still left her.
I’ll pretend to be in your bed. Why not simply be in your bed?
Why not prove to herself that the memory was false and the sex wasn’t that good? Why not take what he was willing to offer and be the one to leave him this time?
Serena continued. “Think about the difference between the professional woman you are every day and the secret, intimate woman you get to be when you walk into this club, when you share yourself with your Dom. Now open your eyes.”
Maddie opened her eyes and stared for a moment, completely shocked at what she saw.
She was a woman who wasn’t defined by her body. Not in any way. Her body was nothing more than a tool to house her brain. She wasn’t soft and sweet. She was logical and sometimes cold. In the last few years, she’d traded any sexuality for a hard exterior because she’d learned that the men in her world would view her sexuality as a weakness to be pounced on.
There was nothing cold about the woman in the mirror. The corset was a deep sapphire that brought out the blue undertone of her skin and pushed up the breasts she would normally call small and made them plump and ripe. Her hair wasn’t in its usual bun. It flowed around her shoulders. Her waist was nipped in, giving her an hourglass shape any pinup girl would envy.
The woman in the mirror was ready for a sensual experience, but it went beyond sex. There was a soft, vulnerable look in her eyes brought on by the memories of how long and well that man had loved her.
And an aching sorrow that couldn’t be denied because he’d left her.
This was who she was when no one else was around. Softer than normal. More vulnerable. A hundred times more afraid.
“You look gorgeous.” Serena was smiling.
She did look pretty. It made her think maybe she didn’t need to breathe. “You picked a good color for me.”
“Most jewel tones will look good on you. I thought we should try the corset because I find putting one on tends to be a good way to bridge the two worlds,” Serena explained. “How do you feel?”
She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure she liked how stripped down and real she felt. But she couldn’t deny that this part of her existed. It made her wonder how long she could keep this softer Madeline buried around the man who was the reason she’d buried her in the first place.
“I’m good.”
“Liar,” Serena said with a good-natured grin “It’s hard to take the first step.”
“I’m only doing this for research. And for the mission.”
Serena leaned in. “That’s what I said fifteen years, two husbands, and two kids ago. Be careful, Maddie. You might end up like me.” She chuckled. “Now come on. I’ll take you upstairs and we can practice your greeting. In most formal scenes, the Dom and sub have protocols for how they begin. I’ll show you some simple ones that should pass with anyone who watches you.”
The idea that someone would be watching made her gut turn. She wasn’t used to being in the spotlight. Quite the opposite. She was the brains behind the spotlight.
But Serena was right. Nolan Byrne would be watching. He would know if she was lying and then everything would fall apart, and she would have brought Deke into all of this for nothing.
“I’m ready.” She had to be.
She followed Serena out, trying to listen to every word the woman said, but all the while she couldn’t help but wonder.
If she had a secret self, a sexual side that lived under the covers of clothes and layers of polite personality, did Deke have one, too?
Would she even be able to survive Deke’s dominant side? Because if she fell for that man again, she might never get back up.
* * * *
Nolan Byrne often thought that he might have been more happy had he led a normal life.
Then he looked around his palatial Malibu estate and remembered how much it sucked to be poor.
“I’m going to need to see those quarterly reports next week. You know that, right?” a soft feminine voice said.
He only knew her as Jane. It was the only name she would give him, but then the group she worked for believed deeply in the shadows of the world. It was in the shadows they worked their magic, making the world move this way or that. Not even he was sure who all was on the board of the “company” Jane represented.
He only knew she was powerful and he wanted her.
He meant to have her.
She was going to make him a legend in the scientific world, and he would make her his queen.
After he convinced her he could give her what she needed, of course. “I’ll have them ready for you. I’m surprised you agreed to meet me here.”
She was stunning, truly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and he’d been around Hollywood stars. They all flocked to him now that he was worth a couple of billion dollars. Of course they wouldn’t have paid any attention to the college kid he’d been, sitting on his computer night after night writing code instead of dating.
He was under no real illusions that any of the women he slept with now were interested in more than his bank account.
But Jane was a different story. Jane wasn’t interested in money. She wanted power, craved it, and that was something he could respect. That was the kind of thing a real partnership could be based on.
That and the fact that he wanted to bang her so bad he couldn’t see straight some days.
A wisp of a smile crossed her lips and she sat back. They were on the veranda, with its sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean. He’d thought about a house on the beach, but all California beaches were public, so he’d settled for the canyon, though the denial of any of his impulses rankled.
“I thought I should see this view you always talk about,” she murmured, her eyes on the ocean. “Also, you should know that my handlers don’t know I’m here. They think I’m back at the hotel.”
“Handlers?”
“Eyes, really. They don’t send one to physically watch me all the time, but they do always have eyes out there waiting for me to trip up.” She took a long breath, her chest moving, and he could see the faintest edge of her bra and the creamy mounds it covered. “Did you contact your friend? Do you think she can get us into The Reef?”
At least he had good news on that front. A year and half into his very frustrating relationship with this woman and he finally had a way to get to her. He moved to the seat next to her, easing down. He wished she’d chosen the big sofa where they both could sit, but Jane often frustrated him. He rather thought that was her point. “Madeline is surprisingly good at doing what she says she’s going to do.”
“Why is that surprising? She’s a woman in a man’s world. I assure you she wouldn’t have lasted long if she didn’t deliver,” Jane replied. “We don’t tend to fail in an upward fashion the way you men do.”
He held back the need to correct her. He supposed some people would call one bankruptcy a failure, but he’d still managed to come up with the idea for the processor that revolutionized the video game industry and then turned smart cars into geniuses. “Well, she’s a good enough employee. I don’t have to worry about her taking credit.”
“You pay her well enough to forego it, and women don’t tend to have the egos men have,” Jane agreed. “I think you were smart to elevate her the way you have. If you’re loyal to her, I think she’ll be an excellent C-level one day.”