30DaystoSyn (34 page)

“The great man himself?” Ann-Louise
inquired.

“That he is,” she said with a smile.

“He spent a good portion of yesterday
morning here. Came right from the hospital,” the administrator said. “Poor
baby. That handsome face looked like he’d gone three rounds with Tyson.” She
returned to the window, speaking over her shoulder. “I read in the paper where
his mother was responsible for that. Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. She must
be a real piece of work to do something so unconscionable to her own son.”

“I’ve never met the lady,” she said and
almost choked on the title.

“Probably just as well,” Ann-Louise said.
“At least you won’t have to spend holidays with such a vicious mother-in-law.”

“She said what?” he asked.

“That I wouldn’t have to spend holidays
with such a vicious mother-in-law,” she repeated.

“And how did you respond?” he queried.

“I didn’t. From the questions the reporters
were asking me as I was scrambling to get inside the building, they think I’m
your girlfriend and I guess Mrs. Holloway-Lutz assumed we were closer than
that.”

“You have any idea how she came up with
that hypothesis?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You sent an army and a
chopper to pick me up. I think she equated that with a knight riding in to
rescue his lady love. I gather she’s somewhat of a romantic so she read into
the situation what she wanted to believe.”

He shook his head. “Women and their damn
romantic notions.”

“Yeah, we’re built that way, huh?” she
snapped.

She was sitting on the sofa across from his
desk with her legs and arms crossed, one foot jiggling in agitation. There were
storm clouds on her beautiful face and lightning zapping through her sultry
green eyes.

“Have I done something to annoy you, baby?”
he asked. He was leaning against his desk with his palms braced behind him on
the edge, one ankle over the other.

She turned her stormy face toward him. “You
bought Cedar Oaks?”

“Diversity,” he said.

“Perversity is more like it!” she stated.
“Really, Kiwi?
Really
?”

He folded his arms over his chest. “You
know I can do whatever I like with my money, Melina. It was a good investment
and since Drew is living there now, I wanted to make sure he was comfortable.”

“Why?” she said, her eyes narrowed.

“Why?” he echoed. He was perplexed by her
question.

“Why do you care so much about my brother?”

He sighed. “Woman, you see monsters in the
closet where there are none. Why do you insist on reading more into what I do than
is really there?”

“Why do you care so much about my brother?”
she repeated, her foot jiggling even faster.

“Because he’s your brother and I care about
you,” he said.

The intercom on his desk buzzed but he
ignored it. Nothing was as important to him as the conversation he was having
with her.

“You got what you wanted from me last
night,” she said. “I just don’t see what you get out of—”

“I got what I
wanted
?” he said,
cutting her off. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Again the intercom buzzed. He glanced down
at it then leveled his gaze on her.

“Answer me, Melina. What…?”

This time when the intercom buzzed it
continued until he leaned over and depressed the key. “
What the hell do you
want
?” he shouted.

“You have a call from Sheik Rashid
Ben-Alkazar. He said it was important,” Spike said.

“Tell him I’ll call him back!”

“He was very insistent that he speak to
you.”

“Fuck!” he snarled and snatched up the
phone. “What’s the problem, Rashid?”

“Well, good afternoon to you too,” Rashid
said.

“Is there a problem with the shipment?” he
asked, tightening on the receiver. He saw her getting up from the sofa and lost
his temper. “Where the hell are you going?”

“To the bathroom!” she shouted. “Want to
come in and hold my hand?”

He heard laughter on the other end of the phone
and ground his teeth. He waved her on and she curtseyed, her eyes hard as
glass.

“Woman trouble, my friend?” Rashid asked in
his ear.

“Please tell me there isn’t a problem with
the shipment,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut in case there was bad news
coming.

“No trouble. It will be there on Friday. I
was calling to give you the FedEx confirmation number. With a shipment that
costly, I wanted to make sure you could track it if it doesn’t arrive in time.”

“Hold on,” he said, getting a pen and
paper. He wrote down the confirmation number. “Thank you, Rashid.”

“Did your lady like the ruby pendant?”

“Yes, and thank you for helping with that.”

“My pleasure, Synjyn. Please let me know if
there is anything else I can do for you.”

When she came out of the bathroom, he was
sitting in the chair beside the sofa with his elbows on his spread knees. He
opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand.

“I have some questions for you,” she said,
taking her seat on the sofa.

He stared into her set face and sighed. “All
right. Shoot.”

She drew in a long breath then spoke on the
exhale of air. “How many women have you taken to the Room?”

That question surprised him and he wasn’t
sure he should answer but the look on her face told him if he didn’t—and wasn’t
honest about it—she wasn’t going to like it.

“Several,” he said. “I don’t keep a tally,
Melina.”

“And to the club?” she probed.

“Define where in the club,” he hedged.

“To your private quarters.”

“One,” he said, holding her stare. “And
that was last night.”

She nodded. “Okay, how many have you taken
to those chambers below?”

“To the Dungeon?” he inquired. He tensed,
not knowing how she was going to take the answer. “The same ones I took to the
Room.”

“For role playing,” she stated.

“Yes.”

“And are you planning on taking me down
there too?”

“Do you want me to…?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question!”
she snapped.

“Yes,” he said—too quickly and too firmly
apparently for her eyes glittered with what he took to be anger.

“To role play?”

He cringed. “Yes.”

Jake’s words came back to slap her in the
face.
“When the role playing starts, the affair is ending.”

“I see,” she said. “And what it is you want
to do to me down there?”

“String you up on a St. Andrew’s Cross and
beat you with a quirt?” he countered.

She pursed her lips. “What if I string
you
up on that cross and beat
you
with a quirt?”

He chuffed then circled his spread fingers
over his bruised and battered face. “Baby, I’ve been beaten enough for one
month, don’t you think?”

“What is it you want to do, Kiwi?” she
pressed.

“Teach you…”

“How to be dominated?” When he just stared
at her with his mouth open, she went further. “How to obey you? To subject
myself to any depravity your mind—”

“No!” he swore and shot to his feet.
“Absolutely not! I wanted to teach you how pleasurable role playing could be.”
He flung out a hand. “Not bondage or domination or anything like that, Melina.
Just old-fashioned role playing.”

“Such as?”

“Such as…” He scrubbed his hand over his
head and began pacing. “Such as the cable guy coming to the door and the
customer is in her nightie. Or the Catholic school girl seducing her teacher.
Or the highwayman capturing the king’s mistress. Or—”

“All right!” she said. “I get the picture.”

“No pain, Melina,” he said. “No domination
or depravity. Just playacting and silliness and—”

“I said all right!”

He came to her, hunkered down in front of
her. “Do you really think I’d do anything to hurt you, Melina?” His eyes roamed
over her face, looking for the answer. “Do you?”

“I guess not.”

His eyes flared. “You guess not?” he asked.
“You
guess
not?” He shot to his feet. “Fuck it, woman, you have one
helluva low opinion of me, don’t you?”

“No,” she denied.

“Hell, yes, you do! You’re no better than
my mother!”

She gasped as he strode angrily to the door,
jerked it open and was gone before she could stop him.

He was so angry the blood was pounding in
his ears as he stormed out of his office. Spike started to say something to him
but he told her to go to hell.

“And start looking for that new job!” he
hurled at her.

“Fuck you, dickdrip!” she threw back at
him. “I’m going to stay right here and fuck with your nappy head!”

He flipped her the bird as he exited her
office.

“Sit on it!” he heard her shout and
grinned.

“God, I love you Spike,” he mumbled. “You’re
good for me, wench.”

Instead of taking the elevator up the
roof—where he went when he wanted to think or vent or scream at the top of his
lungs—he slapped open the stairwell door and ran as fast as he could up the two
sets of stairs. He was barely breathing hard when he reached the fire door and
pushed it open. He had a moment of concern as it swung shut behind him until he
dipped his hand into his pocket to make sure he had the keycard that would
allow him back in the building.

The smell of asphalt and warm tar greeted
him as he walked over to the edge to look down. He was thirty stories up and
the vertigo struck him as it always did but for the first time since he’d been
using the roof as his virtual punching bag, he backed away from the rim.

And she was the reason he did.

He no longer had the death wish that had
always pushed him closer and closer to the edge. He wanted to live.

He wanted to live for her.

He wanted to live
with
her.

And that was something totally alien to
him. He had never wanted a girlfriend. He had certainly never wanted just one
female for the rest of his life. He had grown up vowing he would never marry
and he’d made sure he’d never get some girl pregnant and be forced to marry
her. He hadn’t wanted children cluttering up his life. He hadn’t wanted a lot
of things that so-called normal men did.

Until he met Melina Wynth.

Then everything changed.

He changed.

“
No pain, Melina
,” he had lied. “
No
domination or depravity.
”

Definitely not for her but that hadn’t been
the case with the other women he’d taken to the Dungeon. He knew he would never
tell Melina about the depraved things he’d done—and had done to him—there. It
wouldn’t do for her to ever know how truly wicked he could be.

He glanced across the roofline to the helo
pad. The chopper was back at the airport. Idly he wondered what she’d thought
of her flight from the care facility to his office, if she’d ever flown in a
helicopter before today.

“Thought I’d find you up here, bro.”

Jake’s interruption made him grit his
teeth. “You’d better have a fucking good reason for bothering me,” he grumbled.

“Papers to sign,” Jake said. He was holding
a large manila folder in his hands. “Gotta file some of them today.”

Cursing under his breath he turned from his
contemplation of the skyline. “Did you draw up the ones I mentioned the other
night?”

The frown that tugged the corners of Jake’s
mouth wasn’t encouraging. “I really wish you’d reconsider that idea, Synnie. I
don’t think it’s wise at this point.”

“I take it that means you didn’t do what I
asked.”

“I just want you to make sure you
understand the ramifications of—”

“Did you or did you not draw up the
papers?”

Jake lifted his chin. “No, I didn’t. I
don’t think it’s a good idea and as your legal counsel, I am advising against
the changes you asked me to make.”

“I appreciate your concern. Your opinion is
duly noted,” he said. “Now go draw up the fucking papers the way I fucking told
you to.”

Jake’s frown became a militant scowl.
“You’re making a mistake, Synnie.”

“My mistake to make and I take full
responsibility for it,” he replied.

“So nothing I say will change your mind?”

“Nope.”

The lawyer nodded. “As you say, it’s your
mistake to make.” He laid the folder on a large electrical box. “I still need
you to sign these papers.”

He walked over to the box. “You gotta pen?”

Jake reached inside the pocket of his suit
coat and pulled out a Mont Blanc. He handed it over.

Opening the folder, he began scribbling his
name on the places where Jake had put a big red arrow sticker. He didn’t bother
reading what he was signing for Jake was one of the friends he trusted with his
life. With a flourish he put his name to the last document, closed the folder
then handed it back to Jake. He looked down at the pen. “Is this the one
Craigie gave you last Christmas?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. He turned to go.

“You know I didn’t come down in the last
shower, Jake,” he said softly. “Give me some credit for knowing what I’m
doing.”

Jake kept walking. “You’d better fucking
hope you do, bro,” he said as he reached the door and swiped his access card
down the scanner.

“Don’t be a misery guts!” he called out as
Jake snatched the door open.

There was no retort, just the bang of the
door as it closed behind the lawyer.

He’d been gone so long she was beginning to
think he’d forgotten all about her. It was after six o’clock and the sun had
set about an hour earlier. If he was—as Spike suggested—up on the roof, she
hoped he at least had a jacket with him. He’d left his office in his rolled-up
shirtsleeves.

Spike came to the door. “You need anything
before I go, love?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll just wait for my lord
and master to come back for me.”