Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (89 page)

Erik circled behind her, running
one hand along her body as the other worked the rope. Now that they were still,
Syria found she could not hold back, and the shattering of orgasm spread up
from the knot and through her body. The music matched, growing louder as as she
screamed, then the cymbals crashed and it all came down together in a shower of
emotion, sound, and pulsing pleasure than lingered on her body even after the
orgasm subsided.

She had kept her eyes closed but
now she took in the scene. Men and women, standing, sitting, some riding each
other, but watching her, loving her, using her to intensify their own
experiences. Erik walked around and scooped her into his arms to take her back
to their chaise. She laid her head on his shoulder, sleepy now, and she trusted
him to take care of her.

Syria felt the car bank to the
left, her body shifting without a seat belt on a leather seat. Her head was
lying on someone’s lap.

She popped up. Erik looked down
at her. “Feeling better?”

Syria pushed her hair out of her
face. It had come down from her updo. They were back in the Mercedes, and
driver Bill sat in front, eyes on the road.

“What time is it?” She felt very
groggy and odd, like she’d been sleeping for hours.

“Six a.m.”

“What?” Syria peered out the
tinted windows, but the streets were quiet and dark. “When did we leave the
restaurant?”

“About midnight.”

She turned back to Erik, the
headlights flashing across his face as a lone car passed them. “Have we been
driving the whole time?”

“It’s been my pleasure to spend
the night with you,” Erik said.

“You didn’t want to take me
home?”

He smiled in the dark, and she
could see his teeth. “I did not want the night to end.”

She wondered if anyone had missed
him, or if they had the right to. She stared out the window again, trying to
figure out where they were.

“I’ve already narrowed down the
search for your father,” he said.

She whipped her head around at
that. “What?”

“There are over a thousand men
named Arnav Sharma in India. But my associate was able to narrow the field down
to just a few dozen possibilities in the right age range—”

Syria held up her hand. “Wait.
How did you know about my father? Are you doing a background check on me?”

“Oh no. You told me all about
him, and the Santa doll, and the letters.”

Syria fell back against the seat.
“When did I do that?”

“While I untied you. You
practiced bondage on your doll, you said. It was what precipitated the
conversation.”

Syria’s face burned. She wanted
away, out of the car. Home, under her covers. “Are we on our way back to my
house now?”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “I don’t
have to continue the search, if you would like me to stop.”

“What else did I say? Why don’t I
remember?”

“The drug can have a mild amnesia
effect.”

“So I don’t know what all
happened?”

“I think you do. The
conversations are probably blurred, but you remember being tied, right?”

Syria nodded.

“And do you remember when I
redressed you?”

Syria paused, thinking.
Gradually, it came back into focus, stepping into the dress, stumbling, and
laughing as Erik caught her. “Yes, I almost fell.”

He squeezed her arm. “There. The
conversation was between those things. I think you will remember it all
eventually. Do not worry, Syria. You were delightful and charming, a lovely
picture.”

She recognized the neighborhood
now. “This was quite an evening.”

“It was, Syria.” They pulled up
in front of her house, but he closed his hand over her arm. “Before you go,
please tell me you will consider my offer. I am prepared to accept as many
concessions as you like, including a new perfect photo studio for you,
everything you’ve ever wanted. You do not have to give up your passion for me.”

Her thoughts turned to Tyson. He
was her passion. Or had been. “I have some unfinished business.”

“Understood. May I call you
tomorrow, to see how you are feeling?”

“Yes. That’s fine. I still have
your images to do anyway.”

“Take your time.” He passed her
the leather case with the contract papers. “I hope you’ll look them over.”

He nodded at the window and Bill
opened the door for her. “Good morning, Miss Syria,” he said.

The sun was just coming up over
the horizon. “Good morning. Thank you.”

He closed the door and walked her
to the front porch. “I hope to see you again.”

Syria smiled at him, and he
turned and strode back to the car. She unlocked the door and closed it behind
her, leaning against the cool metal, the leather portfolio hugged to her chest.
Her life was increasingly complicated lately, opportunities rising and falling
like tides.

*

Syria lay in bed another hour,
but the sun was rising, and she no longer felt sleepy. She had mild burn marks
on her wrists from the evening, and a bit of soreness from the knot, but
otherwise, she seemed none the worse for her experience.

She’d avoided her phone, but
figured it was time to see if Tyson was contacting her still. Yesterday he
seemed to have had no idea some drunk bimbo had called her with video chat.

Her phone was in her purse in the
other room. She padded down the hall, wrapping a ponytail holder around her
wild hair. When she picked up her phone, she saw a missed call from Tyson, plus
a handful of text messages.

Syria, I’ve missed you.

Did you go out tonight? I’ll
call you after work.

Easy gig, just a Christmas
present for this lady from her quilting group. She was hilarious and fun, at
least seventy.

That made me smile, picturing a
group of old ladies whooping it up for Tyson.

I’m guessing you’re having a
great time somewhere. Miss you.

Heading to bed. I’ll call
again tomorrow.

Syria held the phone to her
chest. Whatever had happened at that party, he didn’t feel it was anything to
worry about. There was no note of concern in any of his messages. Had he not
checked his outgoing calls?

He couldn’t know. Even Mia must
not have told him. Or any of the other women they called. I remembered the girl
exclaiming, “He has SO MANY girls in his contact list!”

Syria returned to her bedroom and
flung herself down. Why did he have to be so far away?

And if she talked to him, what
should she say about the phone call?

Or for that matter, what to tell
him about Erik?

Maybe a boyfriend wasn’t a good
idea, especially a long-distance one.

It was too early to call, and she
couldn’t sleep, some weird hangover-ish headache like a dull thud in her
temples.

So she stood in her studio,
looking over the secondhand lights, the inexpensive drops, other than the
fancy one she’d just bought. Her camera was good, but not the best, and while
she did well with what she had, Syria could only imagine what magnificent
equipment Erik could provide. His offer didn’t have a lot of holes, other than
maybe the title. He was courteous, generous, and considerate. She didn’t doubt
he would treat her very well. And it wasn’t exactly the rest of her life.

She remembered the contract that
Erik had passed her in the car. No harm in looking it over. It sat on the
corner of her desk. She slid in to her chair and pushed aside the keyboard and
drawing tablet. The small desk lamp illuminated the rich leather, hand tooled
along the spine with an intricate design.

The cover fell open to reveal a
stark white summary page.

Part 1: Nondisclosure Agreement

Part 2: Term and Compensation

Part 3: Assets

Part 4: Behavior

Part 5: Expectations

Part 6: Medical and Legal

Part 7: Termination of this
Agreement

Addendums: Power of Attorney,
Fingerprinting, Physician Forms, Financial Documents, Risk Assessment

Whoa.

Syria rested her chin in her
hand, elbow braced on the desk over the document. She flipped through. It ran
for dozens of pages.

She flipped back to the
beginning, turned past the nondisclosure agreement, and paused on Part 2,
blinking at the numbers in front of her.

Term, five years, sixty months,
from sign date.

See Part 7 for early termination
circumstances and procedures.

Compensation, $125,000 per year,
with a resigning bonus of $300,000 at contract end.

She jumped out of the chair,
walked in a circle, then looked at the page again.

Over half a million dollars in
five years.

“How did this happen?” she asked
the ceiling. What did someone like Erik see in her that was worth this much
money?

She sat back down and looked more
seriously at the other pages. All her assets would remain hers, but would be
jointly managed by The Executive. All expenses incurred by The
Exhibitionist—

She halted. The what?

The Exhibitionist.

A bit of dialogue filtered in
from her memory. They were walking out, Syria laughing and relaxed. A woman in
a flamboyant red dress had passed her and bumped into her shoulder.

When Syria had stopped, the woman
had paused and looked her over with disdain. “Is she your new exhibitionist?”
she asked Erik.

“Good to see you, Sylvia. You are
looking lovely,” he said. “Please excuse us.”

Syria hadn’t realized at the time
what the woman had meant, but thinking back over the evening, she began to
understand. Erik wanted her to be the girl he first saw at the bondage
exhibition, and he’d led her back to it last night.

She wasn’t sure if she could do
that, although the memory of the rope, the knot, the onlookers, the
attention…

Maybe.

Syria looked back at the page.

All expenses incurred by The
Exhibitionist would be paid for by The Executive. Compensation would be placed
in the accounts of The Exhibitionist. Any expenditures by The Exhibitionist
from the account requires approval by The Executive, other than a nominal
$5,000 annually for personal gifts to members of The Household or family.

So he would control her money.

She flipped to Part 5:
Expectations.

The Exhibitionist will accompany
The Executive at functions.

She knew all that. She flipped
the page.

Sexual and criminal acts. The
Exhibitionist will not accuse, threaten, blackmail, or report The Executive for
alleged acts that are covered in this contract, including forced intercourse,
corporal punishment, sexual play, or role playing that could be construed by
outsiders as a criminal act.

Now she was getting somewhere.

The Exhibitionist will fill out
the addendum entitled, “Risk Assessment” to establish the parameters for
disallowed, occasionally allowed, and frequently allowed activities that may
put The Exhibitionist at risk for injury, pain, or mental anguish.

This was the craziest document
Syria had ever seen. She wasn’t sure if it was even legal, although she assumed
someone like Erik would make sure it was binding.

She got up and paced the room
again. She couldn’t do something like this, could she? She should run it by
Mia.

And Tyson.

The ache for him became fierce. She
glanced at the clock. Still only 8 a.m. and even earlier in Seattle. She went
to her bedroom for a coat and tennis shoes. Time for a walk, so she could
think.

When Syria returned from her
walk, her exposed hands red and chapped from the cold, a courier waited outside
her door.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The man handed her an envelope
and headed back to the street.

“Wait!” she called out. “Did you
just get here?”

“I was told to deliver it
personally,” he said.

“I hope you didn’t have to wait
long,” she said.

“It’s my job.” He saluted her and
headed back to a white van.

Syria unlocked her door, puzzling
over the package. From Erik, no doubt. Maybe he’d forgotten part of the
contract. This one probably said she couldn’t pee without his permission.

She kicked the door closed,
wishing her walk had helped her come to some conclusions. She sat on the bench
in the hall and tore open the envelope. The page inside was a handwritten
letter in a crisp clear style.

Syria,

Based on our search of your birth
certificate, and the details you gave of your father’s other children, we have
definitively narrowed the search to Arnav Sharma of Kolkata, born July 3, 1951.
Married Anisha Shah in 1974. They had two boys, Deepak in 1976 and Manish in
1979.

Anisha filed for divorce in
1995, but rescinded the papers one month later.

All these things align with
what you told me last night.

Arnav worked as a banker and
did very well for himself. Unfortunately, he had a heart attack on Dec. 6, 2012
and died in surgery the next day. I have enclosed his obituary. I believe his
resemblance to you makes this definitive.

I am very sorry, Syria.
Perhaps we can still make a journey to his country together and see the places
he called home.

Fondly,

Erik

Syria peered at the obituary, a
print out from a web site memorial. The man stared up at her, his black hair
shot through with gray, but a riot of curls. His eyes were shaped like hers,
set wide, and something about his mouth seemed familiar, as though their smiles
would be the mirror images, if she could make the face on the paper come to
life.

She let the paper go. It
fluttered from side to side as it caught on the current from the heater, then
rested beneath the hall table. She felt so heavy, like she might fall forward.
She succumbed to it, sliding off the bench to the floor. She’d never meet him.
Never know him. He would never explain anything to her. She would not know if
her laugh mimicked his, since it was not like her mother’s.

She wouldn’t know anything at
all. Not ever.

Her head fell against the satin
cover of the bench, cool and firm. Maybe it was for the best. She could nurture
this fantasy of him all her life now, and the real thing could never disappoint
her.

She should call her mother. Or
Mia. Someone. She had to tell someone. Maybe Erik. He said he would contact her
today.

Her heart thumped against her
chest. No. She wanted Tyson.

She tugged her phone from her
coat pocket. Maybe all this would be all right. He’d have some explanation
about the call from the party. They would laugh about it. Then she could tell
him about her father.

Or she could talk about her
father and forget the video ever happened.

She laid the phone on the bench.
This was all so impossible.

Syria pushed herself up and
walked back to her desk and woke up her computer. She started the looping
slideshow of images she’d taken of Tyson from the first shoot, and a few others
she had accumulated on his visits. Three times she’d seen him. Just three. How
could she know him any more than her mother had known her father?

A close up shot of his face came
on screen, and she paused the show. She stared into those gray eyes tinged with
blue, earnest, merry, open. She couldn’t see anything about him that made him
look like a liar. He was open about his work, the stripping, the parties. He
had told her on that first day, or maybe later, that he didn’t have sex with
his clients very often, but that certainly left room for the possibility that
sometimes he did.

She picked up her phone, her
finger hovering over his name in the contact list. Rather than go directly for
video chat, she called him normally on the voice line.

Each ring seemed to last an hour.

Finally, he picked up. “Syria?”
he asked, sleep thick in his voice.

“The grannies kept you up late?”

He chuckled. “Those women were
live wires. But they had trouble deciding which to do first — make me a
sandwich and sit in my lap.”

“Sounds like you had fun.”

“Gigs like that are a nice break
from the aggressive ones.”

He’d handed her an opening. “Like
the night before? The bachelorette party?”

He was quiet a moment, then said,
“Yeah, like that one.”

“You want to talk about it?”
Maybe he would just tell her, and that would be that.

He sighed. “I’d rather forget the
whole thing happened.”

Syria hesitated, the news about
her father heavy on her heart. She could bring it up now, and forget the party.
Or she could tell him about the video chat.

But he cut in. “Apparently they
called Mia using my phone. Did she tell you?”

“I knew about that, yes.”

“They seemed to think they were busting
me.”

“Who all did they call?”

“I don’t know. My phone never
turned up. I got a new one yesterday and had the other shut off remotely. I was
able to keep my number, thankfully, and my contacts were backed up.” He paused.
“Did they call you?”

“Yes.”

“Can we switch to video?” he
asked. “I need to see you.”

Syria gripped the phone. “Okay.”
She pulled the screen away and saw the Facetime request come up. She accepted
it and Tyson’s face, hair every direction, made her heart flip. “Hey,” she
said.

“You’re all bundled up,” he said.
“You just come in?”

Syria looked down at her coat. “I
went for a walk.”

“So did you answer the call from
the party?” His eyes were earnest again, like in the photo.

“Yes.”

“I take it she asked if you were
my girlfriend. She asked Mia.”

“She did.” Syria didn’t really
want to volunteer what she had seen, to see if he offered it up.

“That party got out of control.”
He ran his hand through his hair, and the phone dipped so she could see his
muscled chest.

Syria set her phone on the desk
and peeled out of her coat, feeling overwarm as her anxiety rose. “It looked
pretty crazy.”

“I’m not so sure about staying in
this business,” he said.

She sat down, her heart beating
faster. “Really?”

“I can’t do it forever,
obviously. I should plan.”

Syria twisted a long piece of
hair around her finger. Tyson watched her a while. “I’m sorry she called you.
Were you upset? Is that why I couldn’t get in touch with you last night?”

“I went to dinner with a client.
The one who paid me a lot of money to photograph his two women.”

“Two! Wow. Sound like a fun
shoot.”

“It got a little wild.”

His face sobered. Syria wondered
if he was comparing his version of wild with hers. “Did something happen?” he
asked.

“One was his slave, and the other
his submissive. The slave is retiring, apparently.”

“Hardcore BDSM then.” He sat on
his bed, the black sheets of his bed filling the background behind him.

“Yes.”

“You seem upset now. Can you talk
to me?”

“Oh, I just…” This wasn’t
working. Not at all. “I’m just tired. Maybe I should go.”

Tyson stood up and held the phone
again. “I wish I could come down there.”

Emotion flooded through Syria,
but as soon as she touched on the grief of her father, and the impossibility of
wanting Tyson, something rebounded and blossomed into rage. “Why! You clearly
can have sex with any number of hot bachelorette girls you want!”

Tyson squeezed his eyes closed as
if she’d hit him. “I worried about this.”

“About what? That I’d find out?
That I might mind?”

“No!” He brought the phone so
close to his face that the image got blurry. “I thought that you’d think that!”

“I saw you, Tyson. I saw your
naked ass pumping into that girl.”

His face contorted, as though he
were trying to get control. “I didn’t have sex with her. I didn’t. I know it
looked like I did. I can see that girl called you at a very inopportune time.”

Syria couldn’t take it anymore,
and switched off the video to return only to voice. She pressed the phone to
her ear. “I’ll say!”

“They said they were making
videos for fun. I went along. But nothing actually happened. We just made it
look like it did.”

“Why should I believe that?”

To his credit, he didn’t bring up
their lack of agreement that they were exclusive, or Syria’s relationship with
Mia, or even ask her what happened at the shoot that had gone wild. He just
said, “I love you, Syria, and I want out of this job if it means it upsets
you.”

Syria sank to the floor. “What?”

“I mean it. I know it’s how we
met. And I know we thought we were getting so open to new things. But I can
tell this isn’t for you. And it’s getting hard for me.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ve been applying for things in
New Mexico.”

“You what?”

“That’s why I was there that
second time.”

“You applied for jobs after
having met me only once?”

She could hear the smile in his voice.
“I think we did more than meet.”

They had. Syria lay back on the
floor of her studio, where she’d been with him that first time, spontaneously,
without hesitation. He’d changed her life.

“My father is dead,” she blurted
out.

“What?”

“That rich client? He found him.
I guess he has some sort of legal team that can find this stuff out fast.”

“When?”

“About a year ago. Heart attack,
according to the obituary.”

“I’m so sorry, Syria.”

“I know. I thought I’d get a
chance to know him.”

“I wish I could come down. I’m so
stuck. Two gigs tonight. Something every night this week. Christmas is so
close.”

Syria rolled on her side and drew
up her knees, the phone resting on her ear. “I know. It’s okay.”

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Just talk to me,” she said.
“Tell me stories about your dad.”

And Tyson did, regaling her with
tales of t-ball and track meets and failed fishing expeditions and barbecues
gone awry, until she calmed down, and morning moved into afternoon, and Tyson
had to prepare for work.

“I meant what I said earlier.”
They’d switched back to video, and Tyson smiled at her. “I really did.”

Syria knew what he was talking
about. That he loved her. She needed to get used to this. “I know.”

“I’ll text you when I’m home, see
if you’re still up.”

“Okay.”

She ended the call and glanced at
her phone. Erik had called her too, while Tyson was talking, but she’d ignored
it.

She’d decline his offer. She had
other plans.