Dark Attraction: The Corde Noire Series (12 page)

Sebastian Dane stood in his office on the thirtieth floor of the Dane Shipping building and stared out the wide picture window to the Mississippi River below. The current was strong that day and the boats on the river were having a hard time navigating the bend that flowed past the heart of the New Orleans French Quarter.

As the dark muddy water swirled below him, he thought of her. The way she had felt next to him. How she had fallen asleep in his arms. Her smell, like roses and honey, and the way she had tasted … it was killing him.

When Sam had told him about her questionable virginity, he had ached to take her right there and then. But his guilty conscience wouldn’t let him. Her first time was meant to be special, meant to be with a man she loved, and love was something Sebastian never gave. Ever.

In his world, there was never supposed to be any mention of love. Sure, Kimberly had professed a deep regard for him during their two years together, but when he had broached the subject of going beyond their contracted agreement to having a relationship, she had shot him down … hard. The entire experience had left him numb, and sent him right into the arms of another woman, another sub with a taste for rough sex.

He shook his head as he thought of sweet Mary Ann and her penchant for violence. He had liked using force on a woman, but only briefly. Once his anger with Kimberly had cooled, Mary Ann’s antics had grown disturbing.

Right when he had about given up on ever finding a match for his tastes, his mother had called him with another one of her dizzy spells, only this time she had lost the ability to speak. Five weeks of speech therapy and physical therapy had followed, but she was finally getting back to her old self.  The entire incident had left Sebastian feeling vulnerable, frightened, and obsessed with the adorable little ICU nurse who had cared for his mother.

The blue-eyed brunette with the wonderful smile had made an impression on him, a deep impression. From the moment she had called him by his dead stepfather’s name, he had been intrigued. No matter how many times he corrected her, told her his last name was Dane, and tried to engage her in conversation, the nurse had ignored him. Hell, Sam had done more than ignore him; she had captivated him by not even acknowledging his presence. For the first time in his life, he had been invisible to someone. His looks, his name, and his money had not mattered to her … and that had upended him.

Regrettably, his experiment to get her to notice him had taken a dreadful turn. Instead of teaching her a lesson, she had taught him one. She had touched that untouched part of him, his heart. Resting his head against the window, he thought of her naked body and closed his eyes.

“Fuck.”

“Mr. Dane,” his secretary called over his office intercom. “Your ten o’clock appointment is here.”

Coming back to reality, Sebastian turned to his walnut-inlaid desk. He went to his appointment book and flipped the page. Hitting the intercom button at the bottom of his desk phone, he bellowed, “What appointment, Lacy? It’s not in my book.”

“It’s with that reporter from the Times-Picayune. The one who wanted to do the follow-up on that piece about you. She made the appointment at the last minute yesterday. She practically begged me to let her have ten minutes. That’s all she needs.”

“Not another reporter. Haven’t we had enough of them around lately? If I get one more question about Nathan Cole’s disappearance—”

“This is a follow-up interview to the longshoreman negotiations. You wanted to plead your case to the public before they started asking for a pay raise. Remember?”

He smiled at the way Lacy’s smooth voice filled with irritation. The middle-aged redhead had been with him for ten years, ever since he had taken over the company. She had been outspoken, efficient, and a damned hard worker. Lacy had been hired by his father before his death, and Sebastian had always thanked providence for bringing the mother of two into his life. He doubted Dane Shipping would run half as well without her.

He checked his stainless watch. “She can have ten minutes.” He picked up his gray suit jacket hanging on the back of his desk chair. “What’s this one’s name again.”

“Anderson, Emily Anderson,” Lacy told him.

“Anderson.” He mulled the name. “Is she the tall blonde?”

Lacy chuckled. “Nice try, Mr. Dane. She’s a petite brunette. Pretty little thing.”

Sebastian’s thoughts returned to Sam. He pondered what Lacy would have made of her.

“Put her in the conference room,” he said into the speaker. “Then in ten minutes come and get me. Got it?” He slipped on his jacket.

Lacy’s throaty chuckle made him smile. “Yes, boss.”                

Tugging the cuffs of his blue shirt through the sleeves of his jacket, Sebastian headed across the brown and green Oriental rug to his office door. Catching a glimpse of the assorted pictures on the wall of his father standing in front of ships that belonged to their fleet, he smirked, wondering what his old man would have made of his life. As he turned the brass handle on his door, he already knew the answer. He wouldn’t have given a shit.  

Making his way down the burgundy carpet that decorated his office hallway, Sebastian spied his office staff and thought ahead to the interview. He toyed with the idea of taking an abrupt approach with the reporter. He would be polite, keep his answers short, and hope Lacy showed up early. But if the dogged Ms. Anderson was attractive … well, that was a whole different kind of interview.

Shaking his head, he stopped before the oak double doors of his conference room.

“Let’s just hope this one is pretty.” Putting on his fake smile, he turned the doorknob and stepped inside.

She was standing at the window with her back to him, admiring the same view he had from his office. But when she turned to greet him, Sebastian’s stomach clenched.

“Hello, Mr. Sebastian Dane,” Sam said with all the venom of a cobra set to strike.

Sebastian shut the door. “Sam? What in the hell are you doing here?”

In a fitted black skirt and cream-colored blouse, she looked better than his memories of her. She came up to him, wobbling on her heels, and when she finally stood in front of him, she slapped him across the face.

“You bastard!”

He kept his head turned away from her as his mind scrambled to absorb what had just occurred. “You’re Emily Anderson?”

“I figured if you could use a fake name with me, Doug, I could turn the tables on you … asshole.”

Squaring his shoulders, he faced her. “Why? Why did you lie?”

“Would you have seen me otherwise, you lying sack of shit?”

She had a point. He would never have allowed her in the building. “Why are you here, Sam?”

“Why am I here?” she shouted. “Why do you think?” She waved her hand at him. “I wanted to find out if I was crazy for believing you actually gave a fuck about me.”

“Don’t curse,” he admonished.

“Fuck you!”

He grabbed her arms. “How did you find me?”

“The Internet, dumb ass. How else?”

Sebastian struggled to hold her. “You need to calm down, Sam.”

“Calm down?” She was fighting to get free. “You owe me an explanation, Doug, or Sebastian … or whoever you are. Maybe we should stick with asshole.”

“Enough.” He took her to one of the red leather chairs from the conference table and shoved her into it. “You’re going to sit down and listen to me.”

She stayed in the chair and defiantly folded her arms. “Asshole.”

He pulled out the chair next to her and had a seat, trying to formulate what he would say. He had hoped by the time Sam learned the truth about him, she would have moved on. He had never counted on her tracking him down. “My real name is Sebastian Dane. I told you my name was Doug Morgan because I wanted to get to know you, without who I am and what I do, getting in the way.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why me?”

“You took care of my mother in your ICU for a few days. I went to see her every afternoon and you were there. You always got my name wrong, you completely ignored me, and you didn’t give a damn who I was.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You captivated me, something a lot of women never do. I wanted you … as my sub, but I knew I couldn’t be Sebastian Dane when we met. I had to be a regular guy.”

“I don’t get it. Why couldn’t you just be you? I wouldn’t have cared about who you are.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. A lot of women want to get to know me because of who I am. It’s made being what I am difficult, to say the least. I’ve had to join exclusive clubs to meet women.”

“Like the club you told me about? The one you and Nathan Cole belonged to.”

He rubbed his hand across his chin, apprehensive about telling her too much, but then again … what choice did he have. “This club is different. It has strict rules for members. Women outside of the club aren’t allowed because they’re considered a liability. In this club there are no rules, no contracts, no limits on our play. As a Dom, I could do anything I wanted to a woman without having to worry about … repercussions.”

Raising her eyebrows, Sam sat back in her chair. “Is that why you wanted me? To make me a part of this club?”

He nodded his head, inwardly berating his actions. “When I met you in the ICU … all I knew was that I had to have you, but I also had to find a way to ease you into my world. So, I got in touch with your supervisor and pulled some strings with your hospital administrator to get some particulars on you. When I found out you lived in Nathan’s building, I asked him about you.” Sebastian sat back in his chair. “The way he spoke about you was reason enough for me to step in. I didn’t want to leave you to a man like Nathan Cole.”

“Why, would he have been another asshole like you?”

“I was never like him,” his voice dripped with anger. “He was a ruthless Dom who liked to torture women.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I could say the same thing about you.”

“I’m no Nathan Cole, Sam. I’ve heard enough of how he treated his subs to hazard a guess that his disappearance was somehow related to his sadistic tendencies.”

“How do you know?”

He nervously rubbed his hands together. “One of the women he was involved with had very powerful friends. Word around town is those friends blamed Nathan when Julie went missing over a year ago.”

Her expression instantly changed. “Julie?”

He noted her odd reaction. “Julie McNeil. She was his interior designer.”

Sebastian stood from his chair and went to the window. Seeing her again was bad, very bad for him. That twitch she gave him deep in his belly was back. It was a yearning to have her, to possess her. He wanted her under him, to be inside her. Staring out the window, he tried to shut out the fantasies of fucking her.

“What do you want, Sam?”    

“Why did you leave?”

He clasped his hands behind his back, refusing to face her. “Because you need a man who can give something I can’t. I’m a Dom and you’ll always be nothing more than a sub to me.” He let his arms fall to his sides. “You need a real relationship, not … what we had.”

She came up behind him. “Where do you get off determining what is best for me? I had twenty years of my father making decisions for me, and I’m not about to let someone else take up that mantle. Especially not someone like you.”

He spun around to her and grabbed her arms. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again.” 

“What are you going to do? Spank me, Doug?”

When she said his fake name, he let her go. It wasn’t that she had called him Doug that tore him apart. It was that she hadn’t called him by his real name. He wanted to hear her say it, over and over again.

He took a wary step back from her. “Now you know the truth. You have your explanation. Go home, Sam. There’s nothing here for you.” 

She moved closer to him. “Do you think I could walk away that easily? If I was done with you, Mr. Dane, I would never have spent half an hour on the phone with your secretary, lying my ass off to get in to see you.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m impressed with that, by the way. How did you come up with the reporter angle?”

She shrugged and glided past him to the window. “I found an article about you by Emily Anderson. She ended the article by mentioning she would follow up in a future article about your negotiations. I just got creative.”