CHAPTER NINE
“Thanks, Emma. Tell them to come up, and then you can be on your way. And thanks again for coming in early.”
Guy put down the phone. Any second now, he’d hear footsteps on the stairs up to the club management suite, and any second now, his entire life could explode in his face. Personal, professional, even family—the whole lot could go up in smoke, and he could lose almost everything that gave him a purpose. Compartmentalising his life could bite him on the arse with a vengeance.
There they were—the footsteps of four people, accompanied by muffled voices. Should he have told them earlier? Probably, but without a time machine, it was too late to do anything about that now. He rose from his seat and went to open the door.
In the hubbub that greeted his appearance, one voice quieted them all. The stunned tone belonged to his niece.
“Guy? What’s going on?”
He stood back and gestured for them to enter. “You’d better come in. I think I have some explaining to do.”
One by one, they filed past him—Ros first, her face pale, followed by Alex Lombard, Cam Fraser and Ryan Quinn, all looking intrigued but thankfully not hostile. Already, their reactions were much as he’d anticipated. Without doubt, Ros was going to be the hardest nut to crack. Hopefully he could do it with a combination of kid gloves and some industrial-strength grovelling.
“Thank you all for attending this meeting. Make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll get you all a drink.”
As he poured two glasses of Scotch, an Irish whiskey and a cognac, Guy assessed the body language around him. The men were relaxed enough, but Ros, who’d taken one of the armchairs, was rigid with tension. He could understand why—finding out what he’d done would be far worse for her than any of the others. For that, he owed her an even bigger apology.
“Thanks. Now I understand why you specifically called us in. You’re the new owner.” Alex took a sip of his whisky.
“Not so new now, but guilty as charged, and I apologise for making you all wait so long to find out.”
“Any particular reason why?” Ryan swirled his glass, even though there was no ice in it.
“There was a certain… mismatch between owning a BDSM club and my previous position with the security services.” Now there was an understatement. “At the time when I had to declare it as an outside business interest, the news didn’t go down too well.”
The men shared low-key, commiserating laughter, but the best Ros could manage was an awkward ghost of a smile.
“Are you planning some sort of announcement?” Cam asked.
“A coming-out party? Not as such, but I’m staying over tonight so I can make it official this evening. Word will reach the remaining members soon enough after that.”
“What amazes me,” Alex commented, “is how we’ve never even seen you around the club all this time.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Guy saw Ros stiffen even more, something he wouldn’t have thought possible. “I kept it low-profile because of the day job. Not having a regular play partner made it easier.”
“Does this change mean you have someone now?” A speculative half-smile turned up one corner of Ryan’s mouth.
Did he? Guy didn’t know. Although Maddie showed many signs of having a submissive nature, he still hadn’t broached the subject with her. “No. This has more to do with my gut feeling that my new employers are more… sympathetic to the lifestyle.”
Everyone laughed except Ros. Guy could have kicked himself. If anything, she looked even more uncomfortable.
“All I can say is, it’s one hell of a mid-life crisis, old man.” Alex raised his glass of whisky in salute and took a drink. “Congratulations.”
Ryan and Cam followed suit, then Guy turned to Ros. She was still shut down. She looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else but here. His concern was blatant enough for the other men to make a move to leave.
“Thanks for coming in, all of you. I know there are still things we need to discuss, but…” He turned back to his niece. “Ros, can we talk?”
She’d barely touched the cognac he’d put in front of her. Throughout the conversation, her contribution had been minimal, no more than the odd word here and there, but once the others had left, she found her voice.
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Ros was bewildered. She ran an agitated hand through her hair.
“Would you let me? Because I owe you the greatest apology of all. I’m sorry.”
“It’s the fact that you’ve known… How long have you known about me? And Simon?”
“I’ve only known for certain since I bought the club and had access to the membership records, but I suspected for a while before that. About both of you. You were always going to be genetically predisposed to being a dominant personality. Do you remember all those times I told you how much you take after your mother?”
Guy watched the pieces fall into place. His niece was smart, and the picture she was putting together would be an accurate one.
“Wait a minute. You mean Dad…?”
“Had a lot in common with Simon. He loved Meg to distraction—the same way Simon loves you.”
“Why did you never say anything?” She closed her eyes and made an impatient noise. “Strike that. I can’t believe I asked such a stupid question.”
“It’s not a stupid question, Ros. I never said anything because I didn’t want to influence you. This lifestyle is something you need to find for yourself. You don’t get into it just because your family has. And there’s the whole matter of privacy.”
“Is that another reason why none of us have ever seen you here?”
“Partly. I wanted to respect your privacy, and there’s also the fact that I haven’t been involved actively for a long time—on a regular basis, anyway.”
“Then why buy the club?”
“I’d heard the owners were looking to sell or close it down. I then heard rumours about potential buyers, and what they’d like to do to the place. I couldn’t let that happen. Aegis has something most other clubs don’t have, and I wanted to keep that going.”
“And you never said anything because of your work.”
“As I said—a civil servant owning what some would class as a sex club would attract more than a few raised eyebrows.”
“You were never a civil servant, Guy.”
At least Ros was smiling now. “The job was going that way—that’s partly why I decided to get out. Alex’s offer to join Spectrum was too good to refuse. Do you mind that we’ll be working together again? I could always go for a dignified retirement, if you have a problem with it.”
“Oh, Guy.” Ros closed her eyes for a moment. “After all these years, you have to ask that?”
“I let you down, the one thing I swore to Meg and Oliver I’d never do.”
“You’ve never let me down—never. And if my parents were here, I know they’d say the same.” Her shoulders lifted on a sigh. “You were in an impossible situation. I wouldn’t have handled it any better, and I don’t think anyone else would, either. And a dignified retirement? You? It’ll never happen. I’d hate it if it did.”
“That makes me feel better. So—are we good?”
At last she gave him a normal, relaxed smile. “We’re good.”
>>><<<
By the time Guy was letting himself into his pied-à-terre after a successful evening at Aegis, there was about an hour to go until dawn. The evening had been successful beyond his wildest dreams. Time had flown by, and he’d ended up staying until the club closed.
He was glad he had. His ownership of the club had been accepted without question, which reassured those members who’d been worried about the future of Aegis. He’d also got a better handle on how his idea of branching out of the capital might be received. So far, the reaction had been more than favourable.
Thoughts of relocating reminded him that he needed to think about putting this apartment up for sale soon, now that he had no real need of it. Too keyed up to sleep, he stood at the window, looking down at the road, where signs of pre-dawn activity were robbing the world of its peace once more.
In the past, Guy had never been one for introspection, but of late he’d been doing it more often, and it now involved Maddie. Halfway through a measure of Dalmore, he found himself wondering about how she’d spent her evening. At this time of the morning she should be sound asleep. She should also have been with him.
Now that was an idea. Before he let the apartment go, he could bring her to London for a weekend. Dinner and the theatre—she’d like that, from what he’d learned about her already, and maybe they’d do something frivolous, like taking a trip on one of the sightseeing bus tours.
He chuckled. Was he getting soft in his old age, acting like a tourist with his woman? Before he could decide, the vibrating in his pocket told him someone was calling him. The chuckle became a worried frown. Who could be calling him at this time of the morning, and why? He pulled out his phone just as the vibration stopped, but the display told him all he needed to know. He called the number back.
“Maddie? Are you all right?”
“Guy, I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I wasn’t expecting your phone to ring—I thought you’d be asleep, and it’d be switched off.”
Curiouser and curiouser. “It’s all right, I was awake. I spent the evening with friends, and things went on a little longer than I anticipated, but what on earth are you doing awake? Are you all right?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I…” She sighed. “It was such a silly idea. I thought your phone would be off, and I was going to leave a message for you to find in the morning.”
“That’s not a silly idea.” Not when it gave him the kind of warm feeling that had been absent from his life for too long. He made himself comfortable in one of the leather armchairs. “What were you going to say?”
A short, nervous laugh came through the phone. “Nothing much, just a good morning… and to let you know I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
The truth in those words brought an unusual ache to his chest. He had missed her. She’d been putting in long hours at work this week, so he’d taken a step back, limiting their contact to the odd text. While Guy had been absorbed in getting to grips with his new job, that hadn’t claimed all his attention. In the quiet moments, his thoughts had gravitated to Maddie, and what might happen next with their relationship. She’d burrowed her way into his heart, and he wasn’t ready to let her go.
“You said you couldn’t sleep. Any particular reason?”
“No. Yes.”
That didn’t sound encouraging. He experienced a sudden, urgent need for clarification. “Talk to me, Maddie. What’s bothering you?”
Silence at the other end of the line threatened to send his heart rate into overdrive. Maybe she’d respond to his Dom voice. “Madeleine. Tell me.”
“When you asked me to go home with you, to meet your family that way… I wasn’t expecting it, and I panicked.”
Was that all? “It’s okay, don’t worry. I did spring it on you.”
“It’s not that, Guy—I’ve been thinking. Ros’ wedding is too important to risk messing it up. At this late stage I can’t—won’t—hand it off to someone else, so that only leaves one option. I don’t think we should continue seeing each other.”