DAY SEVENTEEN

What can you learn about a man from his office?

I hadn’t even had the sense to ask that question when I met Adam, and I should have. His R+D office was stark and clean. It had no history. It gave away nothing. You didn’t sense a thing about its owner but the level of his taste.

That was simply the way he ran his business. But standing in his office, with the afternoon sun bending through the glass tabletops, I knew he had run his personal life the same way.

I’d walked past Eva on the way in. She’d warn him I was here. I was ready for that.

The office building across 53^rd Street seemed close enough to touch, and the street below seemed far enough away to kill on impact.

My phone said he was a block away. He hadn’t shut off the phone tracker after Montauk, and neither had I after he’d found me at the Cellar. Despite everything, we tracked each other. Proof that no matter what the level of our hearts’ betrayal, our souls knew where we belonged.

Two days, and I didn’t know how I was going to get him back. I’d managed, somehow, to get through the trip home from Montauk. I’d managed to let myself into the loft, walk past my four bags just inside the door, put my keys on the counter. I’d managed to move a chair to the window and sit there looking at the water towers, rooftop gardens, and fire escapes.

Staring was not a plan. It wasn’t how a woman in charge ran her life. It wasn’t how a person finished a thing. But that was what I had done, and I forgave myself for it. I’d left my husband with a note on the counter. I’d spent months gathering the courage, composing the note, being sure in my head and heart that it was the right thing.

I didn’t have months to get him back.

He’d agreed to an easy divorce if I gave him thirty days. Sixteen were gone. It had taken me that long to love him again. The real me loved the real him. It had taken that long for him to fall out of love with me.

Fourteen more days, and I didn’t have a plan.

That morning, I’d found stockings and garter in the bottom of my drawer. The bra had a crystal heart between the breasts, and the panties had one to match. I tossed them onto the bed. I shaved myself smooth and put the lingerie on. I stood in front of the mirror and watched myself fall to my knees. I put my ass up, lower back down, forehead to the floor, knees apart. I stayed that way, thinking about nothing but his body until my thighs ached.

Holding that position with that thought cleared my mind enough to do something. Even if it was the wrong thing, it was something.

His phone stopped moving in front of the building. He’d taken a cab.

Deep breath.

He had a small table by the couch. The top was made of cracked tempered glass. There used to be a picture of me on that table.

The dot on the map moved again. He’d arrived in the city at the crack of dawn, according to the tracking on his phone. I didn’t know what he’d done during the past two days in Montauk. I tried not to think my worst thoughts.

I’d considered positioning myself on my hands and knees when he arrived, sitting with my legs crossed, spread-eagled on the desk, standing like a lady, hiding in the closet. I figured it would come to me when I needed it.

My strategy was set. My tactics were planned. I left room for inspiration in the minutiae.

Even when I knew he was coming down the hall, I hadn’t decided.

I heard his voice outside the door. Eva’s reply. Business. Did she tell him I was here?

When the door swung open, I was standing by his desk, wringing my hands as if they were made of dough.

He wore a grey suit I hadn’t seen before. His shoulders seemed straighter than ever, and his green tie was knotted in perfect symmetry. He looked taller. He walked like royalty. As if he were unstoppable, as if breaking through obstacles was a waste of time. There were no obstacles. Not for him. Not for a Master.

I must have been a madwoman to walk away from him.

He stopped two steps in, seeing me. Eva was right behind him, wearing an emerald-green suit and shoes.

“By the way,” she said, winking at me behind his back, “Diana’s here.”

I dropped my hands to my sides because my heart submitted, and I leaned all my weight onto one hip because my mind was petulant. “Good morning.”

He looked me up and down. “Good morning.”

“I’ll catch you when you’re done,” Eva said, backing out of the office.

“No,” Adam commanded. “Stay. This won’t be long.”

He came to his desk. Nine steps. Big steps. I didn’t move. Eva cocked her head slightly. Our gazes met, and she widened her eyes a little, letting me know she didn’t want to run interference.

Adam put his briefcase on the desk and snapped it open. “How was your ride home?”

“Lonely.”

“Sorry, I—”

I cut off his meaningless, pat answer. “You should have been there fucking me.”

His hands stopped. He tapped his briefcase twice, thinking. His lashes were closed curtains over his emotions.

I continued while I had the upper hand. “Eva being here isn’t going to stop me from doing what I came to do.”

I put my hands on my jacket buttons, pushing the top one through the hole. He looked up just in time to see that I wasn’t wearing anything but a bra under it.

“You kids,” Eva said. “This is great fun, but I have a job.”

The door whooshed open and clicked shut as she left.

Adam’s presence took up my entire world. I leaned on the desk next to him. My skirt rode up enough for the garter to peek out. I wanted him to tell me to do something, anything. Get off the desk. Button your jacket. Walk three steps. Spread your legs. Open your mouth.

“Too bad,” I said, hands behind me. My jacket strained against the last button. “I would have done whatever you asked in front of her.”

He took a few folders out of his briefcase and slapped them on the desk. “That’s the problem, Diana.”

“What? That I’ll do whatever you want?”

“Yes.” He closed the briefcase.

“We have two more weeks. I’m sticking to the agreement.”

“The agreement’s done. You win.” He slid the folders toward me. I didn’t even look at them.

“There were only contingencies if I quit. There’s no contingency if you quit.” I put my hands together behind me and spread my feet. I was uncomfortable as hell, leaning back on the desk with my legs apart.

“You get everything,” he said, eyes coursing around the arc of my body. His dick was hard.

“I don’t want everything. I want you.”

“Diana. I can’t… I can’t do this.”

His body said otherwise. He leaned toward me slightly. His breath had gotten shallow and slow.

“Yes, you can. You can do whatever you want to me. Things you never thought I’d do. You can hurt me. Hurt me so bad, and I’ll beg you for more.” I throbbed with those words. I wanted to come for him.

He put his hand on my thigh, sliding it inside and upward. I groaned. His touch was magic. I had to hold back from losing my shit right there.

“I didn’t want this for you. I didn’t want to turn you into this.”

“Into what?”

“This.” He ran his hand where my panties would be and found nothing but soaking wet pussy. “Look what I’ve done already. You’d do whatever I asked in front of Eva. In the office. Wearing nothing. I don’t want you to be this.”

“This what?”

“This!” He pinched my clit, and I grunted in surprise and pain. “This,” he whispered in my ear while his hard cock pressed on my thigh.

“Your whore?”

He grabbed my hair with his other hand and yanked my head back. No one had ever done that to me, and I loved it. Loved the pain. The domination. The way he growled at me.

“Don’t you ever, ever—”

“Your. Whore.”

With a sharp breath, he took his hands off me, holding them up as if he had to prove they were empty. “Stand up straight.”

He commanded it, so I did it.

“I can’t do this.” He cut the air with his determination. “Listen to me when I tell you I can spend the next two weeks fucking you blind and beating you raw. At the end of it, I’m walking away and you’re going to be worse off. I promise the longer this goes on, the less I’m going to care how much I hurt you. Drop it now, while it’s not that bad.”

I straightened my skirt. “It’s not that bad?”

“Before you get in deeper and there’s no way out. Please.”

His plea was a command. I’d take a certain kind of order from him. I’d humiliate myself if he asked the right way, but I couldn’t stop loving him just because he demanded it.

I buttoned my jacket. He took my pause as agreement.

“You’ll see it’s better this way,” he said, tapping the folders. “I’ve had my lawyer draft a revised divorce settlement. You should look at it.”

“Should I send you back the ashes when I’m done burning it?”

“Diana—”

“Don’t Diana me. Don’t tell me how I feel. Don’t protect me. I didn’t ask you to. All I’m asking you to do is finish what you started. Train me. Don’t leave me half done.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I continue, whatever feelings you have are going to get blown out of all proportion. It’s the nature of the game. I’m protecting you.”

“From what?”

“From me,” he barked.

I tensed from the sudden change in volume.

He pressed his lips into a line and held up his hands as if warding me off. “I don’t care if you like it or not, but you’ll thank me in the end.”

“I’ll thank you now.” I stood straight and picked up my bag. “I’m going to be in the office. Our office. And you know where I live. You can sign the divorce papers, but I won’t file them until our agreement expires.”

I turned my back on him and walked to the door. As every step pulled me farther, the tether between us got thin enough to break.

“You can hang onto them then,” he said from behind me.

I stopped but faced the door. I couldn’t look at him. He pitied me, and it was impossible to truly love what you pitied.

“Take your time,” he continued. “You get everything, don’t worry about that.”

Everything.

Sure. Everything that could be transferred by a piece of paper.

I didn’t tell him how woefully inadequate “everything” was, because he wouldn’t understand it. I just walked through the door without looking back, down the hall, nodding at Eva in her emerald-green suit and earrings, to the elevator. I kept my chin up, but a cloud of sadness and despair hung over me, ready to descend as soon as I got onto the street.

I pressed the elevator button, and the red light in the center glowed as it was supposed to. It wasn’t broken. Press it and the light went on.

Like Adam.

When I’d offered him my body, he lit up like a Christmas tree, exactly as I thought he would. He’d touched me. He’d put his fingers on me. His hands took what his mouth said he didn’t want.

Me.

The little red light went out, and the elevator doors rumbled open. They closed with me alone inside, and I went down, giving birth to an idea that was nearly fully formed by the time the doors opened again.

This was doable. I just had to finish what I started.