When would I ever learn? I always had to ruin the moment with him by pushing for something more.

He had given me a very valuable gift, more special to me than the hundred thousand dollar Cartier watch I was wearing on my wrist now. Sharing his home and free time with me was worth more to me than anything. He was letting me see another side of Valentine the man, but I could never be satisfied with what I was offered. I always needed more.

“Wow, it's past midnight,” I said, fingering his gift on my wrist. What would happen if we had to stay here the night? “Can you drive that beast in the dark?”

I wasn’t sure helicopters even flew at night except under covert mission.

“We'll stay here tonight,” Valentine said.

“But, I-” In the same room? Was he going to let me sleep with him? I couldn’t ask outright. “I didn't pack a bag.”

“I'm sure Antione has selected an exceptional overnight wardrobe for you, he has excellent taste.

Oh.

“Good night. Andie.”

Without so much as a brush of a fingertip, he disappeared down a passageway and left me gangling in the kitchen, wondering whether I should clean up as I had no idea where to go next.

“If you'll follow me please, miss.”

Antione materialized beside me like the genie out of the lamp. He led me along another passageway, opposite the one Valentine had been swallowed into, as far away as it was possible to get I realized with heavy stomach. He opened the doors onto another beautiful room decorated in multiple layered shades of nude pink, uniquely soft and feminine in the oyster gray penthouse.

“I believe you'll find everything you'll need,” Antione said, before he dematerialized back to wherever he waited for summons.

A silk satin peignoir was laid out on the silk bedspread, something a 1940s movie starlet would wear to flit around her boudoir. Also a pair of high heeled satin slippers, topped with feathers and a down feather stole. All in the same flesh tones of the room.

In the pink-toned limestone bathroom I discovered brand new MDNA skincare products and Tom Ford cosmetics. Everything was untouched, like waking up in Sleeping Beauty's castle after a hundred years, without a single cobweb. I gave half a giggle as I slipped into the luxurious long gown, the bodice made of diaphanous silk chiffon so my hard nipples prodded through the slinky material.

This was a very different sleeping outfit from my usual Victoria's Secret pajama short. I slipped into the nude pink silk sheets, wondering whether Valentine purchased brand new products and outfits every time a slave came for a sleepover. My bag tweeted a new text. I dug out my phone with a weight in my chest.

Arrive SF 4.35. get ready to play at the Fairmont.

Of course it would be The Fairmont – the most luxurious and elegant old hotel in San Francisco. Josh loved to shock elite society, who he said were uptight and obsessed with money and status. As soon as Valentine dismissed me for the weekend, I'd cab over to the hotel and wait for Josh to arrive.

I was a bleary puffy mess in the morning, from not sleeping more than minutes at a time through a very fretful night. I was in Valentine's personal apartment. But in his guest bedroom. Why had he ordered me to come to San Francisco? Did he require a companion to watch him cook dinner and decant the wine? If so why didn’t he also need one for after-dinner games?

If the private dinner date was a test, I'd obviously failed somewhere. That could be the only reason for his abrupt disappearance to his own quarters and it was making me absolutely miserable. On one side I wanted the security of the known with Josh and on the other, I didn't want to see him at all because Valentine was making me insane with the highs and lows of emotions.

My head was pounding with confusion while my body was feverish demanding all three of the men I had fallen into passionate involvement with. That was not permitted- a woman like me didn't keep three super alphas on the date-roll. Something was going to have to give. Before I imploded.

My clothes had disappeared during the night, so I went down the hallway to the main room wearing the 1940s satin peignoir and marabou high-heeled slippers. I laughed secretly with myself, at me, a girl who schlepped around in sweatpants on the weekend, now wandering a penthouse in the sky dressed like a movie star. Maybe I was going to be kept here as a permanent sex slave, naked all day without my clothes.

Would that be such a bad life?

Not if Jay Valentine was the master. Was it really any different from marriage? More honest a transaction and one I’d get to live in cosseted in luxury without worry.

Coming into the main area, discreetly flooded with light, I was stunned by the view of the entire city through the curved glass wall. I was a city girl at heart and if this had been my home I was sure I'd never leave. Antione appeared and beat me to the kitchen to operate the full size espresso machine on the stone counter.

“Soy cappuccino, correct?” he said.

“How did you know?”

Even Jay Valentine didn't know what I drank at breakfast seeing as we'd never spent the night.

“It's kind of my job to know,” he said, almost as inscrutable as his boss. Antione had a French sounding accent but looked darker than a European.

“Antione is an unusual name,” I said. “I keep wanting to say Antoine, like the French.”

“My mother had a sense of humor. We are Algerian, so not welcomed by French.”

“Oh, that's too bad,” I said, wishing my world cultural history was more complete. “Will Mr Valentine be joining us for coffee?”

“Monsieur has left for a meeting already. His day usually begins at five.”

Oh.

The sinking disappointment made me aware how much I'd been looking forward to hanging out over coffee and having Valentine admire me in my Hollywood siren garb.

“He requires your presence this evening at a business dinner. You are free until six thirty then you will be transported from here to the yacht.” Yacht?

What business could he require me for on the weekend, on a yacht, no less? I'd been hired to supervise a construction crew that was yet to materialize. And six thirty gave me almost no time at all to be with Josh.

“Is everything okay, miss?” Antione inquired. “You look perturbed.”

“I'm fine. It's just that, you know, it's the weekend and I had plans.”