Delilah left me to be stripped of my clothes by two red-headed and rotund older women in a motherly fashion. They directed me to step down the wide white steps into an underground pool colonnaded with pillars like a Roman bath.

I walked the pool filled with pure white liquid that I took to be some variation of milk. After luxuriating in the smooth fluid that enveloped my body like oil, I emerged with skin so baby soft, the redness across my ass had all but disappeared. I felt revived, energized and years younger.

I was led by the cuddly women into a flesh-colored dressing room where an exquisitely designed black dress was laid out on the chaise. Expecting fabric, I was surprised by its weight when I lifted the buttery, supple leather. When I finally wriggled in, it clung to my curves like a wetsuit, almost as though Valentine had known my exact measurements when of course that wasn’t possible.

A heavy brass zip ran down the back of the mermaid tail skirt, from waist to hem. Two more stretched across my breasts, grating against the nipples. Still I had no underwear to put on.

A glass of the house champagne, Vals, was served in palest flesh-pink crystal and I carefully made myself up with the Tom Ford cosmetics that looked brand new. At the exact moment that a far more glamorous me appeared in the mirror, Jay Valentine came through the door, as though he'd been watching my every move.

“Put the shoes on,” he ordered.

I looked around and saw a towering pair of pointed platforms. Flesh colored satin covered in black lace with black leather heels, maybe nine inches high. So high I was constantly tipped forward, off-balance when taking a step.

“Good. Now follow me, Ms Cannon.”

“Please call me Andie,” I said.

His business demeanor was unnerving, as though he hadn't recently perused my sensual secrets like a browse along a magazine aisle and I was any other assistant on the job. I was disappointed that the close intimacy he'd set up between us wasn't going any deeper. Perhaps he'd put me through that initial meeting as some kind of amusement, his afternoon diversion.

“I expect you think me some kind of monster,” he said in a stony voice. “But I assure you I have very good reasons for the things I do.”

“I don't know what to think, honestly,” I said. “But I'm glad to know you believe we'll work well together.”

I wanted so much more from Mr Jay Valentine but he seemed to have shut down every inroad and was now strictly business.

“I believe my words were you would work out well, rather than we would,” he snapped.

“Yes, of course. That's what I should have said.”

I was mistaken and his intentions were not that I was to surrender to his needs. He had some other plan and it was a deep defeat that I'd failed to entice him. I might have managed to retain the contract and secure my position as designer for the new winery but my inner self had been piqued with interest to discover more about the elusive Mr Valentine.

My body felt ravaged with missing him even though he'd never touched me with so much as one fingertip. That longing was driven by that very fact- I wanted his hands on me more than anything. A caress, a brush, a brutal squeeze- my body was howling with the deep longing for any connection with him.

We swept through two massive black doors into a large empty space that looked out across a stunning landscape of vineyards undulating toward the horizon.

“This area will become the new winery- tasting rooms and event salon. You've seen the brief.”

“Yes sir, a beautiful space to work with. I'm looking forward to it.”

“I saw your design.”

“May I ask, why you selected me for this job out of all the well-known designers who bid on the contract.”

“Ms Cannon, I am a very busy man and I cannot tolerate distractions. More than that, I can't have a woman on my estate who refuses to bow to my will. After heavy vetting we discovered that you have the commitment for this type of work and are willing to submit.”

“We?” I whispered.

What did he mean I'd been vetted for the job? Did he mean other than for my talent as an interior designer? And who was the 'we' that had assisted in that vetting?

“Had I been able to meet with you personally I would have known instantly that you were suitable for the job but as I had no time to fly into New York, others agreed to run the necessary tests.”

Others? What others? I had never met with anyone for any sort of interview. The contract had been awarded based on the floor plan design I'd submitted along with hundreds of designers from all around the world. I was bursting to ask but he was too formidable.

His rough tone with me, his aristocratic bearing at my presumptuous responses inhibited me. I'd been tested before he gave me the job and now I was being tested again – for something that seemed to have nothing to do with my abilities to decorate a space.

I followed as he strode across the expansive space to another door, half-hobbling behind him in the tight leather bandage dress and struggling to keep up in the shoes he put me in.

That was his plan all along, to have me reduced to a Geisha unable to keep up or get far away. Not that I had anywhere to go. We were far out in the countryside and I had no car. I was almost a prisoner in Jay Valentine's castle on the hill.

When he threw open the towering double doors on the opposite wall, I gasped hard before I caught myself enough to repress my shock. The room was a chamber of secrets, filled with contraptions and equipment that might have been mistaken for Pilates apparatus on a brief first glance.

It didn't take close inspection to realize that Mr Valentine was a man of particular desires indeed, far more complex than the spanking and bondage games Josh had introduced me to. I should walk away now, except I wouldn't get very far.

“Do I have to tell you to step inside?” he asked, watching my breath come in shallow gasps.

Trills of desire skittered through my body, a mixture of fear and intense desire to discover. He was testing me, that much I was sure of. Usually he wouldn't make such a polite request.

“Consider carefully before you respond.” His gruff voice was soft and caressing.

“Safe?” I whispered.

“I don't play safe.”

I inhaled as hard as the constriction in my throat allowed, the oxygen tight in my upper chest as though pushed out by my heart. Josh and I always had a safe word, a secure scenario to fall back on. If I wanted to stop I could. If I wanted to let him know it was too much, I could, simply by uttering the safe word we'd agreed on. Valentine was not allowing me that exit route.