We got stuck on the outskirts of Harrogate for ages, the ring road grinding to a halt. The first of the evening traffic was combining with people like me trying to get into the city centre. For a long time, all I could see was hedges and glimpses of car showrooms and shopping centres through the other side.

Then after what felt like forever and with my bladder starting to feel like it might explode, we turned towards the town. Why did I have that coffee the driver offered me? Could I ask him to stop? No, that was ridiculous. The boss of a publishing division did not pee in the bushes in full view of rush hour traffic. I could hold it. I hoped.

We crawled along the road, passing a farm, then a sign for the showground. Finally houses appeared. We were getting close.

But the closer we got, the slower we moved. I started shuffling in the seat. It was amazing how basic we were. Comfortable, I was a high powered mega-bitch executive in a chauffeur driven car on the way to a publishing convention. Needing a pee, I was little more than a panicking child, wriggling in my seat and hoping the driver didn’t notice.

It was the same when I thought about Bill. I went from mature, dignified, respectable, to lust filled adolescent, incapable of stringing sentences together that made any sense. Take control, Lucy, you’re an adult for crying out loud.

“Turn in there,” I said, pointing at the sign for a supermarket on the left.

The driver changed lanes just as the red light in front of us turned green. We swung into the supermarket car park and he brought us to a halt. “Won’t be a minute,” I said, not telling him why I was marching as fast as I could for the entrance.

I had to ask where the ladies was and by the time I made it inside, I could have sworn I hadn’t taken a breath for over a minute.

I breathed out once I was in the cubicle, a long, slow sigh that released all the tension that had been gripping me too tightly for too long.

Once I was done, I headed to the book aisle, wanting an excuse for an impromptu stop. There was another woman standing there and she nodded towards me. "Going to the conference?" she asked.

"How did you guess?"

"Business suit, armful of paperbacks. You're checking out the competition."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'll see you there."

"Maybe you will."

 A couple of minutes later, I was back in the car, bag of paperbacks next to me. “Wanted to check out the competition,” I said by way of an excuse. “Off we go.”

We set off again and I tried my best to relax, even as the time continued to tick by. It was nearly five when we reached the hotel. I left the driver finding somewhere to park and headed inside.

The spacious reception was impressive, easily coping with the number of guests milling around. There were several armchairs in the open space, low tables between them. I found reception to my left. There was a queue and I joined the back, standing behind a happy couple who were holding hands and beaming at each other. Would I ever have that? Have someone look at me the way he was looking at her? But then she looked like she’d never had a spot in her life, her hair had to be CGI, it couldn’t be real. No woman had hair that perfect. And that waist, I could have put a wrist watch around it.

“Mr and Mrs Cameron,” he said when they reached the front. Honeymoon. It had to be.

I wanted to be happy for them. I really did. But I couldn’t help a flare of jealousy. Younger than me, more attractive than me, already married. What did I have? A crush on an employee. It wasn’t quite the romantic ideal.

While they were filling in some form or other, I glanced around me. To the left of reception was a sign on an easel. It was one of those black pinboard things with the letters spelled out in white, not quite straight. I was so annoyed by the rakish angles of the words that I didn’t take in what it said for a moment. Then I realised.

 

Formal dance for Publishing Convention. Eight thirty until late. Passes must be shown. Herriot Suite.

 

A formal dance? That wasn’t on the itinerary Ellie gave me. I dug it out of my file, running my eyes down the page. No mention of a dance. I hadn’t brought dancing clothes. Great.

The first chance to make a big impression, to use my little known dancing talent to woo potential clients and distributors and I was going to have to miss it. My Kingdom for a dress that I could dance in.

When I reached reception, I asked if I could use their phone. “Of course,” the man behind the counter said, sliding it across to me.

Ellie’s number was at the top of the itinerary. I rang it and waited until she answered.

“Hello?”

“Ellie, it’s me.”

“Miss Rhodes. Did you make it there okay?”

“You never told me there was a dance tonight.”

“Didn’t I? I’m sure it’s on the itinerary.”

“It’s not. I’ve looked.”

“No, it is. On the back page.”

I turned the paper over. “Oh.”

“Did you find it?”

“Yes, thank you, Ellie.”

I hung up, swearing quietly under my breath. What would mega-bitch do? The answer came to me in a second. I had an assistant. His job was to assist. I would delegate the problem to him, let him work out a solution and assert my authority at the same time in one swift phone call.

I rang his number and when he answered I spoke before he had chance. My turn to take charge. Not because if I heard his voice, mega-bitch would melt away in a simmering pile of lust, not for that reason at all.

“There’s a formal dance at half past eight tonight and I need a dress to wear for it. What do you suggest?”

“I’ll get you one.”

His voice. His warm honey over gravel voice. If that was even a thing. However I described it, the result was the same, I was already melting. How did he do it? “You will?”

“Leave it with me.”

“But you don’t know what size I am.”

“Remember Future Trends? Relax and I’ll see you here.”

It didn’t occur to me to wonder why he said see you here until I got up to the room a couple of minutes later. Then I thought back to the words he’d said.

See you here. Not see you there. He wouldn’t say that unless he was already at the hotel. And he couldn’t be at the hotel already. I’d set off hours before him. He’d have been stuck in the same traffic as me. Even his macho rule the world demeanour couldn’t shift the rush hour from his path.

But there was a case in the bedroom, sitting next to the armchair. There could only be one reason for there being a case there next to his black jacket, the jacket I remembered from the park. I had no idea how he’d done it but somehow he’d got to the hotel first.

That meant I lost the bet. That meant he got to punish me. That meant I would have to stay somewhere else and he could enjoy the luxury of this place while I was on a lumpy mattress next to a glass bottle smashing and scream testing facility built over a cursed Native American burial ground.

I sat on the edge of the bed. It was so comfortable. I didn’t want to move hotels. I was tired after the drive. What I wanted to do was shower, change into pyjamas and climb into those blankets and never get out of them.

Something about a comfy bed just made me want to hibernate, bundle myself up, eat chocolates and watch Netflix and not leave until the spring.

As I sat there, I ran my hand along the blanket. He would be sleeping in here tonight. Would he sleep naked? The thought sent a spark through my mind and I tried to ignore it as it smouldered and started to take.

I should go downstairs and take them up on the offer of getting a room somewhere else. Or ring Bill and tell him I was his boss and I was taking the room, the bet was off.

I couldn't do that.

It was a stupid bet but somehow I felt bound by it. I couldn’t throw him out of here. He’d won. I had to accept that.

I didn’t have to go yet though. I could at least enjoy it until he got back with a dress for me.

I left my case next to his and then kicked off my shoes. I slid up to the headboard with the file next to me. Digging out the remaining papers, I started to work my way through them, not noticing my feet slowly burrowing their way under the covers until only my head and arms remained outside.

The projections on the page made for such fascinating reading they started to dull my mind into a stupor. The afternoon sun was shining through the window, heating the space around me. The combination of pie charts and soft warmth made my eyes sag and before I knew it, I was asleep.

I didn’t know I was asleep. I was still reading the papers but when there was a knock on the door and I looked up, the room was different. There were candles lit, it was dark outside. Had the day gone?

The door opened and Bill was there, wearing a charcoal grey suit, two glasses and a bottle of champagne on a tray in his arms. “Mrs Cameron,” he said, kicking the door closed behind him.

“Mr Cameron,” I replied.

If I’d made the dream us take the names of the couple in the queue at reception, I didn’t notice. I just felt a warm glow at being his wife. There was another warmth inside me too, a warmth of a very different kind.

I didn’t know it at the time but my dream was mixing with Anna’s book. The plotline, the dominant hero, the submissive heroine, they became my dream. Bill was putting down the tray and picking up a pair of handcuffs and I wasn’t scared, I was excited, I was ready, I knew what he had planned for me.

He stripped me, his hands on my body, shudders passing through me as my clothes came off and he looked hungrily down at me. Then he was clicking the cuffs in place over my wrists, looping them through the top of the bed.

I glanced up. I wasn’t in the hotel anymore. I was in a castle somewhere, on a four poster bed, a roaring fireplace behind a curtain, just out of sight, the spitting and crackling the only sound apart from my laboured breathing.

He stripped while I could only watch from my bed. His body was magnificent, muscles everywhere, firm, hard, all for me. “Close your eyes,” he said and I had to obey.

When I opened them again he was naked, his cock in his hand, rigid, pointing towards me as he stroked it slowly. I shuffled my legs, my thighs squeezing together, trying to ease the dull ache deep inside me as he looked at me. We were back in the hotel room, my hands still bound in place, only my legs free to move.

I spread them, trying to tempt him, wanting him to see how wet he had made me.

“You tease,” he said, running a finger up my ankle. It moved on, past my knee, slowing at my thigh. I thrust down towards him as it moved on and on, another second and it would be sliding over…

“Good evening, Lucy,” a voice said from far away.

I jolted awake. Blinking away the dream, I was confused for a moment, no longer sure where I was or what was real. Then I saw a figure at the bottom of the bed. At the same moment, I realised I had kicked off the covers. That was embarrassing enough, being caught asleep in bed by an employee.

That was nothing compared to what I realised a split-second later. My skirt had ridden up my legs as I slept, revealing far, far too much thigh. I yanked it down frantically as I scrambled upright. The feel of his finger on my leg was still tingling even as the dream dissolved into nothingness.

There was a sound. What was it? It was deep and rumbling. I blinked again and Bill came into focus at the foot of the bed. He was standing with his arms folded and what was worse, he was laughing at my frantic efforts to make myself look respectable.

“How did you get in here?” I snapped.

“Same as you, I expect,” he replied. “With the key.”