She rang me just as I was in the process of unpacking the case. I thought about leaving the things out for her to find when she arrived but almost immediately decided against it. I was certain she would submit to me in person but if she walked into a bedroom and saw ropes, crops, butt plugs, all laid out on the bed, what would she think? Better to put them away again, leave them as a surprise I could unveil once I was back.

The only downside of leaving the room again was that I wouldn’t get to see her as soon as I hoped. Where had she rung me from? Downstairs perhaps? She was probably in reception at that moment.

I couldn’t reveal that I had a helicopter, that would lead to too many questions. Better that she thought I wasn’t here yet. I left the hotel by the back entrance, ringing the pilot a minute later and telling him to start the checks. We were moving again. I paid him enough for him to not ask any questions and by the time I got to him, he was ready to go.

We were in the air quickly and heading for London. It took two hours to get there. I was only on the ground for a minute. David handed me the selection of dresses. He’d been patiently waiting at the landing ground for me since I’d rung him.

I nodded a thank you and climbed back aboard. A round trip to Future Trends to pick up some dresses. Just another day in my life.

Could I have found her something suitable in Harrogate? Possibly but with most of the shops closing at five, the odds were against me. I owned Future Trends, there was no chance of that closing if I told David to keep the place open, to come and wait for me with a choice of dancing dresses for Lucy.

I thought about Future Trends as we took off and headed north once more. I remembered buying it. When I was a teenager I used to shop there, they had amazing stuff that you just couldn’t get anywhere else. That was in my rebellious days, back when I was trying to prove a point to my father, before I ended up just like him, living in a suit every single day.

I had bought the place when I turned twenty-one and got charge of my own money. It was the first place I purchased. Dad hadn’t approved. “Why buy somewhere on the verge of bankruptcy?” he had asked. “Wait until it goes bust and you could have it for a song if you have to have it.”

I couldn’t make him understand my reasons. Sentimentality wasn’t something he would ever grasp. Once, when I was six or seven, my favourite blanket, the one I’d had since birth, was left in the garden by a careless nanny. He’d found it when he was on the ride on mower, went straight over it, sliced it to ribbons.

As I bawled and bawled when I discovered the shreds on the grass, he simple shrugged and told me it was my fault for leaving it where it didn’t belong.

This was the same. It was something I cared about and something he didn’t. He would have shredded the place if he had his way same as he did my blanket.

But I loved that boutique. The staff had always been so good to me, so good to all the customers. It had started to struggle when the council put the business rates up by two hundred percent, stating market forces and government cutbacks. I was friendly enough with the manager by then to hear about his problems. I persuaded him to show me the figures, see if I could help.

I think he thought I might offer him a loan. When I told him I wanted to buy the place and keep him on as manager, he looked at me as if I’d gone mad. But I was deadly serious. “It’s places like this that are the fabric of a city,” I said by way of explanation. “Take enough of them away and the fabric gets too thin, it tears and the wind carries the threads away.”

He understood. My father never did.

The first couple of years were tough but I had enough friends in the fashion trade to get some great deals on designer things and by the time I turned twenty-five, the place was making twice as much in a year as it used to in ten. Even then, my father wasn’t happy. “Could have put flats in its place,” he said, shaking his head as I showed him the annual accounts. “You’d have made ten times the money.”

I didn’t bother explaining. It would have been a waste of time. It wasn’t all about the money. It was about the people who worked there, keeping them in the jobs they loved. And it was about people like me, the ones who had shopped there for years. I still had some shoes in the wardrobe at home that had come from there more than a decade ago. That was what mattered. Not just the bottom line.

And if I hadn’t bought it, I wouldn’t have been on the train back to Harrogate with a pile of dresses next to me, wondering if Lucy might let me watch her try them on. The thought was enough to make me sit upright. What was she doing at that moment? Did she have any idea what I had planned for her? Perhaps we could attend the formal dance together, give me a chance to get closer to her, trap her in my spell, lay the plans for the perfect evening I had planned.

When I got back to the hotel, I had a moment of paranoia. Had she pretended she didn’t have a dress? Was that possible? It would be a way of trying to assert her authority and win the bet, get to the hotel room before me. Then I smiled as I thought about my case and my jacket still sitting up there, proof of ownership of the room, same as a handprint on her ass would be proof of my ownership of her for the night. If I had my way, for the entire weekend. I’d have her walking around the convention hall with a plug in her ass and only me and her knowing about it. The thought sent me swiftly to the lift to the room.

I turned the key and put the dresses down on the table near the door. It was nine o’clock. The formal dance had started half an hour ago. She was bound to be furious with me for being late. I wanted to see her angry, see it bounce off me, turn me on to see her defiance. But she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t even there.

Then a moan. She was there. I looked across at the bed. The sun had set and I hadn’t yet turned the light on. I did so, flicking the switch and getting a better look at the woman who thought she was my boss.

“Good evening, Lucy,” I said as I walked over to the bed.

She was laid on her back, the blankets around her feet. Best of all, she was asleep and her legs were open, her skirt around her thighs. I got a flash of her panties through her tights as she heard my voice and bolted upright, wriggling her skirt down and looking delightfully flustered.

“How did you get in here?” she asked, blinking wildly as if she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or not.

“Same as you. With the key.”

“Oh,” she said, spinning and getting to her feet, papers falling to the floor from the side of the bed. “I was working through the projections and…”

“You fell asleep?”

“No, I just…what time is it?”

“Just after nine.”

“But the dance, it’s already started. I’m late.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll have you ready before you know it. Now, choose a dress.”

“What do you mean, choose a dress?”

I walked over to the table and picked them up. “Choose a dress.”

She came towards me, looking at the options. “You bought all these?”

“Choose one or I’ll choose it for you.”

“I can’t choose, they’re all too beautiful.”

“Then wear this one. It’ll bring out your eyes.” I handed it to her, draping it over her arms. “Get changed and I’ll wait in the corridor to take you down to the dance.”

“You don’t need to. You can wait in the bathroom.”

“As you wish.” I nodded, walking away and through the door in the wall next to me. Once I was stood in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. My reflection wanted to march back in while she was undressing, grab her and throw her on the bed.

She shouted through to me. “You got here first anyway. It’s your room, maybe I should be in the bathroom.”

“We can swap if you like,” I said, looking around the door in time to see her sliding the dress down her body.

“How does it look?” she asked, blinking at me as she shifted the fabric on her hips, twisting it better into place.

“Beautiful,” I replied, stopping in front of her. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

“I should get my stuff off the bed,” she said, her breathing changing as she looked intensely at me, her eyes fixed on mine. “It’s your room anyway. You won the bet.”

“How about we share?” I asked, taking a small step closer, my lips close to hers.

She was silent for a second. “Okay,” she whispered, not moving away from me.

I slid my arm around her back, unable to resist her in that dress, the way it outlined the curves of her body. It reminded me too much of how she’d looked when I’d undressed her in Future Trends. I could feel my cock twitching already as the warmth of her skin hit my hand. The dress was backless and the softness of her body made me tingle. I wanted to grab her and hurl her on the bed, pounce on her, tear that dress from her in an instant, taste that body of hers, find out if she tasted as sweet as she looked.

My hand moved slowly down her spine. Her eyes closed and her chest began to heave as it reached the top of her ass, hooking just inside the fabric. “What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper so quiet, I could hardly hear it.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked, knowing that the answer she gave would mean everything. If she said yes I would walk away, just like Ted had told me I should, not risk the trouble that came from fucking an employee who might ruin me for it. But if she said no, if she let me continue, I would worship that body of hers, the way those wet full lips called out for my embrace.

I was torn in that moment. I wanted to be gentle, I wanted to be rough, I wanted to spank the hell out of her, I wanted to fuck her until she screamed. But for the first time in my life I felt something different. I’d never been this close to a woman and felt gentle. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to worship her, to run my hands softly over her body, caress every part of her. What was happening to me?

Was it her?

Or was it me?

Was I changing or was she changing me? I shook my head slightly, clearing my thoughts. It didn’t matter. What mattered was listening to her answer. Everything after that depended on her answer.

“No,” she said a moment later. I smiled as my hand moved a tiny bit lower, cupping her ass. At the same moment I leaned forwards, ready to kiss her.

“Good,” I said, my voice as loud as hers was quiet. There was no turning back. She had awoken the need to dominate in me. She was now mine until I said otherwise.