When Isobel finished work Monday evening, Alexander was waiting outside her office. Blond and smiling, he stood in the sunshine on the sidewalk on Valhallavägen. Passersby glanced at him, but Alexander only had eyes for her. As they met, he pulled her into his arms, crushed her to him, and kissed her until she was clinging onto him. People continued to pass, some openly staring, but Isobel didn’t care; she allowed herself to be swept up into what was maybe just some kind of clinical insanity.

“How was work?”

She had been dazed. Hadn’t heard what her colleagues were saying. Had hid in a room and gazed dreamily through the window.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’m taking you to dinner,” he said, covering her nape with his palm, kissing her ravenously. This was madness. All she could think about was how, over and over, she had lain in Alexander’s bed, or across his armchair, or against his kitchen counter, being dominated and forced to come in orgasm after orgasm. The physician in her could rationally explain how pain released endorphins, and that these then took over to create enjoyment. But the psychology of it was more difficult. Why was what Alexander did to her, with her body, so good?

Though good was, of course, a laughably insufficient word. It was so much more than that. It was like she could be herself, sexually, for the first time. Be with someone who didn’t judge her. Feel safe, dare to trust.

“Eat out or at my place?” he asked as his hands moved over her, seeking out her cheek, down over her back, the back of his fingers tracing her spine.

She couldn’t think, her body was shouting take me, take me, take me, and that was why she said, as firmly as she could, “Out.” That way she would have time to formulate some rational thoughts before she was on her back or her stomach in his bed, with nothing but sex and orgasms on her mind. She had never been so irresponsible before, so young and crazy. Deep down, beneath doctor-Isobel, aid worker–Isobel, and ultracompetent-Isobel, the one you could always rely on, there had always been a woman who hungered after a raison d’être, to stop hiding away like some dirty little secret. She had repressed that side of herself for so long, but it had always been there. And now this. She would never have believed it if she hadn’t experienced it herself. That you could let go with another person in the way she had. And with Alexander, at that. It was incredible.

She had always looked down on people who let themselves be guided by passion, thinking it was a bit pathetic. Well, just look at her now.

Alexander took her to the Mathias Dahlgren, one of the most luxurious restaurants in Europe; spoke quietly with the waiter; and arranged a table in the same self-confident way he organized everything.

They ordered the vegetarian tasting menu and champagne. Expensive, luxurious, outrageous. He took her hand, caressed her wrist.

“This is insane,” she mumbled. Alexander had set something free in her, and he was so terrifyingly skillful. As if it was a hidden talent that had just been lying in wait for the right time to be put to use.

The truth was that everything with Alexander was simply the best she had ever experienced.

“Yes, completely insane,” he agreed.

He kissed her palm, and she was forced to close her eyes. She pulled her hand away.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t think straight.” She couldn’t evaluate herself and this game they were playing anymore. Was it unequal? Had she entered into an unhealthy relationship? Should she be worried she had given up her independence?

“Is something wrong?”

“This, what we’re doing …”

“Yes.”

“It’s so …”

He smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

She leaned back in her chair and studied his handsome, self-confident face.

“Would you let me do it?” she asked quietly. “What you do to me? Switch roles?”

She had thought about it, how it would feel, what he would say.

Silence.

“Alex?”

“Is it something you’d like?” he asked, holding her gaze. She couldn’t read his face. His eyes were pure blue, not a single deviant shade. Blue was the rarest color in nature, she remembered from her biology classes.

“Maybe.”

She hadn’t thought it through, but the moment she said it, the words sounded right. “Yeah, I’d like to try,” she concluded.

“Why?”

She had said it to test him, to try to find some kind of balance in the madness she’d been drawn into.

“I want to know what it feels like for you. And I want you to know how it feels for me.”

She held her breath. Was it an absurd request? And how would she feel if Alexander said no, if he only wanted to be the dominant one?

“I guess it’s a way for me to experience what it’s like for you,” he said after a moment. He took her hand again, brought it to his mouth, kissed a finger, bit it gently. “Tell me, Isobel,” he said against her skin, his voice low and almost purring. “What would you do if you were in charge?”

It was as though all her blood had been redistributed in her body. That sultry look, that rumbling voice …

“I probably wouldn’t do anything different from what you did,” she answered, barely able to get the words out. She really hadn’t thought this through.

“But if you’re going to take control,” he said, kissing the next finger, “then I need to tell you what I fantasize about.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to sound brazen and sassy.

Her heart was pounding. It was one thing to cockily suggest dominating Alexander but something completely different to realize that it meant trying to control a man who weighed somewhere over two hundred twenty pounds. It was mostly about mental strength, she knew that, but still. Jesus. Would she be able to pull it off?

“Beautiful, sexy, addictive Isobel. D’you know what I want?” His eyes were half-closed, and his dark lashes cast shadows on his golden skin and angular features. He breathed out, and the warm air from his breath made her shudder.

“I want you to do to me what you want me to do to you later.”

“What do you mean?”

He took yet another finger, kissed it lightly. “That there are things you want from me, things you don’t dare ask for. That you still think you have to guard your secrets.”

“I’ve never told anyone as much as I’ve told you,” she said honestly.

“One night when you can do whatever you want to me … I’m looking forward to it.”

“Don’t you think I can do it?”

He smiled. “Au contraire, ma chérie.”

How many times had she ended up in discussions where men wanted to put her in her place? It was often so subtle that she didn’t even realize it until long afterward. That the strange feeling clinging to her was from the small pinpricks she had been dealt, and that started to sting only once she got home. It wasn’t that she couldn’t cope with being contradicted. Having a discussion and being forced to refine your arguments were par for the course when you worked in the aid community. But there were many men whose sole aim in such discussions was to flatten her.

Alexander, who already talked about aid, fieldwork, and humanitarian efforts in the third world as if he had studied the subject his entire life, had never tried to show off at her cost.

The violent attraction she felt to him was about just that. The combination of arrogance and respect. Yes, she wanted to dominate him. Wanted to force him down onto his knees as he had done with her.

His eyes, so fixed on hers that it felt as if he could hear every word she thought, darkened. Maybe it was the lighting. The candles were lit; the sky was azure blue outside, the way it was only a few days every year; and she felt that they were communicating wordlessly. This game, the one between them, it had set something going. Earlier today she had thought of it like a door she had opened and entered.

But it wasn’t a door.

It was more like an opening, ten thousand feet up, that had suddenly appeared and sucked her up.

There would be a battle between them. She loved it when Alexander dominated her, probably more than she dared admit to herself. But she planned on taking this opportunity to create some kind of equality in their relationship.

“If that’s going to work, you’ll have to tell me things,” she said.

“Whatever you want, baby.”

No.

She shook her head.

“Not about sex. Personal things.”

A cautious look flew over his improbably handsome features. Ah. So he wasn’t as comfortable with this as he made out. Excellent.

She leaned back. Watched him, searched for a way in. Remembered how often she had thought that this was a man who had experienced things he would rather hide.

“What’s the toughest thing you’ve ever been through?”

He laughed. Stretched out his legs.

“I don’t have any particular traumas. I’m much too busy living in the here and now.”

“No. That’s not how it works. You can’t demand total honesty from me and then give me bullshit in return.”

His eyes flashed, and his face changed, went through nuances of feeling. Isobel could see his caution. His arousal. A small, small amount of anger. And fear.

Sweet Alexander. What is it you’re hiding from me?

“I saw it last summer. You definitely have your demons.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Actually, no,” she replied. “I’ve met people who haven’t experienced anything particularly difficult. But on the other hand, they’re all unbearably boring. So tell me now. I really want to know.”

Alexander leaned back. Didn’t move his eyes from her, not even when he reached for his glass and took a sip of champagne.

“It’s nothing much,” he started. “I wish I could say there was some trauma, but …”

Mmm, right?

“School?”

He shrugged. Traced a finger around the edge of his glass.

“What happened in school?”

“It was tough, but it’s not something I think about today. I got completely frozen out for a while. I stood up for a classmate who got bullied. So they punished me by leaving me out of everything. No one talked to me.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No. In my family, you don’t show your weakness. It wouldn’t have helped. So I kept quiet. Got used to it.”

“Was this in elementary school?”

He nodded.

“You went to boarding school?”

“Yeah. It was okay. Apart from the usual stuff. Bullying and so on.”

“Did the girls like you?”

He smiled slowly. “Yes, Isobel,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “The girls liked me. And I liked them. I have women to thank for a lot.”

She knew exactly what he was doing now. He was deeply uncomfortable with how close she’d gotten and he was trying to take back control. But she had no desire to hear his many, many, many stories about women.

“Tell me about your parents,” she said instead, sure there was plenty she hadn’t found out yet.

He gave her a blank look. Silence.

But she had seen Leila do this. Wait people out. And so she waited.

“My mother isn’t a warm person,” he eventually said. His tone of voice was brusque, reluctant. “But I was always her favorite.”

“How did that feel?”

He stared at her.

“How do you think?” he eventually asked, smoothly.

“I think it must’ve been complicated,” she answered. “To be loved by someone who probably put her own needs first.” She knew how it felt, after all.

“I clung to my siblings. To Peter first. But he couldn’t stand me. He’s six years older, but my father always made us compete for his attention. I could never understand why Peter didn’t see that our parents played us off against each other. As I got older, I gave up trying to reach out to him. Now we have as little contact as possible.”

There was something else with this brother; she would dig deeper later, but she wanted to move on.

“Tell me about your father.”

Alexander pulled a face and scratched his chin. “He’s a racist. A homophobic, chauvinist pig. A cliché.”

“What’s your relationship like?”

“We have no relationship. When I was young, I was what he called sensitive. A deadly sin in his eyes. I had to be toughened up.”

“How?”

“Through beating.”

“He hit you?”

“Like crazy. Me and Peter. And then I had to spend time doing manly things. Hunting. Sport.”

“You like hunting?”

“No, I hate it. My dad knew that. To me, it’s just innocent animals being killed by idiotic humans.”

“That’s why I’m a vegetarian. I’ve seen the way animals are killed, and I won’t support that in any way. I understand how you feel.”

They fell silent. Studied one another. He bit his lip, and she remembered her initial impression of Alexander. That he seemed lost, without hope. She pictured him as that young boy who’d been abused by his own father, the very person who should have protected him from the hurts of the world. And she finally managed to grasp the fragment of a thought that had been flickering on the edge of her mind for so long. Marius. He looked like Marius when he talked about his family. She saw the same abandonment in his eyes. The same cautious, hunted look.

“There’s nothing wrong with being sensitive. You’re an intelligent person, so you know that already. But I just want to say it anyway.”

“It’s all behind me now. My father doesn’t give a damn about me, and I don’t give a damn about him.”

“So what is it, Alexander? What aren’t you telling me?”

He sighed. “I guess you’re going to keep nagging until I tell you?”

“Absolutely.”

He waved to the waiter.

“If I’m going to talk about this, I’ll need something stronger than champagne.”