The Dom of My Dreams: A BDSM Novel (30 page)

Her amusement fled.
 
“He didn’t mean anything by it, Marjorie.
 
May I call you Marjorie?
 
That’s the way he is!
 
He’s a total jokester and a hopeless tease.
 
If you’re going to be with him, you will need thicker skin.”

“Yes, you may call me Marjorie,” I said dolefully.
 
“And I guess I do need thicker skin.
 
So, the two of you pretended to be lovers just to make me jealous?”

Dana nodded, amusement recoiling her eyes.
 
“He wanted to see if you’d react in some way.
 
You know,” she leaned forward, her voice smoothed into a conspiratorial whisper, “I think he fancies you.”

I shifted restlessly on the bench.
 
“He doesn’t like me.”

She frowned and leaned back, smoothing back a strand of hair that had come out of her sunglasses.
 
“Yes, he does, darling.
 
He’s never done that before, trying to make a woman jealous.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.
 
He and I are no longer involved.”

Her frown deepened.
 
“Really?
 
He didn’t tell me that!
 
I was under the impression that the two of you were still together.”
 

“We were never together.
 
It was just sex.”

She made a face at me.
 
“Well…whatever it was, I hope the two of you work things out.
 
Davy’s quite taken with you, I’m sure of it.
 
And I’m glad.
 
My dear brother, he needs someone special in his life.”
 
She peered at him, sisterly affection written all over her pretty face.
 

“I’m not ‘someone special,’ ” I said irritably.

 
“He needs someone who could make him happy,” she went on, ignoring my biting remark.
 
“He’s had a…difficult life.”
 
She turned her gaze back to me, face suddenly serious.
 
“He’s a good bloke, Marjorie, once you get to know him.
 
He can be difficult, even intimidating, but that’s just a front.
 
I must warn you, however, that he’s sort of a control freak—likes to order people around.
 
You’ll have to get used to that.
 
God knows I’ve had to put up with it!”

I relaxed a little and smiled to myself.
 
If only Dana knew that his controlling nature was precisely what I liked about him.
 
I sighed with relief.
 
He hadn’t told her about our trysts.
 
If she felt the need to warn me about him being a “control freak,” then she didn’t know that he was dominant in bed.
 
She didn’t know about that side of him.
 
Oh, how nice it was to know that they weren’t
that
close!

I wondered what she’d meant when she said that Seton had had a difficult life.
 
I bit my tongue lightly to keep myself from asking.
 
She hadn’t elaborated, and I wasn’t about to pry.
 
Still, I wished she had gone into more detail.

Dana lowered her sunglasses, combed her glossy hair with her fingers, then looped it back perfectly with her glasses.
 
Man, if only I were as classy as she was.
 
If only my personality were as exuberant as hers.
 
She was gorgeous
and
interesting, a female version of her brother—right down to his fickle, contradictory nature.

She caught me staring at her as she adjusted her glasses.
 
“They’re Cutler and Gross,” she informed me, “an eyeglass shop in London.
 
Cost me quite a bundle.”
 
She eyed my shoulder bag.
 
“Louis Vuitton!
 
Lovely!
 
I love handbags too.
 
Perhaps you’ll fancy going shopping with me some time?”

“Designer purses are my only vice.
 
I’m not what you would call a fashionista, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
 
I indicated my shabby clothes.
 
“But thanks for the offer.”

“You would look fabulous in designer duds.”

I shrugged.
 
“I don’t see the point.
 
I’m not exactly prone to spending hours in front of a mirror.
 
I look plain no matter what I wear.”

“I see you’re not a poster girl for high self-esteem.”

I glared down at the grass and shrugged again.

“It’s all nonsense, you know.
 
You’re gorgeous.”

This coming from someone with perfect porcelain skin.
 
“What do you do, by the way?” I asked, changing the subject.

She flicked the ashes on her cigarette butt.
 
“I’m an art dealer.”

I raised my eyebrows.
 
“Really?
 
Your brother’s an art dealer too.”

“I know.
 
I’m here to help him set up his gallery.
 
The day you saw us walking out of that restaurant, we were actually meeting with some investors.
 
I was there as mediator, someone who could give him an expert second opinion.
 
Davy is quite new at this stuff, but he’s always had an exquisite eye for quality art.
 
I’m glad he’s finally decided to open up his own shop.”

“And where do you live?”

“Right now?
 
I’m staying at Davy’s, but I reside in London.
 
I’ll be here for another fortnight or so.
 
I’m seriously considering moving to New York City in the not-so-distant future though.
 
I’d like to open up a gallery in Manhattan.”
 
She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful for a moment.
 
“I’m trying to convince this famous artist to work with me.
 
He lives in New York.
 
You ever heard of Quinn Armitage?”

I smiled softly to myself.
 
Quinn Armitage—a.k.a. the Marquis de Sade of the art world—the tall, dark and tortured artist-slash-fetish club owner with the mysterious silvery-blue eyes and husky Australian accent.
 
How could I forget?
 

“No, don’t think so,” I lied.

“He’s a long-time friend of Davy’s.
 
He’s also a gifted artist.
 
I’ve met him a couple of times.”
 
She wrinkled her nose prettily at me.
 
“To be honest, I don’t like him, at least not as a person.
 
He’s very intense and kind of creepy.
 
But he’s a
brilliant
painter.
 
His portraits are rather dark and…erotic.”
 
She let out an involuntary shiver when she uttered the last word, her eyes turning pensive just moments before they crinkled into a tight smile.
 
“Anyway, I shall work with him.
 
And Davy’s going to help me do it.”

I leaned back on the bench and frowned at the outfield.
 
I didn’t think Seton would let his twin sister work with someone like Quinn Armitage.
 
Quinn seemed so bleak and moody, and his paintings were so intricate and darkly sensual, that I’d be wary of letting him near my drop-dead gorgeous twin sister if I was him.
 
Well,
I
wouldn’t let my sister, if I’d had one, make business deals with someone like Armitage, but who knew what went on in Seton’s mind?
 
I sure as hell didn’t!
 
For all I knew, he’d be thrilled to have his good friend work with Dana.
 

I could have saved her the trouble of persuading Quinn by simply telling her that the man hadn’t touched a single paintbrush in over a year, but then I’d have to explain how I knew that, which would lead to my explaining where I’d met him, and that I would not do.
 
That was the reason why I’d lied about knowing him in the first place.

Dana interrupted my thoughts, startling me.
 
“Northampton’s quite lovely,” she chirped happily, her head tipped to the side as if to study my face, having noticed that I’d been staring at Seton.
 
“Reminds me of Notting Hill, where I live.”

My gaze traveled over to where Seton was talking to Alfred and asked Dana something that had been on my mind for a while now.
 
“Why did Seton move here?
 
I mean, why this town and not someplace more obvious, like New York or Boston?”

She glanced over at her brother and puffed on her cigarette.
 
“His best friend from Cambridge lives in this town.
 
He’s the one who advised Davy to open up his gallery here.”

I shot Dana a surprised look.
 
“He’s got a friend who lives here?”

She nodded.
 
“I’ve seen him a few times, but I don’t know the chap all that well.
 
He’s American, and he moved back to the states right after graduating from Cambridge.
 
I thought I saw him here earlier.
 
Oh, here comes Davy!”

Seton strode toward us, wiping sweat from his face with a muscular forearm, leaving a faint sheen of moisture across his forehead.
 
He’d been standing under the burning sun for a while now and his skin looked slightly flushed.
 
Even in his current feverish state, he moved with the elegance and grace of an aristocrat.
 
I chuckled softly when I noticed his t-shirt had the phrase “My Way or the Highway” written on it.
 
He stopped several feet before us, his gaze meeting mine before turning to his sister.
 

“Let’s go.
 
We’re leaving,” he said to her.

I watched with interest as Dana extinguished her cigarette, snatched up her handbag and crossed over to her brother like a trainee at a boot camp.
 
It amazed me how people automatically responded to Seton’s commands.
 
Dana hadn’t even noticed that she’d been ordered to leave.
 
Maybe she was so used to her brother’s dominant ways that obeying him was second nature to her.

She grabbed Seton by the elbow and smiled at him.
 
“Davy, is your best mate from Cambridge here?” she asked enthusiastically.
 
“I thought I saw him at the game earlier.
 
Perhaps we should introduce him to Marjorie.”

“We’re leaving,” Seton repeated briskly.

Dana frowned but said nothing.
 
Then she scooted over to me, her arms outstretched, offering me a hug.
 
I pushed to my feet and stiffened a little when she wrapped her slender arms around me in a sisterly embrace.
 
She smelled of vanilla and Chanel No. 5.
 
“It was nice meeting you, Marjorie!
 
Hope we can meet up some time, before I leave for London.
 
In fact, we
shall
meet up soon.
 
Perhaps we’ll go shopping together after all!
 
That a deal?”

I pulled away from her and smiled.
 
Dana’s enthusiasm was infectious, but it also confused me.
 
Aside from Jeremy and Magda, no one had ever treated me with such kindness before.
 
I hardly knew the woman, and yet she treated me with a familiarity that made me slightly uneasy.

“So?” she probed.
 
“Is it a deal?”

“For God’s sake, Dana, leave the woman alone,” Seton said, annoyed.

Dana shot her brother a glare before turning hopeful eyes to me.
 

I grinned at her.
 
Nah, what the hell.
 
“Sure.
 
It’s a deal.”

She laughed and brushed a light kiss across my cheek.
 
“And perhaps my stick-in-the-mud twin brother will join us.
 
I shall force him to come along if I have to, promise.”
 
She gave me a conspiratorial, we-share-a-secret-no-one-else-knows-about type of wink.