Dom Vs: Domme: The Deluxe Trilogy: A Billionaire Romance (Dom Vs. Domme Book 0) (74 page)

“Yes, ma’am. I will send her on her way. She may leave a message, however.”

“That’s fine.” I’m under no obligation to actually listen to her message. Not like she has anything good to say, anyway.

I’m left in peace for a few more minutes. I make some tea, pet the cat, and look at my calendar, wondering what I’m going to be doing two weeks from now, when my contract with the Mathers ends until it’s time to get back to work on that museum.

One nice thing about being filthy rich is that I don’t
have
to work. I don’t worry about my next paycheck. I don’t have to apply to jobs. It’s nice not having to worry about that like some of my acquaintances do. I’m good with my money. So even if I don’t work for a few months and fuck off to Brazil, Singapore, wherever, it doesn’t matter. Everything is taken care of.

Except I can’t live like that. I have to be busy… productively busy. I’m not artistic, so I don’t devote my life to painting, writing, etc. I don’t have kids so I’m not preoccupied with raising them right and making sure they’re educated. No, I’m the type who actually wants to work so she feels like she’s doing something with a greater purpose.

I just have no idea what that’s going to be.

I’m sure I could find some pet project to tie me over until it’s back to work on The Grand museum. A school. Another library. Maybe a homeless shelter. Somebody out there needs me to help them set up grants.

Besides, I need to stay busy. The busier I am, the less I think of Ian.

My phone rings. It’s the doorman.

“Ms. Alison, there is a woman here to see you.”

Fucking fuck fuck. “I told you, I have no need to see Miss May. Take a message and send her on her way.”

“It’s not Miss May. It’s a Ms. Grant-Mathers.”

Well, fuck me.

“Send her up.”

Within five minutes Caroline is at my door, barreling me over as she sashays into my living room and coos at Sinéad playing with a piece of string on the floor. “What a precious little nugget,” she says. “Can’t wait to call this one my grandbaby too.”

“Er…”

Caroline looks at me with the fakest smile in the universe. “I saw you and Ian dancing at the ball. Very nice. Although I hardly doubt you two have sorted out your… differences.”

That’s why the smile is fake. She’s not here to hug me and welcome me back into the family. She’s here to play the role my mother refuses to fill.

Great.

Should’ve left her down in the lobby.

“Call it a moment of weakness,” I say, bringing some tea to her. “A very big moment of weakness. Your son is irresistible.”

“Trust me, I know. I raised the little bastard. He was charming his nanny and me into letting him get away with shit for years.” Caroline sips her tea before putting it down on the coffee table and sitting in one of the chairs. Sinéad saunters over and rubs against a stiletto heel.

“Also,” I sit on my couch, near her, “you missed our favorite Hollywood up and comer. She was here to harass me for hush money.”

“Was she? Well, she should consider herself lucky that she missed
me
then, because I would rip her head off and deflate those fake tits my ex-husband is probably going to buy for her. He offered to buy them for me more than once…”

“I thought you said you were going to take care of that,” I say, carefully.

“Oh, I am, dear. I need a few more days, though. Try to hold her off until then. If you feel it absolutely necessary, go ahead and give her some money.” That diabolical smile reminds me of Ian’s. “She’s going to need all the funds she can get soon.”

I don’t know what that means. I don’t want to know what that means. I hope it involves a private investigator.

“No, I came by to warn you, sweetie.” What is with these people and their pet names? My family would die. My father has a name for me, and that’s it. “My sack of shit ex was by my place the other day to get some more money out of me. Apparently, one of the investors for The Grand fell through, and Dominic is searching for money.”

“Shouldn’t Ian have it?”

“Didn’t he tell you? He already sank a fortune into it. More than Dominic did. Mess…”

“And they’re coming to me because nobody else will give them the money?”

“That’s about the size of it. You’re one of their last resorts.”

“Thanks for the warning, I guess, but why are you telling me this?” There’s no reason for Caroline to be at my door, gabbing about her family’s financial matters. We’re not
that
close, no matter how much she likes to think so. Normally, she would let me find out the hard way… like when Ian is sent to me on his father’s business, looking to lick some money out of my wallet.

Caroline raises her eyebrows as she sips more tea. “Why, because you can use it as leverage, dear.”

We’re silent, my mind turning with those possibilities. “You’re not suggesting…”

“I don’t suggest anything, Kathryn, other than you realize your true worth and know what you want from my son. Sometimes he’s a bit… thick. He doesn’t understand what we’re trying to tell him. He needs to be informed through other methods. Like through money. Ian understands money and business.”

Before I can open my mouth, Caroline drops her final bomb.

“Approach your relationship like a business transaction. Make him pay for what you both want.”

Chapter 21

IAN

“What are you talking about?” I ask the doorman in Katie’s apartment building. “I’ve never had to check in before.”

“Sorry, Mr. Mathers.” The man, a short gentleman with dyed black hair and wiry glasses, tips his hat to me and writes something down with a gloved hand. “Ms. Alison has requested that all guests be checked in and admitted.”

“She’s expecting me.”

“Even so, I must ring her up first.” He picks up a silver phone and holds a finger up to me. “One moment please.”

So here I am, standing in the lobby of Kathryn’s building, watching well-to-do people come and go as I stand off to the side of this desk and wonder what the fuck I’ve done this time to be banned from her home. I have a hard time believing she’s blocking out
everyone…

Wait, she is, you say? Bullshit!

I’m rather scared to go up now.

“Ms. Alison says you may enter.” The doorman gestures to the elevator, where an operator also tips his hat and holds the door open for me. “Have a good evening, Mr. Mathers.”

I was hoping for a good evening before this happened. Sure, I’m here to ask Katie for money on behalf of my family. But I was also hoping we could… you know…

Wine. Dine. Make some love.

Except if she’s blocking me from coming right up to see her, who fucking knows.

I text her on the ride up in the elevator. When I don’t get a response, I try not to panic. The doors open. I step out into the quiet hallway and walk straight to her door.

It’s open.

The average man would assume something was wrong. Terribly wrong. The
average
man would panic that someone broke into Kathryn’s home and is holding her prisoner, molesting her, or dragging her off somewhere for a sweet reward.

I’m not the average man.

First of all, I hear music. Soft, powerful music coming in the form of string instruments over a stereo. The kind of music that plays when we’re trying to focus on something important. Like work. Work we do. I’ve heard Kathryn play this music on her computer when we did our projects.

Second, I smell her spicier perfume. Not the kind she wore on our dates if planning ahead.

Next, as I step into the apartment, I find myself surrounded by candles galore. Most of them electric, but some of them real and emitting scents I didn’t know were possible.

Finally, I see her.

The door latches shut behind me as I step in to Kathryn Alison’s domain. This isn’t Katie dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. She’s not even wearing a skintight dress. Nope.

She’s wearing a tailored pantsuit, sitting in the middle of her couch, legs crossed and arms spread on the edge behind her. Many times have I pulled that ponytail sticking out on top of her head. But it’s covered in black wires, her dark eye makeup searing into my soul as she curls her red lips into a man-eating smile.

Uh oh.

“Good evening,” she says with a tight voice. One leg uncurls from the other, revealing her leather boots. She’s worn those boots while submitting to me. She also wears them to the club as a Domme.

Uh oh.

If I were a captain of a ship, attempting to come into port in my hometown, I would probably start worrying. Okay, not worrying.
Panicking.
Imagine coming up on deck, expecting to see the sleepy docks and the people that inhabit them. Maybe it’s raining or foggy, but everything is as you left it.

Except it’s not.

Soldiers stand on the dock. Your country’s soldiers, but they’re not supposed to be there, especially not in that large of numbers. They’re all armed to the teeth. Guns are aimed at you. Canons point in the direction of your ship. Your first reaction is to man your decks, but you’re afraid that will come off as too aggressive, and you’ll be set on fire before you have the chance to anchor at the dock and kiss your wife hello for the first time in months.

You’re pretty sure you’re going to die, just not sure for what reason and how quickly. At the very least, you’re being arrested.

Handcuffed.

Strung up.

Flogged.

Yup. That’s what I feel like I’m walking into right now.

“Kathryn.” I don’t let me voice waver, but it’s struggling to not betray my reservations. “You look… intimidating.”

Her blue eyes drown in shadows. Yet the sparks I see emanating from their depths… kill me. “Intimidating? Why, thank you. Do sit down.”

I’d rather not, so I continue to stand before her. Standing is the only way I feel like I have any power right now. Kathryn is sucking it up like it’s her lifeblood.

“What can I do for you, Ian?”

This is so formal. This is so… not my Katie. The way she sits, the way she’s dressed, the way she looks at me… never mind the tone of her voice. This is the Kathryn I knew of years ago. The one I avoided for so long because she wasn’t like any woman I wanted to deal with. In fact, if I may say so…

Kathryn Alison is the type of Domme who scares the shit out of me.

The Dommes you imagine are the kind the media plays up. They wear lingerie and leather, maybe some steely boots, and walk around carrying whips while making their subs get down on their knees and God knows what. Kathryn isn’t that kind of Domme. She makes her love by dressing up like a hardcore businesswoman and taking no names. This is the type of woman who destroys a boardroom and then destroys a man’s balls.

All right, so some men get off on that. Good for them. I’d rather not.

I fling my jacket over my arm, trying to look casual, like the Ian she wants to roll around in bed with. I don’t think it’s working.

“Business. I’m here for business.” I won’t press my luck with love.

Kathryn looks between me and something beneath her nails. Is that all I am to her? Lint? Dirt? “I heard on the grapevine that one of your father’s investors didn’t come through. Is that what you’re here about?” The sharp, icy look I get would make me shake in my boots if I were wearing any.

“You heard correctly. We’re in a bit of a pickle. My father asked… well, I thought… if you would be able to help out in any way.”

No man likes to grovel for money. And let’s be honest, no man likes to grovel to the woman he loves for money. I would grovel to my mother first, but she’s been useless enough to not only deny us the funds, but to go running to Kathryn – yeah, I don’t doubt it was her.

Kathryn’s demeanor does not falter. “You want money from me.”

“More like an investment…”

“Which is money, right?”

Her plucked eyebrows look like a witch’s. Whatever. Would still fuck her.

In fact, my mind is racing with images of me putting both hands on her, turning her over on this couch, and teaching her to think twice about acting this way toward me.

I don’t dare.

“Yes. Money tends to be the form investments come in.”

Kathryn pulls her arms off the couch and sits up, elbows resting on knees and ankles pushed together. “It’s funny. I was talking to my accountant the other day. He told me that my forecast is so bright and sunny that I could retire and keep living my life the way I am… and barely see a dent by the time I die at eighty. Isn’t that something? I’m swimming in money. Fifteen million is barely a drop in my big,
big
bucket.”

“That’s good to hear…” Where’s the but?

She gets up, her body so alluring in her outfit that it’s taking me everything I know to not try to touch her. Why shouldn’t I? We’re dating, aren’t we? It’s fair game to touch her as I always have. To take her into my arms. To nibble on her ear and suggest we go to the bedroom and have a good time, even if it’s vanilla.