Unraveled by Her (11 page)

“Good,” he says. “That’ll do fine.” He indicates that I can now pay for it.

Which I do, soaking wet with anticipation at what he plans to do with the belt, yet also humiliated that he made me select and buy a punishment implement that he is clearly going to use on me, and how . . .

At the same time, I’m elated that he clearly thinks I’m now well enough to start playing again . . .

Hours later I’m still hot with sexual excitement. I do my utmost to compose myself when he leads me into Le Salon des Fragrances, where he introduces me to the head perfumer and informs her that he wishes to have a perfume created exclusively for me.

Under different circumstances, I would be thrilled to bits, and so grateful to him for his lavish gift, but now all I can think of is Georgiana Royale, the perfume he had commissioned specially for Georgiana. I gag at the recollection of the overpoweringly suffocating scent of violets. And all of a sudden I am back in the mausoleum, with Georgiana and Tamara once more.

With that, Le Salon des Fragrances takes on an air of unreality, as if it is spinning, swooping around me. I feel utterly disoriented. It seems like my heart is beating so loudly that any minute now it will jump out of my chest, but the rhythm is strange, erratic. For a moment I feel that I am on the verge of choking. A sharp pain shoots through my chest, and I’m convinced that I’m about to throw up.

No matter how much I try to control my reaction, I can’t prevent myself from panting in short, speedy breaths that make me feel faint and nauseous and dizzy, all at once. I break out in a sweat.

Am I going to pass out? Am I going to fall flat on my face here in this super-luxury department store with a crowd of executive staff clustered around me witnessing it? Worse still, am I going to embarrass Robert? I fight not to, and in despair clutch his arm.

He takes one look at me, grabs a chair, and helps me into it.

Holding both of my hands, in a calm, slow voice he says, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, darling. I’m here. Follow my breathing,” and for a few minutes we breathe together until I regain my composure.

Nevertheless, I can tell by the look on his face how worried he is about me.

Please don’t ask me why I’m suddenly acting so weird, Robert, please don’t. I don’t want to lie to you again—even if just by omission.

He fixes me with his laser-beam stare, and for a moment I have the distinct feeling that he intuits the real reason for my panic attack. I am suddenly overcome by the fear that any second he will stride out of the store and leave me standing here, alone and abandoned. But then I tell myself that he will never do that, not ever. He loves me. He’ll never leave me. And even if he finds out the truth, he’ll understand that after the kidnapping, I went into shock, and that afterward, my insecurities about Georgiana escalated, along with my fears that if he knew that she was still alive, I could lose him to her, once and for always, and forgive me for hiding the truth that she is still alive from him. I know he will.

Won’t he?

Luckily, the blood comes back to my face relatively quickly, and within a few moments I am as right as rain again. And now that I’ve bounced back from my panic attack, my mind is made up. Hell will freeze over before I follow in Georgiana’s footsteps like a sheep and allow Robert to have a fragrance commissioned for me.

“Darling, it’s lovely of you to want to commission a fragrance specially for me, but it will take ages and ages for it to be created, and even longer for me to get it and actually be able to use it. So do you think we could pick one out here and now, so that I can start to use it? I’m sure that’s far better than waiting for months and months,” I say, my voice full of conviction.

“Impatient, are we?”

“Always . . .”

“Well, you know what happens to impatient little girls . . .” he says, and gives me one of his stern over-my-knees-you-go looks.

But just when I start to think that I’ve overstepped the mark, he laughs his infectious laugh.

“The stage is yours, my darling. Take your pick, and select the fragrance your heart desires,” he says.

So we spend a fun hour together during which I test out an array of exclusive fragrances. I am just about to make a final decision when the head of the department materializes with a fragrance that she says she is confident is the one for me: X by Clive Christian, which, she explains, is a powerful blend of Egyptian jasmine (with which Cleopatra doused the sails of her royal barge when she set out to seduce Marc Antony), rose, patchouli, cashmere musk, and all manner of priceless ingredients that reputedly comprise the world’s most powerful aphrodisiacs.

That isn’t all; the fragrance—pure perfume—comes in a crystal bottle with a stopper and: “Each drop has to be applied with the stopper. And afterward, in order to protect the X perfume from the skin oils, the stopper must be cleaned with this . . .” Then she produces a pink, purple, and lilac silk handkerchief and my stomach does a flip.

Purple and lilac. At least it’s not violet . . . but I’m still unnerved. Then I pull myself together.

“Robert, I think that X and I are made for each other. And I’d love to adopt it as my signature fragrance,” I say.

“It does have a certain sensual something about it . . .” Robert admits, and places a regular order for it to be shipped to me wherever in the world we happen to be at the time.

Together, that’s all I hope for. Together.

Mission now accomplished in the Salon des Fragrances, I follow him into the designer clothes department, where he insists that I try on a series of dresses from Dior’s new collection. I protest, but he ignores me and requests that the team bring out even more clothes for me to try on. So I surrender to his will and twirl around in front of him in glamorous outfit after glamorous outfit, and all through it I feel as if I were a princess starring in a fairy tale, and he is the king who has won me.

Without any warning, out of the blue I am suddenly swamped with sadness that my mother isn’t here, trying on clothes with me.

“Wistful, Miranda?” he says, immediately noticing my change of mood.

I give him a wan smile. “I was thinking of my mother,” I say.

“She was a catwalk model, wasn’t she?” he asks, and I nod.

“And is she still a size six?” he asks.

For a second, I’m dismayed that Robert is such a seasoned womanizer that he knows that the classic model is size 6/8, but then I brush away my insecurities and focus on the pleasure of the moment, instead.

“Still a six, and proud of it,” I answer.

Within minutes he has ordered the entire Dior collection in her size.

“So you think your mom will be happy with the collection, Miranda?”

“Happy? She’ll be ecstatic!” I say, amazed that he doesn’t automatically know that.

He beams with pleasure.

“So how would you like to deliver it to her in person?” he says.

All of a sudden I feel as if Christmas, Easter, and my birthday have arrived all at once. But what if I’ve misinterpreted him?

“Robert, do you really mean that?”

He nods.

“The plane is fueled up and ready to take off anytime you want,” he says.

I want, oh how I want!

And three hours later we are high in the sky, en route to Honolulu.

Chapter Ten

The seat belt sign is switched off, Robert leans back in his armchair seat, and our eyes lock. His eyes are full of tenderness, mine full of erotic expectation ignited by my memory of our flight to Geneva. Will he any minute order me to strip naked and stand in front of him while he inspects my body? Will he upend me across his knee and spank the hell out of me? Will he fuck me with all his strength and passion? And will I be deliciously sore afterward?

“Do you remember when I told you that I believe in strict rules?” he says, cutting into my thoughts.

“How could I possibly forget?”

He strokes my face, and I melt under his exquisite touch.

“You’ve been through so much, my darling, and strong as you are, I intend to handle you with kid gloves until you are fully recovered from the trauma,” he says.

I flash back to last night, how he hugged me as if he would never let me go, kissed me tenderly from head to foot, so that my skin, my body, my entire being vibrated with pleasure, yet instead of making any sexual demands on me he held me in his arms, and then we slept the entire night like that.

“I control my dominance, it does not control me,” he says, in an even-firmer-than-usual voice.

“Which means?” I say, even though I’ve got a sinking feeling that I know where he is heading, and I don’t like it much.

“That I intend to lead a vanilla existence with you until the time is right for us to once more live out our wildness together. And that’s my final decision,” he says in his don’t-imagine-for-even-a-split-second-that-I’ll-ever-allow-you-to-contradict-me voice.

Just days ago I was imprisoned by Georgiana and Tamara. And now my passion, my desires, my lust for Robert—for all he is, everything he can do to me—are prisoners of his dictate that for the time being we maintain a vanilla relationship.

I don’t plan to protest, though. Tomorrow I’ll be in Honolulu with my mother, and she’ll meet Robert, my love and my future husband, for the very first time.

“Mom doesn’t even know we’re engaged,” I say to him.

“I know, my darling,” he says, and strokes the back of my hand. “And you don’t even have anything to show for it . . . but when you do, you’ll understand exactly why I needed time . . .” he says, simultaneously exciting my curiosity and acknowledging that he hasn’t given me an engagement ring yet.

It has crossed my mind before that he hasn’t, but I decided not to make a big deal out of it because, knowing Robert, the engagement ring he ends up selecting for me will be bigger and more beautiful than the Ritz.

“I don’t care about that. All I care about is that I’m with you,” I say.

“I know you mean that, Miranda. And I love you more than you can ever know,” he says.

I always forget the freshness of the air in Honolulu, the unique quality of the light, the drama of Diamond Head, the beauty of the vegetation, but when the plane lands there, the breeze hits me, and I remember.