Secrets After Dark (31 page)

Turn to your left so you’re facing the main house. Walk.

Where is he? I smile. I love the way Dominic likes to spice up our life like this. I do as directed and start walking along the passage. When I reach the end of the building, I come out of the passageway and have to go down some steps and around the bay window of an apartment in the basement of the main house. But now where?

Go through the doorway in front of you.

A black door straight in front of me leads under the main house. I push at it and it opens easily enough. I step inside, into a cold stone corridor, dusty and dirty, lit by a faded yellow light from a dusty bulb.

‘Dominic? Are you there?’ I’m not frightened but this place is a bit spooky. There are mousetraps everywhere, placed at intervals along the passage, and black-painted wooden doors marked with numbers. An old wardrobe, one door swinging open to show tins of paint and rags, stands against a wall.

Wait.

I do as I’m told, breathing in the dank, rather dusty air, wondering what Dominic has in mind. Then suddenly a door creaks open to my side and a hand comes out. I jump violently and scream. The hand grabs me and hauls me inside and before I know what’s happening, I’m in a large, dark recess, some kind of storage closet as far as I can tell, and pressed up against Dominic, who’s laughing quietly in my ear.

‘You rotter,’ I say and pound him lightly on the chest.

‘Did I scare you?’ he says, still laughing.

‘You know you did.’ I look around. ‘How did you find this horrible place?’

‘I came in to drop something off for Andrei. I thought it would be fun to nose around and find somewhere to summon you so I can kiss you.’ With that, he gives me a long, delicious kiss that makes my irritation at him fade away. ‘Mmm. You’re delicious. I needed that.’

‘Me too.’ My fright passed, I’m very amenable to whatever he wants now. ‘So...’ I say in a purring voice, slipping my hands under his shirt. ‘Have you got time to play a little?’

He groans. ‘Oh my God, I wish I did. I can’t think of anything nicer and I’d like to take my mind off this blasted negotiation. It’s the trickiest, knottiest deal we’ve ever done. We’re all on a knife-edge because if it falls through, we have to pay a £300 million break fee. You can imagine how much Andrei wants to hand that kind of money over for precisely nothing. The only person enjoying it is Anna. I swear to God she gets an actual sexual thrill from difficult situations like this. I can see why Andrei keeps her on; she’s a superlative person to have on side. She gets the stoniest, most stubborn businessman eating out of her hand eventually.’

I run my palms over the smooth skin of his sides and chest. ‘Stay for five minutes?’ I plead. ‘I love seeing you.’

‘Honey, I really can’t. I shouldn’t have stayed this long, I just couldn’t resist seeing you.’ He gazes down into my face, his eyes glinting in the semi-darkness. ‘You know what? This deal is going to make me a lot of money. An enormous amount. When it’s done we’re going to celebrate. I’d like to buy you something. Maybe... maybe a ring.’

I draw in a breath.
A ring?
The next words spring into my mind without my wanting them to:
an engagement ring?
My heart starts to pound and my fingers tremble.
He can’t mean that, not yet. We’ve only been together a few months – and apart for most of them...

Dominic doesn’t say anything to put me out of my agony and I can sense him smiling softly in the gloom.

‘No need to decide right now,’ he says, obviously enjoying the different ways his words can be interpreted. ‘Just think it over for a while. We’ll go shopping soon, okay? Once this business is finished.’

‘Okay,’ I whisper. ‘That would be nice.’

‘I want to spoil you a little. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Of course not,’ I say, embarrassed but pleased. I run my hands around to his back and over its broad, muscular surface. My fingers touch something: a patch of raised skin, running in a long line across his back. There’s another and another. In fact, a criss-cross of lines covers his back. ‘What are these, Dominic?’ I say, suddenly anxious.

‘Huh?’ He reaches round and pulls my hands out of his shirt. His tone has changed to a cooler one and he’s stiffened slightly. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ve got marks all over your back! They weren’t there on Sunday. Where did they come from?’

He says nothing, still holding my wrists and standing very still. I can’t read the expression in his eyes in this murky light but I have a feeling they’ve darkened and become unreadable anyway.

I’m scared now. He’s got the marks of a flogging on his back. Just like in Croatia. How did he get them? ‘Tell me, Dominic – who did this to you?’

‘No one.’ His tone tells me he doesn’t want to discuss this. The cosy, loving atmosphere between us has completely disappeared. ‘Now, come on, I’ve got to get back.’ He tucks his shirt in and pushes open the door, letting more light into our cramped hideout. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ He steps out past me into the corridor.

‘Dominic, I want to know! Who’s been whipping you?’ There’s a note of accusation in my voice, born from fear. I can see it all now, very clearly. He’s decided not to use whips and floggers on me, but that doesn’t mean he won’t use them at all. As I follow him out into the corridor, I remember how he first discovered he was into domination games, when he joined a secret society at Oxford and began to witness floggings. The participants didn’t have sex with one another, they simply worked out their desires with their chosen implements, the tops giving out the punishment and the bottoms taking it, to their mutual satisfaction. It was how Dominic learned the craft and nurtured his controlling instincts until they became an essential part of him. Could he be doing something like that again?
But he’s a master, not a slave! How can he be taking the punishment instead of giving it?
‘Who is it, Dominic?’

He turns and looks at me, his eyes hard and his face set in an obstinate expression. ‘I told you. No one. I won’t be questioned like this. You have to trust me.’ He starts walking back the way I came.

‘Is it Vanessa?’ I shoot out, thinking of the woman he once loved who was his partner in those first games. She is a professional mistress and dominatrix now, and still a close friend to Dominic. I’m flooded with anxiety and panic. Why won’t he say? Is it wrong to expect an explanation? I can’t stop myself going on: ‘Are you two playing games together again? Does she keep her skills honed on your back, or do you take turns?’

Dominic halts and turns around. He looks heart-stoppingly gorgeous in his suit and Hermès silk tie, his dark hair curling softly round his ears. His expression is stormy and stubborn. ‘Beth, stop it. Don’t spout this rubbish! Vanessa is abroad. I haven’t seen her in months and anyway, that part of our lives is over with. You know that. Why are you saying this?’

‘What do you expect me to think? You won’t tell me why you’re covered in marks!’

We’re standing in the open area below the covered walkway at the entrance to the passage that leads beneath the building.

‘I told you to trust me,’ Dominic says in an ominously low voice. ‘Please do that, Beth. It will be clear in time, I promise. Whatever I do, I do for us both.’

My eyes fill with hot tears of anger and frustration. ‘I want to trust you – but doesn’t that mean honesty from both of us?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m honest with you, but you’re not being open with me. You’re holding things back.’

‘I told you to drop this, Beth,’ he says in a warning voice. ‘The time isn’t right.’

‘When will it be right? I can’t understand why you won’t tell me. You must see how it looks to me. You refuse to touch a whip or a flogger when I’m with you, but you’re covered in welts! Please, put me right, explain to me...’

‘Beth—’ He takes a step towards me and then we’re both startled by a cooing voice from above.

‘Well, hello, you two. What are you doing down there?’ Anna is standing in the garden just above at the entrance to the covered walkway. She’s leaning over the low iron railings, her long dark hair dropping down towards us as though she’s Rapunzel letting down her tresses for the prince to climb. She looks ravishing in a dark suit, the skirt very short and showing off her amazing legs.

‘I told you to wait for me outside, Anna,’ snaps Dominic.

‘But you were taking such an age,’ she coos down. ‘I came in to find you and then I heard all this shouting. What on earth are you so angry with Beth about? And why are you hiding down there?’

I can see strong exasperation in Dominic’s face, and feel a shiver of apprehension. Anna didn’t know about us but she’s going to have a good idea now. What does that mean for Dominic? Will she tell Andrei, in one of their pillow talks? How will he respond when he finds out?

Oh, shit. We’re in trouble now.
I hope that Dominic manages to come up with a convincing story, fast.

‘I’m coming up now, Anna,’ he says, and heads for some stone steps that lead directly up to the garden. ‘I’ll see you later, Beth, all right? We’ll talk then.’ He goes quickly up the steps, joins Anna at the railings and says something to her in a low voice that I can’t quite hear.

I gaze up at them both from below, as though they are on a high stage and I’m simply in the audience, watching and admiring from a distance. They are certainly a beautiful couple, their dark colouring complementing each other, looking like a gorgeous god and goddess of business in their dark suits. I’m jealous of Anna for the first time because she looks as though she is meant to be with Dominic, and I do not. Not in the darkly glamorous way that she has.

Perhaps I’m more suited to someone like Andrei. Ugly.
But he’s not ugly, I know that, and neither am I.
Except that I’m not a beauty like Anna.
I try to put that thought out of my mind, knowing it’s stupid and pointless. Dominic loves me as I am, I know that. He thinks I’m beautiful, and that’s the main thing.

Anna looks down over the railings again. ‘Goodbye, Beth, perhaps I will see you later? I’m coming to the apartment this evening. I would love to see you.’

Not if I see you first,
I think. ‘Goodbye, Anna. Goodbye, Dominic.’ I gaze up at him, trying to hide my desperation for an explanation from him while Anna is watching. Goodness only knows how much she heard. I watch them walk off through the main house and disappear from sight.

Sighing and unhappy, I make my way back towards Andrei’s set.
How on earth are we going to sort this one out? Has Dominic really betrayed me?

I try to shake off the misery and confusion for now. I have work to do after all.

The job is nearly done by six that evening when the men doing the hanging for me finish up for the day. The groupings and arrangements look wonderful, I have to admit, and my mood lifts when I think how pleased Andrei will be with the results. The pictures transform the apartment. It looks like a home, at last, and everywhere is a feast for the eyes and imagination. We have a few pictures left to put up – and there’s a still a place in Andrei’s bathroom where he wants his own personal
Mona Lisa
.

Marcia has left and Sri has gone out shopping as I start packing up to go home. I’ve heard nothing from Dominic all day, but I try not to dwell on it. He says I have to trust him, and maybe I should. But I can’t help feeling he still has secrets from me, things I need to know about him. I just wish he felt he could confide in me, and that we could face things together. I’m afraid that Dominic wants to tackle problems on his own and solve them without me, so that he doesn’t worry me with them; he doesn’t realise that we’re stronger together and that I want to help him, and feel needed and important. I wish I could see him and explain this to him but as it is, the argument and the sense of horrible suspicion has stayed with me all day, and completely taken the shine off the mysterious question Dominic asked me about the ring.

He won’t want to get me a ring now,
I think miserably,
engagement or otherwise. He was so angry with me for pressing him.

For a brief moment, I imagine being married to Dominic. I picture a romantic wedding with the handsomest groom in the world, vowing to love me for the rest of his life. I’m in a gorgeous white dress, my family and friends watching as I make my pledge to this extraordinary man. Then, a wedding night of enticing surprises and special bridal gifts that no one outside the honeymoon suite should ever lie eyes on... lacy lingerie, soft silk ribbons, a glittering white mask and white leather cuffs lined with white fur. And after that, a life together, of love and tenderness and mutual support...
It could be so beautiful... what if he really did mean an engagement ring?

I catch myself up in these stupid thoughts. I need to give myself a good talking to.
It’s ridiculous to imagine something like that when we’ve been together such a short time.

Yes,
replies another part of me,
but we both know this is special. Our connection is beyond anything I’ve ever known...

So why the hell is he letting someone whip him? And why won’t he tell me who it is?

It’s driving me mad not knowing. I decide I’ll leave him strictly alone while this deal is completed and then demand he tells me the truth if we’re really going to move forward in this relationship.