Chapter 2

“ ... and here,” she announced with a dramatic flourish, “is where you’ll spend the next month or two of your life, toiling away like an indentured servant while the landed classes sip wine on the verandah and discuss how we’re going to oppress the rest of you.”

She’s hilarious. How did I forget that she’s hilarious? Luke looked at the staircase, already marveling at the bizarre architecture of his combination apartment and workspace. “Will there be rations?”

From behind him, Kathryn laughed the low, irrepressibly sultry laugh he remembered so well. It affected him like foreplay, and he shuddered at the inevitable result. “I hope you like gruel. No, no ... food is its own discussion, but there are indeed rations.” Her voice changed; deeper and more formal, as if reciting the terms of a contract. Which, of course, she was. “Six times per week, you are allowed any bottle of your choice valued at up to eighty dollars hammer price. Once per week you may select a wine valued at up to five hundred dollars hammer price.” Her tone modulated once more. “And the gentry wishes you excellent imbibing.”

He was halfway up the stairs, but stumbled and banged his knee into the edge of one when he wrapped his head around her penultimate sentence. “Wait, what?!?” he demanded, incredulous at their insane generosity. “That’s way more than I agreed to!”

“I can only repeat what I’ve been told, sir.” Her insouciance was perfectly executed. “Who knows what might have happened? Perhaps a crafty pair of untrustworthy lawyers took advantage of your legal naïveté and adjusted a few of the numbers. Anyway, the gentry wishes for you to enjoy your work so much that you don’t realize how cruelly your labor is being exploited, and feels this is the most efficient way to artificially encourage that enjoyment.”

I’d enjoy it even more if you’d...

Pushing the thought aside, he managed to rephrase his question. “No, seriously; that’s far too generous, and I won’t get anywhere close to those numbers. Anyway, where do I get groceries? How far is the nearest store? Gas station? Pharmacy?”

With an air of impatience, she gestured upward. “Luke, if you’d be kind enough to finish ascending the staircase without injuring yourself and opening us up for an OSHA complaint, I’ll happily answer all your questions.”

Despite her entreaty, he paused when he reached the top step, gaping at his surroundings. He was on the second floor of what was, essentially, a two-story wine cellar with an apartment attached to its top floor. Racks upon racks of wine — far from the most he’d ever seen, but still a prodigious quantity — covered the entirety of the first floor and lurked behind a quadruple-pane glass window on the second. In the midst of all this vinous glory was an apartment beyond imagining. The wall that was essentially made of wine was opposite floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the lake. Self-polarizing glass, he noted. Sweet. At one end of the room were an expensive looking king-sized bed and a bright, spacious bathroom; at the other was a compact and modern kitchen. In between the two ends were a dining table for four that took full advantage of the view, and a luxurious leather sofa that didn’t. Kathryn guided him around the room, pointing out controls and hidden features until his jaw grew sore from dropping.

Luke adored open architecture, which (in the city) was beyond even his rapidly advancing means. But this was more open than anywhere he’d ever lived; from the lake to the wine, everything except the bathroom was fully exposed and accessible.

If only she was.

“Open the fridge.”

The refrigerator was an overstuffed cornucopia of ingredients — despite his fitness regime, Luke loved to cook and rarely followed any sort of rigid dietary guidelines — and as he searched through the cabinets he realized that, despite the kitchen’s modest size, he lacked for nothing.

“You’re free to cook for yourself — Bill says your father raves about your cooking — and if you need groceries, just send me a list and I’ll have them picked up and delivered by our assistant. Or, if you’d prefer, you can deal with her more directly. It’s nearly impossible to order takeout around here, and the results aren’t worth it anyway, but we have a chef that comes in up to five nights a week, depending on ... well, more on that later ... and if you’d rather, she’ll be more than happy to put together lunches and dinners with whatever requirements you have. Alternatively, you’re welcome to dine with us ... that’s a standing invitation, any night you want ... though of course we’re not always here.”

Luke nodded, overwhelmed yet conflicted. “I’m supposed to send you a shopping list? Isn’t that a little menial for landed gentry?”

Her smile made his heart, and other organs, leap. “It is, but sometimes I get bored.”

“Bored? Aren’t you a lawyer?”

“I’m retired.”

“Retired?” Luke sputtered. “But surely you’re barely out of law school!” He knew it wasn’t true, but he felt the compliment was worth a try.

Despite his effort, her smile disappeared, replaced by a strange melancholy. “Hardly. According to the Bar Association and the big piece of paper hanging on my office wall, I’m still a lawyer. But when I left Bill’s firm I decided to take some time off, something I hadn’t done since I was ... well, since I was in college ... and it was glorious. Then we moved here, and I took even more time off to transform all of this from a pleasant vacation getaway into a permanent home. But when it was done, I realized that I’d lost the fire. I used to love tearing someone apart like a predator toying with their defeated prey, all without raising my voice.” Jesus, that couldn’t possibly be sexier, he thought as he pictured it. “And I wouldn’t mind having that back in my life, but only once in a while. Not hour after hour, day after day. Also, I got tired of jousting with men who didn’t believe I could do their job as well as they could. Anyway, by then I’d proved my point; to them and to myself. Women like me aren’t allowed to show the strain, because it’s a sign of weakness that invites the sharks to pounce, but it’s incredibly exhausting to live that way. Sometimes we don’t want to be on...” She skidded to an abrupt halt.

“Be on top.” That’s what she was going to say. How in the hell am I going to survive a month or more of this?

“So what do you do now?”

“Charity work, mostly. Not sitting around sipping tea with ladies wearing hats, though. I’m the legal advisor for a cluster of organizations. If they actually need to go to court or draw up a contract I might send them elsewhere, just because I don’t want to be dragged back into negotiations, but all the other evil behind-the-scenes machinations are my doing. I’m also talking with some former colleagues about starting a foundation for disadvantaged girls who want to go into law. Aside from that, I collect shopping lists from my indentured servants and give house tours. Speaking of which...”

“Right, sorry. Please continue.” I almost called her “Mistress,” just to see what she’d say in return. I’m in such trouble. Even more than I imagined.

“Thank you. As for the rest: you’ve got free access to the lake ... you’ll want to bring bug spray if there’s no breeze ... the boathouse, and any of the non-powered boats. If you want to borrow the big boat and you promise to return it unharmed, just ask; of all the unnecessary trinkets purchased in the first flush of our rural insanity it’s the least used, and it unquestionably deserves a proper workout now and again. The swimming pool and hot tub are also yours to use — just head straight through the house to the back — though we’d prefer some warning if you intend to invite someone else to join you. Bill rarely uses the pool, but we often have drinks or meals on the patio. I can frequently be found poolside and my presence shouldn’t dissuade you, though I wouldn’t want you to interrupt my tanning.” Luke burned with embarrassment and the first hints of unaddressable sexual frustration at the thought of her in a bathing suit, but forcefully attempted to ignore both. In defiance of his resistance, he could feel his manhood swelling down his leg; thankfully, he’d worn looser pants than usual to protect against this easily predictable outcome.

“Yes, I can see just how many hours you spend baking in the sun.” Her skin remained as pristine as before; if she did lounge by the pool, it was either clothed or under the protection of a very large umbrella.

She smiled at his teasing, then continued. “Anything ... anything at all ... that you need, feel free to ask. Supplies for the apartment, for your work — we received your list and I think we’ve prepared everything, but just let us know if there’s something we missed — or advice on where to escape your oppressors for a few hours of idle relaxation. Seriously, anything. Bill spends a great deal of time at work and ... elsewhere ... these days, but I’m around most of the time. And if I’m not here, Irina — she’s our part-time caretaker and my personal assistant — might be; she has full authority to act on my behalf. In fact, she’s the one who stocked the refrigerator and brought your bags up while we were having lunch.” For the first time he noticed that his luggage was next to the bed. I guess I was distracted.

“Here are your keys. The diamond shape is for the front door to the guesthouse, the large round one is for the cellar, even though it’s never locked unless we’re both away, the small round one is for the boathouse — same deal as the cellar — and the square one gets you into the house via either the front door or the patio.” She dropped a tangle of metal into his outstretched hand. He yearned for the slightest accidental brush of her fingers, but when it didn’t arrive his unjustifiable sulk grew just a little deeper.

“You’re giving me a house key?”

“I don’t necessarily expect to find you wandering around while I’m having coffee, though that’s fine as long as you talk softly, but you never know when you might need it. This is a nice apartment, or at least I hope you think so, but it’s really only a tricked-out guest room. I’d hate for you to need something that you could easily find in the house, but can’t get to because no one else is here. Oh ... and there’s a gym in our basement. It’s not much, but it’s better than the thirty-five minute drive to the nearest one.”

“It is a fantastic apartment. Honestly, it’s kinda like heaven deliberately aimed at me.” At least it is with you here.

Kathryn looked pleased. “Oh, I know. It was my home for a time. While the worst of the renovations were going on next door, it was easier to live here. That,” she gestured, “is a very comfortable bed on which I spent more money than I will ever freely admit. But I think you’re going to sleep well.”

With that picture in my head, it’s highly unlikely I’m going to sleep at all.

“Is there anything else I can tell you?”

Fire and ice again threatened to overwhelm him, but Luke forcefully pushed both to the side.

“No. No, this is all incredible. Incredible and generous ... and I haven’t even started yet. Thank you so much, Kathryn.”

Nodding imperceptibly, she headed for the stairs.

“Wait...”

Without turning around, she paused. “Something else can I do for you?” She said it with a wary world-weariness that increased his resolve, yet he found it nearly impossible to begin.

“I ... I...”

“Go ahead, Luke. You might as well say it now. Every day you wait is going to make it more difficult.”

“I just ... why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you hire me for this job?”

“I didn’t. I recommended you. Bill hired you.”

“But I...”

She looked him straight in the eyes. The fire she’d mentioned was clearly visible, and for the first time he began to truly realize just how dangerous this entire venture was; dangerous beyond even his own twisted intentions and tortured resistance. “How was I supposed to guess, Luke? What were the odds that he already knew you? In a city that large, how likely was it?”

“But when...” Starting sentences is going pretty well. It’s finishing them that I can’t quite seem to manage.

“Once I realized, what was I supposed to do? Take the card back and advise him to change his mind? You’re qualified for this job. In fact, you’re perfect for it because he already knows and trusts you, and what you do is exactly what we need.” He trusts me. Great. “After that there was only one thing I could do.”

“Which was?”

He couldn’t quite tell if her expression tightened into a smile or a grimace. “I told him all about how and where we met.”

Oh shit. “But ... but I pretended I didn’t know you back at the house. And so did you!”

“I know. Believe me, he thinks it was the honorable thing to do. Remember that he introduced us as if we’d never met, even though he knew better. Go ahead and ask him if you need reassurance. He’s not upset about the subterfuge, nor how we met. But that’s why I had to tell him first.”

Trying to deal with his shock, he retorted with a little more heat than he intended, “And?”

“And what? If being attracted to me was so heinous a crime that I cut anyone found guilty of it out of my life I’d be a very sad and lonely woman. Luke, let me explain something: I like drinking alone. I have since well before I was old enough to do it in bars. I don’t mean this to sound overly prideful, but as you can imagine that preference doesn’t work out very well for me. And so I talk to people — people that I choose — because it avoids a choice being made for me. Some of them are men. Most of them, actually; unfortunately, women tend to be wary around me, and in any case, other women rarely drink alone for the same reason I don’t. Men are simpler because they’re a lot more predictable and, if necessary, easier to manipulate. Oh, don’t make wounded eyes at me, you know it’s true. Anyway, if that’s the sort of thing that’s going to bother Bill, we’ve made a very, very big mistake.”

Wonderful. Shot down in flames within mere hours of my arrival. Despite a mighty effort, Luke was unable to keep a hangdog look of defeat from his face, and it got worse when it became obvious that she’d noticed. His first three attempts at calming breaths were complete failures, but by the sixth he had himself back under control. She moved closer and grabbed his wrist, just like she had that night at the bar. Whether she was taking pity on him or motivated by some other urge he didn’t dare contemplate. As before, her touch was like an open flame singeing his skin, and he couldn’t fully suppress a tremor at the contact.

“I have two choices in situations like the night I met you. Well, three; I can always just walk away, and if I feel uncomfortable enough that’s exactly what I do. But the first is to be who I was when I was an ambitious lawyer. Hard. Controlling. Theoretically human but emotionally impenetrable. It works if I actually want to drink alone — or on men who crave that sort of thing, though that’s terribly uncomfortable for everyone because it creeps me out — but it’s neither fun nor relaxing to be that person when I’m off the clock.”

“And the other?”

“I flirt. Just a little bit. So little it’s barely noticeable, but enough to keep up the intrigue. It makes certain things easier, other things ... well, you know.” She left the obvious double entendre unspoken.

“Kathryn, I didn’t think you were...”

“Don’t lie to me, Luke. None of this is going to work if we’re lying to each other.” His face fell even further as she continued. “You weren’t sure if I was flirting with you or not. You hoped I was, but you didn’t know. Don’t worry, I could tell how conflicted you were. I’ve seen that struggle a lot, of course, and I’m pretty good at maintaining it. For what it’s worth, your ability to restrain your interest was as impressive as it was unusual. I admired your effort, but not as much as I appreciated your company. No, not appreciated. Enjoyed. I had a really, really great time that night. Far better than I would have if I hadn’t met you. Which, by the way, I’m also extremely glad I did. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the men I meet never hear from me again, even though I almost always hear from them. I gave Bill your card as soon as I could, and despite the unexpected complication I was overjoyed when you said yes ... because, work aside, it meant I’d get to know you better.”

Sighing, he gave up the struggle at last. “You’re right. I guess I thought ... oh, hell, I don’t know what I thought. But you’re right: I really didn’t know for sure where things were going until you left.” With a grim, forced smile, he continued, “Though I guess I knew then.”

“I’d had a lot to drink. Too much, actually. Your friend, the bartender...”

“Wendy.”

“Wendy, that’s right. If the wine bar doesn’t work out for her, she should consider matchmaking as a fallback career. Or maybe pimping.” If Luke’s mouth had been full of liquid he would’ve spit it across the room. “That was a hell of a campaign on your behalf. But I’m surprised neither of you noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“That I was married.”

He shrugged, still struggling to endure the infinitely desirable feeling of her skin touching his. “You weren’t wearing a ring.”

Her brow furrowed for a moment and her voice quieted to a near-whisper. “Ohhhhh, that’s right. It was at the jeweler’s being cleaned and polished.” Suddenly earnest, even apologetic, her hand slid up his arm; just an inch or two, but enough to make him gasp, quietly but audibly. “Luke, now I’m the one who should apologize.”

“No, not at all. I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“Really? Why not? A mysterious woman dressed for show-and-no-tell plops down on the stool next to you, despite being free to sit pretty much anywhere else in the room, and starts chatting you up about your favorite subject in the whole world. What’s more, she’s appears to know her stuff ... or, at least, enough to sustain a conversation with you ... and now you’re hooked. You keep at it, talking to no one else, chattering away as if there’s no other woman in the universe, tossing back glass after glass offered by a friend who is very obviously trying to get you laid, right up to last call ... and in all that time she makes no effort to leave. Of course you two are going to hook up, or at least strongly consider it. In retrospect, now that I realize you didn’t know I was married, I’m a little disappointed you didn’t make your move.”

Stuttering wasn’t a thing Luke had suffered from at any point in his life, but he was suffering rather mightily from it now. “I ... but I ... I couldn’t...” Calming breaths. Calming breaths. Calming fucking breaths, damn it! “I have to be honest, Kathryn: you’re not only the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, you’re more beautiful than I could ever have imagined someone being. That’s not a line, or a move, or whatever ... it’s the plain truth. It’s also true that I thought that the fact that we had so much in common, that we talked like old friends practically from the moment we met, was awfully promising. But I was overmatched. Outgunned. I had no chance. Thank you, at least, for letting me down easily.”

Blushing a bit at his compliment — god, she looks so attractive like that — she admonished, “Oh, stop it. You’re quite the handsome devil yourself, and you know your way around a word almost as well as you do a grape. I suspect you have all the luck with the ladies that you can handle.”

Attempting to demur, though in reality he was afraid of spontaneously combusting, he protested, “No, I’m not really ... I don’t, I mean. Not...”

“Luke! I told you to stop lying.” She looked very slightly uncomfortable. As seemed to forever be the case, he found he could neither easily read nor predict her moods. “Were there a chance to be had, you’d done more than enough to earn it. I think many women would’ve quite happily gone home with you, whatever the consequences. But I meant what I said: I’d had too much to drink. That’s how things happen when they weren’t supposed to. You know that as well as I do.” To this he had no answer that wouldn’t cause the very combustion he feared. “Anyway, think it through. Either way, I was going to give your card to Bill. You think this is awkward? Consider the alternative.”

Chapter 3 »