Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué Book 5)

Chapter 17

“Tara?” Christian gasped, not even acknowledging that Micah had left the room and closed the door behind them. He couldn”t believe his eyes.

The last he’d heard, this woman, who had once been his closest friend, had packed up and headed back to her home on the south coast. To his very great regret, he”d had no contact with her since.

She was still the same tiny little fairy-type thing. The biggest difference was her hair.

Where once it had flowed down her back in long, golden waves, now it was short and spiky… and bright red.

It kind of suited her heart shaped face and gave her a bit of an elfin look, but it was still a rather shocking transformation.

And what was she doing in a place like this?

”What on earth did you do to your hair, Tara?” Christian wasn”t sure where the words had come from, and he didn”t mean to say them with quite the amount of censure that was evident. They had somehow just sort of blurted from his subconscious.

The precious face, which had been carefully blank until now, morphed quickly into an icy anger that he had rarely seen her display in the past.

”My name is Trinity now,” she corrected coldly. ”And even during those times I believed you to be my friend, it was never Tara!”

Christian winced at the disdain in her voice. That was another new thing for one of the most generous and giving people he’d ever had the good fortune to meet.

Lifting his hands in supplication, he intended to placate her, but she wasn”t finished.

Nowhere near, in fact.

”What I do with my hair is not, and has never been, any of your concern.”

Neither of them alluded to the fact that she’d always worn it long because it was how he”d preferred it.

”And as for what I am doing here, I”m sure you are well aware by now that I am the club”s assistant manager. Not that that‘s any of your business, either.”

Christian hadn”t realised until then that he’d said that bit out loud.

Jesus, this wasn”t going the way he had imagined. Not that he”d imagined he was going to run into Tara…Taryn…Trinity. But in the multitude of times—too many to count—that he’d imagined seeing her again, he always had a carefully thought out and rehearsed spiel ready, with which to reassure her.

Right now, any words he ever might have thought up had fled from his mind in the face of the shock and the reality of actually seeing her again.

And it was obvious that she was not a happy bunny!

She moved to press the office intercom on her desk. ”I”ll let Micah know our contract is void and that he needs to find you a different submissive,” she declared as she stabbed the intercom button with no small amount of force.

Christian was by her side before he even realised he was moving, grabbing her hand and preventing her from connecting the call.

”No!” he exclaimed forcefully. ”That”s not what I want.”

”Unfortunately, Christian...” She acknowledged his name for the first time since he’d entered the room. ”While you may be used to having things your own way, not everything you want is always available to you,” she declared coolly.

”Please, Taryn, don”t do this,” he implored, since begging seemed to be the only recourse left to him. It was clear she had no interest in dealing with him, so all he could do was appeal to her better nature. Unlike most people he came into contact with, he knew she had one and he knew just how generous it was.

Christian had been stupid enough, once, to take advantage of that and then let her go. He was determined, now a second chance seemed to have been dumped right in his lap, that he was going to correct the errors of his past.