Chapter 2 #2
I open a cabinet against one wall and take out some polish and a rag, and get to work on the BMW.
She’s a real treasure, sleek and black, and I rub her down until the muscles in my arms are exhausted and her paint shines like a dark mirror.
And as I work, the tension finally begins to drain from my body.
Thank fucking God cars can’t give me any lip, or challenge me in any way. Don’t need that shit right now. Not today, when it’s taking everything I’ve got not to send for her.
Giselle.
“Fuck.”
I start on the Porsche, making my aching arms work. But no matter what I do, I can’t get her out of my mind.
Images of that first night I saw her, dancing with her sister, the two of them twining around each other under the flashing lights.
The charm of her batting lashes when I approached.
I remember past beatings, her beautiful face silent and stoic as the tears coursed down her cheeks, her lush lips trembling.
Her pleading look when I first told her I was taking her and her sister out of London, getting them a proper placement.
“But Gilby, you said…”
“I know what I said. I fucking know. But you also know damn well you and Sandrine are too good for this everyday kink scene—the London clubs, even Berlin. You two came to London in the first place because the scene in Paris was too tame for you. You need a helleva lot more, and I can’t provide it.
I’ve done everything for you I’m capable of. I don’t have the resources.”
“Gilby, please,” she says in the quietest voice, too much panic in her lovely hazel eyes for tears.
“You’ve both wanted to go to America.”
“Yes, but not like this. With you.”
“I told you I’ll take you.”
“But you haven’t said you’ll stay.”
I did stay, though, didn’t I? I couldn’t fucking bear to leave them.
To leave her. And this job was better than any I could have found in London, driving for the wealthy elite of kink.
No, the London BDSM scene is still too caste-oriented—at this level, anyway.
My life here is bloody incredible, and I know it.
I’m grateful. And I’ve been able to be near her these six years, even if she’s belonged to everyone but me.
Damon. Christopher. Victor. Whoever they see fit to lend her out to.
Oh, I get her sometimes, when the Masters feel she needs a workout.
But there’s a wall between us, and I know damn well it’s of my own making.
“Fuck,” I mutter again as I put the polish away and throw the rag in a bucket.
I make a quick job of washing my hands in the garage sink, then wipe them dry, knowing what I have to do.
Picking up the garage phone, I dial Robert’s extension.
“Yes, Master Gilby?” he answers.
“Ach, cut the ‘Master’ shit, Robert. This is just you and me.”
“Of course,” he says, still a little stiff, but that’s just Robert.
“Meet me in my rooms in ten minutes?”
“I’ll be there.”
He’s a man of few words, which we all appreciate around here, but I’ll never find a man I trust more. Robert holds the secrets of the entire elite international slave trading world. And I think it’s time he knew mine. Because if I don’t tell someone I’m going to go fucking barking mad.
I get back to my rooms and pace while I wait for him, and in a minute or two there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Robert enters, all severe elegance in one of his endless supply of gray suits, his gray hair combed back from his sharply-featured face.
Not a handsome man, but graceful, and as formal as any English butler—no small feat, given that he’s American.
And yeah, we Brits are stuffy about our butlers, even a working class chav like me.
I gesture to the sofa. “Sit. Please.”
He does, then asks, “I’m assuming from the set of your mouth that you didn’t call me here to play chess?”
“I didn’t. What would you like to drink?”
“Nothing, thank you. I’m on duty.”
“When aren’t you? Have a fucking drink with me, Robert.”
He gives a small shrug. “Bourbon, then.”
I pour his bourbon over ice and hand it to him, then pour myself another gin—Monkey 47 Schwarzwald, one of the best available and my personal favorite. I breathe in the sharp, clean scent, needing it to calm me. It doesn’t.
I sit in one of the high-backed leather chairs and sip my drink. I’ve no idea why I’m so hyper-aware of everything right now. Is this what nerves feel like? It’s been so long I hardly remember.
“So?” Robert asks, arching one graying brow.
I blow out a breath. “So.” I stare down into my glass, swirl the gin and the ice around a bit, as if I’ll find some sort of answer there. “Okay. Fuck. So, I think you know about Giselle?” I say more than ask.
“What is it I’m to know about her specifically?”
“You know that I…that she’s special to me.”
“Both the sisters, yes, I imagine, since you’re the one who delivered them here and negotiated their contracts.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I take another sip, the gin burning nicely as it goes down.
I need it to, so I take another swallow.
I can feel the words bubbling up inside me, and I suspect it’s all about to come out in a vomiting rush.
Which it does. “Look, I’ll be straight with you, Robert.
Giselle is… Well, I fucking need that Girl.
Always have. That’s why I brought them to Damon. ”
I glance up to see he’s only raised that eyebrow a bit higher. But Robert is the ultimate in discretion. If he’s at all surprised, his face sure as hell would never give it away—nothing but the damn brow.
“C’mon, Robert. Surely you knew?”
He takes a careful sip of his drink. “I suspected. But around here, one doesn’t presume anything.”
“Alright then. Now to the problem. As if that wasn’t enough.
It has been—problem enough that I handed them over to Damon and this House because I swore I’d do right by them.
By her. But here we are six fucking years later, and I feel no differently about her than I did then.
And fuck, that’s a lie. I feel more for her.
I’ve watched her go through the most extreme training and service a slave could endure.
All of them—Damon, Christopher, Mistress Alexa, Mistress Clara, Victor, Madame Gemma.
All the guests of the House who’ve used her.
And she’s silent and stoic as hell. Of course she is.
She’s the most fucking superb slave I’ve seen.
So how can she ever be mine? What the fuck have I ever done to merit even considering it, or imagining that she’d consider me?
” I have to pause, my hands knotting together.
“Just fucking tell me, Robert. Have I gone completely mad here or what?”
He lets out a sigh. “‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’”
“Yeah, yeah. Shakespeare also said ‘love is blind.’” I pause, considering that quote and all the meanings behind it. “I grew up in Shoreditch, y’know, London East End. Shakespeare lived there, performed his earlier plays there. I know A Midsummer Night’s Dream well.”
I pause once more, too many emotions welling up inside me, about to burst open like a barely healed scab oozing pus.
I remember my life there in flashes: My mum’s face, nothing but a dim memory now.
The dingy house we lived in. How the factories shut down and were replaced by art galleries and pubs.
I got out and moved to Hoxton before the hipsters really moved in, thank God.
But my brother didn’t. My fault, too, wasn’t it? If I’d stayed I might have seen—
Stop it.
I pull in a long breath. Back to it.
“How blind am I, Robert?” I demand.
“It’s not for me to say, Gilby.”
“Come on. I may be the current Master of this House, but we’ve known each other too damn long for you to pull this bullshit on me. I’m asking for an honest answer.”
“I apologize. I’m not often asked my opinion, and I’ve learned to keep it to myself.”
“So?” I demand.
I pick up my glass and grip it tightly, waiting for him to talk to me.
“Of course, I can’t speak for the Girl, and I don’t know the entire story about how the three of you ended up here.
It’s my job to simply accept whatever the Master of the House desires.
But it seems to me that if you—or anyone—is so passionate about something, or someone, you have to pursue it to its natural end.
You’ll never know, otherwise, will you?”
A shadow passes over his stern features. It’s not something I’ve ever seen before. But for all that we’ve been chess partners and taken meals together these six years, I wouldn’t say we’re confidantes, exactly. Until tonight. Still, I won’t ask.
“Are you telling me I should talk to her?”
“Would she be willing to talk to you?” he counters.
“I don’t know the answer to that. She hasn’t spoken a word for some time—and I would know if she’d even whispered to her sister in their quarters.
But more to the point, I don’t really know her as a person, only as a slave. I don’t know her heart.”
“Not sure I do, either,” I grumble, looking down into my suddenly empty glass.
“I’m sorry, Gilby. I’d need to know more about her before I could give you an answer based on anything other than a guess.
And more about the connection you shared before coming here.
Not that you have to tell me, of course, but I have too little to go on, and I won’t say something simply to placate you. ”
“Nah, and glad you wouldn’t. Alright. I’ll tell you.”
I want another drink, but I won’t do it. I’m careful with it after what happened to my brother.
Gregory.
Can’t think of all that now. Too much.
I force my way past the sudden knot in my gut and take a breath.