Chapter 29
Practical Matters
LANIE
“Oh, brilliant. You did make it!”
Baz found me in his hotel suite in a cocktail dress, getting ready before a mirror. I couldn’t turn as I placed one of my eyelashes.
“Yes, I did. Are you getting changed?” I asked.
He stared. “Uh… yes… if you feel.”
“That grey looks too informal,” I said. “Go for black. It’s a stronger color on you. It’s why I wore red.”
Baz cocked his head. “Really?”
“Have I often been wrong, Baz?”
“No.” Baz had a strange expression on his face.
“Does it bother you when I’m right?”
“No,” Baz said. “It’s hot.”
“Then why are you staring at me like that?”
“You only have one eyelash,” Baz snickered. “It is an odd look.”
“Ignore me,” I groaned. “Go change.”
Baz left me to finishing my eye makeup in peace before returning. “You really do look beautiful, Lanie. And I owe you—”
“Stop. If you owe me, we need to have some practical discussions about our life together. Let’s have this out so I can start feeling a little less precarious.”
Baz slung his tie around his shoulders. “Yes, go on.”
“You agreed to the car, which I am grateful for. But, if I’m your wife and I’m expected to drop everything to race around the world and be your arm candy, I will need a certain amount of money for the upkeep of what that entails.
We need to figure out our finances, Baz.
I do have an inheritance, but I don’t have access to it until I’m thirty.
I get paid well but not drop-everything-and-go-see-diplomats-every-week money. ”
“You will, yes. Of course,” Baz said. “I never thought about that. You can always ask—”
He still thought this was a negotiation of me coming to him for things. I didn’t like it. I needed him to offer solutions.
“Baz, I’m your wife, not your daughter.”
“I am well aware, Lanie.”
“I need access to accounts as if I am your spouse. Maybe that means we divvy up an allowance? Maybe that means I get unfettered access to your AmEx? I don’t care.
But I do not want to have to beg you for money.
I expect you to keep me comfortable in the lifestyle that you have become accustomed to.
Either I am your spouse or I’m not. I don’t like findom bullshit. ”
“The fact that you know findom is a thing delights me,” Baz grinned, then returned to a serious state.
“I can set up an account for you. I don’t mean to sound like…
I’m a prick. It doesn’t come from a place of malice.
I don’t get off on controlling you like that.
Only in bed do I enjoy it. I’d never want to hold finances over your head, Lanie. ”
I returned to my eyeliner. “Well, we need to sort it out.”
“Agreed. When we return to London, we will.”
“Where am I to live, Baz?”
“Uh…”
“Baz, have you thought about any of this? We’re married!”
“I haven’t. I never intended to marry anyone, Lanie. I actively avoided it and never gave cohabitation any thought.”
I did a double-take. “You have never lived with a woman?”
“Define lived with.”
“Has a woman received mail at your house?”
“No,” Baz said. “Why would she?”
I scoffed, “Wow! You really surprise me sometimes.”
“What? Why? Have you received mail at someone else’s house?”
Satisfied with my liner, I threw it in my makeup bag and moved onto my eyeshadow.
“Yes, Baz. I lived with my ex-boyfriend before we were even a couple.”
“How does that work?”
“We were friends who fell head-over-heels for one another and then we just sort of existed before The Talk.”
“What ended it?”
I contemplated for a moment what to say. I had nothing left to risk if I wasn’t honest.
“I thought he got me pregnant. I wanted to be pregnant. I… told him. He told me to get an abortion if I was. I sobbed for a day, picked myself up, and then moved out. He’d told me that was what he wanted before.
That was, until he became a super famous cinematographer for a big-name series and I just… wasn’t big enough. I held him back.”
“But you weren’t?”
“No. I ended up seeing a negative test and two hours later, my period came. I left him because we were incompatible. I wanted kids, he didn’t.”
“I’m glad you weren’t pregnant,” Baz looked at me in the mirror as I finished my eyeshadow.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t deserve a man who would do that to you—ask for all the investment and promise you something he never intended to give.”
Placing my brushes back in the bag, I looked at Baz. “Isn’t that what we both did?”
Baz’s gaze on me tore through me like a searing blade. His hungry eyes stopped my heart. I turned my back to the vanity, but Baz took my face. He brushed my cheeks with his thumbs ever so slightly.
Breath hot on my face, he murmured, “I promised you little, Lanie, other than protection and to keep to my word. I pledge I will give you what you asked for and ensure your every need is met. I may be a wanker, but I’m not a bloody liar.”
He moved his right hand until it cupped my chin, then ran a finger over my lip. I shivered.
“You like it when I do that?” Baz growled.
“N… no.”
“You lie, Lanie. You do like it.”
“I… I do,” I admitted.
I loved the way it felt to give over control.
I gave him the power to take care of me.
It was the way his voice deepened. And it was how his hips felt pressed up against my midsection—authoritative, assertive, and centered.
He adored me. I drove him wild. But here, he focused on winding me up.
I loved it when he lavished me with attention.
Baz tilted my chin more and bent to kiss me.
It started slow—our lips pressed together.
His tongue parted my lips and I breathed him in.
I gripped his jacket collar, and he pressed me harder into the vanity.
Confidently, he picked me up and put me atop it.
Pressing his body harder into mine, he parted my legs and pulled me closer to the edge.
I gazed at him, nostrils flaring, before he kissed me once more.
Kissing Baz was a whole thing. I remembered how long I’d made him wait to even touch me.
The wait had been worth it when he’d tenderly given me what I wanted.
Now, he had all of me. I wanted to tear his clothes off.
I began to fumble with his belt, forgetting that we had plans. That was until we heard someone call.
“Baz! Baz! We need to get a move on!”
Baz pulled back and looked over at the doorway. His assistant appeared.
“We’re running late,” Jeremy said.
“Alright,” Baz loosed my hand from his belt.
I’d been too confused to remember what I was up to.
Baz added, “We will be with you in a moment.”
“Is he going to constantly interrupt us?” I asked.
“No. He has the key to my room because I have him run things around. I will talk to him about always ringing first if you’re here. He isn’t used to me having company like this. Are you ready?”
“I just need to finish my lipstick,” I hopped down.
I turned back to the mirror, sorting through my belongings.
Baz smacked my ass. “When you’re done, come out to the living room.”
I let him go, finishing up my look, and took myself in.
I was Lady Delanie Osgoode. I could do this.
Once I entered the living room, everyone looked ready to leave.
Jeremy held the door. I strode past Baz, who followed closely.
We climbed on the elevator down to our waiting car.
As we stood there, I leaned in and whispered.
“We’re going to charm the pants off this asshole. Then, we will come back here. And to make up for me being such a good little wife, you’re going to go down on me until I squirt.”
Baz ran his hand from the small of my back to my ass and squeezed it. “Help me ace this and I will give you anything you want, Lanie.”
BAZ
“How did the two of you meet?” Ewan Broader, our German Ambassador, asked Lanie. “How does a notable American heiress find herself eye-to-eye with this one here?”
I blanched at the question because the answer was dreadful.
I knew she wouldn’t say, “Oh when he was watching me fuck his mate in his library.” But also, the question was ridiculous!
Where does the daughter of a famous, wealthy American retail magnate meet a man of industry? Literally anywhere in posh London!
“Through a mutual friend at a party Baz hosted,” Lanie answered.
“And you never let her go, Baz?” Ewan asked.
“No, I did,” I said. “But she came back for some reason.”
“How do you two know one another?” Lanie asked.
“We went to school together a very long time ago. That is how things work in the UK,” Ewan said. “Well, for men like us. We aren’t quite so… egalitarian.”
“I wish I could say I was raised in some egalitarian educational system, Mr. Ambassador,” Lanie said. “Instead, I went to one of the most competitive, elite Catholic schools in the nation. It was so strict, I didn’t even get to wear trousers until I was out of high school.”
“Ever?” Cate, Ewan’s wife, scoffed. “In high school?”
“It’s a very conservative school. My sister joined a protest once about it—which is saying something as the girl loves rules—and it was the closest she came to detention.”
“And you, Lady Osgoode, were you the one always in trouble?” Fritz Becker, the German Interior and Communities Minister, asked.
The way he looked at Lanie bothered me. He might as well as asked if she was a “bad girl”.
Lanie’s face signaled discomfort for a split second, before she recomposed herself. “I am not much of a rule follower. But, if you ask Baz, I do listen to reason. I just want to smash the patriarchy and ignore arcane rules.”
It wasn’t the coy answer he expected, but he played along.
“And does your husband know there are rules to doing business in Germany?” Fritz asked.
“Well, he pays a lot of lawyers to ensure he does.” Lanie dissected her roast chicken ever-so-delicately.
“Your partner lied, Lord Osgoode,” Fritz said. “He lied about the permits.”
“I am well aware now,” I said. “I realize you are a very orderly nation. I respect that. We have code in Britain as well.”