Restrained Box Set: Boston Doms Books 1-4, page 10
Alexander checked his watch for the tenth time. He’d been unable to concentrate on the book in his hand all evening, anticipating Elizabeth’s call.
Two minutes after ten, her name flashed across the screen.
“Um, hi. How was your day?” Static crackled over the line, but it didn’t dim Alexander’s smile.
“You have the power to turn the most abysmal day around with just a few words,” he said. “Today was full of accountants and financial discussions that threatened to put me to sleep. I’m knackered, but I’ve had so much coffee, I may still be vibrating.”
Elizabeth started to laugh, but the sound quickly strangled into a hoarse, choking rasp.
He straightened. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong? You’re upset.”
Muffled sounds reached him, punctuated by long moments of silence.
Unable to sit still, Alexander swung his legs over the side of the bed. “If you don’t answer me, Elizabeth, I’m flying out to Seattle tonight.”
Damn his meetings. If she needed him, nothing would keep him away.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Fairhaven Charities doesn’t use CPH, right?”
Where was this going?
“No. We use independent accountants. Nicholas has used them for the past few years, but I’ve suggested he find a new firm. I don’t like the idea of associating with a company that would fire my…girlfriend. But that doesn’t
answer my question. What is wrong?”
Her words tumbled out, almost too fast for him to discern over the scratchy connection. “Can we...I hate to ask. I know you’re busy with meetings. But can we talk on Thursday when I get back? I have to go through San Diego and Vegas and I don’t land until six in the morning, and I’ll need a nap, but maybe eleven?”
“Breathe, Elizabeth,” he said, adopting the tone he used in the bedroom.
“I’m going to switch to video. I want to see your face.”
Her splotchy cheeks swam in and out of focus as she moved from a pitiful looking hotel bed to the desk. The phone rattled, and then she sat back in a rickety chair.
“Shite. You’ve been crying,” he said. “Why?” Alexander tightened his grip on his phone. How quickly could he get to Seattle? If the company jet was free…
“Please don’t.” She swiped at her cheeks. “I’m fine. There’s just something we have to discuss before—well, before things are irrevocably fucked up for both of us.”
Fucked up?
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying? There’s something wrong with our accounting? Something that got you fired? Explain.”
“I…can’t. Please don’t ask me to. Not yet.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she sniffed loudly.
Fuck. Alexander couldn’t stand being this far away from Elizabeth. His frustration and helplessness turned to anger as he ran through all of their encounters over the past few weeks. “Why won’t you trust me?”
On screen, she started to shake. Her breath wheezed in and out, heaving her chest under the oversized sweatshirt. She swore under her breath—or tried to—as the word escaped as more of a vague “shiiii” sound, and then the phone swung around, showing him the drab wall of her hotel room.
“I need...a minute.”
He could hear her struggling to inhale, and his own panic crawled up his spine.
“Elizabeth?” Alexander yelled. “Elizabeth? Bloody hell, answer me!”
“A...minute,” she rasped.
“Goddammit. Turn the phone around, or I’m headed for Seattle.” He stalked over to his closet, yanked open the door, and grabbed the first shirt he found.
The video shook as she righted the phone. “I’m here,” she said in a small, hoarse voice.
Alexander stared at the terrified woman on screen, and his heart thudded in his chest. “Fuck me, Elizabeth. I won’t just sit here while you try not to panic on the other side of the continent. Where are you? What hotel? I can be there…well, by morning.”
“No!” She shoved away from the desk, but when she tried to rise, her legs buckled and she ended up falling to her knees next to the bed. The top of her head bobbed almost off camera until she pushed up and glared at him.
“Before I left, you promised to let me handle this until I got back. That’s all I’m asking for.”
How could he make her understand she was killing him?
Focus.
Years of experience had honed his skills. He could cut to the root of any problem with a few pointed questions—one of the reasons he’d been so successful over the years. CPH. She’d gone to Seattle to see her lawyer.
“They’re after you.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t. Please. Don’t say anything else. Just…give me until Thursday.”
Another, darker thought chilled him. “Did you work on the Fairhaven accounts?” Struggling to keep the phone in his field of vision, he stalked across the room to pour himself a stiff drink.
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. But…you should bring your brother when we talk on Thursday.”
The scotch burned a path down his throat as he tossed back the double shot in one swallow. “I need to call Nicholas.”
“Talking to him now could ruin me!” Her phone shook as she dropped back into the chair. “I knew I shouldn’t have called. Clancy told me not to…”
Alexander’s blood ran cold. “Clancy? You’re harboring secrets that could affect me, Nicholas, and our company, and you talked to someone else before you talked to me? How is that trust?”
“Clancy is my lawyer,” she cried. “Fine. CPH is suing me. Saying I violated my confidentiality agreement. I didn’t. The photographer at the ice rink—he wasn’t a reporter. He was following me. Our relationship is the evidence CPH has against me. My lawyer says I have two options. I know which one I have to choose, but before I do, we need to talk. Really talk. But I can’t do this over the phone. I’ve...shit. I think I’ve fucked this whole thing
up. Whatever this is...between us. All of it. Maybe my entire life.”
Every word widened the chasm between them until Alexander wondered if she’d ever truly trusted him at all. “I care for you, Elizabeth,” he said, emotion threatening to choke him. “Why won’t you tell me everything now?”
“If I do,” her sob ended as a hiccup, “and you tell anyone… I can’t…I won’t have anything left.”
Alexander staggered back to the wet bar and poured himself another two fingers of scotch. Was this how they were to end?
“You don’t trust me.” Each word hurt more than the last, and Alexander didn’t know how to stop the pain. After he’d emptied his glass again, he cleared his throat. “I believe in honesty, Elizabeth. Without that, what do we have?”
She swiped at her cheeks. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Maybe not.” He struggled with his next words. “However, you believe I’d let you come to harm, that I’d ruin you over business matters. We’re new, Elizabeth. But you should know me better than that by now. You said you trusted me, yet clearly, you do not.”
Desperation pinched her features as she pulled the phone closer. “I let you tie me up,” she whispered. “I trusted you—”
“With your body, yes. Not your mind. Your heart. I thought you were willing to take a chance on me. On us. But now, you’re across the country, crying, implying that your former employer did or is doing something that could be detrimental to my company and to you, and you won’t trust me to help. What am I supposed to think?”
Her answer, when it came, didn’t reassure him—nor was he surprised.
“That I thought I could handle this on my own.” She squared her shoulders, and when she focused on the screen again, her eyes held a hint of the fire he’d seen that very first day. “I’m not one of your causes, Alexander. Nor am I perfect. I—” Her voice wobbled, but she swallowed hard enough for him to see the muscles of her throat clench. “I swear—on my grandmother’s grave
—that I never touched your accounts. When I get back, I’ll explain everything. I’ll even go to Nicholas myself. On one condition.”
Ultimatums didn’t sit well with him. Nor did seeing the woman he—
Alexander stopped himself before he finished his own thought. Without trust, there couldn’t be love. Elizabeth waited, three thousand miles away, her lower lip tucked under her teeth.
I can’t do this. Not when she doesn’t trust me.
“What is your condition?” Alexander wasn’t proud of the cool edge to his voice, but if he didn’t detach himself, he’d end up on a plane to Seattle tonight, and he wasn’t sure he could handle having his heart broken in person.
“You can’t say anything to anyone until then. No lawyers. No one at CPH. Not even your brother.” The phone shook, and her voice dropped.
“Please.”
“You have my word. Good night, Elizabeth.”
Alexander threw the phone across the room, and as it shattered against the wall, along with his fantasies of a future with Elizabeth.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A n hour before dawn, Elizabeth’s phone woke her, and she nearly fell out of bed fumbling for the device. As she read Alexander’s message, her heart cracked in two.
I arranged the meeting for Thursday. Be outside your flat at 11. A car will be waiting.
A car. One without Alexander in it.
Elizabeth moved through the rest of the morning in a fog. Not even Seattle held enough coffee to make her feel human. After a long run, she forced down another cheap burger and fries, then visited her financial planner. When she returned to her room after the long and stressful meeting with her lawyer, she took a chance and fired off a text message to Alexander.
I’m sorry. I thought if I handled this on my own, we’d have a chance. I was wrong. I miss you.
She paced and tried to read, chided herself for being needy, and then chided herself again for chiding herself. On the off chance she hadn’t thrown away the relationship before it had a chance to flourish, she spent the evening learning everything she could about BDSM.
The Dominant in the scene has control at all times, but the true power lies with the submissive. In a mutually respectful D/s relationship, the submissive can always end things with an agreed upon safeword or gesture. In this way, it is the sub who has the power for the Dominant can do nothing (and should do nothing) without the sub’s total and informed consent.
Alexander’s words came flooding back to her. “If you say ‘red’ to me, at any time, it means that this all stops.”
Her eyes burned. The clock ticked over to eleven, and she shut her laptop.
After glancing at her phone one last time and fighting a losing battle with her tears over Alexander’s silence, she turned off the light and tried to sleep.
***
Alexander turned his new phone over in his hands. The hunk of glass and metal held no appeal without Elizabeth to talk to, and though he’d tried, more than once, to find a suitable reply to her text, each attempt had left him cold.
“I should have gone directly to the airport,” he muttered on the way home from the cinema, where he’d passed a horrible two hours trying to distract himself from the complete cock-up he’d made of their relationship.
“I’m sorry, sir?” Thomas met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Did you say something?”
Alexander ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing of any importance.”
“Mr. Fairhaven, perhaps this is too forward, but are you all right?” The driver gave him a quick glance as they idled at a stoplight.
“I’m afraid I’ve made a real mess of things with Elizabeth,” he replied.
“I’m not sure I can fix it.”
“Shall I take you to her apartment?”
If only life were that simple. “No, she went to Seattle.”
“The airport, then.” Thomas flicked the turn signal, his gloved hands tightening on the wheel.
Alexander shook his head, then turned to stare out the window. The city, for all its beauty, felt empty without Elizabeth in it. Despite his promise to her, he’d done a little research on Harry Carter, Phillip Pastack, Leonard Hayes. Pastack had just turned eighty and retired, but he’d been a career military man with three cases of sexual harassment and two wrongful termination suits to his name—all settled out of court long before trial. Carter was clean, other than some unpaid parking tickets, but Hayes… Something rubbed Alexander the wrong way about that man. His father had embezzled millions as a stock broker in the seventies. How far did Leonard’s apple fall from the father’s tree?
With a sigh, Alexander checked his phone again. Nothing.
You should have known. Her sacking. The avoidance every time you asked her what was wrong. You’re a fucking dolt, and you’ll be lucky if she gives you the time of day when she comes back.
The chasm he imagined between them had grown so wide, he wasn’t sure he could ever bridge it.
“Sir?”
Alexander rubbed his temples as Thomas held open his door. “You have someone special in your life?” he asked his driver as they stood nearly eye-to-eye.
“We’ve been together for six months, sir. I’m going to pick her up from work in a few minutes.” Thomas’s eyes lit up, and he smiled. “If it’s not too forward, may I make a suggestion, sir?”
At this point, Alexander would take suggestions from anyone who’d managed to make a relationship work. “Of course.”
“Samuel can arrange for flowers or a gift.”
“No. I’m afraid I must earn her forgiveness the hard way.” He turned to head up the stairs but paused with his hand on the railing. “Thomas?”
“Yes, sir.” Hat in his hand, the driver paused to meet Alexander’s gaze.
“Tell your girl that you’ll take her out for a nice dinner—on me—over the weekend.”
Thomas stammered his gratitude, but Alexander stopped him. “Don’t thank me yet. I need you to get me to the airport tomorrow by 6:00 a.m.
Elizabeth’s flight lands then, and I want to be there to pick her up.”
With a smile, Thomas nodded. “I’ll be ready at five, sir.”
Later that night, Alexander sat in his living room sipping an eighteen-year-old Macallan. The door shook as someone banged insistently, rang the doorbell, then banged again. He’d already dismissed the staff for the night, so he trudged down the front hall himself.
His brother stood on the doorstep, wrapped in a camel-colored wool coat.
Snow fell steadily, giving the street an eerily calm facade.
Alexander stepped aside. “Nicholas, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” He tried to keep his tone friendly, but he’d spent most of the past two days dancing around his brother’s schedule so he wouldn’t have to answer any questions about Elizabeth or CPH.
His brother entered silently, divested himself of his coat, gloves, and hat,
and then arranged everything precisely on the arm of one of the sofas. “Got any more of that scotch?” Nicholas asked.
Once he had his own drink in hand, Nicholas threw himself down in the chair across from the hearth and drained half of the scotch in a single swallow. “Why did you suggest we dump our accounting firm?”
Shite.
“Because the woman I’m dating was let go from Carter, Pastack, and Hayes two weeks ago. They claim she didn’t do her job, but I don’t believe that for a moment. I thought it unseemly to give our money to a firm that caused her such grief.” Alexander tried not to dwell on the fact that he might not be dating Elizabeth anymore.
“That’s it? That’s the only reason?” Nicholas leaned forward, his piercing blue eyes searching for answers.
“It was. But I’m afraid there is more now. I can’t talk about this, Nicholas. Not tonight. I made a promise to Elizabeth.”
“Did she work on our accounts?” Nicholas slammed his glass down on the coffee table, shattering Alexander’s tenuous hold on his emotions along with the lead crystal. “Shite.”
Welcoming the distraction of retrieving a fresh glass and pouring Nicholas another two fingers of scotch, Alexander shook his head. “Leave it.
The housekeeper comes in the morning.”
“Well?”
His brother could be insufferable when an idea stuck in his head, and Alexander tried not to snap at him. “No. Elizabeth had nothing to do with any accounts tied to Fairhaven Exports. That’s all I’m willing to say tonight.
Tomorrow’s meeting is at her behest. She’s frightened. I have my suspicions as to why, and she promised to explain everything tomorrow. We can’t do anything tonight anyway.”
“Goddammit, Alex. You’re taking her side over the company our father entrusted to us. We overpaid our taxes by at least ten million last year. I had Cynthia run a quick audit of the numbers. Standard practice since I was investigating new accounting firms. She and I both nearly missed it, but our charitable contributions were listed as two-point-three million last year. Do you remember that bet we had?”
Alexander chuckled. “Of course. I beat your arse five weeks in a row on the courts, and you had to donate an amount proportional to your total score.”
“I scored twenty-one points over those five weeks, so to keep it sporting,
I donated two-point-one million. In one go. Cynthia totaled up the rest of the donations, and we should have been credited for three-point-nine million. I have her going over every line of our taxes for last year.” Nicholas finished off his scotch and rose to pour himself another.
Alexander grabbed his arm and spun him around. “Did you share your suspicions with anyone other than Cynthia?”
Shaking his arm free, Nicholas glared at his brother. “Of course not!
Cynthia’s handling this personally. If CPH screwed us, they’re going to pay.
We’ll sue them for everything they’re worth. They’re arseholes. I’ve seen them go after former employees who exposed their insane overtime requirements. I dismissed it. Business sometimes requires us to be cold and unfeeling. But I never liked it. Knowing that they screwed us, even if it was unintentional, I’m hitting them as hard as I can.”
