She stared at the blue stone as it caught the light. “What condition? Anything, Master.”
“No, listen first. You can have this back if you agree to marry me. Not right now. Not even this year if you don’t feel ready. But eventually I want you to marry me because I want you forever, Sara. I want this to be our engagement ring.” He captured it in his fingers, hid it from her in his fist. “But only if you want. Don’t say yes just to please your Master.”
She didn’t like that the ring had disappeared. She wanted it on her finger right away, immediately. “Yes. Please. I want to be yours forever.”
“You’re sure?”
She took his hand, trying to peel his fingers open. “Yes, I want it.”
“Marriage is forever. I won’t let you go.”
“No, I don’t want you to. Mmph.” She pried at his fist. “Please let me wear it.”
He finally relented and opened his hand, uncurled his long, strong fingers and allowed her to have it. She shoved it onto her finger, blue ribbon and all. He took her hand and untied the bow, slipping it from beneath the band.
“Why did you tie this around the ring?”
“So it wouldn’t get lost. So you would notice it there.”
“I didn’t find it. Your father did.”
She closed her fingers and avoided his searching gaze. He tilted her head up so she had to look at him.
“He was there that night, Sara. The night I went looking for you, the night after you left. He cares about you, baby, he just doesn’t know how to show it. Not yet.”
She crept into his arms when he opened them, let him cradle her close. She hadn’t thought much about her father, because it hurt too much and because it confused her. “I don’t care if he cares about me,” she said. But that wasn’t really true. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.” She buried her head in his shoulder. “I’m afraid to see him again.”
“You don’t have to be afraid. He wants the best for you.” He massaged her shoulders, running his fingers over her back. “Tell me about your act.”
“You’ll see tomorrow. It’s a surprise.”
“What does your costume look like?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, giggling when he growled and shook her.
“You’re not going to tell me anything?”
Her eyes were drifting closed. He was so warm, and his arms felt so protective. After weeks of honing her inner strength, she was relieved to surrender to him again. “I can tell you that I hope you’ll like it. And that I love you, and that I’m going to be your wife someday.”
He tapped a finger against her cheek. “I knew all that already.”
“And your slave. Your slave-wife,” she said with a yawn.
“I like the sound of that.” He reached down and rearranged the covers, pulling them up so she was even warmer and cozier. “You have a big day tomorrow, little one.”
“I hope you like the act. I hope you’re proud of me.”
“I’m already proud of you.”
Those were the last wonderful words she remembered before she drifted into Jason-scented dreams.
Chapter Eighteen: Blue Skies
Jason lingered over Sara in the morning, kissing her, caressing her, stroking all the beautiful parts of her. He’d only just gotten her back, so he wasn’t happy about letting her go.
But they had forever to spend together, and his talented trapezist needed to go to the theater and get ready for her act. Sara was excited but nervous. “You’ll be great,” he assured her, kissing her forehead. “And I’ll still love you, even if you totally fuck up. Which you won’t.”
At the Marseille rehearsal facility, Theo and Kelsey took her into their custody. “We’ll see you after the show,” Theo said. “Oh, and Lemaitre is looking for you. Not in a good way,” he added under his breath.
Shit. Jason wandered around the rehearsal space and then out into the main theater. He scanned the darkened seats and located the glow of a laptop in the far right corner.
“Viens,” came the voice, and the imperious beckoning gesture.
Jason climbed the stairs to the top and sidled down the row. Long legs and auditorium seats didn’t go together. He thunked his knee as he folded his tall frame into the seat a couple down from his boss.
“It’s like being on a plane,” Jason groused.
“These chairs are designed for an average-sized person. Which you are not.” Lemaitre clicked a few more keys and tugged at his lips.
“What’s wrong? Chewing someone out via email?”
Jason was joking, but Lemaitre answered him in seriousness. “There are problems in Paris. Attendance is down now that Tsilaosa is getting older. They want new acts but I don’t know if new acts can save that show.” He sighed. “But to let it go? It was my first production. Then other shows want updating, performers want to transfer, or tour, or stop touring, or have babies.”
“Yes, they’re people. They have lives.”
“Aside from the artists, my directors are fighting, stabbing each other in the back and demanding special benefits for their shows and their casts. Then the disaster with the Exhibition.” He threw up his hands.
“You’re the boss. You’ll handle it. Things will work out, they always do.” He studied Lemaitre’s drawn features. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like hell.”
“I spent a restless night.”
“A ‘restless night.’ Is that shorthand for brutally and repeatedly sodomizing a writhing bevy of slaves?”
“A writhing bevy of slaves? So poetic. But no. If you must know, I spent last night visiting Kelsey and Theo’s place, where I expected to find my daughter.” He looked at Jason in consternation. “She was not there.”
Jason thought his smile probably said everything. Theo would have filled in the rest. “You should be happy, Michel. Happy for her and happy for me.”
“I told you to leave her alone until she was finished creating her act.”
“She’s finished with it. She’s performing it for you in a couple of hours,” he said, looking at his watch. “And for the record, I didn’t go to her. She came to me, just as you said she would. We got engaged for real last night, which I guess means I’m going to be your son-in-law someday.” He shuddered. “That’s disturbing.”
“To you and to me,” Lemaitre snapped. “I hope you plan to keep the promises you made to her. You’ll have to leave Paris.”
“Or you could keep her there,” he pointed out.
Lemaitre didn’t reply, just tightened his lips into a hard line.
“I think you’d like to keep her near you,” he poked. “And God knows, she’d like to stay.”
“She can’t. She does trapeze.”
“If the trapeze thing’s such an issue, how about making a new show? Retire Tsilaosa and mount something different. You said yourself it’s aging out, and Sara’s right, this Minya-curse thing is bullshit. Maybe it’s time to scrap everything and start again.”
“Hmph.” Lemaitre flushed around the ears, a brewing storm about to break. “Last I checked, you don’t run this goddamn circus. I do. It’s my company. My vision. My facilities. My people.”
“Your daughter.”
He gave Jason a withering look. “I have an ungodly amount of work to do, and a meeting with staff members in an hour. Perhaps you can find someone else to irritate for a while.”
“You never used to be afraid of trying new things,” Jason said in a parting shot. “The riskier, the better. I always admired that about you.”