He was one of the men who made women kneel for him.
Charli thought of pretty, subservient Stella, and her stomach plummeted like she’d been thrown from a bridge. No wonder Grant had left last night. She was everything girls like Stella weren’t.
She looked away from him, staring at the unlit fireplace. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have come over here.”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t have,” he replied, his angry voice hitting the wood floors and reverberating around her. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you I have security. You didn’t think the staff would see someone hopping the fence?”
“I thought this was a swanky resort for rich families,” she protested. “I didn’t think I was going to stumble into some, some…”
“Some what, Charli? Say what you think this is.”
She glanced up at him, meeting the challenge in his eyes. “Some, I don’t know, sex club, brothel, God knows what.”
He smirked. “You think I’m running a whorehouse?”
“Why else would you be training people how to kneel?”
He closed his eyes briefly, as if reining in the desire to shake her. “Because those people are submissives who want to learn how to please a dominant. This is a fantasy resort. BDSM being our speciality.”
Her brows lifted. “BDSM? Is that the same as S and M?”
He blew out a breath, sinking onto the couch opposite her, the fight visibly draining from him. “That’s the older term for it. But yeah, basically. Bondage, dominance, submission, and sadomasochism. And this is supposed to be a place where I guarantee people the highest level of privacy to practice it. If my members knew that I’d allowed some nosy reporter to sneak onto the property…” He leaned back in his seat. “It could ruin my entire reputation.”
Her teeth had gnashed together at the nosy reporter comment, but she tamped down her response when she saw how weary he looked. This was obviously a very big deal here, and she had been the one to break the rules. She pushed back all the snarky things she wanted to say. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I’m not going to pretend I understand all this, but I had no right to come over here. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.”
He eyed her. “You think?”
“Damn. Okay. I get it. I said I’m sorry. What do you want me to do? Grovel for forgiveness?” The words were out before she could snatch them back.
His head tilted, mischief in his eyes. “Not a totally unappealing idea. Maybe you learned more in that training class than I think.”
Her neck burned, the heat traveling up like mercury in a thermometer.
“What were you doing kneeling in the intro class anyway?”
She studied the tops of her hands, his inquiring gaze suddenly too much to take head-on. “I sort of got persuaded by Kelsey.”
A soft chuckle. “Ah, Kelsey. She’s new to my staff, but a very promising domme. If she can persuade you to do something, maybe she deserves a raise.”
Charli’s head lifted, her eyes narrowing. “Right, of course, because I’m nothing like those women in that room.”
He leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs. “No. You’re not.”
For some reason, the words pierced her like barbed wire. She herself had been thinking in the session she was nothing like those women. But hearing him say it with such conviction lashed at the same battered spot her boss had created when he’d told her she hadn’t gotten the on-air position. Not good enough. Not pretty enough.
She hauled herself up from the couch as if the furniture had caught on fire beneath her. The telltale stinging sensation of impending tears seared her throat. “I want to go back to my cabin.”
He mouth dipped. “We’re not done here. We need to talk about last night, and I need to know that you’re not going to—”
But she was no longer listening as she moved toward the door. She had to get out of here. Right. Now. She wasn’t exactly sure why she felt ready to fall apart. All she knew was she was not going to do it in front of Grant.
She reached for the doorknob but a large palm landed against the wood over her head, preventing the door from opening. “Charli, stop. Why are you running?”
She stared at the door, the polished wood blurring in her vision and Grant’s body heat radiating against her back. He was so close. There was no way she was going to escape without him seeing her tears. She pressed her palms against the door. “Please. I need to go.”
But the words were choked, cracked, revealing what she was trying so hard to hide.
“For God’s sake, freckles. You’re crying?” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “What’s going on? Is this about last night? Because I am so sorry about that.”