LYNN
Present
As I shut my car door and hit the alarm, I can’t help but feel pride knowing that tonight was remarkably successful. My heels click on the asphalt as I make my way to my building.
Chelsea had, as I’d predicted, lit the auction room on fire, with twenty of the men in attendance bidding for the contract on her. While most dropped out quickly, she fetched one point one million dollars.
She signed a contract with a well-known Dom in the Club, a man who will teach her exactly what she can and cannot take and do it in a way that will help her blossom even more. She has no idea where her boundaries lay, and the man who won her is practically an expert at finding them, and also respecting and enjoying them with his partner.
The warmth I feel from that knowledge is quickly chilled as I step back. With a hitch in my breath, I feel it again, that prickup the back of my neck. It’s eerie, and even when I turn my head from side to side, checking the street and seeing nothing, it’s still there.
This is worse than every on and off feeling I’ve felt throughout the week. My first inclination is that it could be Mr. Astor. I anticipated a reply the moment I emailed but got nothing. I peer out into the night and through the concrete garage. My heart races and my pace picks up. I walk as quickly as I can around the corner to the elevator.
I have to remind myself that no one in the club even knows where I live. Joshua does, but only because I knew him before all of this. He’s the only one who knows more than the façade that is Madam Lynn. If most members of Club X saw my home, I bet they would be surprised. Most of the members own a penthouse suite or inherited a mansion. They measure their homes by floors, not square feet.
Me? While the Cunningham Towers is a nice building, a modern high-rise that’s the tallest in the neighborhood, I don’t live anywhere near the penthouse suite. In fact, my apartment is only about two-thirds of the way up the tower, roughly equal with the buildings across the street, a one-bedroom place that I bought when the building was brand-new and I needed to invest every dime I had into getting Club X up and running. I’m safe here too, with security watching.
Even knowing that I’m safe, that there’s no one watching me, that no one could have followed me home when the streets this late at night are barren... I can’t put my finger on it. I trust my instincts. Reaching for my phone, I quickly text Holden.I want security increased at the Club. Fifty percent increase until further notice.
I hitSend, not expecting a reply, but I’m slightly reassured when I get an almost immediate reply.Done. Everything okay?
My breath turns to fog in front of my face as I near the building. With my keys between my knuckles, the ones that dangle jingle.
I only hesitate a second to text him,I feel off.
Do you need help now?
I look around the parking garage once more and think logically, pushing down the fear and the wreck of emotions that’s plagued me this week. My building has security. The only way to get into the parking garage is with a key card or a remote control. And from here, I can take the elevator straight to my floor, where my door is right across from the elevator.
No, I text back.Just cover the club. If I need help, I’ll call.
Understood, Madam.
With my throat tight and the tip of my nose cold, I tighten my grip on my purse, keeping the remote in my hand, my thumb poised over the panic button that’ll not just send my horn into a fit, but also call both the cops and Club X security.
Better safe than sorry.
But nobody accosts me before the elevator closes, and the hum of the motor drawing me upward helps relieve my tension. True, someone could try and jump on with me at one of the other floors, but at this time of morning, almost everyone’s going down, not up.
Relief is slow to greet me, though. I can’t shake the feeling, and I remind myself that work is how I cope. The auction was a distraction and now it’s over. As the elevator pings with each floor, my stomach drops. There isn’t enough money in the world that can help what my mind does this late at night.
I force my shoulders to relax. I know I have a bottle of wine or sleeping pills that will turn these thoughts off.
Everything is okay. I’m okay...I remind myself, although nothing feels okay.
I should be relaxing, but instead, as the elevator rises higher and higher, the feeling intensifies. As I approach my floor, I know that I’m going to rush inside my apartment, triple-lock my door, and if I can’t get to sleep immediately, drain an entire bottle of that Greek red wine I’ve got that puts me to sleep quickly.
I unlock my door and enter as quickly as I can, immediately turning around to do all my locks. First the thumb bolt, then the twist lock, and finally, I stand on my tiptoes to push the vertical posts into place. Just as I feel the inch-thick steel post slide home in its sleeve, I feel something... someone behind me, and I spin. “Who—”
Shock and terror grip me as I turn, but then I’m paralyzed.
My words dry on my lips as I see...him.
With a chill running down every inch of me, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This is just another hallucination after a long day on a sad anniversary, but when I open them again he’s still there, black pants, white dress shirt, his black tie slightly undone just like he used to when we were alone. Older, with faint wrinkles around his eyes, but the way he looks at me... My Gabriel.
“Is... is it you?” I whisper, my knees trembling. Tears threaten to spill down my cheeks, my chest aches with a breath I can’t seem to take, and as he steps forward through the soft security lights that I leave on when I’m gone, he says nothing, and it isn’t until he’s right in front of me and I’ve backed up against my front door that I know I’m not imagining things.
“Please,” I whisper, my tears falling. “Is it you... Sir?”