How would Lisa go back to vanilla? How would she go back to an ordinary man? How would she live without Olivier? Her career mattered, and she wasn’t going to give it up, but it wasn’t all there was to life. Jody had been an added decoration; what she had with Olivier was the bedrock.
“Cherie.”
“Hmm.” Lisa turned her head toward Olivier’s face on the bolster next to her, heart-stoppingly handsome, unusually serious.
Reaching up to her face, he teased a strand of hair that had caught in her eyelash. “A penny for your thoughts?”
“Not worth a penny. I was just thinking…about how we’re going to spend the day.”
“I’m afraid I have to go into the gallery today. I’m meeting a new artist and his agent to discuss an exhibition in the autumn. Then I have to go to the university to discuss next term’s seminars.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’m sorry, but autumn is just around the corner, and I can’t put these things off any longer. I should be free around five, though, so we could meet at the Bar d’Or in Place St Germain?”
“Yes, that sounds like fun. I ought to start preparing for my new job, anyway. There’s paperwork I should have signed last week for the apartment, and my new boss wants me to join a video conference.” She smiled. “If you’ll let me off, of course. I seem to remember that the last time I made a work call on our time, I ended up in hot water.”
Lisa’s bottom tingled as Olivier’s palm snaked around her naked body and rested on her cheek. “I’ll let you off for today, as I’m busy, but if you’re a second after five at the Bar d’Or, I’ll remind you of your first visit to me.”
Unexpected heat rushed to her cheeks, drawing an eye roll from Olivier. “You’re blushing. Don’t say you’re ashamed after all we’ve done together?”
“No, I’m just remembering how excruciating I found my first appointment with you. Not that you made it any easier for me in the slightest! I went home with a sore backside, wondering what the hell I’d got myself into.”
Withdrawing his hand from her butt, Olivier eased himself up onto his elbow. His voice was half-amused, half-tender. “I never go easy on my subs. You knew that. I am a Dom, after all.”
On his subs. His words were obviously meant to remind her that she was merely one of a string of women, gently but firmly putting her into her place, perhaps as the start of the inevitable process of severing his ties with her. Lisa’s heart squeezed agonisingly.
Olivier sighed. “I guess I’d better take a quick shower. I can bring you some breakfast in bed if you don’t want to rush, but I need to get to the gallery.”
“It’s okay. You go. I’ll grab a coffee and go back to my flat.”
While Olivier showered, Lisa stared at the ceiling. The ornate plaster rose with its cherubs, garlands and roses seemed to mock her with its twee vision of idyllic love. The reality was this: lying alone in a rapidly cooling bed while they both prepared to go their separate ways. Maybe they could meet once every six months for a night or two of kinky fun until one or other of them found a new partner. Maybe—the thought stabbed her like a sharp blow to the gut—Olivier already had his new sub lined up, or at least a meeting lined up. Perhaps it wasn’t an artist he was meeting at the gallery but a prospective sub; a new woman to be interviewed and tested to see if she was serious enough to be disciplined and dominated by him for as long as the arrangement suited them.
Lisa buried her face in the bolster, fighting back hot tears. The thought of leaving Olivier was painful enough without the added misery of jealousy flowing through her veins like some corrosive poison.
She managed, somehow, to wipe away the moisture from her cheeks and squeeze back any more by the time he wandered out of the en suite, rubbing his jet-black hair with a towel. He smelled like heaven and looked like a Greek god who’d walked straight out of the sea. Lisa’s nipples puckered and her vaginal muscles clenched at the sight of his penis firming as he towelled himself dry.
“Please don’t do that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because you have to rush out.”
She sat up in bed, the sheet falling from her body, exposing her breasts and her painfully swollen nipples. Olivier tossed the towel on a chair and flamed her with a look that took in her hot face and breasts. His pupils darkened, and Lisa’s pulse rate spiked.
“Did I give you permission to flaunt your breasts at me?”
“No, maître.”
“And now you have, knowing that I’ll have to make love to you. I’ll be late for my appointment.”
She lifted her chin, a delicious wantonness overtaking all other feelings. “Quite possibly, maître.”
“And that after I’ve made love to you, I won’t have time to correct you and will have to paddle you later.”
“I expect so, maître.”
Hands on hips, he shook his head. “You expect so? You look at me like this, brazenly, without the slightest remorse?”
The sight of his cock, now ready for her, made her mouth water. “I have no shame, maître.”
“I can see that. I can also see that your insolence has returned and I am going to have to become even stricter with you.” Olivier tsked and stepped toward the bed. Lisa gasped as he tore the sheet from her body. “Lie back and open your legs.”
She obeyed instantly, parting her thighs as he climbed onto the bed. Before she could breathe again, he buried himself inside her.
The clock had ticked around almost an hour before Lisa caught sight of it again and smiled to herself. Whoever was pacing the gallery, checking his or her watch in indignation, would have to wait awhile longer. She still had the power to keep Olivier by her side; he still ached for her body. His arm lay across her body now, possessively—almost protectively. Perhaps she should throw caution to the winds, expose herself—tell him how she felt, that she didn’t want their relationship to end; that she didn’t want to leave.
“Olivier…”
He opened his eyes and turned to her. “Hmm?”
His eyes were expectant; then, as she hesitated, they were puzzled. Oh God, no. What the hell was she doing? “Yes? What is it, cherie?”
Lisa floundered, struggled for air. Her heart raced; she wanted to tell him how she felt, but she couldn’t face the sudden change in his features that might—that probably would—happen. The horror, the pity, the embarrassment.
The pain of her own misery when she was gently but firmly rejected. Again—but this time by a man she truly loved and who could not love her back.
In the past few months, Olivier had unravelled her physically, but when it came to this moment, she couldn’t let herself go and tell him how she really felt. Olivier’s eyes were serious, mirroring the struggle in her own. “Lisa? What’s the matter?”
“The phone. It’s ringing.”
The buzz came from the nightstand next to the clock. Her iPhone had ridden to the rescue at the very last moment, saving her from making the second biggest mistake of her life after starting her affair with Jody.
As she wriggled to answer it, Olivier’s arm clamped down across her body. “Leave it.”
“It might be important.”
“More important than what you wanted to say?”
Her mouth opened, breath leaving her as the phone’s buzz retreated. When she opened her eyes, he smiled at her from between her legs.
“I thought not.”
A while later, Olivier got up to go to the bathroom, Lisa lay, drenched in post-sex haze, every limb liquid, reluctant to return to reality. The phone buzzed again from the chair by the window. With a sigh, she got out of bed and fished it from her bag. She grimaced as her mother’s name came up, then smiled. Could she speak to her mum while she was naked and still tingling from Olivier’s latest therapy?
The missed call was from her mum too. Twice in an hour; maybe it was important. She pressed the button, ready for a long conversation about some relative’s baby news or neighbourhood scandal.
<
br /> “Hi. Mum.”
In the bathroom, Olivier sat on the edge of the tub, staring at the mirror opposite. It showed a man clinging by his fingernails to a precipice. Stifling a groan of agony, he put his head in his hands, trying to blot out the world. Lisa was preparing to leave; she’d been on the verge of telling him that this should be their last meeting; he knew it by the regret and sadness in her eyes.
Since that night with Alex and Carla, he’d sensed the change in her, the slight coolness, the emotional distancing from him. She was metaphorically packing her bags and mentally putting her house in order, ready to fly away from him in every sense of the word. Every day, he felt the loosening of the bond, and every time she slackened the knot, he let go a little too. It was pure self-preservation, to somehow lessen the pain of separation.
He’d even—briefly—thought of agreeing to meet a woman who’d been mentioned to him by a former friend from a club. He’d thought that by doing this he could kid himself he was moving on, but immediately he’d phoned the friend back to say he wasn’t interested.
God knows, he ought to know by now that moving on from one relationship to the next wasn’t the way for him anymore. He needed to grieve when Lisa left, to properly recognise that her loss had hurt him, even more than Caro leaving him.
To abandon himself to the pain and to suffer, and to get out the other side.
He shoved his hands through his hair.
But that couldn’t happen until she was physically out of his life and thousands of miles away, because until then, with her in front of him, he nursed hope. He’d been a heartbeat away from blurting out that he was in love with her and that he didn’t want her to leave. That was crazy. She had to leave; she had a career in New York.
But more than that, he was a child about to put his hand into the fire again. Too late. His hand was in the flame, burning. What he’d contemplated was throwing himself in a great fucking bonfire.
His fingers tore at the roots of his hair as he heard her phone ring again. It would be work, calling her, demanding she return even sooner than planned. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? End it now, start the pain right now, and the sooner he could get it over with.
The bathroom door clattered against the radiator. Lisa stood in the doorway, tears streaming down her face. The exact opposite of the woman reining in her emotions like metal bands around a barrel.
“Olivier!”
He snapped to his feet. “What the hell’s the matter?”
Her sob seemed to rent her whole body and shake his as she crushed her face against his chest. He folded his arms around her, shushing her yet at the same time, torn with agony to know what had caused her such pain. What had unravelled her in the way he never could.
His skin was soaked with her tears; his heart felt like it was splitting in two as he let her make her pain part of him.
He staggered against the tub as she suddenly thrust him away from her. “I must go! I have to go to Abi now.” She tore off into the bedroom, tripping over discarded clothes, gulping in air, snatching at bags and shoes.
Olivier grabbed her arm. “Wait. Slow down.”
Her eyes were wild as she glared at him. “No. I have to…go…”
He gripped her elbows. “Lisa. For fuck’s sake, breathe and tell me what’s happened!”
She stared at him as if he was crazy, then let out a massive, shuddering breath. “Bella!” she shrieked. “It’s Bella. She’s in hospital. She has meningitis and… Oh God, Olivier, she might not survive.”
He released the pressure on her elbows. Shock almost stole his breath too, but he knew that more than ever in his life, Lisa needed him to stay calm. “Yes, you must go to her now, but you can’t help anyone in this state. I’ll help you get your stuff and take you to the airport. Where’s your passport?”
Her eyes were wild. “In the flat. In the fucking flat. What if I’m too late? What if there’s no flight? Oh God, it’s nearly midnight. There won’t be any. What if Bella dies and I didn’t answer my phone because we were shagging each other?”
He’d stopped her from answering the call, but his guilt would help no one now. “You won’t be too late. What hospital is she in?”
“I don’t know. Mum didn’t say, or I didn’t hear. I’ll kill myself if Bella dies.”
“Okay. This is what we’re going to do. Get dressed and phone your mother back and find out exactly where Bella is. I’m going to arrange a flight for you and take you to the airport.”
“But when? What about my passport!”
“I’ll deal with that. Put your clothes on and call your mother.”
Lisa’s legs were leaden as she climbed the short flight of steps that led up to the private jet waiting on the tarmac at Le Bourget. It was barely an hour since she’d taken the call from her mother, yet every second ticking by was agony.
Rain lashed her face, and she stumbled on the wet steps.
Olivier’s hand was immediately at her elbow. “Take care.”
Seconds later, they were inside the aircraft, her fingers fumbling with the buckle of her seat belt.
“Please, let me help.”
“No, I…”
“Accept the help, save your energy for what matters. You must see that makes sense?”
With the briefest nod, she sat back and closed her eyes as Olivier took the metal buckle from her and snapped it home, tightening the strap across her lap. She heard the heavy thud as the cabin door closed and the engine noise deepened as the pilot prepared to taxi. Behind her closed eyes, all she could see was a tiny figure, hooked up to a myriad of machines and tubes; and her mother and sister hunched in chairs at the bedside. She’d called her mother back as Olivier had driven her to the private airfield. Bella was still in intensive care, still critical, still no change.
Warm fingers enclosed hers, and she opened her eyes to see Olivier looking at her, his eyes full of concern. He squeezed her hand. “She’ll be okay.”
“Thank you for trying, but you can’t possibly know that.”
“No, but you mustn’t give up on her. You need to give hope to your sister. If you give up, she’ll feel it the moment you walk into the hospital. That’s the last thing she wants now.”
“I know. It’s so hard not to think of the worst that could happen. Bella is so small.”
“She’s young and strong and in the hands of experts, from what you tell me.”
“It’s such an unpredictable thing. Anything could happen to Bella. Even if she pulls through there could be brain damage or blood poisoning… I’m sorry, I’m thinking the worst. I am so grateful that you’ve come with me and arranged this jet—thank you.”
“Please, you have nothing to thank me for. I’ll do anything I can to make things easier for you. I called in a favour from a client of the gallery with the jet. It was the fastest way to get you home.”
Lisa squeezed his hand. “It means everything to me to be with my family, but I wish I could have been there when Bella was taken ill—or before. Maybe I could have done something to help or spotted that something was wrong.”
“If Bella’s own mother and GP initially didn’t realise how serious it was, then you couldn’t have helped. We’ll be at the airfield in less than an hour. I’ve ordered a private car to wait for us. I know you’re in agony, and I do understand what you’re going through. You mustn’t give up on Bella.” His voice was fierce.
Lisa felt the plane start to accelerate, ready for take-off. “You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you? Caro gave up on you when you were very ill, and you can’t forget she abandoned you—or forgive her?”
He glanced away from her, down at their interlinked fingers as the wheels left the tarmac. Lisa’s stomach turned over and over, the familiar feeling of being about to drop from the sky intensified by her ragged emotions.
“That’s for another time. Let’s concentrate on Bella and your family for now.”
“How is she?”
Olivier stood as Lisa wal
ked into the waiting area of the hospital. His face was creased with anxiety, dark shadows under his eyes. God knew how she looked herself, not that she cared.
“The same. They’re still pumping antibiotics and steroids into her and saying the next few hours will be crucial. Just like this is some TV drama, except it’s real. It’s horribly real.”
A sob racked her body, and she sought refuge in his open arms, burying her face in his shoulder.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“No. I want to stay here until…in case there’s a change, but you should go to your hotel.”
“I’ll wait with you.”
Lisa shook her head. It was so tempting to lean on Olivier for support and comfort. Perhaps she’d done far too much of that already tonight. She had dragged this man—a man who, God help her, wasn’t even her boyfriend but a virtual business arrangement—into one of the most intense and intimate family moments. Embarrassment and shame and guilt coursed through her. She’d been fucking him while her niece had been close to dying and her mother had been trying to get hold of her. And she’d be leaving him soon, not tying him to her with shared grief and pain.
“Please, go back to your hotel. Thanks for staying, but it might be easier if you left now.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Yes. You’ve already done more than anyone could expect a friend to do.”
A flicker of emotion cast a momentary shadow over his face; perhaps hurt at her use of the word friend, or maybe relief. Who knew? She had no capacity left for finely judging people’s feelings tonight, beyond the rawness of her own.
“I’ll be at the hotel, then, if it helps you, but swear you’ll let me know how Bella is.”
“Of course I will.”
She spared him a brief kiss, slipped from his arms and headed for the ICU without looking back. Even as she walked away from him, she was telling herself that this would probably be the last time she saw him, whatever happened with Bella. They would have had to part in a couple of weeks anyway; time had simply run out sooner than either of them had expected. She knew that her overwhelming fear of losing Bella acted like an anaesthetic to every other feeling. She was too numb to process the significance of parting from Olivier. If Bella pulled through, the numbness would evaporate and she would realise the full significance of having loved and lost Olivier.
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