The Contract (Nightlong #1)

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I nodded subtly and he came in for a kiss, taking my breath away.

  Ten minutes later he was gone from the room to find somewhere safe to hide, leaving me to fend for myself for the first time in six, whole years.

  IT got to evening and I thought this Shay character was never going to call so I decided to find myself dinner if nothing else. I sat eating my pasta in the hotel’s Italian restaurant when a gentleman approached my table dressed in a grey suit.

  “Hello miss, I’ve been asked to give you this.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, taking a business card from the man.

  He walked away out of the restaurant and I had no idea how he got in. I hadn’t seen him dining with anyone so he wasn’t a guest or a staff member.

  I checked around me and nobody was looking in my direction. I looked down and read the business card:

  PERNOX

  You’re Invited

  RSVP

  700007

  Flipping the card over, I didn’t see anything else. Pernox… I wracked my brain. It was Latin or… something.

  The card was printed on deluxe matte paper, with gold finishes on a mixed black and purple background, nothing that would tell the layman what Pernox actually was. A club or a person… or a product? A place to party…

  Looking around the restaurant again, I didn’t see anyone watching me but that didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched. If someone were watching me, that someone would be expecting to see my immediate reaction – to see me either RSVP or chuck the card in the bin.

  I took a deep breath and dialled the number on my phone, lifting it to my ear. It rang a couple of times before a woman answered, “You’re through to Pernox.”

  “This is Cleo Patrick. I was asked to RSVP.”

  “Very good. An automated message will be sent once you hang up. Our doors are open to you. Thank you for your call.”

  She put the phone down and I chewed my lip. What was I getting myself involved in?

  I didn’t know for sure.

  A message came through with a postcode for what looked like a Surrey address.

  Leaving my table, one of the waiters caught my eye. “Everything okay with your food, madam?”

  “Fine, great… it’s on the tab, right?”

  “Yes, sure. Just wanted to check everything was good.”

  “Yes, yes. I just have to… yes, everything was fine,” I said, realising I didn’t have to explain to him why I was leaving my table before dessert.

  I walked into the reception area and called Dante as I passed through on the way to the lifts.

  “I got the call.”

  “Well, I did give you a glowing reference.”

  “So how do I get there?”

  “I’ll send Sexton to pick you up. He’s dropped me off so now he’s free to escort you.”

  “Does he know about this place?”

  “Yes… and no.”

  “Oh, okay. So the less he knows about what’s really going on… the better?”

  “Yes, precisely. I’ve told him I’m sending you to a spa.”

  “Okay, so where are you now?” I asked him as I approached my room, key card at the ready.

  “I’m somewhere safe. I hope you get to where you’re going okay.”

  “I love you, Dante.”

  “I love you too, sweet one.”

  I walked into the hotel room and gathered my things together, waiting for the call from Sexton who was hopefully heading back my way. I looked down at my empty wedding finger, Dante having taken away my ring to keep it safe for the time being. Still the slight indent marked me where it had lain for the past two months, so I quickly made the decision to wear gloves, just until it went. I happened to have a lovely lace pair which matched my top nicely.

  Looking in the mirror, I barely recognised myself with all the make-up and new hair. With the papers having never pictured me, never even named me, only describing me as an elegant brunette – I had to hope nobody at Pernox would think I was actually Dante’s woman.

  IT was a light night when we set off and I didn’t fear impending doom. I just wanted to get this all over with.

  Dressed in what I thought was suitable for Pernox, I sat on the backseat as Sexton drove me, knowing that the satnav didn’t seem to think anything other than a retired Post Office existed at the postcode we’d been given. Sexton drove me anyway and I wanted to go out of curiosity if nothing else.

  “We’re nearly there, Ciara,” he said.

  “Call me Cleo in front of other people. Okay?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged.

  I felt nervous as I watched the satnav, the same as Sexton was doing, wondering when the road was actually going to present something viable, like a building big enough to hold a spa. So far, the road we were on was just a road with fields either side. No houses or signposts for some landmark up ahead. No stately homes in sight.

  The satnav beeped as we neared the destination and I watched the countdown to the point where the device had placed a flag in the road.

  “Arriving at destination.”

  Sexton pulled the car to a stop and we halted on the brow of a hill. To either side there were no road markings, just rugged countryside and fields. Beyond fields there was woodland and the odd country house situated in the distance. What was once the Post Office had clearly been demolished, just a lot of scorched earth left behind.

  “It’s a wild goose chase,” I whispered.

  I was thinking about calling Dante when a car shot past us at a ridiculous speed – then the driver beeped their horn several times and in a sort of rhythm, like it was a message.

  “Follow that car, Sexton,” I said, and he nodded because he had to do everything I said. Being the boss’s girl meant he was my slave as well as Dante’s.

  “Okay.”

  We chased the car with ease, it being such open countryside, it wasn’t difficult to follow the lead with nobody else around. We followed its path, trailing around winding roads for about two miles before the car pulled up at some gates leading to a mansion. Following close behind, we were allowed entry too and as we drove behind the Lexus which had tooted us earlier, heavy gravel crunched beneath the car and Sexton cursed, “Bloody paintwork will be battered by this surface.”

  Oh how he loved that car. Like it was an attachment, really…

  “Maybe they have too many boy racers round these parts,” I said, and when we both looked behind us to see the mansion gates closing us in, he raised his eyebrows as I did – with scepticism.

  “Well, if we’re to be turned into mincemeat tonight, it was nice knowing you Charles Sexton.”

  “You too, Cleo.”

  A sixteenth-century mansion came into view and I grew yet more eager to know all about the world Dante was King of. I was desperate to know more, in fact.

  The driver of the Lexus stepped out of her vehicle and removed a flat cap to allow her long blonde hair to fall down her back in waves. Her clothing resembled that of a horsey person; riding boots, tweed, jodhpurs, rakish neckerchief.

  She was stunning.

  Walking towards me with her hand held out, she smiled a toothy smile and her handshake was as warm as her welcoming voice. “Cleo. It’s wonderful to finally meet you. We’ve been waiting for someone like you.”

  “You have?”

  “For what feels like forever.”

  “Forgive me, but are you Shay?” I asked the woman, more and more freaked out by the second.

  “Yes, I’ll be looking after you.”

  “Okay…”

  She motioned at the vehicle. “I see he loaned you his driver. Preferential treatment, hmm?”

  Stepping immediately into character, I fiddled with my fingers in front of me and shook my head. “I think he wanted to ensure I got here… I don’t think he believed I would actually come of my own volition.”

  She laughed with real amusement, like she meant for me to think she and Dante had a private joke about the girls in his emplo
y. “Why ever wouldn’t you come?”

  With raised eyebrows, I suggested, “This is his way of letting me go, I suppose.”

  “What?”

  I hoped she believed that I’d turned up dressed and looking like this to hide my inner sadness, my grief.

  “I’m his domme, or was,” I began explaining, or rather concocting, “and suddenly, he says he needs to go away, go… where, I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. So, here I am. We both know he needs it… so… I don’t know. I reckon he’s found somewhere else to get it. You know? Otherwise why send me away?”

  “I don’t understand. You were his domme?”

  Ignoring her inquisition, I rattled on, “I’m not stupid. He said this was a spa I could stay at while he’s away, but… there’s no sign on the gates. It’s like he’s tossed me aside and now… here I am. It’s… I don’t know… like he’s got tired of me or something.”

  She nodded, her hands folded in front of her, mirroring me. “For all intents and purposes, this is a spa… albeit a very private, unlisted one. If ever the cops come a-calling, which they haven’t done yet, all they will find is a primping palace inside those doors. All-female palace, too. No funny business.”

  I nodded.

  “How long did he say he would be gone?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me,” I said, looking at the floor, “he barely tells me anything.”

  “But you know what this spa masquerades?”

  “When you say it like that, I have an idea… I sort of knew he had this place, but never knew where it was.”

  “He keeps his secrets, doesn’t he?”

  “Hmm-mmm.” I stood mostly looking at the floor, pretending to be hiding my sad eyes from her.

  “Well it is a day spa… but not. You know… other things go on beneath ground.”

  “Dungeons… dragons, that sort of thing?”

  She winked.

  “I think he’s bored of me and now he thinks he’s doing me a favour, putting me up here. He probably thinks some dishy banker will snap me up instantly and… that’ll clear his conscience, right? I thought we were making so much progress, you know? But he turns on a die.”

  “He does.”

  I knew that with a significant amount of eyeliner, my eyes looked big and childlike, and I hoped she saw a femme fatale and not the strong confidence of a woman in love, beneath. She seemed to believe what I was saying, anyway… perhaps because she had never let go of feeling like the scorned woman, herself. If she’d never loved Dante, I was a monkey’s uncle.

  I’d been loved by Dante and I’d loved Dante in return so I had first-hand experience that you didn’t get over him. He wasn’t that sort of man. He scorched marks in your soul with his glare, placed embers in your heart that forever ached until he took you in his arms. He made me laugh so hard sometimes I almost peed, and though the least cuddly person I’d ever met, he held me with such power sometimes I felt like nothing could befall me while I had him. I couldn’t imagine how women ever got over him – and woman’s intuition told me Shay hadn’t.

  “So, how long do girls usually stay before meeting someone?”

  She stared at me, the naïve newbie, a girl who might have imagined the only reason women did this work was to meet a man and secure financial status at the end of it.

  I knew some women did this for kicks. I’d sort of been one of those women. These men literally wanted everything and anything. It had always made me super inquisitive as to… why?

  “It varies Cleo… but girls rarely meet someone here. They make their money here… then go off to meet someone else. Don’t you realise the arrangement you had with Dante was most likely, rare?”

  “Well… no.”

  “And his domme? That can’t be right.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a dominant.”

  “No?” My hands flew to my cheeks.

  She grinned, a mocking look behind her eyes. “Since Daltrey… he’s never been the same, so it figures in a way. Once upon a time though, he was no more submissive than the Queen. Now, let’s get you inside. Say your goodbyes to Sexton. No men ever enter through those front doors.”

  I rounded the car and bent down a little to look in on Sexton through the open driver’s side window.

  “I don’t like this,” he whispered.

  “You ever heard of this place?” I asked barely audibly.

  “Never. I know the area… but I never, ever heard of this place. It gives me the creeps.”

  I wondered what Sexton did and didn’t know… and I also wondered if Dante had some ulterior motive in placing me here, other than for spying. I wondered if… but no, I put that out of my mind. This wasn’t his fantasy, nor mine… it was a nightmare.

  “I’ll be okay, you should go. I have my phone… and my purse has a thing in it.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  I nodded, winking. “She’s just a tiny blonde lady, besides what could these people possibly do to me that Dante hasn’t already?”

  He shook his head, unhappy at the thought of leaving me alone. “I’ll stick around for an hour, okay? If you don’t come out, I’ll assume you’re happy inside and I’ll go. Deal?”

  “Okay, deal.” I leaned into the car, kissed his cheek and he parked up at the edge of the large driveway, still going steady on the gravel.

  “He’s going to wait a few minutes,” I told Shay, “he worries about me.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder. “So he should. So he should. Now. Let’s go inside and get a nice warming drink.”

  She led me through a stone entranceway and into a great, grand house. What awaited me inside shocked the freaking hell out of me.

  Sixteen

  MY FIANCÉ OWNED THIS PLACE… it didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem… right. It was a nudist camp… not a spa!

  Stood alongside Shay in the huge open area of the reception hall, I was astonished by the black and white tiled floors, the huge oak staircase, the feeling that this place was full of antiquities… but I also couldn’t help but gaze as naked bodies roamed freely. I thought I’d seen it all at Cohésion but here we were, surrounded by not just naked bodies… but absolutely stunning naked women. Each one, undoubtedly handpicked. They were all of them immaculate. Dante hadn’t been entirely honest with me because these women were of every variety possible, each beautiful in their own distinct, unique way. I could only hope I wouldn’t stand out as the ugly one.

  In my heels I stood at maybe around five feet ten at most so I towered over Shay, not taller than five-three in flats. Looking down on her, I asked, “Have I entered some sort of Sapphic paradise?”

  “Follow me.” She smiled.

  We climbed the staircase which curved around the oval-shaped reception hall, opulently decorated with a central floor-to-ceiling chandelier column, numerous candelabra and pictures of country life all around.

  Feeling overdressed, I tried to avoid the eyes of naked people as they sauntered around with towels over their shoulders, under their arms, or a book in their hands… water contained within a bottle or glass clutched between delicate fingers. Temperate indoors, I began to swelter in my clothes, surrounded by… hot women.

  I followed Shay down a long corridor and we climbed some spiral steps into what seemed to be an attic.

  “Best in the house,” she said, opening a door that led into a Marie Antoinette-inspired boudoir. All white furniture and clothes horses, modesty screens… a female paradise. A large vaulted ceiling had spectacular expansive windows which no doubt gave great views of the stars at night.

  Shay folded her hands in front of herself, watching me admire the room. “If you want that drink, why not change and join me downstairs in the drawing room? All the girls begin to head beneath ground around about this time… to get ready. We needn’t be bothering ourselves with all that tonight, though. Not you and me. My pet isn’t scheduled in so it seems I have a night off.”

  “What’s the dress code?” I added hastily.
/>
  “In the closet,” she pointed, gesturing at where clothes hung inside (I hoped).

  She bowed out of the room, shutting the door as she left so that I had some privacy.

  “Why the hell did you agree to inherit all this, Dante?” I said to nobody but myself. “As if I need ask.”

  Slamming my holdall down on the floor, I sat on the bed and took a few moments for contemplation.

  I couldn’t stay still though so I paced the room, seeking I don’t know… a sign.

  Out of the window I saw the Phantom still parked at the edge of the gravel driveway and realised there was no point in him waiting, picking my phone up to call him.

  “What’s happening?” he answered.

  “It’s Lesbos in here, I swear to god Sexton. I’m just ringing to say you should get yourself out of here.”

  “I could but I don’t really have anywhere else to be, you know?”

  “Hole up, I reckon. Don’t you have the Knightsbridge keys?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Go there, then. Do you know where Dante is?”

  “I dropped him at Piccadilly Circus. He could be anywhere by now. He tells me as little as he tells you.”

  “Do what you can to help him if he needs it. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.”

  “Sure.”

  “See you then.” He hung up.

  I clutched my hand to my heart and felt tremors of love warble through my body for Dante. How would I survive without him?

  IN the drawing room downstairs, it was just Shay and myself. From the closet in my room I’d picked out some lovely silk pyjamas, fluffy slippers and a large dressing gown – all white. After dark it seemed everyone upstairs went downstairs.

  Shay still wore her uniform. I assumed it was a uniform anyway, unless she really was just a very horsey sort of person.

  “When he bundled me off with Sexton, he gave me a ton of money to spend here, he said. I’m wondering why, when this place seems… self-sufficient?” I asked her sheepishly, playing coy.