Enamoured

by Darling, Giana

  But there was no way.

  I’d been ridiculous to think he cared about me enough to ensure my safety and success even after I’d abandoned him.

  Even hearing the name St. Aubyn made my stomach ache.

  “No, Jensen, I’m sorry, but I just cannot.”

  “What if I told you the shoot wasn’t in London proper? You’d fly in and a driver would pick you up directly to transfer you to Cornwall. We’re doing an indoor/outdoor shoot on the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast. The theme is very Heathcliff and Cathy.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean the moors of the Peak District?” I asked, because I knew just how atmospheric those rolling hills of purple and red heather could be.

  Pearl Manor was there, nestled in the landscape like the setting for every great British literary classic.

  “The cliffs are more cinematic. Honestly, Cosi, I wouldn’t have called you if you were not my last resort. The shoot is in two days, and we’ll be going to hell in a handbasket if we can’t make this work for the next fall catalogue.” A long pause then he said, “Do I have to make Willa call you?”

  I worried my bottom lip as my chest went to war with conflicting emotions. Jensen and Willa had been my mentors for so long. I didn’t need the additional guilt from Willa to know that I was beholden to them eternally for their generosity.

  If lack of desire to return to the birthplace of so much of my misery was the only thing keeping me from accepting the contract, I would have caved in immediately. I didn’t like saying no to the people I loved. In fact, I abhorred it.

  Still, this was my safety on the line, and that was something I had learned the hard way not to take for granted.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, Jen, I really am. If things were different, if it wasn’t in England, I would do it in a heartbeat. I hope you know that.”

  He sighed heavily, but when he spoke there was a smile in his voice. “What if I told you Xavier Scott was doing the shoot?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Xavier Scott was a household name, and as a photographer, that was saying something. He did everything from the royal family’s photos to Vanity Fair spreads and National Geographic covers. He was the man behind the lens.

  And he had never, not once, consented to work with me.

  He was that famous. He chose his own models.

  “He wants me?” I breathed like a child being told they could meet Santa Claus for the first time.

  Jensen chuckled like the cat who ate the canary, knowing I was locked in. “He did.”

  “Cazzo,” I swore under my breath, then said, “Fine. I’ll be there, but Jensen? I want a flight at the latest possible time and the first one out of there when we wrap.”

  “Cosi, are you in some kind of danger if you go to England?” he ventured, suddenly somber.

  “No,” I countered immediately, infusing my voice with a smile. “Only in danger of bringing up a past I would rather keep buried. Do not worry, bello, I’ll be fine.”

  I hung up after exchanging more information about the particulars and let my head drop between my shoulders in defeat.

  I was an egotistical maniac for going back into the den of my monsters.

  More than that, I was a masochistic, fatalistic lamb willingly walking to my slaughter because a small, dark sordid part of me hoped one of those monsters would find me.

  “You look fancy,” Giselle said, appearing in the mirror behind me as she leaned against the doorframe and took in my black lingerie and dramatic make-up. “Big plans tonight?”

  I slid vermillion red lipstick over the thick curve of my bottom lip and then carefully painted it into the exaggerated bow of my top one. “Nothing too exciting. I’m going out with a friend.”

  My sister hesitated, then moved deeper into the room to sit on the edge of my bathtub. “Would that friend happen to be the Mason Matlock?”

  I sighed heavily, turning to face her worried expression. “What have you heard about Mason?”

  “Just the rumors that he wants to marry you. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone, Cosi,” she said, hurt softening her voice like a bruise.

  “I’m not dating Mason. When I first came to the city, he was a good friend to me, and occasionally, when he needs a date to a function, I go with him. As his friend.”

  She blinked her huge pale grey eyes at me eloquently, obviously not believing me.

  “I know you have your secrets,” she said before pausing for a pregnant moment. “We all do. I’m just saying, if you like this Mason or if he helped you out through our…leaner years, I won’t judge you for having a sugar daddy or whatever.”

  Laughter erupted past my lips like champagne, frothing through my fingers as I tried to hold it in. How I wished my secret was as simple as trading my time and some sexual favours for patronage like some muse from the 1800s.

  What would my sweet, innocent sister say if she knew I had sold myself through the broker of my father and the mafia we all hated so dearly into sexual slavery?

  “Dio santo, Gigi, you have a brilliant imagination,” I told her when I recovered enough to speak.

  She shrugged bashfully, pink highlighting her lightly freckled, tanned cheeks. “I’m just trying to be open minded to show you that I don’t care if that’s what you do or even what you like. I think I proved today when I told everyone I wanted to do a show based on human sexuality that I’m not a puritan like Elena, but I just wanted to be sure.”

  No, my boho sister wasn’t like my prudish Elena, but she’d also had one lover in her life, and he was a sweet Canadian boy who wouldn’t know bondage and sexual mastery if it kicked him in the balls.

  I walked over to take her sweet face in my hands and smooth my thumbs across her high cheekbones. Her gentle, sensual beauty hit me in chest with pride. She had so much to offer the world, her boundless heart and optimism, her artistry and talent. I felt the echo of my sacrifices in my chest as I looked at her as I was reminded once more of her endless potential, and I knew I’d done right by her.

  That didn’t mean I was ever going to tell her what I’d done to help her find possibilities in this life.

  I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Ti amo, bambina.”

  “I’m not so innocent as a baby anymore, Cosima,” she protested, pushing me back so that she could look into my eyes. “You don’t need to coddle me. What did you mean earlier when you said you’ve been sad, used, dumb, and very nearly dead?”

  It was my fault for being so dramatic. Giselle had announced she was doing a sexual study for her next art gallery showing, and my family had exhibited mixed reactions. To show her I was on her side, I’d immediately volunteered to be her first model, and when we had returned home from lunch, I shed my clothes and revealed a few of the secrets punched into my flesh.

  I was lucky she hadn’t been able to discern the brand on my buttock, the twin lions roaring beside a shield of gold depicting pearls, thorns, and poppies.

  Normal people didn’t voluntarily mar their skin with a red-hot branding iron, and even my considerable imagination was not enough to come up with an excuse for that.

  Explaining the evolution of my relationship with my body was simple compared to that quandary.

  “I only meant this; I was born with inherent value because people enjoy beautiful things and my body grew into a pretty vessel others could admire and lust at. Over the past few years, I’ve learned that people think a pretty girl is hollow, and they will try to fill me up with their desire and their greed, with their power and control like a puppeteer with a doll. I’m not so strong I’ve never succumbed to the headiness of their longing for me, not so sure I didn’t allow myself to be bent and reformed in a shape that suited them because it benefited me, but also, sometimes, it turned me on.”

  I peered up at her through my lashes and saw her intensity, as if she was a lightning rod readily absorbing every single one of my electric words.

  “There is power and sensuality in submitting to a formidable man,” I
said with a brief shrug, turning back to the mirror to unravel my long black hair from the big red curlers they were held in. The curls spilled like wet ink over my bare shoulders. “There is also sadness, stupidity, and at the darkest spectrum of it, danger. This is what I meant.”

  I watched Giselle swallow thickly in the mirror behind me. “You’re speaking of BDSM, right?”

  A one-shouldered shrug that sent my hair sliding sensuously over the bare skin above my corset. Even talking about the act of dominance and submission set my womb to aching, my core fisting in a yearning, mournful clench.

  “In all its forms and many expressions,” I agreed before sliding her a coy glance. “Is this something you are interested in, Gigi?”

  Her blush flared across her face like a neon warning sign. She prevaricated, stepping closer to filter her charcoal-stained fingers through my hair to break up the curls.

  “You know the man I told you about from Mexico?” she started quietly. “He made me feel as if the door to my pleasure could be unlocked as easily as saying ‘yes, sir.’”

  She shivered slightly behind me, either in remembrance of a fantasy or with anxiety at divulging such a sinful secret.

  I reached back to grab her arms and wrap them around my torso in a backward hug. I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the same questions and longings I had struggled with for so many years.

  Was there weakness in submission?

  Shame in pain?

  I knew the answer was no because I had been broken and reformed around that simple concept. It was a natural expression of desire that went beyond the sexual. In submission, I found self-assurance, generosity, and peace for the first time in my life.

  As much as I wanted to reassure her, it wasn’t a question I could answer for my sister.

  Sexuality was too individualistic to blanket with bromides.

  So, I hugged her arms tight to my tummy and stared into her beautiful face in the mirror.

  “I’m happy to hear you have found a man who excites you, especially after that dullard Mark from Paris.” She giggled at my words, and tenderness suffused my chest like fumes from a chemical high. “Just remember the power of no. The Dominant is not the only one who makes the rules, si?”

  She bit her lip and nodded, her gaze caught on something tucked in the farthest reaches of her mind. I took advantage of her distraction to entertain the real possibility that had been lingering at the corner of my preoccupied thoughts that Sinclair could very well be the man Giselle had found in Mexico.

  I knew he’d once dabbled in the scene because he was the one who had urged me to try to find another Dominant when I confessed I’d been involved in a relationship of the kind in England.

  I knew Elena detested kink with a bitter kind of verve that would take years of therapy and/or a very strong, resilient kind of man to temper and reform.

  Sinclair wasn’t that man. They didn’t have a relationship of trust and passion, but of drive and mutual admiration.

  But Sin was the type of man who would fall head over heels for the siren’s call of my beautiful, vivacious sister, and he was just sinful enough to indulge in that desire even when he shouldn’t.

  “Be careful, hmm, bambina?” I called to her softly.

  She blinked, refocused, and then frowned as the doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of my escort for the evening. Her eyes dropped to the high cut of my corset, her gaze tingling over the branded skin of my bum before they cut back to mine.

  “You too, Cosi, you too.”

  Cosima

  The opulence of a New York City high society function was not dissimilar to those of the upper crust elite and the Order back in England. The women were filled, covered, and sparkling in millions of dollars’ worth of plastic surgery, and brand-name designers and jewels while the men all wore a variation on the classic suit and tie as if individuality was frowned upon in such circles. It was. This was the major reason that Mason Matlock, one of the wealthiest men in New York and the heir to a coffee chain franchise, used me as a very pretty beard. Bigotry was frowned upon, but still, those who were too different often felt the brunt of society’s sharp tongue, and Mason didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout. His mother’s family was also Italian and Roman Catholic, so I had clear understanding of his situation. I didn’t think he was a coward for hiding, not when I had been hiding for so many years. We all had our crosses to bear, and I was happy to help my friend carry his once in a while.

  The noise was calamitous for such an elegant function, but I was grateful for it; between the band and the gossiping, there was little need for me to speak with the man standing next to me at the bar.

  “You look beautiful.” Wesley Longhorn gazed down at me with deep admiration, and I wished, not for the first time that night, that my dress wasn’t quite so low cut and that Wesley wasn’t quite so tall.

  “Thank you,” I murmured and smoothed a hand down the corseted front of my gold crystal Versace dress.

  “So what’s it like? Being a model.” He took a large sip of his scotch and winked at me. “I can tell just by looking at you, that you’re a party animal.”

  “Can you?” I asked coolly, my back ramrod straight with tension.

  “Oh, yeah.” His hand found my waist and smoothed down over my hip. “A girl like you has got to love a good time.”

  I struggled not to roll my eyes, but it was getting increasingly difficult. The truth was, men like Wesley Longhorn, son of one of the biggest talent agents out there, abounded in the industry. Tossing a drink in his face, as satisfying as it would have been, would only hinder my career, not his.

  I had experience with men worse than him, and I knew how to handle them.

  So, I smiled beatifically at him. “The truth is, with my husband and two kids…” I watched his facade fall feature by feature until his classic all-American face was melted like cheddar cheese. “I don’t have much time for going out. And I’m always on the lookout for a good sitter; do you like children, Wesley?”

  I was still laughing when Mason appeared moments after Wesley had scampered away. He stared at me questioningly, but when I offered no explanation, he smiled.

  “I leave you for five minutes, and you get into trouble.”

  I pouted up at him. “You leave me for five minutes, and I find trouble. What else do I have to entertain me while you are gone?”

  Mason’s face creased into his familiar smile as he laughed. He was thirty-seven years old, much older than me by anyone’s standards, but his seasoned good looks reminded me subtly of Alexander’s experienced appearance, and I had no doubt his age was the very reason I found him so attractive. His dark brown hair was brushed away from his forehead to emphasize the square cut of his jaw, his Roman patrician nose, and his dark eyes.

  We had first met one night a month after I’d move to the city, when I’d been especially tired of my robotic existence and caved into my curiosity by visiting a local BDSM club. The Bind was an exclusive establishment run by one of Sinclair’s old friends, which was how I secured an invitation. I’d gone alone, unsure what I was looking for but needing something to settle the wild restlessness in my soul. It was there I’d found Mason, arguing with a man who was trying to strap him into a saddle horse. I’d intervened, getting in the large Dominant’s face until a club monitor arrived to escort him out. Mason and I spent the rest of the evening drinking at the bar and talking about our mutually dissatisfying love lives and large mixed Italian families. We’d been friends since then.

  “I’m so glad you could join me tonight,” he was saying in his deep, methodical voice, thinking through each word before he uttered it. “You always brighten up these things.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Mason, these ‘things’ are important. For you and me.”

  He sighed heavily. “My uncle did say he was proud of when I told him we were still seeing each other, though he put the pressure on to make the rumors a reality and get a ring on your finger.”

&n
bsp; I laughed in solidarity because we both had complicated relationships with our father figures, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. A camera phone flashed as someone took a photo of us, but that was the point of these things. Mason had helped my celebrity by toting me around town when I’d first arrived, and I continued to help with his overbearing, homophobic family by being his date.

  His lips pursed, but he relaxed when I put a hand on his arm and led him back to our table to take our seats. When he placed his on top of mine, he looked down at me with somber eyes. “You are important to me too, Cosima, and I can tell you’re unhappy. Even more than normal, which I have to note, is saying something.”

  I looked away quickly, slipping my hand from his grasp. “You barely know me.”

  “I’ve known you for two years. I’d say that’s a considerable length of time,” he countered, his voice stiff with irritation.

  He deserved more than my irascible defensiveness, but I found myself protesting again. “I’m just your arm candy, Mason. Chill out.”

  Suddenly his arm was on mine, and I was wrenched around in my seat until I faced him fully, my knees locked between his own. His expression was cold with brutality. “Don’t you dare. Don’t do yourself and our relationship a disservice by pretending this is a transaction and not an emotional connection. I’m here as your confidante just as you are mine. What is wrong with you that you can so easily forget that?”

  I yanked my arm from his hold, avoiding the condemnation in those icy eyes. Normally, I could control my unreasonable desire to distance myself from the people, specifically men, in my life, but I was thrown so far off-kilter by the events of the past few days, I felt as if I’d been put through a wood chipper. Pieces of my scarred past, tumultuous present, and dreams of my future lay scattered around me like debris, and I had no idea how to make sense of the chaos.

  “Forgive me?” I asked Mason softly, crossing my legs and leaning over in my chair so that I could cup the side of his neck. “I’m on edge tonight.”