by Lila Dubois
“That’s part of a relationship, but it has to be a two-way street.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I realized, even though I fucking prayed I was wrong, that once you were the CEO, your family, and the business, would always come first. Before me. Before us.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Really? Because I had shit going on those last six months. I was moving heaven and earth to try to figure out a way that I could be with you, could live permanently in Paris with you, and not leave my own family, my own business, in the lurch. Did you know that, Vivi?”
She hadn’t.
Solomon took a step, and this time she fell back a pace. “You didn’t. I kept waiting for you to ask what I was doing, what I was working on.”
“I didn’t have the mental energy—”
“And I get that. I understood…for a while. So I waited, and I supported you. Helped you.”
There was a sick feeling in Vivienne’s stomach, a tightness and sense of inevitability.
“I talked to friends, I read relationship books. I knew I had to give you time. Told myself that life is cyclical, that you needed support and so I would be there for you. Eventually things would even out, and if there came a time when I needed support, you would be there for me.” Solomon swept his hair back from his forehead, but a single piece fell forward over his brow.
She was physically and painfully reminded of that day when they first met in truth, back when they were both students. He was a world away from the graduate student she’d first met, yet some things hadn’t changed.
“But time passed.” His voice rose, each word clipped. “I realized there would always be a crisis. That your family is such fucking drama, and the business is such drama, they were going to suck you dry. When I finally realized that what I hoped was a temporary situation was, in fact, what the rest of our lives would look like, I realized I couldn’t do it.”
“No, I would have—” she whispered.
He shook his head and some of the heat was gone from his words, replaced by a resigned sadness. “No. What just happened a few days ago in Paris proves to me I was right. That’s why I walked away the second time.” He stopped, looking up at the stars. “I’m not being fair. I should have just come out and told you how I felt. I was still young, we both were. Instead of a conversation, I planned this elaborate weekend away where I would confess and we’d reconnect and…” His voice trailed away.
Vivienne felt like she’d been sucker punched. She had a terrible feeling the “weekend away” he was talking about was the trip they’d never gone on because as they’d been packing they had that final, explosive fight. She glanced at his scar. “But I needed you.” She winced, hearing a whiny patheticness in her words.
He calmed further, looked at her with pity. “I know you did, and it killed me to walk away from you. You were mine. Mine to take care of, and acknowledging that I couldn’t do it… Well…” Again he ran his hands through his hair. “It sure as fuck took me down a peg.”
“You’re making it sound as if I pushed you away on purpose. As if I didn’t need you. I did need you. I needed you so damn much.”
“I know you did. That’s not what I’m saying.” Solomon backed up and dropped heavily onto an outdoor chair.
The fact that he retreated hurt almost as much as his words. Some part of her had hoped their fight would turn into a kiss. That he would grab her and kiss her just to make her stop talking. It was something she would never admit to aloud, but nonetheless wanted.
“The truth is, I’m selfish. I introduced you to BDSM because I need that in my life. Part of being a Dom is taking care of the needs of a submissive. In a way, you needed me as your Dom more once you became CEO than you ever had before.”
The warm breeze wound around them. Insects hummed, and she could just make out the distant, gentle lap of waves. They were both physically and time-wise a world away from what he described, yet that year they spent in Paris was as real and vibrant in her mind as the stars above.
“You needed the emotional release of a scene almost daily. You also needed me to come in and carry you out of your office, take you to bed and make sure you slept, if even for a few hours.”
“And you didn’t want to have to do that for the rest of your life,” she concluded. “I was, my life was, too much trouble…”
The unscarred side of Solomon’s mouth kicked up in a sad smile. “Vivi, baby, I would have been happy to care for you until the day we died, if you’d let me.”
“But you just said—”
“I left for two reasons. First, you weren’t really going to let me care for you. Because caring for you wasn’t just making sure you ate something, slept, and occasionally cried for stress relief. I wanted to care for you by making sure that we were still doing things together, by taking you out to fucking dinner once in a while. A dinner that was just us and didn’t have to have one of your cousins, aunts, or uncles invited so that it turned into a business meeting. You wouldn’t let me take care of you that way. You wouldn’t let me make sure your soul was fed instead of just your physical needs.”
There were so many things she wanted to say, but her throat was too tight, the knot of emotions choking her.
“The second reason I left is because there’s more to a BDSM relationship than the Dom taking care of the sub.” He looked up, met and held her gaze. “I needed you too, Vivienne. I needed to scene with you. I needed my own release. Needed to dominate you.”
Her breath escaped her in a rapid exhalation.
“If I’d been different, if I’d been able to be more giving and less selfish, I would have stayed.” The wind carried his words away, and part of Vivienne wished the wind would pick up, turn into a gale that ripped his words away before she could hear them.
“But as much as I loved you, I was starting to resent you. I was starting to feel like your therapist. There was no reciprocity. It killed me because in one fell swoop I’d lost my best friend, my fiancée, and my submissive.” He sounded lonely, and that hurt her more than she could express. She’d been a fool to come here, to think they couldn’t wound one another any more. “Instead, I managed to end up with a job taking care of a woman—who I loved deeply—but was killing herself, letting her family destroy her, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.”
Solomon rose, looking at her with a softness she’d only seen in him during aftercare, or in those quiet intimate moments after they made love.
“That’s why I left the first time. And when I saw that happening all over again three days ago—when you let your uncle manipulate you, when you were willing to walk out in the middle of the scene to deal with a non-emergency… I realized nothing had really changed. Our chemistry and our history, that means there’ll always be something between us. And for a minute there in Paris I hoped we could have something as Master and sub. But it would never work because once you became CEO, you stopped really submitting. You just needed a kink outlet, and it didn’t really matter what I needed from the D/s. And like I said, I’m selfish. I needed more than you were willing, or able, to give.”
Solomon reached out, running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. It was only then she realized she was crying. “I'm sorry, Vivi, for everything, but us…we can’t be a couple, and even a BDSM relationship is…” His voice trailed off as he dropped his hand. “We’re just never going to work.”
Solomon Carter turned, and once again walked away.
Chapter 6
Outside Denver, Colorado—six years earlier
* * *
At 3:00 a.m., Solomon rolled off the bed, nearly tripping over the articles of clothing they’d dropped in the frantic, sexy journey from door to mattress. There were far more clothes than usual, since they’d spent the day skiing. Layers of long-sleeve shirts were tangled with wool socks and knit caps.
Somewhere in the mess Vivienne’s phone was ringing, and had been for quite some time. Solomon had been h
appy to ignore it in the first three or four times, but now it was clear that whoever was calling was not going to give up. That also meant it was probably an urgent call. Vivienne always slept like the dead after a good fucking. In the week they’d been at the palatial “cabin” he’d rented outside Denver, there had been plenty of very good fucking, and tonight had been no exception.
After all, they had to check and see if fiancé fucking was different than boyfriend/girlfriend fucking.
Fiancée. Vivienne Deschamps was going to be his wife. He’d wanted to marry her for a long time, but now it was official.
He found her ski jacket and lifted it from the floor. The sound of ringing got louder. Solomon stumbled over to the en suite bathroom and flipped on the light. That provided just enough illumination that he was able to make it back to the bed without stepping on anything, but not so bright that he was blinded.
“Vivi, baby, wake up,” he called softly. “Your phone is ringing.”
She turned toward him, a slight smile curving her lips even before she opened her eyes. She was naked. She usually slept naked, even on nights when they hadn’t done a scene or had sex.
During a D/s scene, he liked the intimacy of keeping her naked—that passive, physical acknowledgment that it was his right to touch and pleasure and hurt her in a way that would satisfy them both. His Vivi was so sweetly submissive, at least in the privacy of their bedroom, that she needed that reminder of their connection even when she slept.
She told him that she liked the feel of his hands sliding over her skin, even if it wasn’t going to lead to sex. Sometimes she would guide his hand and place it over her breast, then fall asleep like that, with her breast nestled in his palm. It had taken him a while to train himself not to get an immediate boner when she did that.
Damn it, this woman was so perfect. Which is precisely why he’d proposed—with a ridiculous fifteen-carat sapphire ring—as they stood in a picturesque snow-covered field near the peak of Echo Mountain.
Vivienne stretched, arching her bare breasts up, offering them. Solomon grabbed the sheet, pulling it over her. That made her blink open her eyes, a slightly worried, confused look on her face.
He held up her jacket, which had stopped ringing. “Someone’s been calling you.” As if on cue, the jacket started ringing again. Vivienne pushed up to a sitting position and reached over to flip on the bedside lamp. Solomon perched on the edge and started unzipping the many interior and exterior pockets, looking for her phone. He finally found it and passed it over.
Vivienne frowned at the display and then tapped the screen. “Bonjour?”
Solomon watched her, worried, but not as worried as he would have been by a late night call months ago. One of the reasons he’d waited so long to propose was due to her uncle Vernon’s terminal illness. For months, every time her phone rang at an odd hour, or she got a call she wasn’t expecting from a +33 number, she would tense, sure this was the call announcing Vernon had died.
He’d finally passed, and Vivienne had wept in his arms as they’d flown back to Paris for the funeral.
Vernon’s announcement of his late-stage pancreatic cancer nearly a year earlier had rocked not only the Beauvalot side of Vivienne’s family, but the fashion world. Vernon Beauvalot had been the creative director and driving force behind Beauvalot fashion house since the passing of the legendary Bernard Beauvalot.
Solomon rubbed her leg through the sheets, offering silent comfort and the connection they both craved as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the call.
Vivienne mouthed It’s Tempeste.
He winced. Tempeste Normandy was Vivienne’s aunt. At least that was the title Vivienne used for the woman. Tempeste was the late Vernon’s sister, and one of two primary Beauvalot heirs now that Vernon was dead. Technically, Vernon and Tempeste were Vivienne’s first cousins once removed, since their father and Vivienne’s grandmother were siblings. The only reason he knew this was that Vivienne had spent one night mapping out her relatives.
For Solomon, it was all about his mother, his mother’s family, his mother’s business. For Vivienne it was the opposite—her connection to both Deschamps and Beavualot were through her father. Her mother worked for the Château Rossolina Deschamps—that’s where she’d met Vivienne’s father—and had quickly and quietly assimilated into the large family.
The other heir to Beauvalot was Vivenne’s true uncle, Alain Deschamps. If her father had still been alive, Michael Deschamps would have been the third heir, as each of them was a direct descendent of one of the three Beauvalot siblings—Marie, Vivienne’s grandmother; Vincent, who’d headed the business side of Beauvalot before his son Vernon took over; and Bernard, the enigmatic creative lead of the fashion house, who had never married or had children. Solomon was sure he had been gay, even if he never had the opportunity to come out.
Marie, Vincent, and Bernard had turned Beauvalot into a household name in Europe. Between them there were four children. Marie—who married a Deschamps—had two sons, Vivienne’s father Michael and Alain. Vincent also had two children, Vernon and Tempeste.
Now Vernon was dead, and the Beauvalot side of her family was reeling. Of the four Beauvalot heirs, only Tempeste and Alain were left.
That left Tempeste as the default head of the family, and the fashion house. Tempeste was passionate about fashion, but she lacked the business acumen of her brother or father. Despite that, Solomon was sure the business would be fine. Beauvalot was a well-established company, with plenty of devoted, creative people to help guide the business. And Vernon’s death had hardly been a surprise—everyone had been bracing and preparing for his passing.
Vivienne’s eyes went wide as she listened. She pressed a hand over her mouth.
Solomon squeezed her ankle, worry making his shoulders tight. They’d only recently lost Vernon, and though Vivienne was closer to the Deschamps side of her father’s family, in particular her great-aunt Celeste, she was also a Beauvalot, and if something had happened to either of her cousins…
Vivienne set the phone down, putting it on speaker.
Tempeste was speaking in rapid-fire French. Since leaving London several years ago, he and Vivienne had traveled and lived all over the world. He’d been making and strengthening business connections and alliances for RedBall, particularly in Asia—they’d spent an amazing eight months in Singapore—so despite their too-recent trip to France for the funeral, it took his brain a moment to adjust.
“He is the devil. My brother’s body isn’t even cold in his grave and he does this to us. How dare he? You must stop him. You must call your uncle, though after this I hope you never call him family again, and stop him. He’ll destroy the House of Beauvalot. Destroy us!”
Solomon looked at Vivienne, shocked at the panic-laced anger that colored Tempeste’s tone. She kept ranting, repeating much of what she’d already said.
Solomon tapped the button to mute it on their end. “Is she…is she having a nervous breakdown, thinking Vernon is alive?” Tempeste’s constant references to both my brother and your uncle, rather than calling her dead brother by name, were unsettling.
“She’s not talking about Vernon.”
Solomon frowned in confusion. With Vernon gone, it was just Tempeste and her children—though their family name was technically Normandy—at the core of the Beauvalot family and business. Maybe there was a secret heir somewhere. It honestly wouldn’t surprise Solomon as much as it should. Vivienne’s family could be a little dramatic, and locking a relative in an attic seemed like the kind of thing that might have happened.
“She’s talking about Alain.”
It took a moment for Vivienne’s words to penetrate. “Wait, I thought they weren’t close? He’s president of the winery. He’s a Deschamps. Does he have a position with Beauvalot?”
“With the company? No, but Alain is a Beauvalot too,” she said quietly.
Of course it was technically true, but Alain didn’t only have the family name of
Deschamps, he was president of Château Rossolina Deschamps. He, quite simply, was far more Deschamps than he was Beauvalot, despite the fact that by blood he was as much a Beauvalot as his cousin Tempeste.
Vivienne’s father Michael had been the head of Château Rossolina Deschamps business development before his death from a heart attack when Vivienne was a child. Her mother had been, and still was, one of the financial directors at the company.
Alain was a wine snob of the highest order and the current CEO of the still family-owned wine giant. And though he always looked perfectly put together, he was far from fashion conscious the way a Deschamps should be.
“So what did Alain do?” Solomon asked, the phone still on mute.
“She said…but no, this cannot be right.” Vivienne tucked the blanket more securely under her arms then leaned forward, over the phone, before taking the call off mute.
“Tante Tempeste,” she said, interrupting the tirade, which was now broken by the occasional sob. “Please, I don’t think I understood. What did Alain do?”
“He forced a merger.”
Solomon and Vivienne looked at each other, then back to the phone.
“I didn’t…I didn’t realize he was going to do that. I didn’t…” Tempeste dissolved into sobs.
“He merged Beauvalot Fashion with Château Rossolina Deschamps?”
Solomon pursed his lips in a silent whistle, mind whirling. He didn’t know much about the corporate structure of the two companies, but they were both still privately—family—owned. If Alain had controlling interest in both companies, he could have merged them with relatively little difficulty.
“When did this happen?” Vivienne asked.
“Today,” Tempeste said on a sob. “He told me what he’d done, and it’s too late to undo it. I have no way to save my family’s legacy. You have to talk to him. You’re the only one who can.”
