He nodded, leaning forward to stage-whisper to Rami. “I thought it was a sex dungeon. If they don’t do any of that…what’s the point?”

He hadn’t spoken to me, but I answered anyway. “Most of our clients don’t have such a limited imagination.” As the elevator doors slid closed I added, “I look forward to enlightening you.”

2

Alex

“Well, that didn’t go how I expected it to…” Rami muttered as we pulled into a parking spot outside of my favorite all-night diner.

I barely noticed we’d been driving in silence for the ten minutes it took us to get there from the dungeon because I’d been playing back every part of my conversation with Lady Elena over and over again. Dominatrix wasn’t a usual fantasy of mine, but holy hell did she do it for me. I wouldn’t want to be with a woman who got her rocks off beating me, but attraction and logic didn’t always go together.

It didn’t matter. This was purely about business and I needed to stay focused.

Rami may have been my entertainment attorney, but he was also my best and oldest friend. The disapproval had been rolling off him since I’d proposed a fake relationship with Lady Elena, but he’d been too much of a pro to argue with me in front of her.

He was working up to lecturing me, so I tried for humor. “Agreed. Why is it called a dungeon if it looks nothing like a dungeon? I feel kind of betrayed. It was like discovering the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t golden when we were kids.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I think you’ve managed to find the one woman on the planet who dislikes you…and you’ve asked her to be your fake girlfriend. For fuck’s sake, Alex, what were you thinking?”

“Was she a little terrifying? Yeah, maybe. But tell me that woman doesn’t know what she’s doing. Tell me you have any doubt she could take Lord Lucas Steel himself by the balls and make him do her bidding.”

I gave him a beat to argue with me, but he didn’t say a word.

I smiled as I pictured the way she’d looked at me like I was toilet paper stuck to her shoe when I’d given her a hard time. She was like plunging into an ice bath after sweating in a sauna for an hour. It was a shock to my system to be treated so dismissively after years of people giving me anything I wanted, but it was invigorating. I felt the same kind of thrill from rock climbing or surfing, the same kind of rush I got from being made to feel insignificant in a good way. She didn’t give a shit who I was any more than the waves or the mountains did, and she seemed just as capable of kicking my ass.

I patted Rami on the shoulder. “She’s exactly what we need. No question she’s got the scary dominant goods. She’s already consulted with heads of companies and politicians to teach them how to strategically explore their dominance. You heard the rave reviews people were giving her. She can help me so I don’t become a laughingstock and tank my career. If I can pull it off, I write my ticket going forward. But you saw the film. I’m in deep shit right now.”