Page 48 of To Catch a Sub

“But yes, you’ll be a server. We’ll present you as my sub?—”

Colette’s heart stopped then started up again, beating so fast she felt jittery. “Pardon?” she interrupted.

“We’ll present you as my sub,” he said slowly, his gaze laser focused on her.

“No. We will not.” The idea of being his sub, even as a pretense, was too…

Too everything.

“Colette.”

“No. I will be a club sub, or I could even pretend to be a Domme?—”

“Who’s also a server?”

“I will be a submissive while we’re here,” she said firmly. “But I won’t be your submissive.”

* * *

Colette folded and rolled the soft blanket, tucking the end into one of the diagonal pockets she’d created so that the blanket formed a smooth tube and now resembled a bolster pillow rather than a haphazard pile of fluffy emerald-green fleece.

It was a technique she’d learned while working in a high-end hotel’s equally high-end spa, and there was something soothing about that level of perfectionism.

She placed the blanket-turned-pillow on one of the long, low couches in the private club, then jumped when music blasted through the building. For the first few seconds it was loud enough to rattle the windows, even up here, before the volume was turned down.

A DJ was setting up and sound testing down on the first floor. Though the house lights were on, the beat-synced colored lighting occasionally speared up through the opening to paint faint blue, green, and red lines on the underside of the warehouse roof.

“Oh, that’s cute.” A corseted woman stopped beside Colette, looking at the rolled blanket.

“Thank you.”

“You’ll show me how you do that later, yeah?”

The woman’s accent was charmingly British. Earlier Colette heard her pronounce the word British as “Bri-ish” without the T sound anywhere in evidence.

“Of course.”

The woman, who’d introduced herself as “Kitten,” shifted the cardboard box she held from one arm to the other.

“I’ve done all the blankets,” Colette said. “I can help you with whatever you’re working on.”

“Thanks.” Kitten turned the “th” at the front of the word into an “f” sound. Colette would have to practice that. A good accent was an incredible disguise.

She followed Kitten over to the bar, watching as she opened the box and took out a dozen packages of baby wipes. “We put these in those black tissue holders so people can wipe down stuff and not be leaving a mess.”

Colette accepted the packs Kitten handed her, examining the cute ducks on the packaging. “The holders are a good idea.”

“Isn’t it? That was Master Landon’s idea, I think. He’s a smart one.”

Colette was glad Kitten had already turned away, because as good as Colette’s control was, she wasn’t sure her face hadn’t changed at the mention of Landon’s name.

After their conversation the night before last, Landon had all but ignored her. Given the half-glass wall between their rooms, she should have seen a lot more of him than she had, but it turned out there were curtains on his side of the glass, and he’d closed them after she refused to be his sub.

Both the night of their conversation and last night, she’d lain awake, waiting and watching for the door to open. It never did, though she heard the occasional rustle or footfall, and saw his shadow on thin curtains once or twice.

Today too, she’d been mostly on her own, until just before lunch, when Rolf came to find her and declared that since the public club was open tonight, tonight was also her first day of work in the private club.

Maybe Landon had intended the day and a half alone in her room as some sort of solitary confinement punishment, but honestly, she’d needed the rest. The stress of being on the run had eaten at her, and the past two nights, with Landon on the other side of a connecting door, were the safest she’d felt in a long time.