I sift through the gorgeous clothes in the closet, studying each designer dress or pair of jeans as if it’ll tell me something about Rex Roy. Dom. Killer.
I learn nothing but take great delight in picking out an outfit for tonight’s rendezvous with the mysterious St. James. My brief research on him turned up a profile of another big city businessman who made his first billions in founding a hedge fund at the tender age of eighteen. He’s now twenty-seven, one year older than me, one year younger than Rex, and has his fingers in all sorts of financial pies, from tech firms to pharmaceuticals.
He’s a lot like Rex, except he didn’t inherit his wealth. Everything he has, he earned himself. Although, how an eighteen-year-old convinced investors to buy into his hedge fund is beyond me. It tells me St. James is smarter than average or at least cunning.
I need to be careful.
A knock on my door makes me jump. “Coming,” I call, wondering if it’s Rex. I feel guilty, like I’m cheating on him with another dom.
Which is exactly why I need to meet with St. James. I don’t owe Rex anything.
But it’s only a hotel employee, looking sharp in a black suit with a lion’s crest on his name tag. “Delivery from Sir Rex.” He waves away any tip and leaves me with my gift.
A stack of sketchbooks and a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils tied with a yellow bow.
* * *
Rex
The text comesat six p.m.
Little bird: Thank you
She follows it with a picture of the sketchbooks I sent her piled on the bed. One of them is open, showing a drawing of the lions outside of Hotel Magnifique.
You’re very welcome
I text back.
Have dinner with me.
Can’t. I have plans.
She’s going to work all night, gathering evidence against me. Not that she’ll find any, but she’ll miss meals on her crusade. And I can’t have that.
You need to eat.
She texts a picture of a middle finger.
I smile. She’s decided to be a brat.
I send a response.
Rule number one for naughty submissives: don’t write checks your ass can’t cover.
I wait for her snarky reply. It occurs to me that the highlight of my day is texting with her. I prefer this over anything on my schedule. Of course I’d rather be with her, but if she won’t allow it, then bantering with her is the next best thing.
I wonder how far she’s gotten into her search. Ivan’s monitored her going in and out of Grand Central Station twice now. She keeps checking the same locker. Probably waiting for a dossier from her friend. The one I’ve scared off.
It’ll be easy enough to intercept any package and make sure it’s redacted enough to only allow the information I want her to have. The hacker KittyBang got deeper into my shields than I would have liked. If she wasn’t Inara’s friend, she’d already be dead. But I made a promise.
“Alfie,” I say aloud to trigger my AI assistant. “Pull up Target Swallow’s data history. I want to see any searches she’s made in the past twenty-four hours.”
Alfie chirps in acknowledgment, and in a few seconds, I’m staring at a list of websites she looked at, as well as the prompts she entered.
They’re all pertaining to me, until a few hours ago. Then they all deal with a hedge fund I know well.
I know it because I was one of its first investors.
