Page 28 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

Christian screwed his eyes shut. “We had a massive argument about what she’d done. I guess all that achieved was to make sure she covered her actions the next time.”

Trinity felt sick to her stomach at the thought. Oh, God! Poor, dear Krista with all her anxiety and neurosis. That sort of thing would have been enough to tip her right over the edge. Jesus, Bianca must be just plain warped. Could she really have done that to a vulnerable woman who was still grieving the loss of her husband and had invested all of the rest of her emotions into her son? Jesus, if true, 'bitch' didn't even start to cover it!

"Haven't you made any attempt to track her down?"

“Trinity, the last time I saw my mother, she was fragile and upset. I didn't want to do anything that might be detrimental to her health. I might have moved, because I couldn't bear to live in the apartment I shared with Bianca since there were too many bad memories there, but my phone number has stayed the same and I'm in and out of the company’s head office all the time. She knows where to find me if that's what she wants. So far, she hasn't bothered. I think that says it all, don't you?"

Trinity resettled her head on his chest and kept quiet. She didn't have a choice, really. She hadn't any idea of what to say.

There simply weren't any words to convey the sorrow and the heartbreak she felt for two people who had once meant so very much to her.

The situation—for both mother and son—was nothing less than a tragedy.

Chewing on her lip, Trinity wondered if she could help with that. She still had Krista’s number, after all.

Perhaps she could act as an intermediary between the two.

ChapterTwenty

She was going to do it. She was going to honour the contract.

The following day, Trinity sat in her office, closed her eyes and sighed at the inevitability. Whether it was right or wrong, she couldn't quite decide, but shewascurious.

She was curious about the kind of Dom that Christian was. It was a side of his character that she had never been privy to in the past. And, when all was said and done, she relished the chance to give their reality a new emphasis and not keep thinking back on the heartbreak of the past whenever she thought about him.

Or, more accurately, when she tried to avoid thinking about him.

This temporary contract would give her the opportunity to do that. This time, their time together would be finite, so there would be no possibility of any unrealistic expectations. Everything would have an end date, which she could accept and prepare for.

They were well matched as far as limits and specific interests were concerned. Both of them liked a little bit of everything, and neither of them was particularly extreme in their lifestyle pursuits.

And as far as accompanying him to functions, well, escort was a role she had a lot of experience playing and was more than comfortable with. Despite happening in different parts of the country, these things were pretty much all the same. The venue might change and there may be a few new faces, but for the most part, it was likely to be the same players as usual and it was likely that Trinity knew quite a few of them.

It gave her a slight pause to realise that they would probably remember her as Tara, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

She wasn't Tara; she never really had been. That girl had just been a figment of Christian's imagination, a perfect persona to fit into his world.

Trinity had no interest in becoming that person again. She wasn't the same naïve, malleable woman-child she’d been back then. She was Trinity now, and she was happy with the woman she had become—strong, resilient, still ready and willing to serve, but strictly on her own terms.

If Christian didn't like it, then that was tough. He could take it or leave it.

Since it was Friday and a full club night, she had a lot on her plate, but on top of that, Christian would be back tonight to see what her decision was. That had been deferred last night because things had been too emotional and raw for both of them. It wasn't fair, to either of them, to make a decision under those circumstances.

But after much deliberation, she had finally made her choice.

Tonight, if Christian still felt the same way, they would have their first scene together.

The thought had a swarm of hornets buzzing around in Trinity's stomach and she wasn't altogether sure whether it was from anticipation or nerves. Maybe a little bit of both?

In the meantime, there was work to be done before she could come out to play.

ChapterTwenty-One

Christian was unexpectedly nervous when he walked into Club Risqué that evening and he was finding the uncommon sensation rather irritating. He had never been so invested in the possible outcome of a decision based within the lifestyle.

In fact, since Bianca, he had made it a pointnotto become invested.

BDSM was simply a release mechanism. He had discovered it during a period in his life where everything had been out of control—his father's health, his mother's anxiety and, later, her intense clinginess, the decisions of the company’s board of directors and how their whims might dictate the course of his own life.

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