Page 46 of Until I Own You

“I’m not,” she lies.

When I arrive at the club, it is pretty quiet. Afternoons have a usual lull after the lunch rush and before the it’s-almost-five-o’clock-somewhere drinks. The quiet makes it easy to duck into the Underground.

The desk is unmanned at the moment. No big deal. I can wait.

I go over to it and lean on the desk, waiting for someone to show up so I can clear this up.

Only a few seconds pass before I realize how quiet it is.

I look over my shoulder. No subs or Doms are out on the floor. No one is preparing for a scene in the main room. And from the looks of it, most of the lights are off in the private rooms.

All except one.

Strange.

I turn back to the desk and notice the ledger is splayed open. Every page is usually filled to the brim with names scribbled into the time slots in ink, the old-fashioned way.

Sonia has told me they put it all into a computer for posterity, but for aesthetics, masters and mistresses use the ledger.

Today’s date, though, is empty past noon.

I furrow my brow and try to look closer.

Not empty. There’s an arrow drawn down from the name written beside the twelve o’clock time slot all the way down.

Whoever that is has booked the Underground for the rest of the day.

I guess it should be my name except, if my theory is correct, Sonia can’t be so unhinged as to think I would be able to make use of the Underground for an entire half of a day.

I bite my lower lip and look up to the door to backstage. Someone could walk out at any moment, and they’ll accuse me of thumbing through private information. But I can’t read upside down, especially not when the name is written in cursive.

As quick and as careful as possible, I take the cover of the ledger and spin it toward me until it’s at an angle I can read the name.

My heart drops.

It’s not my name.

It’s Seth’s.

No mistaking the swooping curve of the ‘S’ or the loop of the lowercase ‘L’ in his last name.

“You made it.”

Seth’s voice sends my blood coursing through my body. I am terrified to turn around and face him. “Seth,” I say, the simplest thing, the only thing I can will myself to say.

The heels of his dress shoes clack against the floor. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I almost didn’t.” I tuck my chin against my shoulder, preparing myself to face him.

Seth chuckles. “Are you afraid of me, Bridget?”

“Of course, I am,” I say without thinking. I’ve been afraid of him for ten years. Since the moment I met him. Not because of his coldness or his control, but because there is something about him that makes me want him, want him with such a desperation I can’t control myself.

Seth sighs, continues walking. “You don’t need to be scared of me. That’s not what I want.”

Before the wedding, I would have told him he could have fooled me. Now I know he is telling the truth.

There is a clicking sound.

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