Page 29 of Dominant

Chapter 7

Aftermath

Alexander

I woke Jordan up at about seven a.m. Her long hair tumbled over the pillow, and I felt an uncharacteristic affection for her as I sat on the bed beside her. I ran my fingers through her hair, dragging it off her face and holding it loosely at the nape of her neck. I examined her sleeping face, the long lashes that lay on her cheeks, her complete vulnerability.

“Jordan,” I said softly. “Wake up.”

She stirred, blinking her long eyelashes, and then raised those huge hazel eyes to me and smiled, sleepily. Interesting, I thought, that after all of that, her first unconscious instinct when she sees me is to smile. I moved my hand away and she stretched like a cat.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

She blinked. “Sore and confused.”

“You have to get up. We have some things to sort out today.”

“Didn’t everything get sorted out last night?”

“No,” I answered, with a bitter chuckle. “You caused a lot of problems for me. And for yourself. A lot of problems.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Did you take drugs last night, Jordan?”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t know what it was,” she answered, and I sucked in my breath irritably. I already knew she was on something, but it annoyed me to have it confirmed.

“Who gave it to you?”

“Maggie.”

Even worse. I clenched my teeth, feeling a muscle in my jaw jump.

“Number Four,” I corrected her. “She shouldn’t have told you her name.”

Number Four had had a room inspection this morning, where Jordan’s clothes had been discovered under her bed. They’d been washed and delivered to the penthouse along with a set of car keys that had been found in the parlour.

As for Number Four, well… Four was awaiting her punishment.

“Get up and get dressed,” I said to Jordan, indicating her clothes on a chair by the window.

Governor General Simon Merriman was considered in some circles to be a dangerous man. Unbeknownst to our members, they were all subject to background checks, conducted by the same investigative firm that uncovered their identities for us. Merriman, I’d been told in his dossier, had a history of illegal activity he had a knack for getting away with, including extortion, fraud, and some probable but unproven connections to a handful of missing people.

While we waited for him to join us in the club dining room, Jordan shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“What are you going to tell him?” she asked.

I had been turning it over all night. I needed to come clean about the fact that Jordan was an interloper, not an initiate, to ensure that Merriman didn’t come up with any more creative punishments for her. Punishments that would most certainly involve sexual acts Jordan would not want to participate in. It would raise some very serious questions about the security of our organization, but I didn’t have a choice. Jordan had not known what she was walking into. She was innocent.

I had called my lawyer first thing that morning to have a new NDA drawn up, and then I had explained to Jordan in no uncertain terms that she would have to sign it.

I expected it to be a difficult conversation with Merriman.

He arrived shortly after us, dressed in a suit and his usual black mask. He snapped his fingers to a servant as he sat down, and ordered a Bloody Mary.

“Sir Vicious,” I said in greeting.

He only nodded in response. The set of his face was hard, his mouth stern. He had the look of a man who had come for a fight.

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