Page 33 of Serving the Maestro

I hesitated too long. Even to my ears, my flippant response sounded flat. “What...he’s a guy, isn’t that enough?”

“What are you giving him, Jazz?” Cam demanded.

Well, hell. Shooting a look at the door, I focused back on her. “Keep your voice down. And before I tell you, you have to promise me you won’t tell anybody.”

“Spill, Jazz. Now.”

“He’s a Dom,” I said, exasperated.

Cam frowned. Then she blinked. Then she opened her mouth. Closed it. Blinked again. Finally, she asked, in a faint voice, “He’s a...what?”

I’d just managed to successfully shock my best friend—and Cam wasn’t all that easily surprised. “A Dom. As in Dominant, from BDSM.”

She shook her head and tapped the ball of her hand against her temple. “I’m not hearing you right.”

“Are you not understanding?” I said, my tone taking on a teasing note while a nervous laugh built in my chest. “He’s kinky, okay?”

“And how does that involve you with this deal you made?” she demanded, sounding strangled.

“Well...” I swallowed and lifted a shoulder. “He’s not from here, and he needed—wanted a sub while he’s in town. So he’s...teaching me.”

“Fuckballs.” Cam shook her head and lurched up out of the chair to pace to the nearest window. Our office space wasn’t anything super-fancy, but we did have windows—mine facing out over Broadway, while Cam had the back view—that featured the buildings behind us, and the little private garden maintained by our building manager and available for private events. Bracing her hands on the window, she stared outside, thinking so furiously, I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

“Stop worrying about me.”

Cam turned and gaped at me. “Stop worrying? My quiet, level-headed best friend suddenly goes off the deep end and hooks up with a master kinkhead in exchange for some sperm, and you want me to stop worrying?”

Sighing, I flipped the contract I’d been reading facedown and rose. I didn’t go to her, though. Instead, I leaned against the desk. My tender butt didn’t appreciate it, but I hid my discomfort and forged on. “He’s kinky in bed. That doesn’t mean anything other than he’s kinky in bed. As for me wanting a baby...Cam, you’ve known this for a while.”

“There are sperm banks,” she said with a scowl.

“I know. And they sound horrible. Clinical. Cold. I wanted to know something about the man who helps me conceive a child, so I can at least have something to tell that child when they get older. Is that so wrong?”

Cam turned back to me, her face softening. “Of course, it’s not. But...Jazz...” She stopped, clearly still not sure of how she felt. “You’re only thirty-five. We don’t put single women on the shelf these days and write off any chances of them having a family, you know.”

“It’s my choice.”

She closed her eyes.

“It’s my choice,” I said again. I walked to her, took her hands in mine and squeezed. “I’ve never been all that good at relationships—except for you, stubborn weirdo that you are.”

She managed a smile then, the old joke between us a familiar one.

“None of the guys I’ve met in the past few years have done anything for me,” I said. Brushing a stray lock of hair back, I pulled her close, hugged her. “And I’m tired of wondering if I’m ever going to have a chance at what I want.”

“A baby,” she said softly.

“Yeah.” With a half-shrug, I said, “If there were more guys out there like Danny, maybe I’d try a little longer, see if I couldn’t find that fairy tale sort of ending like you have. But I keep getting toads.”

“This neighbor...is he a toad?”

No. Trent was definitely not that. But he wasn’t my prince, either.

“He’s not a toad, but he’s never going to be Mr. Right. I don’t think a Mr. Right exists for me...and I’m fine with that.”

* * *

I was still brooding over that comment several days later.

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