Page 31 of Power and Possession

“I don’t have a preference,” I said, and he took me over to an Aston Martin. I didn’t know a ton about cars, having grown up traveling in taxis and limos, but I knew it was a seriously expensive ride. He opened the door, and I slid inside. He got in the driver's seat, and then we cleared the security gate and rode down the streets of London.

When he pulled up to a small runway right next to Heathrow, I was immediately surprised.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“I told you, I’m taking you to dinner,” he said simply, unbuckling his seatbelt.

“At the airport?”

“In Paris.”

My mouth dropped as I looked out the window at the private plane sitting on the tarmac. ‘Steele Enterprises’ was written on the side of the plane, and Steele tossed the keys of his car to a uniformed man standing near the plane.

He gestured to me, and I made my way up the steps and aboard the aircraft.

There were eight seats, all covered in a handsome cream leather. The chairs reclined and spun, with tables in between. Steele motioned to the seat on the far side, and I sat down. A uniformed man came up from the back of the plane with two glasses of champagne. Steele didn’t touch his, and I knew it was because he preferred scotch. I drank mine down, getting more and more nervous as this evening grew into something far larger than just dinner.

Steele sat in his chair, reading a copy of the Wall Street Journal that the attendant brought him. His legs were slightly apart, and his wide shoulders made the recliner look small. I watched his eyes move back and forth as he read, his face relaxed. After a few minutes he put the paper down and looked at me. My eyes met his, and I fought the urge to look away. Seeing his blue eyes sparkle under the light humanized him, made melike him a bit more. I struggled to break the intensity that was building between us.

“So, do you normally jet off to Paris when you take a woman out?”

He glanced down briefly, almost as if he was embarrassed. “I’ve never taken a woman out before.”

“What?” I exclaimed. I found it hard to believe that he didn’t have women throwing themselves at him all day long. Heck, if I would have met him under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have wasted any time trying to flirt with him.

He flexed his fingers, staring at his hands and then picking a small piece of fuzz off of his suit jacket. “I don’t date women.”

“So this is how you tell me you’re gay?” I teased, trying to make this conversation less awkward than it was.

“You of all people know my…sexual preferences,” he said, meeting my eyes briefly, the emotion between us raw. I couldn’t help but picture the night we spent together, wrapped up in a tangle of limbs, exhausted from the pleasure. Most men loved sex, but Steele relished in it. “All of my…encounters…are purely physical.”

“No dates? No dinner?”

“No kissing,” he said, his voice somewhat small and diminished.

This was not what I was expecting. I’d imagined him to be a womanizer, making every single woman bend over backwards to please him. I thought he’d tell them he loved them before dumping them, and they would cry their hearts out over him for months and months.

“Do these women…ever want more?” I was genuinely curious how any woman could turn him down. He was handsome, rich, sophisticated—aside from his unique hobby of kidnapping innocent women, he was a catch.

Steele sighed, looking out the window as the plane began to taxi down the runway. “I make it very clear what my expectations are. Most of the time, they’d rather have a smalltaste than skip the meal altogether.” He shrugged, and, almost as if we were one person, I could feel the loneliness that plagued his soul.

I struggled, wanting to ask the question burning in my mind, but I was afraid of the answer. The reckless part of me, however, threw the question out there.

“But—you’ve kissed me…”

Another deep sigh.

“I know,” he replied, and he let the question hang in the air, unanswered. He was always mercurial and mysterious, but I could barely read him now—and maybe I didn’t need to. He’d confirmed what I already knew: things were different between us.

The flight attendant brought him a scotch, and he seemed to relax a bit more once he’d finished it. I was starting to wonder if he was ever truly sober. I rarely saw him without a drink in hand.

I refused a second glass of champagne, my hangover still fresh in my mind.

The flight was quick and smooth, and we arrived on a private runway just behind Charles De Gaulle airport. Steele disembarked first, and I followed him to another car, this one a Lamborghini. I only recognized it because my father owned one that was tucked away in the garage at our house on Martha’s Vineyard, which we retreated to during the hot summer months.

Steele opened the car door for me, his chivalry a welcome change. I struggled, trying to figure out who the real Steele was. Was it the cold and calculating man who locked me in a basement for revenge? Or was it this version of him, the gentleman who opened the car door and left aspirin on the nightstand for me?

We drove quietly through the city, each lost in our own thoughts. The silence was actually quite comfortable, and I’d gotten used to his presence over the past week.

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