Page 74 of Enthrall
“You told me the gift was from you, from the girls?”
She lifted my chin with a perfectly manicured fingertip. “Run along now. See Richard’s client out.”
I took my tea with me and headed out, wondering if that toy had really come from the girls. Had I just willingly succumbed to Cameron’s punishment of pleasure for challenging him during dinner last night? His psychological hooks were embedded deep in my psyche. His persuasion, his dark dominance over me, had succeeded yet again. I was trapped somewhere between arousal and defiance.
There was no time to mull over my suspicion. I’d been away from my desk too long. Courtney’s session had ended and Richard was escorting her out. From her expression, even here behind my desk, I could see all her tension had gone and in its place a happiness difficult to define. Courtney’s cheeks were flushed, her face peaceful, bliss radiating. I wondered what Richard had done to her.
The exit lift carried her away and out of Enthrall.
Richard turned on his heel and strolled toward me. “Where were you?”
“Well, I was--”
“It’s best you choose your words carefully.” He gave a shrug. “Talk about the weather. Their journey here. That kind of thing. Don’t speak to my clients about anything other than that, please.”
“She looked terrified,” I said.
He acknowledged I’d read her right with merely a nod and his gaze flitted to my desk. He saw my drink and picked it up, sniffed, and took a sip. “Early Grey?”
“Yes.”
He shot me a look. “Since when have you been drinking Earl Grey?”
“Scarlet made it for me.”
“I see. And by I see I mean I don’t miss a thing, Mia. Nothing. I know everything that goes on in this place. Every detail. Every finite minutia that goes down.”
My cheeks blushed wildly as my thoughts dragged me back along the hallway and into his office and back onto that couch...
“Don’t do it again,” he said.
I went to tell him he didn’t know, couldn’t know, and then stopped myself, not wanting to give it away.
“I certainly don’t remember giving you my permission to do it,” he said, walking off toward the staff hallway.
God, that was hot.
He was bluffing and he was damn good at it.
“Courtney needs a real therapist,” I called after him.
He spun around and peered at me.
“Professional help,” I added.
“She has it. Here.”
I arched a brow.
“My office please,” he snapped. “Now!”
I followed him down the hallway. Surely I had a point.
Richard leaned back against the front of his desk. There was something altogether eerie about his stance. Mainly because it reminded me of the day I’d asked for my job back, or as he’d succinctly put itif you could call it that.
Within the hour I’d enjoyed a mind-blowing fantasy about Richard. The kind never to be shared, the kind I hoped he couldn’t read from my face.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.
