“Why would she do that?”

“Because I had an afair with the whip, not her. When I didn’t need it anymore, I didn’t need her.”

I try to control my reaction, afraid Chris will take it wrong.

Afraid he will regret how he is sharing this part of himself with me, when he hasn’t always, but anger burns through my body.

This woman fed his need to be punished. This bitch used the one weakness Chris possesses, the heartache of loss, against him.

“I can handle Isabel,” I say, and somehow I keep my voice unaf-fected, though my fury is quickly eroding my calmness.

Chris doesn’t look convinced by my façade, but he takes one glance at his watch and says, “We have to go in.” He pulls me close, caressing my hair in that familiar, wonderful way he does. “Just remember. We’re here for Ella. Isabel doesn’t matter.”

“I know.” And I do. “I can do this.”

And he’s right. Isabel doesn’t matter. Ella does, and he does.

The entryway to the dinner club is a small foyer with a coat closet and a big, burly doorman in a tuxedo.

He nods at Chris. “Mr. Merit.” Then he looks at me with a Stallone-esque, heavy-lidded expression. “And a guest, I see.”

He gives my jeans a once-over and eyes Chris. “I see she’s living by your dress code, not ours.”

Chris shrugs out of his coat and sets it by an unattended coat check area, then reaches for mine. “Neither myself nor Ms. McMillan will be staying for dinner. Isabel is expecting us.”

“Then by all means.” He steps aside and motions us up a long light of stairs too narrow for more than one person. Chris waves me forward irst. Terriic. Into the wild world of Isabel without my own whip.

I’m almost at the top of the steps when I spot a woman I am certain is Isabel. She is gorgeous, with long, silky, dark brown hair and pale skin, and a short, itted, silk emerald-green dress. There are no marks on her skin from a whip. No ink of a tattoo. There’s an unworldly quality about her, and I guess her to be at least in her midthirties. Amber never had a chance against this woman and I’m willing to bet that Isabel was who came next. I am surprised to ind I feel no inferiority to her, as I did Amber. Maybe it’s due to my improved state of mind, or the growth Chris and I have managed in these short few days. Or maybe it’s simply how much I instantly hate her for what she did to Chris.

I step onto the main dining room loor, directly in front of her.

“You must be Sara,” she purrs in English, and her accent is positively sexy.

I don’t ask how she knows who I am; I don’t really care.

“And you must be Isabel.”

“I am,” she conirms. “Welcome to my establishment.”

She owns this place? I already felt like I was on enemy territory; now I feel like I’m in a mineield.

Chris steps to my side, his hand settling on my back, his hip pressed intimately against mine. It’s a statement, and Isabel knows it. Her pale blue eyes sharpen, her red-painted lips purs-ing before her attention shifts to Chris.

Her irritation fades, replaced by unmistakable female admiration. She wants him, badly. “S’il vous plaît, Chris.”

“Where is he?” Chris asks, seeming oblivious to her warm welcome. Chris is oblivious to nothing.

She purses her lips again. “Right to business. I see nothing has changed. This way.”

Chris’s ingers lex on my back, silently warning me to stay cool. I don’t look at him, for fear he’ll decide to usher me out of here. Which is probably smart, since I’m really pissed of.

We follow Isabel through an elegant dining room with white linen tablecloths, fancy red-cushioned chairs, and lots of art on the walls. I easily recognize several paintings as Chris’s.

The whip might have been what Chris had the afair with, but Isabel deinitely wanted one with Chris.

Isabel halts at a staircase that snakes up to another level.

“You’ll ind him in limited company.”

While I understand that a cramped city of nearly twelve million has to be built in levels, I’d be a whole lot happier if Neuville had been on this one. I’m not looking forward to being the irst to greet Neuville, especially considering my unfamiliar surroundings.

“Follow me,” Chris orders, starting up the stairs irst.

Isabel crosses her arms in front of her chest, her lips twitching like she knows something we don’t. I frown and quickly follow Chris, afraid of what might await him upstairs.

He’s already at the top and I hear him say, “Surprise—but then, imagine our surprise to be followed by someone who said they worked for you.”

“Our surprise?” a deep male voice queries. “You and who else?”

I step up beside Chris, bringing a formal dining room into view. Another painting by a famous artist is on the wall, and the walnut table in the center of the room is large enough to it a dozen people. There are only two. A twenty-something female with dirty blond hair, who would be quite beautiful if she weren’t sitting next to the devastatingly handsome Garner Neuville.

He licks me a look and then glances back at Chris, who says, “I’m sure you know Sara, since you had her followed.”

Holding Chris’s stare, Neuville doesn’t react. He just sits there in his well-pressed, pale blue dress shirt, not a strand of his thick, slicked-back raven hair out of place. “Leave us, Stepha-nie,” he inally says without looking at his companion.

She’s walking toward me in a few seconds lat, and I can’t help but wonder if Neuville is her Master. Are those the kinds of circles he and Chris run in together? They share a link to Isabel, after all.

“Would we like to sit down?” Chris asks, as if Neuville had ofered. “Absolutely.”

I ight a smirk as Chris’s hand settles on my back, urging me to the table where he sits at the end, opposite Neuville. I sit at Chris’s left.

Chris and Neuville lock eyes, and the air thickens as they prepare to match swords.

Nineteen

“Where’s Ella?”

I blanch to ind the piercing stare Neuville had been aiming at Chris suddenly directed at me.

“Why are you looking for her?” Chris asks before I can reply.

“Ella and I were”—he pauses for obvious efect—“involved.

I moved too fast for her and she got spooked. She took of and I haven’t seen her since.”

The many ways I can read “involved” set my nerves further on edge. The idea of this man playing dominant to Ella is not a good one. “What does you ‘moved too fast’ mean?”

He arches a brow at me, looking rather smug. “Do you really want the gritty details?”

Yes! I scream in my head, and then amend my answer to No! I might come unglued if I heard details. “I just want to know where Ella is.” I don’t try to keep the bite from my voice.

“Then we have something in common, Ms. McMillan,” he drawls.

“You’ve been quick with your answers,” Chris comments.

“Some might think you planned them in advance.”

“Others might simply say I’m telling the truth,” Neuville responds.

Chris doesn’t miss a beat. “I guess it depends on how much that person knows about you.”

Neuville arches his brow again, this time at Chris. “What exactly do you think you know about me?”

“More than who you like to fuck,” Chris replies, and I barely hold back a gasp. “When did you last see Ella?”

“A week ago,” Neuville says, as if Chris hadn’t said anything unexpected at all. “I’ve been looking for her ever since, and, naturally, when I discovered her best friend was arriving in Paris, I assumed it was to be with her. I have yet to ind that to be the case.”

“Why not ask Sara through me, rather than have her followed?” Chris asks.

“I didn’t know you were involved until I had her followed,”

is his rebuttal.

Chris doesn’t look impressed by that answer. “And yet you didn’t call me when you found out.”

I want to ask about my stolen wallet and passport, but I hold back. It’s not like the content is valid anymore, and Neuville is drumming his ingers on the table, irritation radiating of of him. “For the same reason you didn’t just call me on the phone tonight. You didn’t want me to escape before I heard you out. The same applies to me with Ella.”

This answer has my attention. I do not like his use of the word escape, any more than I like remembering how enthralled Ella was by Rebecca’s journals and the idea of a Master. If this man opened Ella up to one potential Master, could she be with another man now who might be dangerous?

I open my mouth to speak and Chris steals my question from my lips. “What happened to Ella’s iancé?”

Neuville snorts. “If you mean the idiot who’d upset her the night I met her, I have no clue.”

“Where exactly did you meet Ella?” I quickly ask.

Neuville licks me a look. “I was in her hotel on business.”

Chris jumps on that. “What hotel?”

Again, no hesitation from Neuville as he replies, “Hôtel Lutetia.”

Chris frowns. “Her doctor iancé could aford Hôtel Lutetia?”

Neuville shrugs. “I have no intimate understanding of this man’s wealth or lack thereof. I was in the lobby when Ella exited the elevator in tears and ran smack into me. She was upset, and I ofered to buy her dinner at a nearby restaurant. When we returned to the hotel, her iancé had checked out and left her with no money and no passport.”

My jaw drops. “What? He took her passport?”

“He did,” Neuville conirms. “As you can imagine, she was devastated about the entire situation. I ofered to have her stay with me and she accepted.”

This doesn’t sound like the Ella I know—but then, the Ella I know would have called me weeks ago, too. “She just said ‘yes’

to staying with a stranger?”

“I don’t believe she saw me as a stranger, Ms. McMillan.”

His lips twitch.

Something in his expression sets me of. I lean forward, one of my hands resting on the table, my blood pressure probably of the charts. “You’re saying she slept with you when she thought David was waiting for her at the hotel?”

“I wasn’t aware I said she slept with me,” he replies. “Simply that we became fast friends.”

“You implied more.” My tone is biting.

“You assumed.” His tone is crisp.

Chris takes control of the conversation again. “She was with you how long?”

“Three weeks,” Neuville replies.

I narrow my eyes on this stranger who wants me to believe Ella to be someone I know her not to be. It doesn’t sit well with me. He doesn’t sit well with me. Why isn’t he complaining about all of the questions? Maybe Chris is right. He practiced.

He expected us. He was ready.

“I’ll be able to ind witnesses who saw her with you,” Chris points out. “If there are none—”

“Dig around all you wish,” Neuville interjects.

He’s too conident. I don’t know why I feel this, when hon-esty breeds conidence, but everything about this feels of. “Did Ella replace her passport?”

“Not while she was with me.”

My brow furrows. “That makes no sense. She was due back to school.”

He leans back in his chair, the long ingers of one hand resting on the table. “She wasn’t in a hurry to return to the States.”

Disappointment ills me as my hope of inding Ella through this man fades. “You really have no idea where she is?”

“Why else would I hire someone to look for her?”

“That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?” Chris drawls softly, and Neuville’s eyes narrow on him. The two men stare at each other, and I stare at Neuville, and several tense seconds pass before Chris says, “Sara, we need a few minutes alone. I’ll meet you at the bar.”

My gaze jerks to Chris’s, but he’s still in his stare-down with Neuville and I barely bite back an objection to leaving.

I have to force myself to let go of my need to hear everything and try to control what I clearly cannot. I trust Chris. If he can get something out of Neuville by speaking to him alone, I want him to.

I stand up and walk away without another word. I’m pretty sure it’s as surprising to Chris as it is to me.

At the bottom of the stairs is a waiter. I make a drinking motion with a pretend glass, and he points me in the direction of the bar, which is on a lower level. I discover the spacious basement level illed with a cluster of six tables and enough beautiful people standing and sitting around to need twice that, all wearing expensive dresses and tailored suits. Suddenly, my jeans feel out of place. No, not suddenly. The doorman started my walk down Awkward Lane and it simply continues.

I head to the U-shaped bar and lag the bartender for help with my escape. “Toilette?” I ask. I’m becoming quite a master at this one-word question.

The bartender points and I head behind him and down the hall to his right. I’m gaining a powerful appreciation for the art of pointing and its ability to break the language barrier.

Inside the bathroom I ind two large sinks to my left, and my nostrils lare from the scent of the cinnamon candle burning in the center of the marble counter. Three fancy wooden doors are farther inside the room and, after listening a moment, I determine the stalls are empty. Thankfully.

I lean on the sink and my image comes into view, then immediately fades as I replay everything Neuville has said to us, trying to igure out what bothered me most about him and the conversation. Three weeks, he’d said Ella had been with him.