Mastered 2: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (35 page)

But I could convince them the man isn’t Logan.

“I’m using your phone,” I inform Benoit, inputting my billionaire’s number into the device. It rings once.

“Logan Ross.” His voice is curt.

“It’s me,” I whisper, walking away from my nosy friend.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, pet,” Logan murmurs, his tone softening. “I was heading to my office and turned around as soon as I heard.”

“No, don’t turn around.” I walk faster. “Don’t come here. Don’t call. Don’t text. Disassociate yourself from me. I’ll tell everyone it wasn’t you.” They’ll believe I fucked another man. This thought makes me ill, but I’ll do this to protect him. “There’s no hope for me, but you can escape this humiliating situation.”

“Arianna,” he growls, my dominant man unhappy with my suggestion.

“You don’t know what it’s like, Logan, to always have people talk about you, questioning your ethics, your morals, why you were awarded a special honor from a Hong Kong delegate, or snagged an A on a tough economics assignment, or were given an extra half-hour of tennis instruction.”

“I don’t care what people say about me.”

“Well,
I
care.” I press my lips together. Being associated with a sex tape will cost my proud man his respect, friends, business contacts, money. “I love you, and I won’t drag you down with me.”

“You love me?”

Oh, fuck. I shouldn’t have said that. “Concentrate on the situation. There must be something we could do--”

I stop abruptly. Benoit bumps into my back, unrepentant about listening to my private conversation.

“The dragon tattoo on your chest,” I blurt into the phone. “The man in the video didn’t have one. Go jogging along a main street and don’t wear your shirt,” I advise my billionaire. “They’ll know it wasn’t you.”

“I’m not going jogging.” My billionaire dismisses my plan. “And you’re not dealing with this alone.”

“But--”

“No buts,” Logan barks and my spine straightens, my body reacting to my master’s tone. “I’ll be there in thirteen minutes, pet.” He amends his earlier arrival time. “Wait for me. We’ll fix this together.” There’s a click followed by silence.

“Ross has a dragon tattoo?” Benoit smirks.

“You didn’t hear that.” I hand my friend his phone. “I have to talk to my father before he sees the video.”

“He’s seen the video, Ari.” Benoit avoids my gaze. “Everyone has seen the video. It’s been forwarded to the entire office twice.”

My half-siblings would have ensured that happened. My lips twist. “He’ll realize it isn’t me.” I have zero doubt about this.

“I thought it was you,” my friend confesses.

My doubt increases to ten percent. “You’re not my father.” I pat his arm. “Manage things here. I’ll go to the house and--”

“He’s not at his house,” Benoit interrupts. “He’s holding court with your half-siblings in the boardroom. That’s why we’re hiding here.”

I stare at him. “All of them are in the boardroom? On a Saturday?” He nods. “That’s not good.” I worry my bottom lip with my teeth. “I have to--”

My friend steps in front of me. “You have to stay here. You’ll wait for Ross to arrive and confront them together.” He frowns at me. “He’ll shelter you from your half-siblings’ nasty comments.”

“I’m not weak. I don’t need to be sheltered from anything,” I lie, wanting exactly that. Someone deliberately targeted me, filming a sex tape in my office, setting it up so it looked like I was involved. I’ll be assigned some of the blame for this fiasco.

“This isn’t about weakness,” Benoit explains in the same voice he uses with dogs and small children. “It’s about strategy. Your father is more likely to believe your claim with Ross backing you up.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Ross’s presence will make the situation worse.” My father hates him. “And this isn’t a claim. It’s the truth. My father will believe me. He knows what his own daughter looks like.”

“Ari.” My friend continues to worry about me.

“It’ll be okay, Benoit.” I summon a smile. “My father loves me.”

“Your half-siblings don’t.” He steps aside. “If you need me, shout.”

“I will.” Knowing my curious friend, I won’t have to shout loudly. He’ll be standing outside the boardroom. “There’s a check in here for the charity.” I give him my new purse. “Deposit it with the rest.”

I stride toward the boardroom, my shoulders straight and my head held high. This isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of acting like my mom. I can face my father, my half-siblings alone, and later, if Logan does arrive, I’ll ask my billionaire’s help uncovering the person responsible for the sex tape.

The boardroom doors are closed. I take a deep breath, count to five, exhale and swing both of the doors open, making a grand entrance.

My half-siblings turn their heads, the three of them aligned on the far side of the table. Kayla avoids my gaze. Frederick glowers at me with self-righteous condemnation. Cindra smirks, her blue eyes as hard as glass.

My father, seated at the head of the table, ignores me. He frowns down at his phone, lines etched between his gray eyebrows. My proud strong parent appears heartbreakingly tired and defeated.

I did this to him. My heart twists.

“The woman in the video wasn’t me.” I stand on the threshold, not bothering to close the door. There’s no point. Everyone will hear about this confrontation by Monday. “And the man wasn’t Ross.” I pause. “But then, you all realize that.”

“Don’t bother lying to us, Arianna,” Frederick answers for our father. “We know it’s you. We watched the video.”

“Everyone has seen it.” Cindra’s voice oozes with malicious glee.

“Multiple times.” Kayla, always the good little follower, joins in.

I stride to the table. “I don’t expect the others to recognize me, they see what they want to see, but you’re my father.” I focus on the only person in the room I care about. “You know that’s not me in the video.”

My father raises his head and meets my gaze. I reel back, the accusations in his eyes hitting me like a sucker punch to my stomach.

“You don’t know it isn’t me.” I gasp. “You think that complete stranger is your daughter, your own flesh and blood.” How is that possible? I teeter on my heels, not having accounted for this possibility. “How closely did you watch the video?”

“I saw all I needed to see in the first thirty seconds.” My father’s face reddens. “You were naked, having sex with the man hellbent on taking over my company, acting like that slut you have for a mother, betraying me, betraying all of us.”

He didn’t watch it. My shoulders lower. “The video in first thirty seconds was extremely grainy.” The masterminds behind this incident must have counted on my father being unable to watch it. “It wasn’t me, Father. I wouldn’t do this to you.”

“Ross said your name.” Cindra is enjoying my embarrassment. “When he asked you to suck his cock.”

“Which you did,” Kayla adds. “Enthusiastically, allowing him to come on your face, licking his--”

“Enough,” my father barks, a vein on his forehead lifting. My half-sister stops talking. Silence fills the room.

My father rubs his hands over his weathered face. “Why, Arianna? I know the reason Ross did this. He wanted to humiliate me. But you?” His voice cracks. “I gave you so much, granting you my name, taking you in when your mom didn’t want anything to do with you, gifting you a piece of my business. Is this how you repay me?”

“It wasn’t me in the video,” I insist, growing desperate. “Watch it again, all the way through, and you’ll see that.”

“Stop.” My father slams his phone down on the table. “We have the proof in front of us. Don’t bother to deny it.”

“Father--”

“Were all of the rumors true?” He won’t allow me to defend myself. “The tennis instructor, the second-year economics professor, the contingent from Hong Kong?”

“No,” I cry. “None of them were true.”

“As this rumor isn’t true, either.” My father nudges his phone with his index finger, his hand trembling, a sign of weakness I’d never noticed before now. “You must have thought I was a gullible fool, believing your stories, defending you to my friends. Did you laugh at me? You and Ross? Did you snigger behind my back?”

“There was no laughing and no sniggering.” I shake.

“You were too busy moaning and panting,” Cindra quips.

“That wasn’t me in the video,” I say, realizing no one, not even my father, will believe me.

“Everyone saw you leave the gala with him.” My half-sister’s happiness at my situation twists my gut. “Will you deny that?”

“You asked me to escort him out of the building.” I glare at her.

“No, I didn’t,” she blatantly lies, her smile triumphant.

And I know, as surely as I know I love Logan. She did this to me. My gaze shifts to Frederick. His lips curl upward, as does Kayla’s. They all orchestrated this, plotted to give my father the proof he requires to disown me.

And they were successful. My proud stubborn father won’t watch the video. He will do what he’s threatened to do for years—throw me out of the family. I grip the back of a chair, needing to hold onto something.

“I wouldn’t betray you like this, Father,” I whisper. “If you believe anything, believe that.”

“You have no right to tell me what I should believe.” A vein in my father’s forehead pulses. “You’re nothing to me, not any more.” His gaze meets mine, the pain in his eyes almost bringing me to my knees.

I don’t say anything because there are no words to fix this. An eerie cold sensation sweeps over me, starting from my fingers and toes, running along my arms and legs, up my spine, across my chest.

This latest perceived betrayal has hurt him in a way that can’t be undone, and it no longer matters what is or isn’t true. Our relationship won’t be the same.

“Give me your passcard.” My father holds out his hand.

I fumble as I unclip my passcard from my blazer. My fingers are clumsy, numb, lifeless. The ice has penetrated my skin, wrapped around my bones. I place the plastic rectangle on his palm.

“And your pendant.”

He’s firing me, both as an employee and a daughter, and I should care, except I’m frozen, my heart, my soul, everything. I remove my necklace, lay the gold pendant on my passcard, feeling naked without it, exposed.

“Her shares,” Cindra pipes up.

My father hesitates and hope flares inside me, the warmth combating the chill. He doesn’t want to take this step, to cut me off completely. I rub my hands together, trying to revive the feeling in my fingers. He still cares for me.

“Do you want Ross to have her shares?” Frederick pushes. “Because that’s what she’ll do—sell them to our enemy.”

I should deny this, should tell them I’d never sell our company shares, but breaking the seal of frost over my lips requires too much effort, and they won’t believe the words anyway.

“You’ll transfer your shares to me on Monday,” my father instructs.

I’ll be left with nothing. My half-siblings, having achieved their goal, exchange smug smiles, their satisfaction causing my body temperature to lower even more.

“You’re no longer my child.” My father’s voice is flat, devoid of all emotion, all caring. “You’ve ceased to be an employee of St. James Communications. You--”

“This is why I should take control of your company, St. James,” a deep voice drawls behind me. “You lack judgment when it comes to staffing.”

Logan has arrived. I don’t have the energy to move, to glance behind me, my knees locked in place, my heart dead, my soul empty.

“Arianna?” My billionaire wraps his arms around me, lending me his warmth, his strength. It isn’t enough to stop the deep freeze. Nothing is.

“It’s done, Logan,” I relay, my chest tight. “I’m no longer a St. James.” I shiver violently once, twice. “W-we should leave.”

“Logan,” my father repeats. I used my billionaire’s first name, making yet another mistake.

“If I thought walking away was what you truly wanted, we’d leave and never look back.” Logan turns me, studies my face. His eyes grow hard. He’s angry, no, more than angry, he’s furious. “What did they do to you, my brave, strong girl?”

I can’t answer. I’m shaking uncontrollably, my teeth clicking together.

“She did this to herself.” My father’s voice is gruff.

“I’ll deal with you later, St. James.” Logan pulls out a chair, swings me into his arms and lowers into the leather seat. “You’re not my priority at the moment.”

I am. He unbuttons his jacket, tucks me under the folds, layering the fabric over me. I snuggle closer to him, curling into a ball, seeking his heat. He curves his body around me, rests his chin on top of my head and rubs my back, murmuring words I don’t have the brainpower to grasp.

All I know is, he’s here. I’m not alone. He’ll take care of me. I no longer have to defend myself, to be strong. I nuzzle against his soft dress shirt, savoring his musky scent, his muscles rippling under the cotton.

I don’t know how long we sit there. Logan holds me, his promises of retribution softly spoken and strangely comforting. My father and half-siblings remain silent. My body temperature rises, stabilizes. My tremors ease and then stop.