Temporary Master (23 page)

“That’s
good.” Behind him the teapot whistled. Turning, he shut it off before going
through the motions of preparing a cup. “Would you like a cup? It’s
gyokuro
and
imported directly from Japan.
Very flavorful.”

She
nodded, before accepting the cup from him. “Never had it, but I’ll try anything
once.” She lifted it to her nose, inhaling before cautiously sipping on it
while he made his own.

“Mmm,
this is surprisingly good.” Lauren seemed genuinely surprised.

“I
agree.” Cradling his drink, he sank down into one of the chairs in front of his
desk. “Now, I know you didn’t come here to discuss the club, or even my very
spectacular tea, so why don’t we talk about what’s upset you?”

Lauren
nodded, leaning up against the window ledge as she sipped the tea. “I got a
call from Mr. J. He was concerned when Bella didn’t come home by ten. Then his
concern turned to worry and finally panic when he tried her phone repeatedly
and got no answer. So he called me, wanting to know if I’d seen her.” Her eyes
hardened as she set aside the cup. “And there’s only one reason why she
wouldn’t answer her phone, Tremaine.”

He
regarded her quietly. “And you think it’s because I did something to her? I can
assure you she’s merely sleeping at the moment. Nothing nefarious has happened
to your friend.”

She
laughed sarcastically. “I know my friend. All you’d have to do is tell her not
to answer it, and she’d drop it like it was a hot potato.”

He
processed her accusation. It was true Sabella was one of the most submissive
women he’d met in some time. In fact, it pleased him to no end in how she
submitted to him.
At least until her lust gets the better of her,
he
thought remembering how she’d struggled against his hold, bucked up wanting her
release, despite what he’d said. “Perhaps she would but I can assure you I did
no such thing. Your friend came to me tonight…or rather last evening in the
middle of a meltdown.” He quickly explained the situation at the art center.
“Which I’m glad I was here to help her with.”

“She
could’ve come to me!” Lauren stomped her foot. “I’m her best friend. She
shouldn’t have been alone.”

His
blood froze in his veins at the insinuation he hadn’t been there for Sabella.
“I’ll have you know, Ms. Haskell, she hasn’t been alone. I was there. I was the
one she turned to. I was the one she came to begging for a scene…” His voice
hardened. “And before you can accuse me of taking advantage of your friend, I
did nothing more to her than what she needed.”

Lauren
sneered at him after setting the cup down on the window sill. “And what was
that?”

“The
routine of pleasing him.”

Ethan
turned at the sound of Sabella’s voice. Standing in the open door wearing
nothing more than one of his button down shirts and hair mussed, she looked
well loved - by him. Standing, he went to her. “I’m sorry, little one. Did we
wake you?” He knew it was improbable, but he wanted Lauren to understand he
hadn’t been lying about Sabella’s whereabouts.

Sabella
shook her head. “No. I missed you, Sir.” She stepped a bit closer, pressing her
hand against his chest.

“I
was planning on coming back to bed as soon as I dealt with this.” He nodded
towards Lauren.

Lauren
took the moment to prop her hands on her hips and glare at Sabella. “Girl, your
father has been worried about you. Couldn’t you have at least called him and
assured him you were fine?”

Sabella’s
cheeks reddened. “I should’ve, but it wasn’t because of Ethan that I didn’t
call. I…” She swallowed hard, and Ethan could see the tears in her eyes. “I
fell apart, Lauren. I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket, and now I’ve
been accused of molesting one of my students. You didn’t see Samuel’s mother.
She was convinced I hurt her little boy. I’ve never touched him or any child in
that way but she made me feel like I was the scum of the Earth with her attack.
Kaleb didn’t have any choice but to put me on administrative leave until he can
get to the bottom of the situation.” Sabella took his hand. “But by allowing me
to go through the preparations of a
kinbaku
scene, Sir gave me back my
feeling of self-worth. By letting me strip down to my underwear, light a few
candles and incense, he gave that back to me. Then by drawing me into
kokyo-ho
he helped me find my center once more.” She squeezed his hand before
stepping away from him to confront her friend. “He didn’t once demand sex of me
during this time. I was so wrung out I fell asleep in his arms only to wake
later with him still holding me.”

Lauren
burst out laughing. “You mean to tell me he ‘held’ you all night and didn’t
touch you sexually?” She snorted. “Pardon me if I don’t believe you. Not when
it deals with a man like Ethan…”

Sabella
reached over and grabbed the stapler off the desk before chucking it at Lauren.
Ethan’s eyes widened as his sexy little submissive came unglued. He was
suddenly glad he hadn’t been seated at his desk, because everything on its
nearly immaculate surface became cannon fodder as Sabella unloaded on Lauren,
giving her friend details he was sure would later make his sub blush to her
very toes.

“What
the hell’s going on here?” Davis appeared in the doorway next to him, his hair
standing up in all directions, his robe untied, even more irritable than he’d
been thirty minutes ago.

Ethan
turned and gave his best friend a huge smile. “If I had to say, we’re
witnessing my little Sabella coming into her own, and putting her interfering,
over-protective best friend in her place.”

Davis
rubbed his hand along his stubbled jaw. “You don’t say?” He yawned before
heading towards the arguing women.

“What
are you doing?” Ethan pushed away from the wall.

“For
the better good and us possibly getting some sleep tonight, I say we haul our
respective women back to their appropriate places?”

Ethan’s
jaw dropped as Davis scooped Lauren up over one shoulder and hauled her from
the office. Even Sabella had a bemused look on her face. “Dare I ask where he’s
taking her?”

A
loud shriek echoed down the corridor. He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a
good idea.” He moved closer to her, lifting her chin with one gentle finger.
“Now that you’ve destroyed my office, what do you say we go back to bed?”

She
looked around the room guiltily. “Can I call my dad first? So he doesn’t have
another coronary?”

He
nodded, gathering her up in his arms, scolding her when he saw her bare feet.
“Of course, there’s a phone next to my bed.”

Several
hours later, Sabella shifted nervously in her chair in Davis’s office in
downtown Napa, as he went on scribbling down some information on the yellow
legal tablet in front of him. Now dressed in a pin-striped dove gray suit, he
looked nothing like the man she’d first met or the Dom she’d met later.
Nor
the man who’d tossed Lauren over his shoulder and hauled her off to his room.
Not
that she’d stayed long. She’d just hung up with her dad and had curled up in
Ethan’s arms, when there had been screaming, followed by the front door
slamming, and a car taking off. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin when less
than two minutes later, Davis had jerked open Ethan’s door and told her to keep
her damned friend away from him.
Which is why I’m now
sitting here by myself.
Lauren’s not welcome and Ethan had
patients.

“So
what do you think? Is there any way she could’ve made this up? Or misread the
information?” Squeezing her purse between her fingers, she prayed there had
been a mistake somewhere along the line.

Davis
looked up from what he’d been writing. “I honestly don’t know. But we do have a
problem.” He gestured for her to come around the desk. Rising unsteadily, she
set her purse on the chair and joined him. Hitting a few keys, he pulled up the
site for New York sex offender registry. “I need to show you this.” The blue
and white website for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice complete
with a photograph of her stared back at her. Her heart plummeted.

“But….I….”
She backed away from the computer, her mind whirling. This couldn’t be
happening. “…that’s not me…I mean it’s me but I’ve never been arrested….I don’t
know how it got there…” She pleaded with him as she backed into one of the
filing cabinets. “…You have to believe me, I’m not a child molester. I love
kids…”

“Whoa.”
Davis pushed back from the desk. “Calm down, Bella.”

Panicking,
her first response was to flee. She had to get out of here… to run…she couldn’t
bear the idea of Davis, let alone Ethan, thinking she could ever possibly hurt
a child.

Davis
cursed as she tried to dart out of the office. Thanks to his long reach, he
caught her before she made it to the door. “Running won’t solve this, Bella.”
His words were muffled in her hair. “You need to settle down, and let me
explain what I found.” He turned her in his arms, before coaxing her to look up
at him. “Can you do that?”

She
finally nodded. “Ye-ea-h
..”
She drew a shaky hand
through her hair. “So tell me wh-what you f-found…”

He
returned to his desk but kept his hand on her arm. Then he urged her to sit
down in the chair he’d vacated. Waking up the screen with a shake of the mouse,
he scrolled down. “Now take a look at the information. Read it to me.”

She
drew a deep breath before reading through the information. “Offense
description…deviate sexual intercourse.
Relationship to
victim…non-stranger, educator.
Weapon of choice…
paint
brush…” Her brow furrowed.
“A paint brush?
I don’t
paint, I sculpt.”

“Yeah
that’s what I thought too. Your sculptures are beautiful, by the way. But what
really caught my eye was the educator tag. I looked but couldn’t find any
record of you ever being a teacher at any level in the state of New York.”

“Because
I wasn’t one…”

“…so
I did some digging into other state databases along with residency records.” He
consulted his legal tablet. “Did you ever register yourself as a resident in
New York?”

She
shook her head, wondering where he was going with this line of questioning.
“No, I didn’t. I lived with my Dom for several months, and pursued my art while
I served him.”

“And
you came back home when?”

“When
my father got sick.
I got a call from Mrs. D. about Dad being in the hospital because of a minor
heart attack.” She grimaced. “When I told my Dom I was needed back at home,
let’s say he didn’t particularly care for the idea of me leaving.” She shifted.
“You see, he’d just lost his father less than six weeks before, and claimed he
needed me at his side as he took over the family business. I tried to be
sympathetic but he didn’t care, he was too wrapped up in his own wants and
needs to have any concern about the fact my father
needed
me. Instead he gave me a choice, him or my father.”

Davis’s
eyes widened.
“Son of a bitch.”

Sabella
lowered her eyes. “Not really. His mother is a lovely woman, who didn’t deserve
the crap her son gave her. She was the one who found me out here. I met both
her and Louis in San Francisco, during an art exhibit which featured one of my
sculptures.”

“Lauren
told me something about that.”

A
blush filled Sabella’s cheeks. “The girl has always bragged about me to anyone
who listens. I’m nothing special. I just enjoy working with my hands.”

He
arched a brow at her. “Tell that to someone who hasn’t seen your work. The dove
you made was exquisite. I almost thought it was going to take flight.”

“Thank
you.” She decided accepting his compliment was the best idea. “So why did you
want to know if I was a resident of New York?”

“Because
if you were an educator in New York, you’d have had to prove your residency -
which I can’t find.”

She
shrugged. “So there’s an error on the sex offender registry. That doesn’t prove
I didn’t do it, Davis.”

“But
it’s a start. I need you to read over the rest of the entry, and see if you can
find any more discrepancies.”

Scanning
over it, she sighed.
“Other than the spelling of my name and
the date of my conviction, no.”

He
looked at her as if wanting an explanation, so she was quick to explain. “They
have me listed as Isabella, which isn’t correct. My given name is Sabella. Not
to mention the conviction date can’t be right. I was in the hospital at my
dad’s side, on the supposed conviction date. How could I be in court in New
York when I was here in Napa?”

He
tapped his chin with his pen. “You couldn’t be.” His eyes met hers. “You do
realize, of course, this changes everything. I suspect someone planted this
profile to make trouble for you. Did you part on bad terms with anyone in New
York who would want to cause serious issues for you here?”

Racking
her brain, she came up blank. “I don’t think so. I didn’t know many people in
New York. Just a few in the scene and some art contacts I met through my Dom’s
mother.”