The Berkeley Method (5 page)

“Not very trusting,” he notes.

My cheeks are aflame.

“No,” I admit.

“Well then,” he says, after a moment. “However will you make it up to me?”

I stare back at him.

“Don’t worry, Isabella,” he adds. “I have a few ideas. You can start by eating your burger. You’ll find out later what I have in mind for your punishment.”

He says the words casually, but the effect they have on my body is instant. I feel a sudden flush of warmth pool in my groin.
Oh no. How does he have this effect?

Berkeley gives a half smile, clearly well aware of what his words are doing to me.

“Eat your burger,” he adds, nodding to my plate.

I hesitate for a moment, and then, realising he’s waiting on me to eat himself, I pick up my burger.

I take the most ladylike bite I can manage and swallow a delicious mouthful of meat, cheese and homemade bun.

“
Mmmm,” I say automatically. “This is really good.”

“I’m glad you like it.” James picks up his own burger and manages to take a man-sized bite without spilling a single shred of lettuce.

They must train them at private school, I think miserably, wondering how a society lady would manage a hamburger.

“What are you thinking about?” asks James.

I give an embarrassed smile.

“I’m wondering how a real English lady would manage to eat a burger gracefully,” I admit.

He looks genuinely surprised.

“An English lady probably wouldn’t eat a burger,” he says.

“That’s what I thought.” I feel an unwelcome surge of class anxiety.

“Which is why it wouldn’t be much fun dating one,” he says. His eyes are searching my face, trying to read me. “Besides,” he picks up his burger, “I happen
to think you have beautiful table manners. But if it makes you feel any better, I will attempt to eat in a slapdash fashion.”

His upper-class accent makes everything he says sound formal. So, I’m not prepared for James to push the burger into his mouth, taking a mismatched bite and letting a healthy amount of lettuce fall onto the plate.

He grins at me and swallows. “It tastes much better this way,” he says, going in for another bite. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

“Stop,” I laugh, batting his hand.

He returns the burger to the plate and dabs his mouth with a napkin, his expression becomes serious again. “I love to see you laugh like that,” he says. For a moment he looks unsure of himself. “I don’t know how often you would laugh like that in a relationship with me.”

I feel my blood freeze, wondering where he’s leading.

“What do you mean?” I whisper, all the laughter gone from my voice.

He sighs and takes a long sip of his martini.

“Something to discuss later. In the meantime, there is something I flew back to London to tell you,” he says.

This sounds bad. I stare back at him, waiting for an answer.

“The movie has been rescheduled,” he says.

Oh
.
I feel disappointment wash through me. After all my uncertainty, I had been excited to act in his movie.

“When for?” I say, toying with my burger to disguise my feelings.

“For tomorrow,” he says flatly.

I almost drop the burger.

“Are you serious?”

“I never joke about movie timings.”

“You start filming tomorrow?”

I pick up my martini and take a sip.

“Yes. Well. We appear on set tomorrow. You’ll have a few days to get settled and learn your lines.”

A few days!

“Is that… normal,” I ask, “to have a few days to learn a script before filming?”

“Not ordinarily, no,” says James, “but you are superbly talented, Isabella. I’m sure the challenge will pose no problem for you.”

That’s what he thinks
. Then another issue suggests itself to me.

“Why has the movie been rescheduled?” I ask.

James looks up at me. “Because of Natalie,” he says. For a moment I can see the jet lag on his face. I wonder how long it’s been since he slept.

“I am concerned that if we delay filming any longer, she’ll be exposed to temptation over in LA and succumb to her drug problems again.”

I feel a wild stab of jealousy, as though someone has taken my heart and squeezed it. I’ve seen Natalie Ennis in pictures. Everyone has. She’s a size zero with huge childlike eyes and long dark hair. Every man on the planet wants to bed her, and James can’t be the exception.

I stare down at my plate of food, feeling suddenly sick.

“Have you had a relationship with Natalie?” I ask, unable to look at him.

I hear him make a little sound of disbelief.

“Is
that
what you’re worried about?”

I look up to see him wide-eyed in shock. My temper rallies.

“Yes,” I say, the volume of my voice rising. “You disappear for four days without telling me where you’re going. Then I discover you’ve flown halfway across the world to see another woman. After that, you announce you’re turning my life upside-down to fit around
her
requirements. So yes. Since you ask, James, that
is
what I’m worried about.”

I am so angry, I know I’m not being reasonable, but I don’t care.

“I want you to answer the question,” I continue, glaring at him. “Have you had sex with her?”

I am holding my fork like a weapon. And to my disbelief, James breaks into a warm laugh.

Then he reaches across the table, gently removes the fork from my fingers and takes both my hands in his.

“How could I even look at another woman when I have a tiny chance of having someone as maddening and mystifying as you?” he says.

I stare back at him, some of the anger sliding away. How does he always say the right thing?

“My relationship with Natalie has and always will be a professional one,” he says, “and I’ve told you before, I don’t sleep with my actresses.”

My actresses.
A stab of pain strikes my heart.

“You are such a lovely thing, Isabella,” he says. “I even rather like you when you’re in a silly temper. And I know for a fact, I don’t deserve you.”

He pauses for a moment, as if wondering if he should continue. “If you had any idea,” he says carefully, “what I want to do to you for running into that alley, you’d run for the hills.”

He stares at his martini glass for a moment, and then his eyes return to my face.

The atmosphere between us has shifted, suddenly.

“What is it you want to do to me?” I whisper. My mouth is dry.

He keeps his eyes locked on mine.

“Your behaviour today was unforgivable,” he says. “My job is to keep you safe. To protect you. Your role is to make my work as easy as possible. Old-fashioned, I know. But, simple. I cannot have you venturing alone into dangerous backstreets.”

His voice is cool. For some reason I find it impossible to look away.

“What I would like to do to you,” he says carefully, measuring every word, “is take you back to my apartment and bend you over a certain desk I have there.”

I swallow, feeling my face and body growing hot.

“Then I would like to pull up that rather ordinary skirt which you look so extraordinary in.”

He pauses to take another sip of his martini, and I find myself leaning forward slightly, mesmerised by his words.

“After that, I would hold you firmly down so you couldn’t move and tug off your panties,” he continues. “Then I would remove my belt.”

I feel the breath tighten in my chest.

“And I would give you six good lashes with it,” he concludes, taking his martini glass and draining the last dregs.

I am sat almost open-mouthed opposite him. Can he really be saying those things? Worse – can they really be having the effect that they’re having? Because undeniably, his words have stirred a dark lust deep inside of me.

I know without any shadow of a doubt that the last few seconds have made me completely ready for him. And from his face, I think he knows it too.

James raises his eyebrow just a fraction.

“How does that sound?” he asks.

I pick up my martini glass and take a solid gulp.

How does it sound? If I’m honest
, it sounds pretty damn hot.
But is this the kind of thing I want to get myself into? A man who wants to beat me with a belt?

I pause for a moment, thinking things over, and I notice a subtle tension creep into him, as though a lot rests on my answer.

“I think it probably sounds better than it would feel,” I admit.

He cocks his head, thinking about this.

“But you do concede that you should be punished for your behaviour.”

He says it like it isn’t a question, which is a relief, because the truth is I don’t want to answer. I don’t know what my honest answer would be.

“Let me take you home, Isabella,” he says, and his voice has dipped low. “I will show you how good it can be to submit to a punishment at my hands.”

I swallow again, feeling trapped by my own lust.

Part of my mind is in tumult. But over-arcing everything, I am so happy to be back in his company.

Better than happy, in fact. I feel awake, alive.

James is watching my face carefully.

“Come home with me,” he says.

I have so many different emotions running through me
.
I catch onto a memory from earlier this evening.
I wanted to be dangerous
.

“You can set your own rules,” adds James.

Ok. My own rules. Can I handle this?
I start speaking, hardly knowing what will come out.

“No belts,” I manage weakly.

What am I saying?

James nods slowly. “If that is what you wish.” Without taking his eyes off me, he signals for the cheque.

“Oh, Isabella,” he says, his eyes lighting wickedly. “You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into.”

Chapter 7

James’s apartment is dark as we crash through the door, bound in heavy mutual desire. Our journey in the car back was strange, stilted almost, as though James had journeyed to another place in his mind.

Sat next to him, I had been tossed from fantasising about ripping his clothes off, to a cold terror about what I had just agreed to. But, as he pushes me against the wall of his apartment, every thought but having him is thrown out of my head.

James lifts me into his arms and carries me to the other side of the apartment.

Then I see the desk he was referring to, and feel my courage falter.

Held in his arms, I feel something more tender in him, and he looks down into my face.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.

I stare up at him, trying to read him, but I see nothing. Everything I know about him turns in my head. He’s troubled. He’s difficult. Can I bring him into the light?

“Would it make you happy,” I whisper, “to… to do the things you want to do?”

“Yes,” he murmurs, “it would make me very happy. And I think you would like it too, Isabella. Though you may not know it yet.”

“Then I agree,” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel.

He places me gently back on my feet.

“No belts,” he says, looking carefully into my face.

“No belts,” I agree.

He nods curtly, and his whole manner seems to change.

“You put me through hell today, Isabella,” he growls. “Now bend over that desk.”

I hesitate for a moment, and he takes hold of me, forcing me roughly over the desk.

Whoa. He’s serious about this stuff.

I feel his hand pressing firmly on the small of my back, holding me down. I twist experimentally, finding myself pinned under his strong grip. For some reason the restraint feels good.

“Don’t move,” he growls.

I feel him push up my skirt, and then there is a tantalising pause as he sweeps his hand over my panties.

Every part of me is begging him to continue, though I have no idea what he plans to do.

“I think we’ll start you off,” he murmurs, “with a little spanking. To show you how to behave.”

He slides down my panties and lets them fall.

“If you attempt to move again,” he warns, “I will spank you harder. Do you understand?”

I make a tiny sound to signal that I do. And suddenly, the flat of his hand slams hard into my behind.

Wow.
I feel my body shunted forward by the force of it. Then his hand comes again, a hard painful slap on my bare behind. When he does it a third time, I let out a stifled whimper.