Unraveled by Him Page 18

  “I am so close, so very close, Miranda, to believing in you completely, to taking you into my heart, my life, forever,” he says, with his uncanny ability to read my thoughts.

  He helps me into the tub and sits on the edge while I soak in the warm and comforting water.

  As I do, he strokes my sweat-matted hair.

  Gently, ever so gently, he washes me. And once I’m clean and my aches and pains are soothed, he dries me off as if I’m a child, then lifts me up in his arms, carries me all the way to my suite, deposits me on the bed, then presents me with a long, red box. Inside lies a beautiful emerald choker.

  As he clasps it around my neck, I shiver with pleasure at his touch and with wonder and delight at his gift to me. I try to thank him, but he places a finger to my lips.

  “You’ve outstripped my highest expectations, my darling. And you’ve made me happier than you will ever know,” he says. “Are you ready for the next part of my history?”

  Although I’m exhausted and am not in the mood to hear another word about the perfect Pamela—or rather, the perfect Georgiana—I’ve come to love the ritual of our nightly talks, the calm after the storm of each day’s test. So I simply nod and lie back next to him on the bed.

  Then he lights the usual cigarette and begins: “When I finally found Georgiana, before she allowed me into her life, her heart, her bed, she made two stipulations.

  “I must never again mention how or where we first met.

  “Not to her, not to anyone else.

  “Nor must I ever ask her about the man who sent her to Le Château, the man named William Masters.

  “He was long gone from her life, long gone from America, she assured me. And she swore that she would never see or hear from him again.

  “Nor did she want to. He had raped her of her virginity, dominated her, forced her, Lady Georgiana Lacely, to work in an S&M fantasy parlor.

  “ ‘But why did you let him?’ I remember asking her.

  “She picked up a tangerine from the silver bowl on the dresser and began to peel it delicately.

  “After a few moments, she gazed up at me with those unforgettable violet eyes.

  “ ‘Robert, if you love me as much as you say you do, you will never again ask me about that man, or ever mention his name to me,’ she said.

  “ ‘But Georgiana, William Masters is a threat to you, to both of us! Apart from what he knows about me, he knows far, far too much about you. And if he ever sells his story to the media—and I wouldn’t put it past him—he would create a scandal that could destroy both of us,’ I said.

  “Georgiana took my hands in hers and, very slowly, looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Robert, I swear on my life and on the lives of our unborn children that the man we know as William Masters will never betray us to anyone. He has a family, a career, and far too much to lose himself. Forget that you ever heard his name. Forget that you ever saw him. I certainly will.’

  “And although I hated William Masters with a passion so virulent that I wanted to kill him, I bowed to Georgiana’s wishes. I never again asked her about the man who condemned her to work in an S&M fantasy parlor for one night, nor did I ever attempt to find or silence him.

  “Murray, however, was quite another story.

  “For while he had signed a nondisclosure agreement guaranteeing that he would never disclose anything about me, he had never signed one regarding Georgiana.

  “Before Georgiana and I could begin our life together, and go public with our love, I knew that I had to guarantee that on the day when Murray opened his newspaper to see a photograph in it of me with Lady Georgiana Lacely, the girl from Le Château whom he knew as Pamela, he would maintain his silence, not just for then but for always.

  “Consequently, a few days before Georgiana and I were scheduled to make our first public engagement, attending the Met Ball separately, then pretending to meet there for the very first time, I put in a call to Le Château.

  “To my relief, Murray answered on the first ring. I didn’t waste time chatting to him but went straight to the point and informed him that there was a great deal of money in what I was about to propose to him. His excitement was no surprise to me, and I made an appointment to see him that evening in order to discuss my proposal with him.

  “But not at Le Château. I had already risked far, far too much going there in the past, and I wasn’t about to run the same risk again, not now that I had found Georgiana, not now that our life together was about to begin at last.

  “Instead, I set up a meeting with Murray at his home, a penthouse loft around the corner from Le Château.

  “However, when I arrived at the appointed hour and rang the bell, there was no answer.

  “Murray fully understood how much money was in the offing, so I was surprised in the extreme that he wasn’t waiting for me at the apartment, eager to strike a deal.

  “Surmising that he must have passed out after a hard night of partying, I managed to gain admission to the building and knocked on the door of his loft. No answer.

  “Then I saw that the door was open, so I went inside.

  “Just one vast room, with a picture window overlooking the South Street Seaport. A penthouse loft with black marble floors, black leather walls, red Lucite furniture, and an enormous red chandelier hanging from the black leather–covered ceiling.

  The entire wall opposite the sable-draped water bed was filled by a movie screen on which an S&M porno movie was playing, with flickering images of an icy Russian beauty methodically caning a howling girl strapped down over a stepladder.

  But no sign of Murray.

  Unimaginable that he wouldn’t show up when he knew that I came armed with a lucrative financial proposal for him!

  I immediately called Le Château to see whether he had gone there in error, but no one answered. Then I remembered: it was early afternoon, a time when Murray usually spent an hour or two in session with one of the girls, during which he kept the house phone off the hook. After all, business was booming, and he could afford to take his pleasures whenever he wanted.

  “Seeing no alternative, I made my way the few blocks to Le Château, feeling slightly uneasy at the prospect of being in that bizarre environment once more.

  “Inside the turn-of-the century office building, I made my way down the long corridor to the rough wooden door with the sign ‘M.Z. Productions’ emblazoned on it as if it were a run-of-the mill office, and not the entrance to America’s premier S&M fantasy parlor.

  “I rang the bell and waited, impatient to see Murray and buy his silence.

  “I positioned myself in front of the peephole, so as to allow whoever was running security to identify me and ascertain that I was not a cop.

  “Finally Patty, one of the submissives, opened the door. But that afternoon, she was not the girl she was when I last saw her. She was not her usual delicate, gentle, and demure self; her face was puffy and her eyes swollen from crying.

  “Recognizing me, she let me in.

  “ ‘I’m not here for a session, Patty,’ I said.

  “ ‘They’ve found him, Mr. Blake, they’ve found him,’ she said, then burst into tears.

  “ ‘Him? Murray?’ I said, trying to get some sense out of her.

  “She nodded.

  “ ‘Cops just called. They fished his body out of the East River half an hour ago. With rocks in his pockets.’

  “When I got back to Hartwell Castle, stunned as I was by Murray’s sudden demise, I made the decision to say nothing to Georgiana, so as not to distress her, and simply told her that our worries were now over.

  Now that fate had inexplicably intervened and ensured that Murray was no longer a threat to our happiness, and as I believed Georgiana’s earnest assurances that William Masters would never be a threat to us either, I looked forward to going public with her, so that our love w
ould no longer be clandestine.

  “At the Met Ball, me in black tie and tails, Georgiana in purple Chanel, we pretended to the assembled crowds and press that we were strangers, meeting for the very first time. A staged chance meeting, for the benefit of the photographers and journalists covering the ball, and our story was set in stone.

  “Love at first sight, we told the press the following morning.

  “And, as we intended, they lapped up the romantic story of our first meeting, which went on to become the cornerstone of our mythology.

  “While all the time, Georgiana and I hugged the truth of how and where we really first met to ourselves. Thus our mutual deception lent us an overwhelming sense of complicity, which welded us even closer together than ever before.

  “More than that, every second of every day, every minute, every hour, I was besotted with each individual facet of Georgiana, just as a master jeweler is with each facet of a perfect, Grade A diamond.

  “Above all, I remained forever enthralled by the erotic memory of our first, fateful encounter in Le Château, how she surrendered to me, and how she satisfied me so thoroughly afterward.”

  I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Hearing Robert wax rhapsodic about the unendingly perfect Georgiana hurts more than all the punishments I took today. But I guess if I want to discover the whole story—and I do—I’ve got no choice . . .

  “Six months after our debut at the Met Ball,” Robert continues, “the New York Times announced the engagement of Lady Georgiana Lacely to Robert Hartwell, followed by a glittering Plaza reception celebrating our prospective union, which rejuvenated my fragile mother considerably.

  “For when I introduced her to Lady Georgiana Lacely, my future wife, and Georgiana focused on her as if she were the most important person in the universe, my mother’s happiness was complete.

  “Sitting with my mother in the conservatory of the manor house in Poughkeepsie—where she would pass away on a warm summer’s day less than a year later, I looked across the garden, to where Georgiana was gathering roses for her, and it seemed to me as if Le Château and our meeting there was a mirage, a dream. And I knew then that Georgiana was unassailably correct in decreeing that we must never again mention it, not even to each other.

  “Instead, we lived an idyllic life in Hartwell Castle together. Although we weren’t yet married, I gave Georgiana full run of the estate. With her inborn artistic instincts, her creative talents, she transformed the interior of the castle into an elegant, welcoming, magical setting.

  “At Georgiana’s behest, exotic roses were planted in the castle gardens. The chef catered to us with a new flair, gladly cooking recipes from far-flung countries, all of which Georgiana spent hours in the kitchen teaching him.

  “And thanks to Georgiana, the parties we threw at Hartwell Castle became the talk of the social universe: elegant, glamorous, crowned by Georgiana’s inspirational human touch, as she greeted every guest personally, and afterward noted every detail about each of them in her diary: the food they were served, their likes, their dislikes, their children, their grandchildren.

  “There was no doubt in the mind of anyone observing the miracles Georgiana wrought that she was queen of Hartwell Castle and I the king. Or rather, given her allure, her superlative artistic talents, she was the queen and I merely her consort.

  “She was the essence of femininity, class, style, and sophistication, and personified everything that a woman should be, my countless friends, family, and acquaintances who met her all said, reiterating that I was a lucky man, the luckiest man in the world to be married to the incomparable Lady Georgiana. And I agreed with them wholeheartedly.

  “Watching Georgiana during the months before our wedding, I knew that I was doing the right thing; I was marrying a great lady, a star. And when we nuzzled close together in our movie theater (which Georgiana had redecorated in her beloved violet) and watched the old movies that we loved, starring Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, all I had to do was glance across at Georgiana to recognize that she surpassed all those screen sirens in sheer elegance, style, and beauty.

  “Strangely enough—I know you will be surprised by this, Miranda—in the months before our wedding, the happiest times I spent with Georgiana were in our movie theater, and not in our bed.”

  He’s right. I am surprised—and thrilled to hear it, although I try valiantly to hide my reaction from him.

  “Let me explain, Miranda. Since I found Georgiana again, I was hesitant about asking her to submit to me sexually once more. I had fought so hard to find her again that, now that she was mine, I was determined not to do the slightest thing that might remind her of Le Château, of William Masters, of anything that might cause me to lose her again.

  “Because I knew that if I ever lost her, I would not be able to endure it for even one hour.

  “So at first I made gentle, tender, vanilla love to Georgiana. And she responded to me with passion and contentment.

  “As much as I fantasized about doing so, I didn’t once attempt to tie her up, to spank her, to position her on all fours and penetrate her from behind, to punish and control her. I didn’t even raise the subject of dominance and submission to her, for fear of alienating her.

  “Then one afternoon, a few days after our engagement party, we sat in the shadow of the Blue Grotto, here, at Hartwell Castle, and Georgiana took my hand and told me that more than anything else in the world, she craved for me to take her across my knee and spank her like I did before.

  “And more, so much more.

  “And at the end, when I was hot and hard and it took all my willpower for me not to take her upstairs to the bedroom, tie her to the bed, and punish her as we both so passionately desired, she repeated what she’d said before, so as to drive it home to me.

  “ ‘Robert, darling Robert, you can’t know, you can’t imagine, you can’t conceive of how much I long for you to control me, command me, punish me, hurt me, and make me yours. You can’t know how much, you can’t,’ she said, her eyes wild, the violet of them now a dark purple.

  “Transfixed, I was temporarily at a loss for words.

  “ ‘On our wedding night, Robert, only then,’ Georgiana said.

  “And although her reluctance to submit to me before we were married deprived me of the pleasure of fulfilling my desires, I understood. Before we could begin our lives together as dominant and submissive in earnest, she needed time and distance from Le Château and all that represented.

  “So I respected her wishes and waited eagerly for the day when she became my wife, the day when our life together would begin and she could be my queen in public but my submissive in secret.

  “We were engaged now, and as much as we were in love, it seemed as if the whole world was in love with us as well.

  “The aristocratic beauty Lady Georgiana Lacely, and the billionaire tycoon Robert Hartwell.

  “The paparazzi dogged our every move.

  “From Buenos Aires to Barbados, from Monte Carlo to Santa Barbara, from Manhattan to Martinique, from my plane to my yacht, the Lady Georgiana, the press documented everything.

  “Or so they thought . . . Thankfully, no media was snooping around when the secret work of building the dungeons in my mansions and castles began.

  “I willingly paid the crew of handpicked craftsmen ten times their usual salary. So they each signed cast-iron nondisclosure agreements, and the dungeons were built in each of my homes, including the ones here, in Hartwell Castle, the biggest and the best equipped.”

  “Did Georgiana . . . ?” I ask.

  “She refused to set foot in any of the dungeons until we were married,” he says, then goes on: “Of course, when I made love to her, I often held her down, but that was the full extent of my domination of her.

  “I may have been suffering untold sexual frustration in not being able to dominat
e Georgiana sexually, not being able to control or punish her as I wished, but her reasons for restricting our relationship to vanilla made perfect sense to me. She wanted to erase our memory of how and where I met her. She wanted to wipe the slate clean, to begin again. Then and only then would she truly submit to me. When we were husband and wife, and not before.

  “And I could hardly wait.”

  I don’t know if I can sit here and listen to all the romantic, erotic details of Robert’s wedding night with Georgiana without losing it completely. But I know I must, so I grit my teeth and say, “So how was it, Robert? How was your wedding night with Georgiana?”

  “Tomorrow, after you’ve completed the final test—if you’ve passed it, that is—I’ll finish the rest of the story,” Robert says.

  “Are you sure it won’t upset you, Robert?” I say, doing my best to be empathetic regarding how much he loved Georgiana, and how deep the anguish of losing her must still cut.

  “Upset me? Why?”

  “Because you loved Georgiana so much.”

  “Loved her? I despised her!” he says.

  I see the expression on his face. I look deeply into his eyes, staggered by what he’s said. It is true! He didn’t love Georgiana! I want to shout it from the roof, write it in the sky, broadcast it on national television: Robert Hartwell never loved Lady Georgiana!

  One look at the tortured expression in his eyes and I feel guilty for having exulted over his revelation.

  “Despised Georgiana? Why? How?” I say.

  “You’ll only understand when I tell you the story of my wedding night. But not now. Not until after you have completed the fifth test, and not a second before,” he says.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spend most of the day trying to distract myself from my fears of the ordeal ahead of me. For the first time since I got to the castle, I feel a sudden urge to escape.

  Robert is out at meetings for most of the day, so I order a cab, spend a fun few hours at the mall, and almost feel as if I’m living my regular everyday life again.