[English] The Siren

The Siren
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“Why, Zachary,” she said, chuckling to herself, “yes, I think I will regard ***.”

The email dragged on for two pages and detailed every reason why she needed to cut out the majority of her *** scenes. She stopped reading after the fifth use of the word gratuitous.

You’re no fun, she wrote Zach back. Can’t I just keep three of my scenes?

Zach was obviously still at his computer. He quickly replied with one word.

No.

Two? she wrote back.

No.

Nora was about to fall out of her chair laughing. She could imagine his stern but strikingly handsome visage right now, his brow furrowing deeper with each annoying little email from her.

One? I promise I’ll make it good. Please? I’ll buy you a puppy.

I’m allergic to dogs, he replied.

Nora bit her lip as the wheels in her head turned.

Let’s play a game, she wrote back. I’ll give you fifty extra pages this week if you let me keep three of my scenes—heavily e***ed, of course.

She held her breath as she waited for his reply. An email finally popped up in her in-box.

Fine. But any *** on the page must serve both the plot and the character development. Now stop playing and start writing. You’ve got five weeks left and over four hundred pages to rewrite.

I’m keeping the puppy, she wrote back. She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t reply.

Nora was rereading Zach’s most recent note on her new chapters when her hotline rang. She heard its Klaxon ringtone in her office all the way from the kitchen. Rolling her eyes, she stood up and headed in that direction in no particular hurry. When she got there, she found Wesley standing by the counter with the phone in his hand. He looked oddly tired and grim. He handed it to her without a word and walked past her. “King, I swear I’m going to beat the **** out of you if you don’t stop calling me.”

“Now you’re flirting, ma chérie.”

Nora ground her teeth together and took a deep breath. Was there any man in the world more infuriating than Kingsley Edge? Søren, she remembered. Only Søren.

“I am not flirting. I am working.” She said the words slowly as if she were speaking to a child. “I have another job, recall?”

“I try everything I can to forget your other job, maîtresse. Your other job costs me money.”

“Well, it makes me money.”

“And that helps me how?”

“Kingsley, tell me what you want and then leave me alone. My e***or is making me rewrite my entire book.”

“The Nora Sutherlin taking orders from a man. I thought those days were long over.”

Nora clenched her jaw. She would not let him goad her into a fight today.

“I’m une petite peu busy, monsieur.”

“Never too busy for a client. For this client in particular.”

Nora leaned her head against the cold metal of the refrigerator. Most of her clients were on her time; she saw them at her leisure. Just part of the mystique of being a Dominatrix. But there were a handful of clients not even she felt comfortable keeping waiting. She guessed it was Jake Sizemore, CEO of some company that made something that kept the world going. King never let her turn Sizemore down when he came to town.

“Fine. What do I need to know?”

“Just wear your finest and be there in an hour. C’est ça.”

Nora scribbled the time and place down in her datebook. She’d been trying so hard not to take any jobs while working with Zach. Zach had all the signs of someone going through a fairly serious depression. She knew depression well, knew it was anger turned inward. That much depression signaled an impressive cache of anger lurking under that ridiculously handsome exterior. Her gorgeous blue-eyed e***or already oozed disapproval of her at every turn. She could only imagine how bad his reaction would be if he found out that writing wasn’t her only job. For over a year now she’d dreamed of quitting the game altogether, but without a signed contract from Royal, she was scared to give up her day job.

“I’m getting a little sick of this, you know, King?”

“You say that and yet I hear la petite morte under your breath. You know you love this job.”

“I love the money. That’s it.”

“You love him, chérie.”

Nora closed her eyes and swallowed the growl in the back of her throat.

“He has nothing to do with this.” Nora refused to get into a discussion of Søren with Kingsley. Kingsley reported to Søren.

“Ma petite,” he chided. “You do this for his attention. C’est vrai, oui?”

“That’s like saying criminals commit crimes to get the cops’ attention.”

She heard Kingsley’s soft, heady laugh.

“Exactement. One hour, maîtresse.”

Nora hung up and went to her bedroom. The house was too quiet. She couldn’t hear Wesley anywhere. Usually at this time of day he was working on his homework and listening to music. Or if homework was light that night, he’d be playing his guitar and singing softly to himself. She remembered the first time she’d caught him playing and singing. She’d told him he sounded a little like the nineties band Nelson. He’d said, “Who’s he?” and Nora had thrown a book at him.

She dressed in her black leather skirt with the back slit and her black-and-red brocade bustier. She found her black gauntlets and pulled them on. They laced up her arms and she had a horrible time tightening the laces and tying them off on her own. She went to find Wesley. He hated that she worked as a professional Dominatrix, but he tolerated it more or less. Before he’d moved in over a year ago she’d explained what she did, what she was. He’d been shocked. He didn’t even know such things existed. He was relieved, however, when she explained she was in no way a prostitute and that she never had *** with clients—not the male clients anyway. They weren’t even allowed to kiss her except on the toe of her boot. No, she was no prostitute, she explained. She was, if anything, a kind of massage therapist who simply inflicted pain instead of pleasure. Despite his shock, Wesley moved in anyway. She’d been so impressed by how well he took it, she’d even told him about Søren.

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“Just don’t ever let me in the same room with him,” Wesley had said when Nora revealed the nature of their relationship.

“You think you can take Søren?”

“You said he was, what, forty-five? Eighteen versus forty-five? And any guy who beats up on women doesn’t know what to do around a guy who’d only hit another man.”

Nora had laughed then, so hard she’d almost fallen over. Could Wesley get any more precious? When she’d stopped laughing, she’d taken Wesley’s chin in her hand and forced him to meet her eyes. Søren once told her she had the most dangerous eyes of any woman who’d ever lived. He told her when men looked in her eyes they saw their own darkest fears reflected back. Usually she tried to tamp down that particular trick of hers. This time she’d let Wesley see all her fears and all of his in one glance.

“Kid, Søren could eat you for breakfast and not even need to chew. Don’t ever f**k with a sadist, Wesley. For Søren, torture’s just foreplay.”

“Why did you stay with him?” he’d whispered.

Nora had grinned at him, and she saw a new fear in Wesley’s sweet brown eyes.

“I like foreplay.”

Wesley…she couldn’t find him anywhere. She stood in the living room and noticed a note taped to the door. It said he was at the library but he’d be home around six. And at the bottom of the note were the words he always said when she went out for a job—“You don’t have to do this.” No, she didn’t have to. But she owed it to Kingsley. Nora grabbed her coat and toy bag and made a quick stop in the bathroom. She took a pill bottle from the medicine cabinet, swallowed one without bothering with water and left.

It took forty minutes to get to the hotel. Her clients were among the elite of the world—only the wealthiest and most powerful men and women could afford her. Quite a few were even household names. So it was rare she ever went in through the front doors of a home or hotel. But Kingsley hadn’t mentioned the need for discretion so she didn’t bother.

She strode through the front lobby of one of the grandest and oldest hotels in the city and worried for a second that someone from Royal might recognize her. She shook off the worry—no one who worked in publishing could afford this place. The lobby was littered with women dripping with Prada and men stuffed inside their Armani suits. Nora bit back a smile as she breezed past them in her leather and lace with her black toy bag slung across her back and her sunglasses on even though she was indoors and it was still winter. She wasn’t ashamed of what she did. But it was fun to be around people who were nervous just being in the same room with her.

A couple standing near the elevator walked off when she joined them in their waiting. Vanilla people were so cute sometimes. She entered the elevator, hit the button for the nineteenth floor and headed up alone.

Nora stepped out, got her bearings and made her way to room 1909. A key card lay hidden under a newspaper in front of the door. She unlocked the door, stepped inside and saw a tall, blond man in black standing with his back to her.

“Hello, Eleanor,” he said.

Nora gasped and her bag hit the floor with a nervous clatter of metal.

“Oh, my God…Søren.”

* * *

Zach sat at his desk in his office at Royal. He checked his email one last time before shutting down the computer. He was surprised he hadn’t gotten more of a fight from Nora about paring down her *** scenes. Perhaps she now understood the kind of book she was writing, was starting to understand she could write something erotic without being an erotica writer.

Straightening the papers on his desk, Zach found a copy of the contract that the legal department had worked up. It wasn’t signed yet. And even if Nora signed it today, it wasn’t valid until he signed it. He looked over the terms. J.P. had been very generous. Royal didn’t dole out significant advances very often. Of course, Nora brought her own impressive fan base with her. Zach knew J.P. hoped she would bring a certain libidinous cachet to the rather staid old publishing house. It was a bold move that might actually pay off if Zach did his job right.

Zach smiled as he flipped through Nora’s unsigned contract. When he and Grace had bought their first house, the paperwork hadn’t been half this preposterous. Poor Grace. He remembered watching her at their tiny kitchen table in their first horrid little flat they’d rented sight unseen when they’d moved to London. They’d been married less than a year. She thought she was supposed to know what every word of the contract meant, what every clause referred to. She sat for hours poring over every page. He’d leave and come back and she would have another twelve questions to ask him. What did first right of refusal mean? Did they know the assessed value? Did they need a variance if he worked from home?

It was so damn endearing watching her spend an entire day trying to understand everything as if she thought she should that Zach finally had to come over, shove the papers away and make love to her right on top of their settlement statement. He remembered it so clearly, the shock on her face when the papers scattered to the four winds. She thought he was angry with her. But he remembered her smile when he kissed her so fiercely the table scooted a foot back. He remembered her red hair against the dark wood, how her legs had wrapped around him with almost childlike eagerness as he moved inside her.

He’d heard once there was nothing like buying a house together to make or break a relationship. That was the day he decided they were going to make it.

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Zach put the contract down, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Maybe they should have bought more houses.

* * *

An hour later Nora left the hotel and strode to her car cursing Søren under her breath the whole way. She kept cursing, knowing if she let up on the fury for one second, she would collapse into tears. It had been months since they’d spoken. She did everything she could to avoid him. Sometimes she saw him at the club and they only looked at each other across the room while bystanders subtly moved a few steps back like unwitting townspeople caught between two gunslingers. Søren wasn’t on the attack today, however. Worse—he’d wanted to talk.

Nora ran over their conversation again in her mind. The conversation, as all conversations with him were these days, was rather one-sided. She’d sat on the bed like a child in trouble for staying out too late and ground her foot into the plush carpeting as he stood in front of her and ticked off, one by one, all her multifarious sins. Nora had known him since she was fifteen years old. Shocking how much ammunition one could stockpile in eighteen years.

And then near the end he’d revealed why he’d gone to the trouble of setting up the meeting. Kingsley had told him she’d been acting different lately—quieter, angrier, desperate to work one day, reluctant the next. She’d explained she was heavy into revisions on her new book, that her new e***or was a hard-ass who was giving her the chance and the challenge of a lifetime. Søren seemed skeptical, asking if there might be something she wasn’t telling him. The hour he’d paid for finally up, Nora started to leave. On her way out the door Søren had stopped her with a word—“Wesley.”

Nora had turned around slowly. Trying to keep her tone neutral she’d asked, “What about him?”

“Next time we meet, little one, we will have much more to discuss.”

Her heart flinched when he’d used his old pet name for her. But she merely stared at his handsome face, hoisted her toy bag and left. After all these years, all the practice, she was getting good at that. Nora sat behind the wheel of her car and closed her eyes. She said a prayer of thanks Søren hadn’t touched her. That’s what had happened on their last anniversary. She’d gone to his home too late in the evening. She’d let him give her a glass of wine. They’d talked about mutual friends and even played a game of chess at the kitchen table he’d made brutal love to her on so many times. For a few minutes she’d let herself forget that she wasn’t his property anymore. One curl had fallen forward across her face when she’d bent to move her bishop. Søren had reached out and brushed it behind her ear. He’d caressed her cheek with his thumb. Within minutes they were in his bedroom and she was strapped to the bedpost. He’d beaten her so hard that night she’d nearly gagged on her own tears. And when he finally gave up on the pain, he’d untied her and let her collapse into his arms. His darkness spent, he laid her in his bed and made love to her so tenderly she’d cried again. In the past when they were still together, he’d talk to her while inside her. Sometimes he would articulate in shocking detail the intensity of his desire for her. Sometimes he would simply claim her, calling her his property, his possession. That night as he moved in her he spoke in Danish, the language he fell into when his heart was its most open. He’d taught her some Danish when she was a restless teenager. It became one of their secret ways to communicate. She’d forgotten a lot of it in the four years they’d been apart, but she never forgot Jeg elsker dig. It was Danish for “I love you” and he whispered it again and again into her skin.

Afterward he’d stayed inside her and pulled them into a sitting position at the center of his bed. Her legs wrapped around his waist; her arms twined around his shoulders. He ran his hands up and down her beaten back as he kissed her bare neck. She rocked her hips slowly, relishing having him inside her again after so long.

“You miss your collar,” he’d said—a statement, not a question. She’d taken it with her when she’d left him four years ago.

“I miss it.” She tilted her head back to give him better access to her naked throat. She bent forward again and he kissed her bruised lips. If she pretended it was only today and that there was no yesterday and no tomorrow, she could stay with him forever.

“You can come back to me, Eleanor. Always.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “They need you more than I do. I can’t rip your life in half.”

“It is my life,” he’d reminded her. “You tore my life in half the day you ran from me.”

“Don’t,” she said, and the tears burned bright in her eyes. Her chest heaved and she clung to him so hard her fingernails bit into his skin. “Don’t say I ran. I didn’t run. It wasn’t running and you know it. You know I didn’t want to leave you. I no more ran from you than I’d ever run into a burning building. I could never run from you.”

He laughed at her vehemence.

“Then what would you call it if it wasn’t running, little one?” He pressed his lips to her forehead.

“I crawled.” She tried to smile for him. “It’s what I’m good at after all.”

He wrapped his arms even tighter around her. She prayed he’d chain her to his bed and make her stay there the rest of her life. But she knew he’d let her go at dawn. He wouldn’t keep her against her will even if against her will was what she wanted.

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“When you come back to me—” he began and she pulled back to meet his eyes.

“I won’t.”

“If you come back to me,” he said, making a rare concession, “will you run or will you crawl?”

Nora had pressed her whole body into him at that moment. Resting her head on his strong shoulder, she watched as a tear forged a river down his long and muscled back.

“I’ll fly.”

To Søren she knew that night was proof that she still belonged to him. But to Wesley it was a waking nightmare when he’d seen the welts and bruises, her cracked lip, her purpling cheek. It took her a solid hour to convince him she didn’t need to go to the hospital. For some reason telling him she’d had worse didn’t seem to comfort him. For the second time in twenty-four hours, she’d had to beg.

“It’s not violence,” she’d tried to tell him. “It’s love. Some loves only come out after dark, Wes.”

“Not with me, Nora. Don’t pull that writer romance crap on me. He beats you and you let him. And if this is love then he shouldn’t love you anymore,” Wesley had said on his way to the front door, his clothes in a duffel bag and his guitar case across his back.

“I wish he didn’t. For his sake and mine. For yours, too.”

Something in her voice changed his mind. He’d dropped his duffel by the floor and set his guitar down. He’d walked back to her and wrapped his arms gingerly around her. He’d been so careful not to hurt her. She’d cried then for the pain she’d caused him. Wesley had gone with her to her room and helped her take her shirt off. She lay on her stomach in her bed while he iced her bruises and put antibiotic ointment on her welts. They hadn’t talked while he helped her. But when she was finally comfortable enough to sleep, Wesley had told her his decision. He couldn’t stop her from working, but if she ever went back to Søren again, ever let him hurt her again, Wesley was gone. It was like asking her to close her eyes and never open them again, but for Wesley, she’d agreed.

Nora drove home and put her regular clothes back on and decided that once and for all she was cutting off all contact with Søren. She knew it would be hard considering that they ran in the same circle but she would find a way. She would never talk to him again. Not after he’d tricked her into seeing him.

Nora paused in her bedroom and took slow, deep breaths. She checked the clock—6:36. Wesley should have been home from the library half an hour ago. She went to his bedroom—no backpack, no keys. She called his cell phone and no one picked up. She waited another half hour thinking he was just pissed at her for answering her hotline. But she knew Wesley—he wasn’t the vindictive type. She called his cell phone again. No answer. By seven-thirty she was scared. By eight-thirty she was terrified. At nine she gave up and called the only person besides Wesley she trusted completely.

The phone rang only once.

“Søren, I need your help,” she said as soon as he answered. The fear clutched at her throat like a claw. “I can’t find my Wesley.”

8

At nine-thirty Zach still remained in his office reading through Nora’s rewritten chapters. Going with third person had opened the book up. The prose was more atmospheric in third person. He needed to talk to her about the end of chapter three, however. She was sliding into self-reflection when what she needed was a strong plot element.

He picked up his phone and dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.

“Nora, it’s Zach.”

“Dammit, Zach. I can’t talk right now. I’m busy.” She sounded angry for some reason. Angry and out of breath.

Busy and breathless…he knew immediately what she was busy doing.

“You’re on my time now, Nora. I don’t care what you’re doing. The book is more important.”

“**** the book.”

“Nora, I went out on a limb to work with you. If you think—”

“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”

Zach sat back in his chair. What had happened to the Nora he’d shared cocoa with just a few days ago? She’d been so passionate about her book then, so interested in all of his ideas.

“I’m thinking you obviously don’t have your priorities in order.”

He heard Nora take a hard breath.

“Then f**k you, too, Zach.” She hung up.

Zach set his phone down and stared at it. He expected to feel furious but instead his heart dropped. Apart from J.P. and Mary, Zach hadn’t felt any connection with anyone since coming to New York. Then he’d met Nora and as exasperating as she was, she was also funny, beautiful and made him feel alive again. And she had been the first person who’d seemed to care about him. Now she’d yanked away from him, away from the book. He knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t ever be lovers. But he’d thought they might be able to forge something like a friendship while they worked together. What the hell had happened?

The phone rang again and Zach answered it immediately, hoping to hear Nora on the other end. Instead the chief managing ***or of Royal West in L.A. started speaking. Zach had only spoken to her once or twice after he’d been offered her job once she retired. Now she was telling him he could come out sooner if he liked since she’d heard he didn’t have much to hold him in New York. She wouldn’t mind sharing her office for a couple of weeks while he got acclimated. Might ease the transition for the staff. Still reeling from his fight with Nora, Zach promised her he’d think about it.

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After all, he agreed, there really wasn’t anything keeping him in New York.

He hung up the phone again and pulled on his coat. Glancing down, he saw Nora’s manuscript sitting on his desk. He picked it up and tossed it into the recycling bin.

“**** you, too, Nora.”

* * *

Nora paced the hallways of her house with her private cell phone in her hand and her hotline phone in her pocket. Wesley didn’t have her hotline number but she knew either Kingsley or Søren would call her back soon. Søren had connections at every hospital within eighty miles, and Kingsley had half the judges, attorneys and police chiefs in the tristate area in his back pocket. Between the two of them, one of them should be able to find Wesley.

She’d gone into his room and dug through his desk trying to find any of his friends’ phone numbers. But they were all programmed into his cell phone and his cell phone was with him, wherever he was. She tore through his closet, his dirty clothes hamper, and found nothing to help her hunt him down.

Nora sat on the edge of his bed and opened his nightstand. She knew Wesley would be less than thrilled she was digging through his things. He’d probably get quite the shock if he saw what she kept in her nightstand. But she didn’t find anything helpful or incriminating—ChapStick and a spare set of keys to his car. Under the file of his medical stuff she found a small photo album. Pulling it out she smiled through tears when she flipped it open and found it full of pictures from last summer.

Leafing through the pages of photos she remembered…

At first she’d been suspicious when Wesley had woken her up early on a Saturday morning in May and told her to get up and put on jeans and boots. He’d driven that day in his beat-up yellow VW bug, and they’d listened to weird music the whole way there. “Who is this?” she’d asked. “Wilco.” “Who’s this?” “The Decembrists.” Finally he’d demanded to know what the last album she bought was. She thought for a good five minutes before remembering—Ill Communication, the Beastie Boys, 1994. Wesley would have been a toddler and she’d been fifteen or sixteen years old.

After a long drive they’d arrived at a farm—a horse farm. Wesley had told her that he’d grown up around horses. From what he’d said it sounded as if his father worked as a horse trainer and his mother did the books at a horse farm in Central Kentucky. But that was the first day she’d actually seen Wesley around the big animals. For someone as blessed by Mother Nature as he was in the looks department, he often seemed nervous and unsure of himself. But the second they hit the stables he became a different person. Walking right up to them, he slapped their sides with sure hands. For a good forty-five minutes he took a turn on three or four different horses, saddling them, and riding them around the paddock.

“Being a little picky, aren’t you, kid?” she’d asked him. “Just get a horse for yourself and let’s go.”

“I’m not picking one for me.” He dismounted nimbly from a large Appaloosa. “I can ride anything. I’m trying to find one for you. You need something tame since you’re a rookie.”

“I’ll take anything but a gelding,” she’d told him.

“What’s wrong with geldings?”

“We won’t have anything to talk about.”

Wesley had laughed then, open and easy, and for a moment she saw the man he would become in ten or twenty years—strong and kind, growing a little more handsome and a little less innocent with every year that passed. She envied the woman he’d end up with. Lucky lady indeed. Finally, after the fourth horse, he’d found her a young buckskin mare named Speakeasy.

“She’s smart and submissive—perfect for a first-timer.” Wesley handed her the reins.

“Smart and submissive—I should introduce you to Søren,” she whispered in Speakeasy’s twitching ear. “Do you like riding crops, too?”

Nora remembered following him back into the stables to watch him pick his horse. A teenage girl walked with Wesley giving him suggestions. Nora watched as the pretty girl cast adoring glances at Wesley while Wesley had eyes only for the horses.

“He’ll do.” Wesley picked out a large heavily muscled sorrel. “What’s his name?”

“Bastinado,” the stable-girl said. “The boss named him that. Don’t know why.”

“Is he bad about stepping on your feet?” Nora had asked.

“Very bad about it.” The girl looked at Nora for the first time. “How did you know?”

“Bastinado—it’s a fancy term for foot torture.” Both Wesley and the stable-girl had stared at her with wide eyes. “What?”

Wesley saddled his horse with effortless proficiency. Nora watched his knowing fingers as they tightened the stirrups and adjusted the rigging. He swung up into the saddle, shoved his straw cowboy hat on his blond head, shifted his hips and took the leather reins as though he’d been born on a horse. Nora took a slow breath and silently repeated her Wesley mantra.

Look but don’t touch…look but don’t touch…

They’d gone easy that day since it was her first time on a horse. The sprawling farm had miles of trails connected to it. Wesley led them down paths that meandered all over the scenic hillside. They stopped every few minutes and took pictures. Nora flipped through the album and remembered when they’d passed over a small creek. Wesley must have sensed her apprehension because he took her reins and led both their horses easily through it.

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Nora turned to another page and found her favorite photo. Wesley had bent over the saddle to pat Bastinado on the neck when Nora had snapped the picture. Wesley looked up just in time to flash her his million-watt smile. Nora closed the album and started to slide it in the drawer when she noticed another photo—this one in a frame and hidden all the way at the back. “Wes…” Nora breathed, looking at the picture of her and Speakeasy alone together. She remembered the moment the photo was captured. She had dismounted and was rubbing her horse down after they were done riding. She thought Wesley was taking a picture of the rolling pasture behind her. She’d pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and pressed her forehead to Speakeasy’s. Tendrils of her hair had gone loose and wild around her face. Her eyes were closed in the picture and she wore a smile of pure happiness. She couldn’t believe Wesley had framed the photo. She looked so silly in it.

Nora put everything back in his nightstand the way she found it and stretched out on Wesley’s bed. She ran through every possible scenario in her mind—was he sick? Car accident? Lost his phone? Lost his mind? Did he have his insulin pen with him? Did he have his med-alert bracelet on? She knew Wesley. He’d call her if he was going to be five minutes late. Another college boy she wouldn’t have worried about. Any other college sophomore was surely out at a party or a bar or back in some girl’s dorm room. Not her Wesley—apart from occasionally sleeping in on Saturdays, he woke up at the same time every day, came home at the same time every day. He had to keep his meals regular because of his insulin injections. He had to get plenty of sleep. He worked out at the school gym every day. He didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke, didn’t have ***. He went to class, he went to church, he went home for Thanksgiving and Christmas…he was the most boring teenage boy alive. Alive…please let him be alive.

Nora closed her eyes and turned onto her side. She could smell Wesley’s warm, clean scent on his pillows. For the first time in a long time she prayed with everything within her.

God, I know You’re probably still pissed about Søren, and I really don’t blame You. But please don’t take Your wrath out on Wesley. Flog me all You want. He doesn’t deserve it.

At 4:30 a.m. she was still wide-awake and staring at his ceiling when her red hotline phone rang. She sat straight up and found her hands were shaking so much she could barely hit the answer button.

“King, please tell me you know something.”

“Oui, chérie. Your intern is a most interesting young man.”

“Just tell me where he is. Is he okay?”

“He’s in the hospital, but he is unharmed if rather the worse for wear.”

“What happened?” Nora ran a hand through her hair. She leaned over and breathed through her fear and relief.

“A comely little nurse took a peek at his chart for me. Something called DKA? Is that familiar to you?”

Nora’s hands went numb at the initials. “It’s diabetic ketoacidosis. It can be fatal.”

Kingsley rattled off the story sliding in and out of French as he did so. From what she gleaned from his hasty bilingual recitation, Wesley had gotten sick at the library and passed out after throwing up several times in the bathroom. He’d been admitted to the hospital in full-blown DKA.

“Which hospital?” she asked. “What room? Please tell me he’s at General.”

“Oui. I’ve already called Dr. Jonas.”

“Tell him I’ll give him the freebie of his dreams if he can get me in.”

“No freebies, mistress. He’s already promised to help any way he can. He would never cross La Maîtresse.”

“Great. Wonderful. Where is he? ICU?”

“PICU,” Kingsley said and laughed. Nora laughed a little, too. They’d put Wesley in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. “Mais chérie, you cannot go.”

“**** you. Of course I can.”

“His parents flew in. They’re with him.”

Nora swore. Wesley would kill her if she turned up at his bedside with his parents sitting right there. He did everything he could to keep her a secret from them. His parents would yank him back to Kentucky so fast his head would spin if they discovered he was living with an infamous erotica writer—especially one who worked as a Dominatrix. Jaded New York parents wouldn’t let their kids near her much less these conservative Southerners.

“Forget it. Just tell me where he is.”

Nora jotted down his hospital room number.

“Thanks, King. I owe you.”

“Pas moi. Our mutual friend was the one who found where they’d taken your pet.”

“Then tell him we’re even now for him tricking me.”

Nora hung up the phone and ran to her room. She threw water on her face and changed clothes again. At 6:00 a.m. she arrived at the hospital and found Dr. Jonas. He explained that Wesley ended up in the PICU because the ICU was full. Nora told him not to tell Wesley that.

He brought her down several hallways past dozens of hospital rooms. She glanced at the figure of a priest talking quietly to a family in tears in one room. Nora lowered her eyes respectfully and kept walking. Passing through a set of double doors, they entered the pediatric ICU. Teddy bears holding balloons were painted on the walls. Oh, yes, she’d never let Wes hear the end of this. Dr. Jonas put his finger over his lips and left her by room 518. She stood outside the open door and listened intently—a woman’s voice with a heavy Southern accent, his mother’s she guessed, loudly whispered to a man with a softer accent. In hushed tones they went back and forth about how they never should have let their son move so far from home for college. Fighting was a good sign. That meant Wesley was out of the woods. But her relief was short-lived. His mother sounded determined to have him back in Kentucky again while his father argued that he was old enough to be on his own, that they couldn’t keep an eye on him forever. Nora found herself nodding her agreement with his father. But she could hear the distress in his mother’s voice, the pain and the fear and the wrought-iron determination. Wesley’s mom wanted him home with her to keep an eye on him. Nora felt the same way.

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Nora didn’t know what to do. She found Dr. Jonas again and made him call Wesley’s attending physician. Wesley was in and out of consciousness after they’d brought him in, but he’d been awake and speaking a few hours ago. They’d stabilized his insulin levels and he’d be clear to go home in a day or two. Apparently Wesley wasn’t absorbing his insulin as well as he needed to. He might need to start using a bigger needle. Nora ached with sympathy. Wesley loathed needles. He always injected himself in his upper left arm where he couldn’t see the needle going in. Shoving needles into his own thighs or stomach would probably kill him before it cured him.

Dr. Jonas told her he’d call Kingsley if he heard anything else but there was nothing Nora could do for him now. She might as well go home.

Reluctantly, Nora left the hospital. She drove home and decided she would let herself sleep. She checked the clock—almost 8:00 a.m. She’d been awake for over twenty-four hours.

Once in her driveway Nora turned off her car. But after that she lost the energy to do anything else. She leaned forward on the steering wheel and cried tears of relief, exhaustion and fear. Wesley’s mother was the proverbial steel magnolia and she clearly wanted her son back home. Nora prayed Wesley had learned the fine art of telling someone off while living under her roof.

Telling someone off…

Nora leaned her head back against the headrest.

“****…Zach.”

She turned the car back on and headed south toward Manhattan.

9

The next morning Zach headed straight to J.P.’s office without even bothering to stop in his own first.

J.P. looked up from his reading and blanched.

“I am reminded of the last words of Emily Dickinson at this moment,” J.P. said. “The fog is rising.”

“I’m done with her.”

J.P. stared at him over the top of his glasses. “Easton, she could make Royal a great deal of money.”

“Find another e***or then. I don’t care if we publish her or not. But I’m finished. Patricia Grier called me last night. She said I’m welcome to come out to L.A. a few weeks early and work with her. It’s not a bad idea.”

“It’s a terrible idea. The staff won’t know who’s in charge. You won’t know who’s in charge. She’ll undermine you. You’ll undermine her. Regime change has to be quick and dramatic for it to be effective.”

“It’s Royal’s West Coast office, not France in 1799.”

J.P. took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

“Bring me her contract. I’ll keep it.”

Zach turned on his heel without another word and walked to his office. He paused at the door when he noticed it was cracked open. He remembered very clearly locking it last night since he’d left his laptop on his desk. Warily, he opened the door and entered.

“Hey, Zach,” Nora said. She sat in his chair behind his desk with her eyes closed.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you get into my office? It was locked.”

“Magic.” She opened her eyes and smiled.

“You look like hell,” Zach said. Nora had dark circles under her eyes and her face appeared gaunt from lack of sleep.

Zach came around his desk and she stood up to give him his chair back. She sat on top of his desk and rolled back on it like a bed.

“I’ve spent the last twelve hours in hell. Sorry, I forgot to bring you a souvenir.”

“I have all the souvenirs I need from my own trips there. What are you doing here, Nora?”

“Apologizing for going off on you last night.”

“Apology accepted. Now you can go. J.P. is going to find another e***or for you to work with. Probably Thomas Finley. He’s an ass**le. You’ll like him.”

“There are good ass**les and bad ass**les. You’re the good kind. I only want to work with you.”

“Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have told me to first, f**k the book and second, to f**k myself.”

Nora rolled up off his desk and turned to face him. She crossed her arms over her chest. She exhaled slowly.

“Wesley didn’t come home last night.”

“He’s old enough he can go anywhere he pleases, Nora.”

“But you don’t know Wes. He calls. He calls all the time. If he’s going to be five minutes late he calls me. I was in Miami a while ago and he called me to tell me he was going to the movies so if I tried to call him and didn’t get him, I wouldn’t worry. That’s Wes. He didn’t come home and he didn’t call. I freaked out.”

“I assume you found him?”

Nora laughed coldly. “Sort of. He’s in the hospital.”

Zach sat up in his chair.

“Good Lord. Is he all right?”

“He went into diabetic ketoacidosis at the library. No one called me because no one knows I exist. I’m not next of kin. I’m not any kin.”

“Have you seen him?”

“I just came from the hospital where I spent half an hour eavesdropping on his parents while lurking out in the hallway. I can’t go in since they’re there. Zach, I feel…impotent. Bad feeling.”

Zach looked away from her and stared out his window. His view was to the east, and if the world was flat and his vision was telescopic he could see all the way to England. He knew how Nora felt. Grace…her parents had come as soon as he called and told them she was in the hospital. As soon as they arrived he knew he’d made a mistake by calling them. The doctors immediately stopped talking to him and starting talking to them instead. He remembered his fury then, how he’d stepped between Grace’s parents and the doctor and told the doctor in no uncertain terms that when a married woman was in the emergency ward, you spoke to her husband first and her parents second. He hadn’t told the doctor to go f**k himself. He’d been far less polite than that.

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“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“When you called last night I was waiting for news. If God Himself had called me and started telling me the secrets of the universe, I would have told Him to go f**k Himself, too. You can’t take me personally, Zach. Can I make it up to you? Coffee? Tea? Me?”

Zach laughed. Even exhausted she was still shameless.

“You need sleep, not caffeine or any other stimulant,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. She smiled and nodded in agreement.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. Soon as Wes is home again, I promise I’ll get back to the book. Can you email me whatever it was you were going to tell me last night? I’ll read it and do whatever it is you want me to do.”

Zach promised to do so and Nora started to leave.

“When’s the last time you slept, Nora?” he asked before she walked out of his office.

“Twenty-six hours ago.”

Zach winced. “You shouldn’t be driving. Dead writers revise no tales.”

“We’ll put that on my tombstone,” Nora said. Zach stared her down. “Fine. I’ve got a friend with a town house a few blocks from here. I’ll go crash at his place.”

“No stimulants, remember?” he reminded her. “Actors playing Hamlet are told to stay celibate lest they ruin their performance.”

Nora threw a smile over her shoulder. Suddenly, she didn’t look tired or worried anymore. She looked wild and beautiful and so alive.

“Celibate, Zach? Have you met me?”

Zach was still laughing after she’d left him. He looked up and saw J.P. standing in the door to his office.

“So the contract?” J.P. asked.

Zach looked at his boss.

“I think I might keep it a little while longer,” Zach said a little sheepishly.

“And her?”

Zach reached under his desk and pulled Nora’s manuscript out of the paper-recycling bin.

“I think I might keep her, too.”

* * *

Nora pulled in at Kingsley’s town house and walked inside without knocking. Nora announced herself to Juliette, Kingsley’s beautiful Haitian secretary and the only other woman in the world besides her he was afraid of. Juliette gave her breakfast and took her up to Kingsley’s opulent bedroom. She could sleep there since Kingsley was gone until tomorrow. Nora stripped out of her clothes and crawled between the sheets—sheets she’d spent more than a few nights on before. She took both of her cell phones out and laid them on the pillow next to hers in case Wesley, Zach, King or Søren called.

As she faded into sleep, Nora’s mind went to Wesley’s side—she hoped he was feeling better and would be home with her soon. As she pressed deeper into the luxurious sheets, a little part of her sort of wished Søren was there.

When Nora finally woke up it was almost nine at night. She’d slept for almost twelve straight hours. She showered in Kingsley’s decadent bathroom and dressed in the clothes Juliette had brought for her and left on the chair next to the bed. When she got out of the shower, her hotline rang. She grabbed it and answered it with still wet hands.

“King—what’s the news?”

“The good doctor says you are clear for a rendezvous with ton petit garçon malade. His parents succumbed to the doctor’s insistence they let your pet sleep tonight. They are at a hotel.”

“Tell Dr. Jonas next time I’ll do that thing he likes with the peanut butter and the c**k ring.”

“It is without a doubt the sole reason he went to medical school.”

Nora left Kingsley’s town house and made her way back to the hospital feeling like a new person. Nearly shivering from the excitement at getting to see Wesley, she parked her car and headed straight to his room. Tiptoeing in, she saw Wesley lying in his hospital bed sound asleep.

She came up to the bed and looked down at him. His eyelashes fluttered against his tan cheeks and his chest rose and fell slowly. She bent forward and kissed him on the forehead. His eyes flew open and he looked at her as if she was something out of a dream.

“Nora, thank God.” He tried to throw his arms around her. But he winced when he realized his arms were taped up with tubes.

“Don’t move, kid. You’re going to rip something out. I’m right here. How are you feeling?”

“Perfect now that you’re here. I’ve been going nuts all day trying to figure out how to call you. But if Mom left the room Dad was here and vice versa. They finally left a few minutes ago. The doctor was really insistent they leave me alone tonight.”

Nora grinned at him.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Friend of a friend. It’s good to have friends in strange places. I’ve got a cop who owes me a favor, too, if you ever get arrested.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Wesley reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. I was here earlier creeping in the hallway. I heard your parents talking. Your mom wants you to move home.”

“She does, but I’m not going to. I’ve got Dad on my side. We’ll wear her down.”

“You better. Good help is so hard to find. So what did the doctor say?”

Wesley groaned and Nora ran her hand through his hair. It felt so good just to touch him again, to be near him again. She couldn’t believe it had been only one day they’d been apart.

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“I’ve given myself so many shots in the arm that I’ve got scar tissue,” Wesley said, rubbing his upper left biceps. “The insulin isn’t getting through it well enough. I have to change my injection site.”

“Thighs?” she asked. “Your cute little ass?”

“Worse. All my daytime shots in my stomach now and my thigh at night. You know, sticking a needle into your own stomach and leaving it there for five seconds is sort of overrated.”

“Tell me about it. Even the biggest kinksters don’t play rough on the stomach. Very sensitive area. When can you come home?”

“They may let me out tomorrow or the day after. I feel a lot better. Just really tired.”

“You look like you lost ten pounds and you didn’t really have any extra to lose.”

“You’re the one who’s too skinny, Nora.”

“I have gained eight pounds since you moved in and started cooking every day.”

“You needed those eight pounds. You were all gristle when I moved in.”

“I have to be very tough to beat up on all my bad little boys and girls. I’m going to beat up on you, too, if you ever scare me like that again.”

“I don’t plan to. Promise.”

Wesley smiled at her and she clutched his hand.

“Do you want me to run home and bring you anything? Clothes or anything?”

“Mom will use any excuse to go shopping. She was going to pick some stuff up for me tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. I’ll go and let you sleep then.”

Wesley sat up and shook his head.

“Don’t go. Please.”

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Wes,” she said to the almost panic in his voice. “Scoot over and make room.”

Wesley laughed but she wasn’t joking. She carefully crawled into his hospital bed and slid under the wires and tubes. She stretched out next to him and Wesley wrapped an IVed arm around her back. She lay against his chest and closed her eyes.

“You know, I’ve fooled around in a hospital before but never in the pediatric ward.”

“Nora, you’re disgusting. Go to sleep.”

“You sleep first.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to talk to you.”

“Good. I don’t want to sleep, either. What do you want to talk about? Horses?”

“You want to talk about horses?”

“Don’t be mad but I was digging through your stuff trying to find your friends’ phone numbers. I found the photo album from last summer. And the stupid picture of me with Speakeasy.”

She looked up at him. Even in the dark she could see Wesley’s blush.

“It’s not a stupid picture. You look happy in it.”

“Of course I do. I was with you.”

Wesley smiled down at her. Nora kissed him on the cheek and rested her head once more against his chest. It was such a relief to hear his heart beating steadily against her ear.

“How did you find out where I was?” Wesley asked. He ran his hand up and down her arm. She knew the last thing he wanted to hear was that Søren had hunted him down for her, and that Kingsley, her partner in crime, had used some of his connections to get confidential information.

Nora shut her eyes and nestled in closer to Wesley.

“Magic.”

10

Zach was relieved to find almost fifteen thousand new words from Nora in his email when he arrived at work two days after finding her half-unconscious in his office. Apparently she was working out her nervous energy from not having Wesley at home by writing five breathlessly intense chapters. He read through them and jotted down notes as he went. He was thrilled with what she was doing with the book. But he needed to steer her in a new direction before she wrote any more. The whole book couldn’t be a sprint. She needed to stop and let the reader breathe for a chapter or two before kicking into high gear again.

Zach read through his notes again and dialed her office number.

“Sophocles’s House of Patricide and Incest,” Nora answered. “How may I blind you?”

Zach bit the inside of his cheek to keep her from hearing him laugh.

“Nora.”

“Zachary,” she said breathlessly.

“You’re in a chipper mood, I see.”

“You can see me? Where are you? Are you in my house?”

This time Zach let her hear him laugh.

“From this excessive display of mirth and jubilance, I assume your intern’s come home.”

“Yes, thank God. With a little subterfuge I managed to smuggle him back under my roof where he belongs. He is resting comfortably right now, and I am on cloud ten because cloud nine was full of pompous Englishmen. Wasn’t my scene.”

Zach cleared his throat. “Speaking of scenes—”

“Oh, God, the book. You know what, Zach, I am in a great mood. Nothing you can say or do will ruin it. Shred the chapters. Do your worst. Make it hurt. I’m ready.”

Zach took a deep breath.

“They’re fabulous.”

He heard Nora snort a most unladylike laugh on the other end of the line.

“You’re terrible at this game.”

“I’m quite in earnest, Nora. They’re excellent. Needs some minor cleaning up but spot-on all the way through. Now you just need to slow the pace down a little.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Three words. Show—don’t tell.”

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“How much are they paying you for this?”

Zach chuckled and gave Nora some concrete suggestions for where to take the next two or three chapters.

“And I want five more chapters by tomorrow morning,” Zach said even though he knew that was an almost impossible challenge.

“Slave-driver,” she said.

“Nora, we’ve lost a lot of time—”

“Zach,” she said and he heard the smile in her voice. “Relax. It’s me. Slave-driver’s a compliment.”

They said their goodbyes and Zach hung up the phone. He looked up and saw his assistant standing in the doorway of his office holding a box in her hands.

“Oh, God. Another one?” he asked.

“Afraid so, boss.” Mary came inside his office. She put a book-size flat box on his desk.

“Have we figured out who is sending this nonsense yet?”

Zach picked up the box and warily tore off the plain brown paper wrapping.

“I think I know who it is,” Mary said. “Wonder what it is this time.”

“It was, what, anal beads two days ago. And a blindfold before that. And what was it last week?”

“Lube,” Mary supplied. “K-Y Jelly specifically, I believe.” Zach eyed Mary and suppressed a grin. Mary was his second favorite woman he’d met since coming to New York. “If you keep working with Nora Sutherlin, you’ll be able to start your own *** shop.”

“Anything would be preferable to this. I thought only adults were allowed to work in publishing,” he said. Turning the box over in his hands, Zach considered just tossing it in the trash. Ever since he’d started working with Nora, a new “gift” would arrive in his office mailbox or on his desk every couple of days.

“Come on, you know better than that. I’ll bet you anything it’s Thomas Finley. He thought he’d get the job in L.A since he’s been here the longest. He’s been pretty pissed ever since J.P. promised it to you. But everyone knows he’s still here only because he sucks up so much to the big bosses. He’s doesn’t e*** books. He just spit-shines ****.”

Zach laughed and decided Nora and Mary needed to meet if they hadn’t already.

“I appreciate the loyalty as well as the imagery. But let’s get this over with, shall we? Lovely,” Zach said as he pulled out a pair of bright silver handcuffs with a set of tiny keys hanging off the middle link.

“Nice. Very shiny.” Mary took them from him and examined them closely. “You have the right to remain silent,” Mary began and slapped the cuffs on his left wrist. Zach gave her a dirty look. “Sorry. Too many Law Order marathons, I think.”

“Far too many.”

Mary took the key and slipped it in the lock. She turned it but the cuffs didn’t pop open.

“****,” she breathed in shock. “The key doesn’t work.”

“Surely not.” Zach took the key and tried it himself. Nothing happened. “Bloody hell.”

“Boss, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I’ll call a locksmith right now.”

“That bastard. If it’s Finley, I’ll kill him. Whoever it was wanted this to happen.”

She raced from his office and headed to her own. He could only imagine how long it would take to get a locksmith here during the lunch rush hour.

He glanced down and saw Nora’s manuscript in front of him. And then he looked at his door. He picked up his phone again.

“Ian McEwan’s Cement and Incest Emporium—”

“Nora, really.”

“I love caller ID. What can I do you for?”

“I have a small problem involving handcuffs,” Zach said, glancing down at his wrist. “Do you know anything about locks?”

“If you knew how much of my life I’ve spent chained up, you wouldn’t ask that question.”

Zach paused a moment and said five words that were surprisingly difficult to get out.

“I need your help, Nora.”

Zach waited for her to laugh or tease him. Instead, she gave him a small piece of advice that he decided to take and hung up the phone.

“I called the locksmith,” Mary said, coming back into his office. “He said he’d be here in a couple of hours.”

“Cancel him. I called Nora. She gave me a suggestion.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Three words—come to me.’”

Zach stood up and pulled on his long gray coat; he stuffed his hands into his pockets so no one could see the cuffs dangling off his left wrist.

“And I think I will.”

Walking toward the elevator, Zach stiffened in fury as Thomas Finley strolled past him wearing an oily smirk on his face.

“Your jokes are not amusing, Finley,” Zach said as he continued toward the elevators.

“That’s because they’re not jokes, Easton.” Finley ducked into his office and Zach resisted the infantile urge to personally show Finley what was and was not amusing. Finley on the floor coughing up blood—that would be amusing.

Still fuming, Zach momentarily forgot about the handcuffs on his left hand when he stuck his hand out to hit the down button on the elevator. He heard a throat clearing and looked to the right.

J.P. stood at the receptionist’s desk with his eyebrow arched in disapproval.

“Long story,” Zach said. As much as he wanted to rant to J.P. about Finley’s torments, he was no schoolyard tattletale. He’d handle it himself when the time came.