The Exposure (The Submissive 9)

She reread the note. And he knew about the spankings. Was it someone from a club? Did her brother even know she was into kink? And again, how and why was Luke involved? As far as she knew, only people in the kink scene would even be aware that she and Luke knew each other.

The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. There was no way anyone other than her brother could know about the details of that year. And Jake always needed money. He probably saw blackmail as a way to get her to pay without coming out and asking her for money. Plus, as much as she hated to admit it, he was horribly intelligent when it came to computers. It wouldn’t be hard for him to hack into the system at work.

Still, it didn’t sit right. While she could see Jake blackmailing her, she couldn’t picture him taking nude photographs of her. That was sick. And then she realized—Jake was sick. Forget money or handouts. He needed help. He needed therapy.

But again, how would he know about Luke? And about her involvement with BDSM?

She picked up her phone and called him. He answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” she said, and he grunted in reply. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

Silence was her only answer and she knew she had him cornered.

“Do what?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know how you found out about Luke, but you can stop it. I was serious. I’m not playing your game anymore.”

“What game and who’s Luke?”

She rolled her eyes. Figures. “Be a man for once and own up to it.”

There was a muffled sound as if he covered the mouthpiece and garbled talking.

“Jake!” She raised her voice. “Damn it, I’m not finished.”

But the only thing she heard was more muffled talking and then the beep, beep, beep as the call was dropped.

She shoved the phone into her purse. “You think it’s that easy to get rid of me?”

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, Guy surprised her at work by stopping by her office midmorning.

“Guy.” She stood up as he walked in. “How are you? What brings you to this part of the building?”

He flashed the grin that had gotten him into the hearts and living rooms of the city’s inhabitants. “Why, you, of course.”

“Have a seat.” She waved toward the chair across from her desk.

“No, that’s okay. I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see if you were free for lunch.”

She froze halfway down into her seat. “You could have called for that,” she finally said, sitting down.

“Yes, but I thought if I showed up in person, you’d be a lot less likely to turn me down.” His smile dimmed somewhat. “And there’s a position I’d like to discuss with you.”

A position? She frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s just lunch.”

But that, of course, was the problem. It was just lunch and from there, it would turn into just dinner. She’d known Guy for years. She knew how he worked. And damn it all, there was a part of her that wanted to say yes. Sure, Guy was a player, but she’d know where she stood.

And he was vanilla. She was sure of it. Maybe it was time she dated a vanilla man. There could be safety in a vanilla relationship. She was getting older. Maybe it was time to put the kinky stuff in the bottom drawer.

Across from her, Guy waited.

Everything about a relationship with him would be easy. She was so tempted. He was nice and if she ignored or accepted the player side of his personality, word had it he was a lot of fun.

She opened her mouth to say “Yes” but what came out was “No.”

No, she didn’t want vanilla. No, she didn’t want easy.

And hell to the no, she didn’t want Guy.

* * *

Luke didn’t really feel like talking to Nathaniel about the new club in Delaware. But he and Abby were in New York City for the week, so it only made sense to have a meeting when they were all in the same town.

Abby opened the door and was all smiles when she saw him. But he could tell there was something hidden behind her jovial expression that she didn’t want him to see. He’d been a photographer and Dom for too many years not to notice such things. Most days he was okay with it, but today he thought it really would be nice to be a little less observant.

“Hello, Abby.” He didn’t even try to make his voice sound happy. Abby was Meagan’s friend and employee and he knew the two were close.

“Luke.” She stepped aside. “Come on in. Nathaniel will be here in a minute.”

“Thank you.”

She led him into the living room and the silence was deafening. She definitely knew something and it took all his strength not to ask how Meagan was doing.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

They were saved from making further attempts at small talk by the appearance of Nathaniel. He walked in and looked at the two of them sitting. “Something wrong?”

Luke waited for Abby to say something. When she didn’t, he replied, “The better question is what’s right?”

Nathaniel looked at his wife. “Abby?”

Abby shrugged. “I can only assume he’s talking about Meagan.”

“Ahh.” He nodded when Luke didn’t either confirm or deny Abby’s statement.

Luke couldn’t help it—he had to know. He looked at Abby and asked, “How much do you know?”

“Likely more than you.” She looked at her husband. “I know you wanted me to stay and talk about the club, but I need to discuss this with him first.”

Nathaniel nodded. “Shall I stay?”

“Please do,” she said. “I’d like your opinion on a few things.”

“You realize,” Nathaniel said, “we’re not discussing my favorite person.”

“I have never known anybody to hold a grudge for so long.”

“You were almost assaulted.”

“That was months ago and I wasn’t.”

From the way the conversation was going, it appeared this was not the first time they’d had this discussion.

“I put up with her because she is your boss and you like her, for whatever reason I certainly don’t know.”

Luke couldn’t help but notice the smile Abby had opened the door with was long gone. “You and I,” she said to her husband, “will pick up this conversation later.” She turned to look at Luke. “What did Meagan tell you?”

Luke took a deep breath. He wanted to discuss Meagan even less than he wanted to discuss the new club. It was obvious Abby had something on her mind and she wasn’t going to move on until she had her say.

“I know she was being blackmailed. And that was the main reason she agreed to do the photo shoots with me.” He looked up, silently wishing that Abby would tell him he was wrong. That he had misunderstood and Meagan had wanted to be with him from the start.

But Abby simply nodded. “That’s true,” she said. “In the beginning.”

Luke snorted. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me that after I took a few pictures of her, she fell madly in love with me and couldn’t imagine life without me. So much so that she kept the fact that she was being blackmailed a secret.”

He glanced at Nathaniel. The other man clearly had no idea what his wife was talking about. And he didn’t seem happy about it.