I cannot fall in love with this ass**le movie star. I just can’t. He’s going to use me up and throw me away. It’s a done deal. I need to get a grip on these feelings fast.
I resolve to do that. I make a firm commitment to accept this arrangement for what it is, but in that very instant, my desktop computer dings a new email from my work account.
It’s from The Invisible Man.
I click on it.
It’s a picture of me at the Botanical Gardens. I’m leaning down to smell a rogue daisy in a greenhouse filled with rare hothouse orchids.
The message reads:
You are the white daisy in that greenhouse. Your beauty is simple, your confidence strong, your feelings genuine. I love it.
What the f**k?
Is he stalking me from LA? How is that possible? How did he get that picture? How did he get this email? Jesus, is he crazy? I get out my phone and press the number he called from earlier. He picks up on the second ring.
"I already know what you’re going to say, Grace. I’m sorry."
"You damn well better be, mister. What the hell is going on?"
"It was too much, wasn’t it? The message was too personal. I apologize."
"The message?" I’m confused. "You mean the picture. And the fact that you have my work email and I never gave it to you."
"The picture?" Now it’s his turn to be confused. He chuckles. "Darling. I have security on you. They send me updates. It was in the agreement. If you’re mine, you have to have security and I can ask for an update any time I want."
"You’re spying on me."
"No, I’m keeping track of you. Spying would imply I’m doing it secretly. And please, your email at Big Guys is [email protected]. It was not that difficult."
He’s f**king spying on me.
I end the call and sit back in my chair. Well, that takes care of my movie-star crush. I’m so over that crush. He can kiss my ass, thinking he can have people follow me around and take pictures. It’s invasive. It’s degrading. It’s manipulative. It’s—
My email dings again and it’s another message from Vaughn. I click open and there’s a selfie picture of him standing in front of his view of LA holding a white daisy to his nose. He has the most adorable boyish smile on his face. This message says:
Now we’re even.
And then another one comes in as soon as I finish reading that one.
You can call it whatever you want, but I’m not going to stop. I like getting updated. I like knowing what you’re up to. I want to know more about you, Grace.
How much more?
Shit. What if he starts digging?
I call him back and he picks up on the first ring this time. "Miss Kinsella."
"Mr. Asher, I don’t want to be spied on. I don’t want you fishing around for information on me. I don’t want to get these creepy feelings everywhere I go, wondering if I’m being watched."
"You are being watched, and that condition is non-negotiable." He says this in his authoritative tone, but there’s an edge to it that causes me to hesitate in my retaliation. "Grace, if the media ever finds out about you, you will be a target. I’m being very careful, but they are relentless motherfuckers and I have a movie coming out in two weeks. They want dirt. They want filth. They want proof that I’m some abusive prick and they want nothing more than to plaster pictures of whatever they can find out all over the tabloids. This is a security issue for me and for you. I will not give in on this point. I won’t. And I don’t want to hear about how you’ll walk away, because Grace, I have a whole night of erotic spankings planned."
I laugh and then cover my mouth and try to compose myself so I can spar properly. "Mr. Asher, I will be polite and accommodating and call the spying ‘security’, but you have to stop looking in my past. If I want you to know personal things, I’ll tell you."
He’s silent for a few moments and my mind is spinning with thoughts and questions. Will he back off? Will that make him look harder? Will he demand answers? Will he send me to therapy?
Where the hell did that come from?
"OK," he finally says, letting out a sigh of resignation. "OK, no more digging. But the security stays."
"I accept that deal."
"But Grace" —he pauses for a moment—"is it bad? Your past? Is it bad?"
I have to sit down for that question. Because his voice is not filled with pity, he doesn’t know what happened to my parents, so that’s not it. But the sympathy catches me off-guard. And I’ve never told this story to anyone. Not anyone. Oh, Bebe pieced together most of it, but that just excused me from ever saying the words out loud.
"You can tell me, sweets. I can keep a secret too. And I don’t judge. I’m a good listener."
"It’s nothing, Asher," I say back, minus the melancholy threatening to take over. "Really, just back off and let it be. You’re getting your way about so many things, please just let me have my way about this."
Chapter Two
IT surprises me how affected I am by this turn of events with Grace. Plenty of submissives over the years have had personal problems, and while I would listen if they brought these troubles up, I never cared to understand what the issues were about or how they affected the woman I was f**king.
But Grace pleading with me to allow her some privacy about her past, in combination with the fact that it’s missing from all public record—that’s… odd. And troubling. And it makes me worry. Not about me. But about her.