Dom Vs: Domme: The Deluxe Trilogy: A Billionaire Romance (Dom Vs. Domme Book 0) (81 page)

“Now, son!”

“I heard that a private investigator fucked her up,” says my friend Eddie. He was my roommate my first year in the frat. Real party animal back in the day, bringing home the kind of girls who would go with him until he passed out drunk and then made their ways to me. “Followed her for weeks, invaded her hometown, and made life hell for everyone involved until they started spilling her secrets. Apparently, she had charmed a good amount of the men in that town into staying quiet.”

The others nod sagely. Eddie further reveals that he knows this factoid because he used the same private investigator for a business dealing a few months ago.

“Same one your mother uses, Ian,” he says, laughing.

My father hears this. “That weasel little fuck? He followed me around all during the divorce. Was trying to find as much dirt on me as possible so Caroline got to keep half the money. I would come home and find him going through the garbage and cornering my employees. I…
fuck!
’ He leaps up, knocking over someone’s beer and nearly stumbling into a table. “
Caroline did this!”

Now I really am laughing. My mother would. She’s as vindictive in love as she is greedy for money. Bless her.

Of course, my father doesn’t think this is so funny. I kind of feel sorry for him. He says it wasn’t love with Stephanie, but he stuck with her longer than he has any of his previous girlfriends, and he’s taking this breakup
hard.
In fact, if my father were your average rich guy and not the patriarch of an old money company, he’d probably still let Stephanie suck him dry. As his son, I should support him, or at least try to make him feel better. As a man sick of Stephanie’s shit, however, fuck that.

Dominic Mathers is, at this very moment, raging around the room, screaming about how he’s going to teach that woman a lesson while his old frat buddies try to get him to calm down and let it the fuck go. Easier said than done when you’re as drunk as he is.

“You got what you deserved, Dominic!”

The rabble quiets down. The young hotel man who was overseeing our gathering is pushed out of the doorway, overtaken by a menopausal woman dressed in fur to make herself look three times bigger than she actually is. Her heels also make her five inches taller.

My father trips over a couch and falls to his knees. “What have I done to deserve this torture. God.”

Three men try to help him back up while the others start to crowd around my mother. Filial love prompts me to push to the front of the pack and put myself between her and them. They won’t try anything funny, but I won’t stand to have even one of them touch her.

Although she’s as stupid as my dad right now.

“Look at you. Always been a sniveling man who gets his pecker hard for anything with smooth skin and big eyes. Some things never change, do they Dominic?”

“What are you doing?” I hiss, trying to shield my mother from the people surrounding us.

“Oh, Ian.” She clasps her hand over my mouth as if I’m five and saying bad words. “You’re too young to understand.” Thanks. “Your father needs reminding that
I’m
the original young tart around here.”

She tosses a stole over her shoulder and kicks her foot in my father’s direction. “Thirty years ago my boss walked into my office and told me he had a nice present for me. Go ahead. Guess what it was.”

I groan.

“Then ten months later I’ve got a ring and this ray of sunshine in my life.” Her hand drops from my mouth and flits at the men around her. “Dominic Mathers, you may think you’re the only slick willy around here, but I’ll have you know that your ex-wife has learned a thing or two in her years. You may have cheated on me once or twice during our marriage…”

“You cheated on me too, Caroline!’

“Shush, I’m talking.” My mother approaches Eddie, patting his cheek and smiling like a tigress about to rip apart a cornered gazelle. Eddie looks like he can’t choose between being flattered and scared half to death. “When my ex-husband said he had a
present
for me, it’s not like I didn’t know what that meant. I wasn’t some doe-eyed virgin. I applied for that position because I knew he would pay well. In more ways than one.”

Joy. My mother finally admits to being a gold digger as a teenager. I come from impressive stock.

“That’s why I know some dangerous floozy when I see one, Dominic. I wasn’t about to let that woman make a fool out of you. You were already doing that by
taking our son’s girlfriend.
”

“Now…” my father begins.

“…She wasn’t my girlfriend,” I finish.

“Stephanie May was a mess that needed cleaning up. I was going to let you stew in your stupidity, Dominic, but when I found out about some other things she was up to, I decided to intervene. It also reminded me that…” Her face softens, much to my father’s confusion. As she approaches him, slowly, each stiletto clacking on the marble tiles, Dad brushes off another piece of dust. “For the love of God, Dominic, I still love you and won’t let a woman nowhere near as good as me take what’s mine.”

The quiet is enough to make me wretch.

“You’re an idiot. You chase any tail you think you can buy with all your money. You smell like dog food after you’ve had too much to drink.” My mother sniffs. “Like now. That’s rude, Dominic.”

“Like you’re any better…”

“Oh, I’m no saint, but at least I admit my shortcomings.” With a mighty sigh, my mother dangles her hand in front of my father’s face. “How about we let bygones be bygones?”

I’m not sure what I’m watching as my father lets out a frustrated cry and grabs my mother’s hand, pulling her down to his level and muttering shit that makes her laugh. I’m either watching my parents get back together, or I’m watching the opening moments to a ritualistic sacrifice.

Let’s be real. One would lead to the other very quickly.

Chapter 28

KATHRYN

Nothing could have prepared me for this. No amount of sleep. No amount of goodies to eat or coffee to drink. Not even a hundred kisses to my face or reassuring rubs to the shoulder are enough to bring me down from my anxious haze that says all of this is a huge mistake I can never make a comeback from.

Even so, here I am, in the coatroom of The Dark Hour on the busiest night of the week, my knees shaking in my leather boots and my ponytail jerking against the back of my neck.

“Relax,” Ian says, smoothing down the sleeves of my blazer. “You’re going to do great tonight. Everyone will love you the same as they did before.”

That also means they’ll dislike me the same as before. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I say for the fifth time since we’ve walked through the door. Someone comes in, and Ian shields me in the corner, fingers readjusting the collar around my neck. “Besides, everyone knows now…”

I shudder. Ian was late finding out about the Page 6 fiasco. Since then, he’s done nothing but continuously tell me it means nothing. But I know. I
know
Stephanie did all of that. Even though she was blasted on the front page of the same paper, she made sure I was taken out with her since I was no longer paying off the blackmail.

Now here I am, dressed like a sub in The Dark Hour with my Dom pulling a leash out of his pocket.

Fuuuuuuuck no!

I don’t care if we already talked about it. I don’t care if I was drunk on love and sex at the time of agreeing to wear a leash into the club, in case people were confused about my role in my relationship tonight. I don’t care, because the moment I see that sparkling, glittery leash leave Ian’s pocket, I want to throw up and run.

It’s true that I haven’t had much backlash since that spot came out in the papers. Eva says there are whisperings about it, but everyone is assuming it’s tabloid trash like it is half the time. Tonight, I am about to blow all of those doubts out of the water. People aren’t going to see Kathryn Alison, Domme. They’re going to see Katie, a woman whom only Ian has met so far.

Met and
trained.

I have to put all of my training to good use. My ability to obey, to serve, to keep him pleased and happy with me. I may love the man, but this is going to push the final boundaries I’ve built around myself.

My social ones.

“You are the most stunning woman in this club. No…” Ian kisses my forehead and rests his hands on my shoulders. “In the world. Everyone’s eyes will be on you. They’re going to love you as much as I do.”

Honestly, I hope not!

“Are you ready?’ He latches the leash to my collar and gives it an experimental tug. “We should mingle and try to relax before we go on in an hour.”

Relax means getting me some drinks. I got started at home with an Old Fashioned, but it wasn’t enough to settle my nerves.

If this were some other club where we didn’t know most of the regulars, that would be one thing. I would still be nervous, but able to pull myself together a lot sooner than this. Except this is The Dark Hour, one of my haunts. Friends will be there. Business associates. Men who want me to dominate them in the future, and women who like me for my alpha personality. Well, I’m anything but alpha tonight. I’m completely deferring to Ian’s alpha qualities. In fact, I’m worshiping them.

At home, I would do so readily. Out here, I’m vulnerable in all the wrong ways.

“You’re powerful, Kathryn.” Ian pulls me into his embrace and whispers into my ear. “Don’t let them get to you. Own who you are tonight, and don’t be afraid to send them some of those cut-throat glares you’re so good at. I love you.”

I snatch his shoulder before he can turn away from me. “You’re going to do it, right?’ My hand presses against the front of his suit jacket. “Promise me you’ll do it.”

“I promise.” He kisses my hand before plucking it off his shoulder. “Now let’s go. We’ll both get ours soon enough.”

Easy for him to say. As he pulls on the leash and makes me trip behind him, I think about how I’m the one standing to lose everything tonight. Ian Mathers will merely go down as the man who bagged himself a Domme and turned her into a hungry slut for his cock.

Yes,
I know what I’ve been talking about all along.
Yes,
I know I am a hungry slut for his cock. Give me a break, please. You damn well know what I mean.

The club is dark. It’s always dark on weekend nights when it’s all about partying and people fingering and blowing in corners. Nevertheless, I almost throw up stepping from the opening hallway into the main room of The Dark Hour, which is packed with people.

People who don’t notice me until we pass the third table.

I see their faces go from indifferent to shocked. One woman smacks a man on his chest to get his attention. Their nods in our direction say they know exactly who we are and what this means.

I can practically hear the thoughts in everyone’s heads.
“Guess the papers were true. How about that?”

Keep in mind how we look. Ian is in front, wearing his usual suit sans tie and stopping a server to preemptively order us drinks. Meanwhile, that pretty leash in his hand is attached to Kathryn Alison’s throat.

Or should I say Katie?

Regardless, here I am, dressed in my black corset, boots, and blazer, with my hair up in Ian’s favorite hair-pulling style. When we left my apartment an hour ago, I felt confident. Empowered. I was dressed to kick ass and still would in my own, special way. Except now I’m seeing the looks people give me. Some of them are intrigued. Others are confused. Even more whisper something to someone else. These are people I’ve never talked to before, but they definitely know who I am and my reputation around here.

I see Fox, hanging out with a couple of other submissive guys. One of whom I’ve Topped before. Their eyebrows go up, one of them shaking his head.

Fuck him.

“So the rumors were true. I guess you can trust those scandal rags sometimes.”

Ian comes to a stop, and so does my heart.

Lana Andrews stands before us, pursing her lips before sipping more of whatever she’s drinking. Her demeanor screams she won a bet. Probably with her husband.

“Good evening, Lana. Always a pleasure.”

“Isn’t it? I should be saying that to you. Look at what you’ve got attached to that leash there.” Lana gestures to me with embellishment. Enough to catch the attention of some people around us. “I read the rumors and heard some people talking, but you know how all that is. I wasn’t going to believe it until I got it from the source myself. So… you managed to get your honey to do this for you?”

I interrupt my Dom – an act I’ll probably pay for later. “He didn’t
get
me to do anything. I’m doing this of my own free will.”

Lana
tsks
into her glass. “You need to train that one some more, Mathers. So rude.” Her wink sends shivers down my spine even though I’m wearing this jacket indoors. “See you kids.”

My bottom lip curls inward as she walks away. Ian touches my chin. “She doesn’t mean any harm, darling.”

Easy for him to say. He’s not getting the same amount of attention that I am.