Lord & Master (23 page)

When the last crumb was cleared, the role-players who’d been servants started bringing out joke gifts for each other. Damien, Jake, and I didn’t understand what most of them were about, but we liked seeing the others laugh. Hillary gave Sawyer a box of white cotton gloves, which I remembered him leaving off at our first dinner.

“You should have aimed for my job,” the man who’d played butler teased. “Only footmen have to wear those.”

“As if I could have pulled
that
off!” Sawyer grumbled. “Butlers have to know everything.”

This seemed to please the butler, who had been quite knowledgeable. Popular, too, I gathered. Three maids chipped in to give him a fancy leather-bound paddle.

“I’ve got a gift for Damien,” Sawyer announced then.

“Me?” Damien said from his seat at the table’s head.

Sawyer handed him a sheet of rolled parchment. “It’s your barony. Mrs. Patterson ordered a coat of arms off the Internet. You’re not getting away without being called ‘milord’ at least once.”

“Lord Call,” everyone burst out and lifted their glasses.

The display had clearly been planned ahead. Damien wagged his head and laughed. “Fine,” he said. “You got me. Am I allowed to make a toast now?”

“If you really have to,” Sawyer conceded.

Damien rose and smiled. People quieted. I’d seen him take charge like this in boardrooms. The evidence of his natural authority fascinated me. Being the boss sat easily on him.

I also liked how fond everyone seemed of him.

“First of all,” he said. “I want to congratulate each and every one of you on the truly amazing feat you pulled off this week. Being here was as good as time traveling. I know Mia and Jake and I will never forget it.

“Second of all, I want to thank you—from my heart—for the kind way you treated us. You could have just done the work, but you made us feel cared for. That’s worth more than any amount of technical perfection.”

“You implied we
were
perfect,” Regina my maid piped up.

Damien laughed. “So I did. Forgive me if I misspoke. Finally, you might like to know you helped make something wonderful possible. I’ve asked Mia to be my wife in the real world. I’m gratified to announce she’s agreed to honor me.”

“Ooh,” Regina said, smacking the tablecloth with her palm. “I
knew
it!”

“Lady Call,” Jake said, hoisting his glass to me.

“
Lady Call
,” the rest of the room chorused.

“Shoot,” I said as my eyes overflowed. “I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself.”

Jake was sitting beside me. He wiped my cheeks with his napkin.

“Happy?” he asked in a laughing voice.

“Very,” I assured him.

Sawyer wasn’t quite done teasing. He raised his brows at Jake. “Twenty bucks says I know who the best man will be!”

Chapter Seventeen

SUNDAY
dawned gray and drizzly, which seemed appropriate for our leave-taking. Sadly, we didn’t have the option of sleeping in. The estate was scheduled for a top-to-bottom cleaning by their service.

Never a morning person, my mood was subdued as I pulled on a crewneck sweater and faded jeans. We’d only been here a week, but I felt like the clothes must belong to someone else. There were too few of them for one thing, and they were awfully unglamorous. Where were my petticoats and gloves? My laces and my slippers and Regina to brush and pin my hair? Even though I craved my usual espresso, I already missed being able to ring a bell for tea.

You’ve gotten spoiled
, I tried to reprimand myself.
It’s past time you went back to real life.

Diogenes House could hardly have been more removed from that. Way the hell out in the countryside, it was another world. I wondered if the magic the three of us had found here would survive our return home. I thought it would. I knew we all wanted that.

I wasn’t alone in my melancholy. Damien frowned as we passed an unattended and very modern floor buffer in the entryway. No one else was around. We’d said our goodbyes to staff last night.

I didn’t realize how comfortable I was without my corset until we descended the outside steps with our travel bags. The huge front grounds spread out and rolled down toward the distant road. The grass was still green, the wood’s autumn colors vibrant within the mist. The rural scene was lovely. Its beauty couldn’t help but smooth a few edges off my grumpiness.

A moment later, I realized Jake was feeling more buoyant than Damien or me.

“God, I love days like this,” he declared, stretching both arms above his head. “The rain shined up all the cobbles, and your car’s the same color as the sky.”

The car was a super-fast, matte silver W-22. Strictly speaking, it belonged to Jake. Damien had given it to him soon after we’d all met, as an inducement to take a job. One of Damien’s companies made the electric vehicles, in large part based on his designs.

Now that I thought about it, maybe Jake was right to call the sports car his.

“It
does
look nice,” Damien admitted, as if he’d overlooked this upside to the weather. “Maybe we should shoot our next commercial when it’s foggy.”

Jake popped the trunk so we could stow our things. When he shut it again, Damien grinned and held out his palm.

“Ah,” Jake said. “I guess this means you want to drive.”

“That’s what I love about you. You pick up on signals.”

Jake dropped the keys into his waiting hand. Damien bounced them once before giving him a hug. Jake squeezed him back and smiled.

“I love you too,” he said.

Damien didn’t deny he’d meant the words the same way. My heart expanded. This was my missing link, the one that finally reassured me the three of us would work.

“You two sit in the rear,” Damien said. “I want the front to myself.”

“O-kay,” Jake said, sensing as I did that the CEO was up to something.

I discovered what it was when I sat on a small white box.

“Open it,” Damien said, twisting around to face us from the driver’s seat.

I lifted the cardboard lid. On the cotton batting two plain wedding rings nestled. I touched the smaller one. “Is this my ring from our pretend ceremony?”

“It is. Go ahead and read the inside. They have matching inscriptions.”

Damien must have had them customized overnight. Jake picked up the larger band so he could read along. Etched on the gold was the date we met, plus the initials
JMD
.

Hmm
, I thought.
That’s interesting
.

For all his quickness, Jake didn’t add up what this meant. “Nice,” he said, handing the larger ring between the front seats.

Damien grinned like the cat that ate the canary. “That one’s yours. You can wear it or not as you like, but I wanted you to have a memento too.”

Jake’s eyes widened as he sat back. He was a hard man to fluster, but I saw Damien had done it. “Well.” He swallowed. “Thank you.”

“Try it on,” I urged, unable to resist.

Jake slid it on his finger, and naturally it fit. Damien had a knack for estimating sizes. Jake turned his hand back and forth. “It might take me a while to get used to wearing this.”

“It’s not mandatory,” Damien said. “Do what makes you happy.”

He meant it. His body language was totally relaxed. This, as much as anything, proved he trusted Jake to stick around.

He trusts both of us to
, I thought.

Happier than I could remember ever being, I tried on my ring as well. Damien was right. It did look like it belonged there. “Is it cheating if I wear this before we’re married?”

At my question, Damien’s smiling gaze met mine. “We’re already married in my heart.”

He knew how to get to me. My tears threatened to spill over the same way they had last night.

The crinkles around his eyes deepened. Looking pleased with himself, he faced front and turned the key in the ignition.

“So,” he said, his hands sliding around the steering wheel. “Who’s ready to take this adventure home?”

“I am,” I said.

“Me too,” Jake seconded.

As Damien put the car in motion, I noticed Jake
and
I had left the gold bands on.

# # #

About the Author

EMMA
Holly is the award winning,
USA Today
bestselling author of more than thirty romantic books, featuring shapeshifters, demons, faeries and just plain extraordinary folks. She loves the hot stuff, both to read and to write!

If you’d like to discover what else she’s written, please visit her website at
http://www.emmaholly.com
.

Emma runs monthly contests and sends out newsletters that often include coupons for ebooks. To receive them, go to her contest page.

Thanks so much for reading this book. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a
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. That kind of support is very helpful!

Other titles by Emma Holly

The Prince With No Heart

The Assassins’ Lover

Steaming Up Your Love Scenes
(how-to)

Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian

Tales of the Djinn: The Double

The Billionaires

The Billionaire Bad Boys Club

Beck & Call

Lord & Master
(the sequel to
Beck & Call
)

Hidden Series

Hidden Talents

Hidden Depths

Date Night

Move Me

The Faerie’s Honeymoon

Hidden Crimes

Winter’s Tale

Hidden Dragons

Hidden Passions

The man everybody wants

Women can’t keep their hands off billionaire Damien Call. The mysterious mogul has it all: fast cars, killer looks, and a brain that just might be his best asset.

The woman he can’t resist

Mia Beck loves her job at a PI firm. Her coworker Jake stars in most of her daydreams, so seeing him everyday is no hardship.

The dom who masters both

Jake hasn’t believed in human goodness since he worked black ops for the CIA. Romancing innocent Mia is unthinkable, no matter how enticingly submissive she seems to be. Then a case of corporate espionage forces them to pose as dom/sub duo, to catch the eye of accused wrongdoer Damien. No fantasy is off limits for this voyeur—until the attraction the pair exerts lures him to go hands on . . .

“An amazing storyteller.”—
The Romance Reviews

SELF
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“This book is a mesmerizing, beautiful and oh-my-gods-hot work of art!”—
BittenByLove
5-hearts review

A
COLLECTION
of three full-length paranormal romances:
Hidden Talents
,
Hidden Depths
and
Hidden Crimes
. Whether they involve irresistible werewolf cops, sexy wereseal kings or sassy firefighting tigresses, these adventures turn up the heat!