Master's Flame (12 page)

“You see,” she said when he turned to her. “Nothing is disturbed. I needed the key for that.”

She pointed to a collage she was working on, a portrait of Jason Beck constructed of bottlecap eyes for his hardness and brown and gold leaves for his hair. She used papier-mâché to create the form of him, and the key to represent his heart. Mr. Lemaitre stared at it hard.

“I can get another key,” she said, following his gaze. “Or maybe find another one and take that one off.”

“What is it?” His voice sounded sharp. “Explain it to me.”

She walked closer to her work. She’d been putting it together for weeks now. “It’s Jason. You see, the eyes and the hair...”

His lips twitched. “The hair is a good likeness.”

“I collected the leaves in the fall.”

“Naturally.” He reached out as if to touch it, but he didn’t. “This fascinates me. I like it, but at the same time I find it disturbing.” He turned to her with a reproachful glare. “You never told me you were an artist.”

“Oh, I’m not an artist. I only do this for fun.”

He backed up and bumped into a bird made of matchbooks. It fluttered over his shoulder until he reached to make the wings still. “How long have you been doing this…for fun?” he asked.

He tilted his head to read the matchbooks. She’d collected them from all over Italy, traveling with her family’s circus. “I don’t know,” she answered. “I’ve always liked to take things that feel special to me and make them into something new. It’s a way of keeping memories.”

“But these leaves and paper scraps, my dear, they will not last forever.” He crept around her small apartment, being careful not to jostle her things, even though he was much bigger than she was and she jostled them all the time. He stopped at a sculpture of a woman she’d made of slender branches, a dancer she’d seen at the Cirque. He scrutinized the wood, tracing a finger over the body’s delicate joints. “Why make art this way? These sticks are weak and breakable.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “It doesn’t stay.”

“It’s a shame. It’s beautiful work.”

“Well, beauty doesn’t stay either.”

He straightened and turned to her, thinking. Considering. She didn’t understand what puzzled him. If anyone should know about the vagaries of art and creativity, it would be him. Like a circus act, the things she made were delicate and ephemeral. Laden with meaning and sometimes difficult to process. She could tell he didn’t know the work on the table was him. It was large and bold, obviously made in his likeness, but so often people didn’t see what they looked like through other people’s eyes.

Ah, well. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t nearly finished.

His attention caught on her self-portrait, a canvas in mixed media. Eyes, nose, mouth, strong chin and heart shaped face. Hair of ribbon and paper and candy, because it had been the precise color and shape she needed. Pretty soon the ants would come.

“That’s you,” he said, gesturing to it. He recognized her when he couldn’t recognize himself. Strange. She nodded, reaching without thought into the box with the paper scraps. She fished out the scrap of red cellophane and held it up to the outline of the hair.

“This belongs here,” she said. “I will do it later.”

He moved closer, scrutinizing the mish-mash of discovered materials, then looked over at her with an expression that spoke of resignation. “
Alors
,” he said. “What a remarkable creature you are.”

She put the scrap back on the table, watching the sparkles catch the light. “Is that a good or a bad thing, to be a remarkable creature?”

“It’s very bad for me.”

She looked up at him, then stepped back from the intensity of his gaze. He caught her with his hand and drew her close again. He felt so solid, so warm and bracing, the scent of his cologne a subtle tease. He stared down at her mouth as she studied his face. How intent he looked, how tragic and stern. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased or angry as he wound his fingers in her hair and pressed his lips to hers.

His kiss felt like a storm, like something dangerous. He muttered in the middle of it, then took her lips again, holding and twisting her hair hard. His other hand pressed into her back, hurting her, but she didn’t care. She wished this could go on forever, this violent embrace, but then it ended as abruptly as it had begun and he pulled away from her.

“I have meetings,” he said.

She gazed at him, limp and out of breath. He turned from her, turned in a full circle, then back again. He took her wrist and shook it. “I have meetings, did you hear me? We’ll have time for this later. Go pack up your things.”

*** *** ***

Aside from practical, necessary items—work clothes, toiletries, etcetera—Michel allowed her only one set of drawing pencils and one sketchbook. Thirty days, he told himself. It was only thirty days.

But long after he left her in the care of his houseboy and returned to work, that single sketchbook stayed on his mind. Before today, he’d had no idea she was an artist. A performance artist, yes. A visual artist, no. He stared into space, second-guessing himself. Would he harm her, taking away her freedom to create? Keeping her in a cage for thirty days with only one method to vent her artistic impulses? Was he doing it only to see what happened? Whether she would crack, or break somehow? Was he
experimenting
with her?

He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know.

Twice, he zoned out in the middle of meetings with the artistic heads of
Cirque Élémental
. Bad behavior, and people noticed, although no one said anything. Jason gave him irritated looks. Michel stared back at the man, imagining a key where his heart was.

Ah, well. He’d pay better attention once he’d worked through the thoughts in his head. He had things to consider, choices to weigh. He enjoyed mulling over conundrums and puzzles, and things that couldn’t be explained.

Like her.

A few hours ago, in her cluttered, messy apartment, he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her in a way he’d never kissed any other slave. He’d breathed her in like a drug, all his senses in overload. He had curled his hands in her hair and pressed her against him and even whispered
ma chérie
against her cheek. In truth, he’d barely stopped himself from taking her on the floor.

Not even twenty-four hours in, and he’d already made his second serious mistake. The first mistake had been in the white room, when he’d fallen on her and fucked her without the least bit of control over his impulses. He was disgusted with himself. He’d shaken it off, determined that would be his last weak act as her Master, and then he’d followed it up with the kiss of the ages beside her ridiculous self-portrait.

Not ridiculous. Fascinating, and half made of candy.

He might have withstood the temptation if it was only her beauty and her physical talent that attracted him. He knew scores of people who were beautiful and physically talented. He was rich in that currency, perhaps too rich. He might have withstood her sensuality and bubbly personality, her daring. He loved risk-takers, but even that he might have dismissed as a dearth of common sense.

But no. In her apartment, he’d been confronted with something he was helpless to stand against—soaring creative genius. Her brain didn’t work like everyone else’s, and neither, he suspected, did her heart. Her art was unsettling and original, and best of all, without preciousness or reflection. She simply did these things, in the same way she fucked every man she fancied and danced without fear on no greater surface than her partners’ upturned palms.

“Michel?”

He looked around the conference table into ten pairs of questioning eyes. He cleared his throat and scratched his forehead. “Let’s reconvene in a week,” he said. “My apologies. I’m scattered. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Is everything all right?” asked Genevieve in concern. Jason scowled at him.

“Everything’s fine,” he assured them. “If you have any specific questions, make an appointment to see me in my office.”

With that, he shut his laptop and escaped with most of his dignity intact. It was his company. They worked for him. If he wanted to blow off a meeting because greater problems were demanding his attention, he damn well could. He retreated to his office, determined to salvage at least part of the day for work. He put Valentina, her art, his kiss, all of it out of his mind and focused on an emailed spreadsheet.

Five minutes later, a knock interrupted him.

“See my goddamn secretary,” he yelled. “I’m busy.”

Another knock, and then Jason stuck his head in. Of course. At his dire glare, his future son-in-law shrugged. “You said if we had any specific questions, to come to your office.”

“I said to make an appointment.” He stood and crossed the room, intending to shut him out, but Jason put a hand on the door before he could close it.

“I heard you left the Citadel with Valentina last night.”

“You heard it from whom?” he asked with a sigh.

“Everyone. Do you have a minute?”

Against his better judgment, Michel admitted Jason and gestured him toward a chair, then sat behind the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “What, then? What is your question?”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “What ever happened to ‘My life is complicated enough’?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Valentina. You spent the night with her, didn’t you? You wouldn’t be acting this way otherwise.”

Michel stuck out his jaw, then heaved a frustrated sigh. “You’re like a woman. You have to know everything.”

“I wouldn’t normally care who you’re locking in chains, but this is Valentina Sancia. She’s not really your type.”

“I have a type?”

Jason snorted. “Yes, you do. Submissive, obedient, attractive. She’s only one of those things.”

“Perhaps I’ve grown bored with my usual type.”

“So you gave them a farewell check and relocated them to California. Who else are you playing with right now?”

“That’s none of your business.” That was what he said aloud, but the question jolted him, because the answer was no one. The past few weeks he hadn’t played with anyone, except...

“Is there a point to all this?” Michel asked in as bland a tone as he could muster. “If not, I have some gripping figures to look at from the set-design department. I’m sure you understand.”

“I heard she had a noose around her neck when you found her, and that she was too injured today to work.”

Jason wasn’t asking if these things were fact. He knew they were. He was asking what Michel intended to do about them. Jason was fiercely protective of his performers, which was one of the reasons Michel put up with him. The other reason was that his daughter adored the man.

“Okay,” Michel said, leaning forward. “Shall I tell you what I have planned for our little hellion? Will that put your mind at ease?”

“Probably not, but tell me anyway. I’m curious.”

“I’m going to take over her for thirty days. One month.”

“Take over her?” Jason sat up straighter.

“She agreed to it. She wants it. I’m going to keep her in the spare room at my house and attempt to train some of the craziness out of her.”

“You mean, train away that fire that attracted you to her in the first place?”

“It attracted me to her as a performer,” Michel clarified. “As a person, we both know she’s aggravating as hell. She needs...mellowing.”

Jason leaned back, considering. After a moment, he shook his head.

“No. This is bad.”

“What? There’s nothing bad about it.” Michel turned back to his laptop. He’d never been so anxious to return to the tedious crunching of numbers. “It’s consensual, and I have no intention of hurting her.”

“Said the man who unhooked her from a noose in one of the back rooms last night.”

“I didn’t do that to her.”

“Didn’t you? You don’t think you had anything to do with it?”

“No, I did not.” Michel’s pulse had risen with Jason’s aggressive line of questioning. He willed himself to calm, falling back on the basic truth of the matter. “I think this is a great solution for both of us.”

Jason arched a brow. “How so?”

“I help transform Valentina into a content, obedient slave, and you and Sara don’t have to worry about running into me at the Citadel.”

“Because you’ll be with Valentina at your house.”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re doing it for us, then.”

Michel scowled at his sarcastic tone. “And for me, damn you. You know I enjoy developing slaves. I like the power of it. I like that I’ve changed them by the time I’m finished with them. I suppose it’s my megalomania that makes me want to do it, but even so...I mean her no harm. I intend to make her better. As you know, it’s the whole point of the game.”

“Yeah. Just remember it’s a game, and that you’re toying with another human being’s life.”

“I never forget that. How can I, with you poking in my business?”

“I’m going to keep poking you as long as she’s with you. How long did you say? Thirty days?”

“Twenty-nine,” Michel answered smoothly. “One day down, and thus far, she’s survived. Give Sara my love, will you?”

It was a dismissal. Michel had work to do, and Valentina had occupied too many of his thoughts already. He didn’t want any more questioning, any more dire warnings from Jason or anyone else. He had to get his mind—and his thoughts—into proper order and get home to Valentina.

Not to kiss her or fuck her. No. The time for that romantic nonsense was over. It was time to start training up his slave.

Valentina sat on her bed in the white room, scuffing at a small drawing in the corner of her sketch pad. She worked in conservation mode, rationing the pages in case he didn’t allow her more when she ran out. She had the sketch pad and her phone, and that was all. No books, no computer, and no TV. His snippety houseboy-slash-minion wouldn’t let her go out, wouldn’t even let her take a walk around her Master’s picturesque neighborhood. He took her clothes away, for God’s sake.

“Your Master’s orders,” he’d said. The man’s name was Galvin. He had beautiful clear skin and large eyes, and a permanently placid expression. He was about her age, and his physique suggested a fellow athlete, but any attempts to get to know him petered out right away. Valentina prayed that Mr. Lemaitre would let her return to work the next day, or she might die of boredom.