Unraveled Together (7 page)

And then I told her about the Pit and watched while she paled—yet at the same time she was also visibly turned on, a testament to the addictive tension which can be so exciting for both the dominant and the submissive.

We were on our way, I was convinced, to forming the basis of our life as dominant and submissive, and so it would have continued had I not had to fly up to Montreal for a meeting and leave her alone at the castle all day.

Why didn't I take her with me?

Why didn't I leave her under the protection of a bodyguard?

Because I genuinely believed that she was no longer in danger. After all, Tamara was dead, so why would she have been?

The nightmare started to unfold when I arrived home from my meetings in Montreal, bringing with me on the plane a wardrobe of fur coats I thought Miranda might like (mostly red fox, as I thought that would complement her hair), and I discovered that she'd disappeared again and, just like before, had left no trace, not even a note.

All the security cameras showed was Miranda climbing into a white stretch Mercedes driven by a blond man in a white suit and dark glasses. Naturally, we immediately ran the license number, but the plates, of course, turned out to be false. Her trail went cold, and I went crazy.

Then Mary Ellen put a call through to me from Angel, the professional submissive I remembered from Le Château.

My first thought was: How the hell did she make the association between Mr. Blake, the dominant client to whom she catered at Le Château more than once, and me, Robert Hartwell?

I had no idea. And now Angel was clearly about to demand money in exchange for her silence regarding my visits to Le Château all those years ago.

But I was wrong.

“I've got a message for you, Mr. Hartwell. Miranda Stone said to tell you that she's being held prisoner in Le Château,” she said.

My heart stopped.

Then, through an enormous act of will, I managed to recover for a second. “Who has her, Angel, who has her?” I said.

“The Countess Suzanne von Stern,” she said, then hung up.

Of course! Von Stern must be one of Le Château's dominatrixes out to get revenge on me for what happened to her buddy Tamara, cofounder of Le Château, so she kidnapped Miranda.

But when I burst through the doors of Le Château, primed to find Miranda held at gunpoint by a six-foot-tall leather-clad dominatrix, I instead found Murray, and the puzzle fell into place once and for all.

Murray was not dead and was set on getting revenge for what had happened to Tamara, and this Countess von Stern was clearly his accomplice.

And so the nightmare unfolded, and my trust in Miranda plummeted
.

Chapter Five

Miranda, the Present

St. George Ferry Terminal, Staten Island

After Robert strode out of Le Château and left me standing there, alone, bereft, and speechless, my heart broken, I found myself on the banks of the East River, torn between life and death.

And although I chose life, I remained so distraught that, without even intending to, I drifted farther downtown, no destination in mind, until I ended up at the Whitehall Terminal, South Ferry.

Since then, I've made the journey between Manhattan and Staten Island and back again, over and over, as if I were pulled there by a magnet I am unable to resist. Each time the ferry arrives at the terminal, I follow the crowds into the waiting room until I can board the next one en route for Manhattan.

During each and every trip, my despair intensifies. Yet I keep making the same twenty-five-minute journey because somehow, somewhere, deep in the heart of me, I have a sense that the very repetitive nature of my journey will help me escape from the hell in which I now find myself.

Don't brood, Miranda. Think of the good times, otherwise you won't be able to stand this..

But the truth is that no matter how many good times Robert and I have in our past together, after what I did he walked out on me and probably isn't in love with me anymore, and never will be again. And because of that, I'll never be happy or complete again, either.

If only he were here with me, I could explain, I could make him understand. But he isn't, and I don't know what to do next, except to board the
Andrew J. Barberi
, yet again, bound for Manhattan. As the ferry pulls away from the dock, ahead of us in the distance the sunlight shimmers over HGM Towers, the New York headquarters of Hartwell Global Media. Even seeing the name Hartwell from so far away, and in such an impersonal context, hurts me more than I can express. So I turn away from HGM Towers and, instead, fix on the far horizon.

A helicopter whirs above the ferry and for a second—a wild, passionate, joyful second—my heart skips a beat; Robert! He hasn't left me after all, he hasn't abandoned me, he's forgiven me for failing to tell him the truth about Lady Georgiana, that she is alive and wants him back.

But as the helicopter moves closer to the ferry, no matter how passionately I long for Robert to be in it, I can see that someone else is piloting it solo, and that Robert is not there. So I have to face the fact that he is probably already ensconced in Hartwell Castle, steaming with anger at me and at my betrayal.

Or, even worse, he is still in Manhattan, ministering to Georgiana in countless ways—and the thought makes me sick to my stomach.

If only he were really in the helicopter, about to land on the deck of the ferry, scoop me up in his mighty arms, and whisk me away with him—somewhere, anywhere, just as long as I'm with him. For a moment, I flash to an advertisement I remember seeing on TV when I was a child: a helicopter, and a rope ladder down which a heart-stoppingly handsome man shimmies. Not onto a ferry but down a mountain, over lakes, oceans, to the ends of the earth, and all because the lady in his life wants a particular box of chocolates and he is determined to bring it to her, come hell or high water. A romantic hero, if ever there was one . . .

Just a few hours ago, although it now seems like a lifetime, I believed that Robert Hartwell was my romantic hero, and I his ultimate romantic heroine. But that was before he and his men burst into Le Château's dungeon determined to rescue me from my kidnapper, only to be faced with Georgiana, her face smashed and bloodied, alive and not interred on Hartwell Island, not dead and buried, as he and the entire world had been led to believe. As
I
had led him to believe.

“Darling, darling Robert, I'm back,” Georgiana had announced.

I don't know how I expected him to react, what I expected him to do when confronted by the wife he had once loved so much, and then grew to hate so much, reincarnated once more and here in living color, in front of him. To my everlasting relief, despite the shock and horror he must have felt, he steadfastly ignored her and pulled me toward him so close that I could hardly breathe, kissed me so passionately, and acted as if we were the only two people in the room, and she didn't exist at all.

His actions, of course, spoke volumes about his love and passion for me, and inevitably aroused Georgiana's ire. Spitting venom, she went straight for the kill: “Replace me with her? With little Miss Liar here? She knew I was alive all along, but she didn't tell you!” And with those oh-so-carefully chosen words, she condemned me to a lifetime of loss and longing as surely as if she were an omnipotent ruler and had just signed my death warrant.

Or rather—to be more accurate—a warrant for the death of Robert's love for me, his trust in me, and for the breathtakingly beautiful future we had once envisioned having together.

Robert turned to me, the expression on his face stony and impassive, his eyes cold and dark with a hundred accusations.

“Miranda?”

Suddenly I was four years old again, and caught with my fingers in the cookie jar. Seven and shamed because I told a white lie and was found out. Twelve and humiliated because I promised to go to summer camp but then tried to renege on my promise.

“Miranda?” My name, plain and simple, yet bringing with it a subtext so mortifying, so shameful, so humiliating that there was nothing for me to do but to confess everything and take the consequences, no matter how harsh, how hurtful, how irreversible they might be.

And so I bit the bullet and told the truth at last.

“I'm sorry, Robert, I did know. I didn't tell you because I was petrified you would want her back,” I said.

Then I held my breath, but he remained silent. Despite my desperation, my terror, a wave of courage suddenly came to my rescue and I met his eyes without flinching.

They were the eyes of a stranger.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, except not beg, except not plead, but he turned his back on me and strode out of the dungeon.

And from there, most likely to the hospital and to Georgiana's bedside.

For, knowing Robert as I know him, I at once understood that even though Georgiana had deceived him (almost as grievously as I have done by not letting him know that she was still alive), one look at her battered and ruined face and he would have forgiven her all her transgressions against him.

“A knight in shining armor who rescues a damsel in distress.” I'd described Robert thusly in more innocent, carefree days when Lindy and I together watched a documentary on the legendary Robert Hartwell.

And as Georgiana was to later confess, the entire plot to divest Robert of his fortune—which was masterminded by Murray, the boss of Le Château—was launched only because Murray had intuited that chivalry was the deepest, most essential part of Robert's innermost nature. The more distressed the damsel, the more likely it was that Robert would ride to her rescue.

For a wild and crazy millisecond, I catch myself wondering whether Georgiana—who engineered so much, has engineered even this—arranged for Murray to batter her face and destroy her beauty, just so that Robert would ride in on his white charger, rescue her, forgive her, and love her once more.

Then I remember all her justifications for what she did to him: “My family lost their entire fortune, I was penniless and alone in Manhattan, I had a mentally disabled child and was desperate to place her in an institution where she would be loved and taken care of, but couldn't afford it. Besides, if I hadn't agreed to do what I did to Robert, Mafia thugs would have murdered me.”

No, Georgiana didn't need to have her face destroyed in order for Robert to love her once more. All she had to do was turn those legendary violet eyes on him, tell him her heartrendingly tragic life story, and he would forgive her and take her back.

As I confront the truth, I feel like I might throw up. Then the ferry passes right by the statue of Lady Liberty, and I am catapulted back to the past again, my past, a happier, more romantic past with Robert, full of promise, joy, and contentment; the day when we tossed a coin to see whether I had to read him a chapter of my erotic novel, and I picked heads—Lady Liberty—and I lost. But in reality, of course, I won, because when I read him the chapter, he became mine, and I his. For just a short time, that is.

The honk of the ferry breaks into my thoughts, and above me, seagulls whirl in circles, mirroring the circuitous confusion in my heart and mind.

I know that what I've done to Robert is unforgivable and that he would be entirely within his rights to banish me from his life forever. Yet if only I could explain my side of the story to him, the motivations that drove me to lie to him by omission, the fears that caused me to do so, and my sincere guilt and shame over what I did, perhaps he would forgive me and take me back . . .

At that moment, just as the Brooklyn Bridge materializes to the right of me, and in the distance I can see New Jersey and Hoboken, my home until I moved into Hartwell Castle with Robert, I hear the voice of Georgiana, my nemesis.

I expect you to craft my autobiography in such a way that when Robert reads it, he'll understand exactly who I am, what I am, why there was no alternative for me but to do what I did, that I deeply regret my actions, and that I want to make it all up to him. Then he'll fall in love with me again, much deeper than before, and I'll get him back
.

That's it! That's the answer. Do what Georgiana wanted me to do, only this time, for myself, not her. Write my autobiography so that when Robert reads it, he will understand everything, fall in love with me again, forgive me, and take me back.

After all, I followed in Georgiana's footsteps after she had imprisoned me in Le Château, and I managed to free myself from the grasp of her willing acolyte, Angel, by assuming Georgiana's imperious persona and making it my own.

My decision to channel my inner Georgiana for a few short hours had the desired result, and, to my discomfort, I loved every second of it, loved it so much that even now, I wonder how much of an inner Georgiana I really have, and whether, in fact, Robert fell in love with the Georgiana in me as well. After all, like her, I'm a deceiver on a grand scale, aren't I?

Stop it, Miranda, stop it, you are going to let Georgiana drive you crazy.
I hear Robert's voice in my mind, and I listen, grateful that despite the wrong I've done him, I can still summon up his voice to hearten me.

The ferry docks, and I join the lines of people and disembark. Once in the waiting room, I weigh my options. Another ride to Staten Island, then back again?

But if not, where to next? And, more to the point, what next?

On reflection, I come to the realization that writing my autobiography in order to win Robert back and filling it with excuses and explanations for what I did is out of the question. Apart from the fact that I really don't want to follow in Georgiana's footsteps yet again, I know that he would hate for me to abase myself to him in that way. Fine to undergo humiliation during a BDSM scene, but not in real life. Particularly not in real life. For while a submissive groveling in front of him in a scene might work wonders for a dominant's libido, if she grovels to him outside of BDSM, he could easily lose respect for her and view her as a doormat, not a potential partner.

Besides, if I dropped my pride and sent him a letter explaining why I did what I did, and then begged for forgiveness, that might remind him of the letter Georgiana forced me to write to him, confessing that I was a charlatan, a trickster, a fraud.

A plain and simple letter probably won't work with Robert. Nor will a phone call, as he hardly ever has his phone on, and even if he does, the second he hears my voice he's bound to slam it down.

I flash back to the mausoleum again, and my SOS to Robert, a text, and nothing else. But not now, not this time. Too short, too bald, too unemotional. Maybe an e-mail, because even if he takes forever to answer it, I don't care. Because if I don't have Robert in my life anymore, I've got forever to mourn, forever to suffer.

I'm not going to give up yet. I need to do something, anything, make an opening gambit to let him know that I love him beyond all reason, that I'll die if he doesn't take me back into his life and heart, and that I yearn to see him and to explain why I did what I did, and beg him to give me one more chance.

Then the image of the man who came into my life a few short months ago suddenly rises up before my eyes: Robert Hartwell, the man I fell in love with and whom I pride myself on knowing almost as well as I know myself, and the most dominant man I've ever met.

Even a saint would be furious with me right now, never mind a man for whom getting his own way is virtually a religion. And any man—or woman, for that matter—would need ample time to cool down, to get over the initial anger and start to think rationally. And sending Robert a mea culpa via e-mail won't give him either the time or the space to do that.