I swallowed, nodding.
‘You’re afraid,’ he noted, and it wasn’t a question.
‘A bit,’ I admitted.
‘Ellie,’ reproved Maria. ‘You’ve been in my dungeon. How can you be afraid of a little dinner?’
‘I suppose this feels…more real,’ I said.
And it did feel real. Judd Keane’s lust for me was written all over his face. It was occurring to me more and more forcibly with each passing moment that I’d better be absolutely sure of what I was doing. Deep waters lay ahead.
How had Mia described him at their first meeting? A man whose intensity sweeps aside everything in its path. A powerful man, in every possible sense. A man, at last, to reckon with. She seemed to have got that right. It had to be him.
‘So you’ve never been in a relationship like this?’ said Keane.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You…you have? You’re very experienced, Maria says.’
‘Twenty years or more,’ he said. ‘I’ll lay my cards on the table – I’m not looking for play partners or short-term contracts any more. I want a submissive who belongs to me, and only me, for keeps. I’m looking to go into a new line of business, and I’ll need a steady partner – one who can act vanilla for the press, but be deeply kinky in private. How does that sound to you, Ellie?’
‘You…wow.’ This was even more serious than I’d been led to believe. It seemed he wanted a kind of consort – a political wife. ‘I’m twenty-three,’ I said, stupidly.
‘You’re young, yes,’ he conceded. ‘But that’s good. You’ll have less to unlearn.’
‘Unlearn?’
‘I’ve never found a sub that hasn’t got into some kind of bad habit that didn’t work for me,’ he said, toying with the artichoke salad Martin had put in front of him. ‘You don’t have any bad habits, because you don’t have any habits. I can give the right girl the world, Ellie. Do you want the world?’
‘I’ve never thought about it,’ I said.
‘Of course you haven’t. I like that.’ His eyes continued to bore into me like slate-grey drills. ‘But I’ll put it more prosaically. I’m well off. I can give you a life of luxury and comfort, where your only responsibility is pleasing me. And I won’t be unreasonable, like some of these selfish youngsters. I’m old and experienced enough to understand your needs and put them first. You’ll want for nothing, Ellie, and you’ll be kept well satisfied. How does that sound?’
I stared down at the artichokes. What weird-looking things they were, all frilly and green in their bed of purple and white leaves. I’d only had them on pizzas in continental Europe before.
‘It sounds…too good to be true,’ I said.
‘It isn’t,’ he said.
There was a long pause, while I tried to stave off the issue by trying an artichoke. It was quite nice, but I was finding it a little hard to swallow.
‘You, uh, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?’ I said, once I was able to speak again.
‘I don’t have any time for niceties or nonsense,’ said Keane. ‘I’ve got where I am by being clear about what I want and going for it. This is no different. I want you to agree to a trial run with me.’
‘A trial run? Ah. OK.’
‘I’m not asking you to sign your life away on the strength of one dinner,’ he said. At last, a smile, though it was uneasy. He didn’t strike me as a man accustomed to smiling much. ‘We’ll need to explore the chemistry a bit first. We can take it slowly, since you’re new, or we can take it fast if you’d rather. What do you say?’
‘How long is the trial run?’
‘Shall we say a week? You can come and stay with me. At the end of that week, you’re free to go. Or you can decide to stay.’
I sought wisdom in my wine glass. Sadly, there was none to be found there.
‘I wonder,’ I said, almost too scared to ask. ‘Why did your last sub leave?’
He looked ruffled, chewing on his artichoke with a thunderous face.
‘We had a difference of opinion,’ he said. ‘She wanted to be shared. I didn’t want to share.’