"And what about before she joined the society?" James pressed. "What about then?"

"As you know, she refused me when we met. Her sole motivation for getting into the society was to search for you."

Vanette took up the questions then. "And do you remember what I said when we interviewed her as a trainee candidate?"

"You said you feared she wouldn't make a good trainee because the real reason she didn't allow sex was that she was saving herself for someone."

"And was I right?"

"Yes."

"And did we take her as a trainee anyway?"

"Yes, though now I have to wonder why we bloody bothered," Damon snarled.

"Language," she snapped. "Tell us why you agreed to help her reunite with James."

"Because James is a coldhearted fucker who would never give her a second chance, and I knew she'd fall into my lap once he turned her away," Damon said, then, "Ow!" because Vanette had seized him by the chin and slapped him across the face.

"I warned you to watch your language," she said, then released him. "Again, please."

"I hoped she'd come to me after he rejected her," Damon said.

"And would you say you did your absolute best to be sure they met under fair and neutral circumstances?"

"Oh, come on, Vanette. Now you're being-" he huffed. "Of course I didn't. I did everything in my power to make her look bad in his eyes and I engineered every possible opportunity for her to choose me. All right? I didn't expect to fall for her. Of course I pressed her as hard as I could."

"And did she crack?"

"No." He sounded quite bitter. "She isn't interested in me in the slightest. Nor any other man. Only that one."

Vanette looked at me then. "Karina, what would you say was the most valuable thing you learned in your short time as a trainee in the society?"

I ran through possible answers in my mind. Even the most complicated lusts still boil down to the same thing. Sometimes people can't ask for what they want. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Then I will be more specific. Did you learn anything about yourself?"

"Oh. Well, I definitely learned that I get turned on by kinky things, but that getting turned on, fantastic as it is, isn't that big a deal to me."

She looked surprised at that answer. "Truly?"

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that although I discovered I liked being flogged and I was excited by all the blindfolds and tests and things, they didn't mean anything. All I did was obey. It was a practice run for submission, but it could never be surrender. And it wasn't love."

I dared a look at James. He was staring at Damon and shaking his head slowly.

"James taught me that I had to be honest, about my desires and my feelings, and with the people around me," I said. "Isn't that kind of what the society is about, too? I mean, I understand why it has to be a secret, but isn't that why people have to be honest about everything else? Isn't it kind of an unwritten rule?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

It was too good a chance to pass up. "Oh yes, actually...Damon, when did you first meet James?"

"When I was still in art school," he said. "He was sort of in and out. I met him through Paul and Misha's crowd."

"And how did you get hooked up with the society?"

"I don't know about James. In my case, well, my father passed me his membership."

So that was something people did, it seemed. I didn't want to know more about that. "James?" I asked. "What about you?"

"I was brought in by a member I was in a relationship with," he said quietly.

"Okay." That sounded simple enough. But something still didn't quite add up. "Damon, when I asked you for help finding someone who went by 'Jules,' did you already know who I meant?"

Damon swallowed and looked down. "I did."

I looked back and forth between them, and James shifted in his seat. James spoke then, surprising me. "Karina. You have to understand how careful I had to be."

I bristled, trying to listen to what he was saying, but already on guard at his defensive tone.

"When I left you in New York, I was...I thought I was in danger."

"From me?"

"From people who might be trying to find me." He faced me. "I told you I haven't been hiding from you alone. I regretted leaving you like that. But I had to know."

"Had to know what?"

"If you were really what you seemed. I'm the one who encouraged Martindale to bring you over here. And I'm the one who set up the meeting between you and Damon."

Damon was hanging his head so that I couldn't see his face. James looked rather stoic, like he was holding a lot in.

I, on the other hand, wasn't holding anything in. "You what? You mean you're the one who sent this lech to try to test me?" I nudged Damon with my foot. "And now you're upset that I let him?" I was so angry I could barely see. "What the fuck gives you the right-?"

James's phone suddenly chirped. He looked at it with alarm. "I think we had better-"

I wasn't about to let him distract me.

"How the fuck does that make sense? I think I passed your little fucking test then, didn't I?"

"Karina," he said in a mollifying voice, reaching for me.

It was too much. I'd worked so hard to get him back, or so I thought, and it turned out he was testing me the whole time? And now he was angry? He didn't know angry, I decided. I'd show him angry.

I burst out of the car, nearly hitting Stefan on the ass with the door and instead running headlong into a woman I didn't know.

"Excuse me," she said, trying to get past me as if to get into the car, like I was exiting a taxi she wanted. She was extravagantly dressed for a London street after midnight, in a diamond choker and Chanel-style skirt suit, the edges trimmed with fur.

Instinctively I blocked her. "Oh, that car's not for hire," I tried to explain.

But behind me Stefan had run around to the driver's side, and I turned to see Vanette closing the door and stepping back from the car as the tires squealed and it sped away.

"No!" The woman took a few steps toward the car, her heels clicking. She turned to me. "My husband is in that car!"

"Damon is married?" I said, looking at Vanette incredulously.

Before Vanette could answer, the woman turned to me and hissed, "I'm Ferrara LeStrange. Who are you?"

Vanette put an arm around me protectively. "She's a club trainee," she said. "Nice to see you, Ferrara. I didn't realize that you and James had actually married."

James, married?

"Last year," the woman said, waving her hand as if throwing away a piece of trash. "In the States. He's been dodging me for months though."

"Oh, truly? He has visited our London location a few times recently."

"I didn't think he did that sort of thing anymore," the woman said. She snapped her fingers, and a man standing behind her handed her a clutch purse. She took a business card out of it and handed it to Vanette. "I would appreciate it if you would let me know if he returns. I can't believe the bastard slipped through my fingers!"

"I'll be certain to let you know," Vanette said to her, then to me, "Come. It's time we were going."

"Yes, Vanette," I said automatically, trying to keep my expression as blank as possible as she led me away from the scene.

The anger that made me bolt from the car was still boiling. James had a lot more explaining to do than I'd even guessed. He sent Damon to test me? And then got bent out of shape about it? He was the one who needed a fucking test: he needed his head examined. And now I find out I'm not the only woman he's hiding from?

"Who the fuck is Ferrara LeStrange?" I burst out, as Vanette turned a corner.

"She is the very definition of trouble." Vanette looked behind us, as if checking that the woman was no longer in sight. "More than that, I cannot say. I cannot break the confidence of a club member."

"Oh come on, Vanette!" I had to suck in a breath to keep angry tears from spilling over my face. "I spend the entire summer trying to find the bastard and then she shows up and...poof! He's gone! Who is she? What's her problem? For that matter, what's his problem? No one's giving me any answers! He's married?"

"Well, so she claims."

"Claims? What's her story?"

But it was no use. Vanette just shook her head and clammed up again.

She didn't deserve the brunt of my anger, but I couldn't stop it. "I thought you would help me!"

She was very calm and didn't answer with words. Instead, she gently steered me back toward the gallery, where it appeared Ferrara and her accomplice had left. I resisted for a moment but then went.

I repeated more weakly, now that I had vented some, "I really thought you would help me."

She stopped us outside the door to the gallery. "I don't know if I can help, Karina. There's only so much I can do. Here." She handed me her card and emphasized once more, "I can't violate the privacy of society members. But for anything else..."

I took the card and went inside.

Epilogue.

I lugged my carry-on bag through the crowded duty-free area, looking for a seat. I was exhausted. I had barely slept last night, crying over tea to Paul and Misha, who were very sympathetic but who couldn't help me any more than Vanette did, really. I was too upset to really absorb the fine details or wild speculations they had about the woman they called Ferrara Huntington. They were just telling me they knew her as the wife of a record company executive when my phone had rung again. Jill had arrived in Ohio to find my mom's house robbed. Normally my sister is pretty hard to shake, but the thought that it might have been my mom's supposed boyfriend who robbed the place while she was in the hospital was a scary one. And while Jill went to stay with a neighbor, I immediately searched for the next flight I could get there, which was first thing in the morning. I woke up poor Reginald Martindale to tell him the news, and he graciously agreed to pay for the astronomically expensive last-minute ticket. I told him he should charge James for it. Now that I think about it, maybe he planned to anyway.

So here I was, underslept, exhausted, still aching from the sex I'd had with James last night and feeling bruised in soul and heart over the turn of events. My bag was crammed full of gifts from Paul and Misha-some for Becky-and what souvenirs I could manage to pick up on my way to Heathrow, and I dragged it behind me tiredly. I found a place to settle at last, in front of a shop offering free scotch tasting. That was something you'd never see in an American airport, that was for sure. The whole duty-free area was like a huge shopping mall with a big central court that served as the waiting lounge, ringed with shops selling cosmetics, booze, souvenirs, and more. Passengers stayed in that central lounge until their flight number and gate were announced for boarding.

Maybe a free shot of whiskey wasn't such a bad idea. I couldn't stop the thoughts running around and around in my head. I'd never been so anxious in my life. My mother was in the hospital, her house in disarray, and it might have been her own boyfriend who did it. Was love worth it? Were men worth this much pain?

Ferrara certainly believed so, I thought, if she was fighting that hard to get him back.

A little voice of doubt nagged at me. Vanette had acted skeptical of Ferrara's claims, and Paul and Misha seemed to think she was married to someone else. But if there was no marriage, then why was James hiding from her? Was she just a crazy fan? And if the marriage was real, why keep it a secret?

For that matter, why was everything with James a secret? I felt angry and disgusted all over again. I still loved him, and my body ached for him, but I couldn't do this. I couldn't live a life where everything was about hiding and keeping things from people. How many times had he asked me what I really wanted in life? Who was the real Karina? Now it struck me as terribly ironic that he'd asked me those things. What about you, James? Is there a real you under there, or am I in love with a phantom? Am I in love with the man you wish you could be, but aren't?

I was angry with him, and I was angry with myself for being so hung up on him.

I was so deep in my turmoil of thoughts that I nearly missed it when they called my flight. I finally heard it on the last call. The distance to the gate was so hugely long, it felt like I was walking forever, and I finally broke into a run, fearing I was going to miss it. When I got there, though, they didn't act like it was at all odd that a flustered American was the last one to board the plane. Thank goodness. If they'd been snarky or judgmental I think I would have lost it.

I made it to my seat. I took out my phone to turn it off and then jumped as it rang in my hand.

The caller ID showed it was James. I silenced the ringer. A flight attendant was coming down the row, checking that we were ready for takeoff. I turned it off and stowed it before she could scold me about it. I could not answer the phone now, even if I had wanted to.

And you know what? I wasn't sure I wanted to. Yes, I was full of questions, but I was done with chasing and digging and piecing things together. When he couldn't reach me he'd call Paul and Misha and find out I was on an emergency trip back to the States, but right then I wanted him to stew in it. It was his turn to wonder what was going through my head for a change. It was his turn to wonder what he did wrong to drive me away. If he really loved me, if he was sorry, he wouldn't let a little thing like the Atlantic Ocean get in his way. After all, I hadn't.

If he wanted to give me some big explanation about why he ran away and why he was hiding, if he felt I deserved that much, he'd follow me.

It was his turn to prove there was something there. It was his turn to chase me.

Karina and James's steamy adventure continues...

Please see the next page for a preview of.

Slow Satisfaction.

A Preview of Slow Satisfaction.

Dearest Karina, I have no idea if you'll read this. I hope you will. I decided to sit down and write it because it seems whenever I try to explain myself to you in person, either my passions get the most of me, or my fears do. Perhaps sitting down in a quiet place to compose this, without the distraction of your presence, I can put my feelings into words.

First, an apology. I regret many things, but none more than how much I hurt you. I have no excuse. My past is my past. My baggage is heavy, and perhaps now you can see why I wanted a fresh start with you, as if I had no past, no attachments, no burdens. You gave me the freedom to be myself and to love you without reservations. I wish I had been able to keep my past and my demons at bay for one more day back in April, and I wish it again now. I'm sorry. I let my fears get the better of me that night at the ball, my suspicions and my paranoias blinding me to what I had right in front of me.

The love of my life.

I'm a fool. Maybe that means I don't deserve you. Stefan, who has never said a word out of line in all the time he has worked for me, even told me I had made a mistake that night.