The Prince

Whether she wanted to or not.

“Wesley?”

“You know,” he said, giving her a broken smile, “I could afford to buy you all the Aston Martins you want.”

Nora tossed her cell phone aside and pushed her laptop onto the floor. Coming to her feet, she started to reach for him, but he took a step back.

“I’m gonna go feed the catfish. I’ll be back.”

He turned on his heel and abruptly left the room.

Looking around the empty space, Nora could only repeat, “Feed the catfish?”

She started to follow him, but her cell phone rang—Ravel’s Bolero.

“King, thank God. I’ve been calling you all day. Well, for the last five minutes. Where the hell are you?”

“Maine, ma chérie,” Kingsley answered in his most debonair voice. “I see you called me many times. How much do you miss me?”

“Not a damn bit. But I have missed your connections. Guess who I ran into today?”

“Talel.”

Nora held out her hand and stared at the phone a moment before putting it back to her ear. “I hate when you do that, know more about my life than I do.”

“I pay attention, ma chérie. You, on the other hand, are a writer.”

“Point taken. Anyway, his horse died. And it might have been electrocuted. I don’t think—”

“Chérie…” Kingsley exhaled heavily and Nora heard something in his voice she rarely if ever heard—frustration. “I’m afraid the death of a horse is the least of my worries right now. Your priest and I have much graver concerns.”

“But—”

“It’s for your own good, Maîtresse. Let it go. It’s only a horse. They make an excellent entrée.”

“But—”

“Nora?”

“What?”

“You’re on your own.”

And with those truly unhelpful words, Kingsley hung up.

Nora stared at the phone for a few seconds before tossing it onto the floor and racing after Wesley.

Feed the catfish? Did that mean he was actually going to…feed the catfish?

Outside the guesthouse, Nora paused and looked around. Where the hell had Wesley gone? She found a cobblestone path at the back of the house and decided to follow it. A low stone fence bordered the path. As she walked, Nora thought about the past couple of days with Wesley. Everything had been perfect and a wreck at the same time.

Their first hours together they’d done nothing but talk nonstop about the past fifteen months, everything that had happened while they’d been apart. Fifteen months had separated them when they’d embraced each other in the White Room at The 8th Circle. But as the hours passed and they told story after story, that gap between them closed. Nora told Wesley about reuniting with Søren, how weird it had been those first few weeks as his property again. The night they’d shown up at The 8th Circle with her in her collar again, the entire club had stared, aghast. She’d been so nervous, so uncomfortable—she’d been a Mistress, and now she’d become Søren’s submissive once more. How the mighty had fallen. But then she’d seen it—money changing hands. High-fives. Fingers pointing. And lots of told-you-so’s and I-knew-it’s. People had been making bets about when she’d go back to Søren. It had never been a question of if she’d surrender to him. Merely when.

And Wesley, he’d told her about what had happened in his world during those fifteen months after he moved out of their house and back to Kentucky. Nothing…nothing had happened, according to him. He’d finished out the school year in a daze, packed his things, gave away his beat-up yellow VW and flew back to Kentucky. A couple days a week he worked at a local hospital as an orderly, just to keep his head on straight about all the money and privilege in his world, and all the poverty and suffering everywhere else. The rest of the time he helped out on the farm. The Rails consisted of several thousand acres littered with million-dollar Thoroughbreds. The farm had not one but two equine hospitals on the premises, dozens of barns that were as palatial as mansions, even swimming pools…for the horses. Wesley admitted he felt more comfortable, more at home, in his room at Nora’s little Tudor cottage in Connecticut than he ever did on his parents’ farm. That’s why he hadn’t told her about the money, the farm, the fame that he wore like an ill-fitting suit in racing circles. That’s why he’d bought a used Bug to drive in Connecticut, and hadn’t brought his Shelby Mustang with him to school. That’s why he’d left his Gucci at home in Kentucky and had worn clothes from the GAP and Old Navy while at Yorke. And when Nora had decided to become a Dominatrix again, and Wesley had offered her every penny he had, that’s why she should have taken it.

Nora had fallen asleep in the middle of Wesley’s chest their first night back together. They hadn’t kissed, hadn’t made love…only talked. But their words had brought them back together that night. And words, being the powerful force they were, had tonight pulled them apart.

As she neared the end of the cobblestone path, Nora inhaled the scent of warm stagnant water and algae. Ahead of her she saw a high spotlight shining onto a wooden dock that overlooked a large pond. And at the end of the dock stood an ornate gazebo, as well-appointed as her own house back in Connecticut, with wild ivy twisting up its sides and half a dozen burning citronella candles keeping the mosquitoes away. Wesley stood at the edge of the dock, the gazebo behind him, staring out across the black water. A thousand stars shimmered across the still surface.