Unraveled by Him (13 page)

Call the desk and book a flight back to the States?

Or swallow my pride, take Robert’s tests, and prove to him that I am the real thing after all?

The problem is, whatever happens, I know I won’t be able to stop myself from looking back and remembering how good everything between us was, and wishing it could be that way again.

So how can I throw myself into passing his fucking tests?

I take another bite of the most delicious truffle I’ve ever eaten in my lifetime, and then it strikes me.

This is what I should do!! I should take Robert’s tests of my submission not just because I want to prove to him that I’m the real thing, that I’m not a fraud, that I haven’t been plotting against him, but because taking them will give me the ultimate S&M experience of submitting to a cruel, relentless, experienced master who will teach me more about submission than I could ever imagine!!

And if I can stay true to that objective, the thought of having my submission rigorously tested by an experienced, accomplished, sadistic dominant Master who won’t tolerate anything less than perfection excites me more than anything has in my entire life.

And aside from loving Robert and wanting to win his trust back, I know that I’d rather be Robert’s submissive than his ghostwriter.

In fact, I don’t want to be Robert Hartwell’s ghostwriter anymore.

What I really want, in the dark recesses of my heart, and somewhere else, much lower, is to take his dark and dangerous tests and to pass them with flying colors. For my pride, for my fantasies, and also because I plan to be true to my motto that it’s far better to do something than to regret not doing it!

Before I can change my mind, I snatch up a pen and a piece of hotel stationery, the creamy paper thick and weighty in my hand. If I know one thing about Robert Hartwell, it’s that the man loves a deal memo—so a deal memo he shall have. Scribbling frantically, I write:

“I, Miranda Stone, agree to spend five days at Hartwell Castle, under the sole direction of Robert Hartwell. This deal memo confirms that I undertake his tests of my own volition, and if I am deemed to have failed, I will have no further contact with Robert Hartwell.”

There. It’s done. Not exactly legalese, but it gets the point across. I fold the paper neatly in thirds, tuck it into an envelope, and scrawl “Robert Hartwell” across the front. I leave it propped on the suite’s dining table, where he can’t miss it.

When I wake up in the morning after a night of tossing and turning, the envelope is gone.

I spend the rest of the day locked in the suite, unable to eat, unable to sleep, just flicking through TV channels showing programs I don’t want to see. All I want is to turn back the clock to before Robert got that wreath.

I don’t know what it said, or who sent it, and when I tried to ask him, he turned away from me and refused to answer. But somehow, someone used the wreath to send him a lethal message that destroyed his trust in me. And I’m numb with sadness and disappointment.

Then the phone rings. I am not sure whether or not to answer it. But perhaps it is Robert. Perhaps last night, and the wreath and its lethal message, was just another nightmare. Perhaps everything will be the way it was again.

But it’s Mary Ellen, inviting me to supper at the hotel restaurant.

For a moment I have the wild thought that perhaps Robert asked her to keep me company, but I’ve got no way of knowing, and I can’t tell her what happened last night. Either way, I force myself to get dressed and join her for an interminable dinner in the restaurant. Not interminable because Mary Ellen isn’t nice and sweet and charming to me, because she is, but because inside, I am crying.

After dinner, I go back to the suite and wait for Robert to come back, but he doesn’t. I can think of nothing but the tests he’s proposed. Could I pass them? Do I want to? Five days at his mercy . . . My heart beats faster with a combination of fear and sheer, unadulterated pleasure.

Then, for about the tenth time that day, I remind myself of my motto again: ‘It’s better to regret what you’ve done then to regret not doing it.”

I stay awake, hoping for his reaction to my letter, but when he returns at midnight he says nothing to me, gets into bed as far away as possible from me, and studiously avoids all contact with me, even an accidental brush of the hand.

In the morning I wake up bright and early, only to discover that Robert has already gotten up, so there is no chance of me attempting to mend the rift between us.

Bitterly disappointed, I shower and get dressed, and when I walk into the living room he hardly looks at me. He snaps, “Breakfast?” and strides out of the suite. I follow him. We sit opposite each other at the breakfast table, saying nothing while Robert methodically works his way through five newspapers—Russian, American, English, French, and German—and ignores me.

Afterward, I take a walk along the lake, but the beauty of the scenery, the crisp, clean air, and the sparkling, snow-covered mountains just make me sad. Then Mary Ellen turns up at the hotel out of the blue and we have lunch together, just the two of us.

I’m tempted, of course, to pump her about Robert, but I can tell how loyal she is to him. I know that if I resort to my interviewing skills, I’ll be able to get her to tell me much more about him than she should. And I like her far too much to make her say something that she will ultimately regret.

Back in the suite, Robert has left a note for me:
Dinner at 8. R.
And nothing else. I try to distract myself from worrying about the evening by visiting the Geneva Museum of Art and History, and I am so enthralled by the exhibits that I succeed. That is, until I see the Monets, which make me think of Robert again . . .

When I go down to dinner wearing the red Valentino he bought me, his eyes light up for one split second, but then I decide that I must have imagined it. And when we have dinner, he says very little except to make a few polite comments about the weather, plus ask me one or two questions about how I have spent my day, whether I like Geneva.

After our night on the plane, after everything he did to me during the flight, everything he was during the most romantic night of my life, I had expected to love Geneva when we arrived.

But the Robert Hartwell of the plane, the Robert Hartwell of our first night together, has morphed into a cold, polite stranger.

So the answer to the question of whether I like Geneva is very simple: I hate it more than I have hated anywhere else in my life.

Again that night, we sleep in the same bed. But the bed is vast, so it is easy for him to stay on one side and far away from me, which he does. Only once do I wake up to find his arm wrapped around me. As I do, he gives a start, then yanks his arm away from me so sharply that it is as if he has been bitten by a tarantula.

Hell would probably be preferable. Or even Hartwell Castle, where Robert intends to subject me to five days of tests so that he can find out whether I am truly submissive or a conniving, lying little fake.

If only he had wanted to test my submission just for the excitement of it, I would have adored the challenge. But not like this, not this way. And so, although I’ve agreed to the tests, have given him my word and would never dream of breaking it, I am starting to feel a mortal dread at the thought of being back at Hartwell Castle and subjecting myself to Robert’s tests.

Meanwhile, I have to go through these lonely, miserable few days in Geneva. Only the fact that Mary Ellen is sweet and charming and, when she can get away from her aunt, spends as much time with me as possible has kept me from throwing in the towel and flying back to America on my own ahead of Robert.

During my brief spell in Geneva, I wear my beautiful clothes, my glamorous underwear, my sexy shoes, and carry my priceless Hermès bags, but much as I love all those things, what I really long for is Robert as he was on the flight here, the man he was when he took me in hand so harshly, yet then slept the night with me so tenderly, the man he was before the wreath arrived and he accused me of faking my submission. The man he was before he rejected me so heartlessly.

To be with a man who is alternately loving and harsh, and who is everything I love and crave, before inexplicably becoming cold and remote, is the ultimate nightmare for me.

I never fully trust men. No doubt a therapist would say it’s because of my philandering father, and my experience with Warren Courtney. But I’ve also got the sneaking feeling that my fear of losing control, my lack of trust in men, somehow stems from my nightmare. But because I can never remember what happens in it, I am not sure how or why.

Whatever the reason, it’s almost impossible for me to lose control with a man and put my trust in him. After all, why should I, when I know that men can turn into another person at the drop of a hat?

And on my last night in Geneva, when I am sleeping in bed with Robert, but he is staying as far away from me as humanly possible, I have my nightmare once again and wake up screaming in terror.

He takes me in his arms, comforts me, and for a few minutes he is the same man with whom I flew to Geneva, the same man who spanked me with such passion, the same man for whom I long but who seems to have disappeared, and may even have been a figment of my imagination.

For now, at least, I can sleep.

But when I wake up the following morning, he is already in the shower. And when he comes out and is fully dressed, he nods at me coldly, then snaps, “We’re leaving in forty-five minutes, so you’d better have breakfast,” and strides out of the suite, banging the door behind him.