Sanctum (Masters and Mercenaries #4.5)(3)

She was a completely different woman now. And she needed a job. She squared her shoulders because she wasn’t going to run. She was going to face him down. “I apologize, Sir.”

She was in a BDSM club. He was definitely a Dom. There was a protocol to follow.

“It’s weird to hear you call me ‘Sir.’ I’m so used to ‘Master.’” He was staring up at her. She couldn’t tell if he was completely horrified or mildly amused.

“Well, you’re not my Master.” She didn’t have a Master now. Hell, she didn’t have a life now, much less time to play. “It’s nice to see you.” It was horrible to see him. She was going to be an emotional mess. “But I need to find the manager. Mr. Taggart said I should wait in here.”

Could she work at a club Ryan frequented? Could she watch him with his latest sub? His new sub would probably be younger and hotter. Way better looking and very likely thinner.

“Why the hell aren’t you with Keith?” He held up a plain manila folder. “Why would you need a job?”

She felt her eyes widen. He had her job application? “That’s supposed to be private. And what I do or don’t do isn’t your business any longer.”

“Oh, sweetheart, this application is totally my business. I am the manager.” He said the words with a deeply bitter huff.

“You own the club? I thought that big guy owned the club.”

“He’s my boss. I run Sanctum for him. I’m also the Dom in Residence. Why don’t you sit down, Jillian?”

She practically fell into the seat. Her head was reeling. “Why are you running a club? You’re a CEO. You own your own business.”

His face closed off, his eyes going cold and that sensual mouth of his flattening. When she’d been his submissive, this was the expression that would send her to her knees, her head down, palms on her thighs. It was an expression that told her he was very displeased. “I don’t anymore.”

“What?”

He opened the folder, his eyes looking down at the application there. “It’s not important. When did you leave Keith? I heard he went to New York. I assumed you went with him.”

She was expected to lay out her life story when he wouldn’t even answer a simple question? At one point in time, this man had been her comfort. Now she just kind of wanted to slap him. And that wouldn’t get her the job. “Like you said, it’s not important.”

His eyes came back up and her old Dom was right there, all dominance and willpower, and complete unwillingness to have his orders ignored. And then he was gone, his mouth turning down and his eyes finding the papers in front of him again. “You went back to work…seventeen months ago.” He took a long breath, and she knew what he wanted to ask.

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been getting into Keith’s car. She was supposed to go back to Keith’s mansion and continue her life as a rich man’s pretty slave. He’d thought she just wanted to be taken care of. She was sure he’d even patted himself on his Armani-clad back for being so kind as to find her a new keeper when he’d gotten bored with her.

She’d had Keith drop her at the bus station.

“It took me a few weeks to find a job, but I worked at The Steak House in Bend River for six months before moving back here. My references from there are excellent. I put the restaurant manager down as a contact. While I was there, I implemented a new POS system and managed to modernize the bar and the way bartenders communicated with servers.”

She sounded like a robot. This was her spiel, the one she gave all potential employers. Look at me. I’m so great. You want to hire me, not those other people.

It was different when the potential employer in front of her was a man who had been inside her, who had taken her every way it was possible to have taken a woman.

Why did this damn job have to pay so well? She continued to talk about her past jobs, the words so rote by now that she’d memorized them. But all the while she was drinking him in. Now that she really looked at him, she could see all the ways he’d changed. He was wearing a T-shirt. He never wore anything but designer suits before. And his leathers. His face was harder, as though he’d lived rough the last year and a half. His hair, before so perfectly cut, was almost curling over his ears. She’d always known that hair would look like black silk if he hadn’t kept it so ruthlessly under control.

She finished her spiel and a heavy silence dropped over the room. The air suddenly felt thick and coated with the burden of their past.

“Do you honestly think you can work for me?” Ryan’s question was asked without a hint of inflection, as though he couldn’t care less about the answer, merely was required to ask.

He was going to turn her down. And why shouldn’t he? The whole time they had been together she hadn’t shown him a single instant where she’d been really competent and in control. “I think you should talk to my former employers.”

“Your work history is a whole seventeen months, Jillian. I need an experienced bar manager. You’ve only managed in small towns. This is Dallas. These are very wealthy people.”

You can’t do it. Yeah, she got the message. And it had been dumb to think he would hire her. She should have walked right back out the door, but the idea of having health care in a couple of months and working shorter hours for more pay had made her a little crazy.