Read Online Caught: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (His Domination Book 2) by Cynthia Dane - Free Book Online Page B

The implication was not lost to Monica. He wants to know if he’s been to the Château. What a sneaky man.
    Monica reached across the table and shook the other man’s hand. “I think we may have met a few years ago. At a fundraiser.” That was always a safe answer in these circles.
    The man down on the stage cried out in pain. Nobody at the table flinched. “Monica Graham, is it?” James sat back in his seat, arms crossed and eyes never leaving Monica’s face. “Boy, I certainly know you. Who doesn’t around these parts?”
    Gwen glanced at him. “Is that so?”
    “Ms. Graham here runs that house of ill repute up in the hills, dear.” James cleared his throat. “Not that I’ve ever been there, mind you.” He then looked at Monica again. “No offense.”
    “None taken.”
    “Wait, the BDSM house?”
    “I suppose you could call it that,” Monica said.
    “Oh, I know you! Didn’t you used to date Jackson Lyle?”
    The table fell silent. Monica maintained her poker face but had to look toward Henry before having the strength to answer. “Once upon a time, yes.”
    The pride Gwen boasted for being right quickly fell off her countenance. “Sorry…”
    While James shifted uncomfortably, Monica smiled. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’m hardly doing poorly for myself.”
    “I’ll say.” James perked back up and pointed to Henry. “Didn’t think I’d see you with such a classy lady in a place like this, Henry. Look at you! Becoming a regular Don Juan. Although it’s kind of funny, isn’t it?”
    Henry was not smiling. “What’s funny, James?”
    The server returned with drinks for James and Gwen, as well as refills for the original couple at the table. Monica snatched her fresh Manhattan and nursed it while the two men had a battle of secrets across the table. Business bullshit. Back at the Château she would be taking notes. On a date with her Dom? She was under no obligation to listen to a thing – unless Henry told her to, of course.
    “Oh, you know.” James patted Gwen’s thigh. “Just some things I’ve heard on the grapevine.”
    “I’d ask what those are,” Henry stirred his drink with the thin straw he was given. “but I don’t think I want to know. Not tonight.”
    “Of course.” The knowing smile on James’s face did not inspire any confidence at the table. All Monica knew was that Henry did not look like he was enjoying himself any longer. Whatever went on in his brain right now had nothing to do with her, however. “So how did you two meet, exactly? I’d love to know.”
    “How does anyone meet Ms. Graham in this world?” Monica didn’t like the undertone to Henry’s voice. It was similar to the way he spoke to her in the bedroom, but tinged in anger. Was this the Henry who did business? “We met at her Château, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “Of course. ”
    Tension covered the table. Monica glanced at Gwen, who averted her eyes and pretended to be enthralled with the show wrapping up on stage. What do these two know? Something that Monica didn’t know? It made sense, when she considered the fact that she had only met Henry a few times. A few times, and yet it feels like we’ve been together an eternity already. There was something dangerous about that thought.
    Things didn’t change until another couple arrived. Then another. Men and women from the business world coming together on a Tuesday night, of all nights, simply to enjoy drinks and watch people be tied up and talked down to on a stage. Not that many people were watching the shows once they connected with others and made bawdy jokes over drinks. Eventually Monica had to get up from the table and join the new party at a bigger table in another corner. She recognized some of them from work and from her old life with Jackson. None of them were interested in her.
    Because she knew their sexual secrets.
    Because she knew who owed who money.
    Because she heard them make judgments while at her place of