Yes, Master, page 3
Jenn was standing at the window, hopping up and down. “It’s Tristan, the billionaire. He sent a limo. This is a date, Alice! You were right.”
“I told you so.” Extremely nervous—Tristan was so out of my league—I ignored Jenn’s squeals and Ohmygods and paced back and forth until there was a knock on our door.
“Have fun!” Jenn gave me a bouncy hug and I headed for the door, opened it.
It wasn’t Tristan Stark.
It was a man I’d never seen before. He was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and tie.
“Hello, my name is Dave. I’ve come to pick up Miss Barlow,” Dave said, his mien very formal.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Tristan sending a lackey to pick me up. He hadn’t come himself? Why not? Too busy? I glanced over his shoulder, thinking maybe Tristan was waiting in the hallway. No deal.
“Okay.” Feeling a little let down, I sent Jenn a tense look over my shoulder.
She shrugged.
My expectations for the evening dimmed slightly, I looped my purse over my shoulder, waved good-bye to my roommate, and followed Dave down to the waiting car. Again, I looked for Tristan as I ducked inside.
No Tristan.
“Mr. Stark apologizes for not coming to pick you up personally. He was delayed and felt it was better to send a car to pick you up, rather than be late.”
“I see.” I made myself comfy, watching all the students’ curious stares as the driver started the car and pulled away from the building. Minutes later, we were motoring down the freeway, headed in the opposite direction from where I’d anticipated. “Where are we going?”
“The airport.”
“Airport?” I echoed. I had been expecting dinner at an expensive restaurant in town. Not a trip in an airplane. I called Jenn to let her know what was going on. She seemed a little quiet. I took that to mean she was nervous. I promised I’d call her later and let her know I was okay.
I clicked off and watched the scenery roll by as the car zoomed along I-94. We pulled up to a small airport out in the middle of cornfields somewhere in the outskirts of Ann Arbor. The limo parked in front of a metal building, next to a tiny airplane that maybe carried two to four people.
Was Tristan really expecting me to get into that thing?
My heart started pounding.
The car’s door swung open, and there was Tristan, offering a hand out.
“I apologize for not picking you up,” he said, “but I had to handle a situation, and I didn’t want to delay our flight.”
I accepted his hand, and a little tingle swept through me. “Just tell me the ‘situation’ had nothing to do with that plane.”
He chuckled. His eyes sparkled when he laughed. I liked his sparkles. “It had nothing to do with the plane. Come, let me show you. It’s perfectly safe. My pilot has logged thousands of hours of flight time, both during daylight hours and at night.”
His pilot. His freaking pilot.
This man was miles out of my league. Make that light-years.
“Is that a lot?” I asked, feeling a little stupid.
“It is. Which is why I hired him. He is a retired naval pilot.”
“Okay.” I accepted Tristan’s help up into the tiny plane. While the pilot did his preflight checks, we buckled ourselves into our seats. I said a prayer.
“Okay, sir,” the pilot said. He looked pretty young to be retired from anything. “We’re clear for takeoff.”
Tristan looked at me.
I tried to smile. The only good thing about this situation was my empty stomach. I’d been too nervous to eat lunch, and that was before finding out I would be taking a toy airplane to some unknown destination.
His brows furrowed. He took my hand. “It’s a short flight. Have you flown before?”
“Never. Not even on a big jet.”
“You’re in for a treat, then.”
The little plane bumped and rolled up to the end of the runway. The engine cranked up and we started to go faster, faster.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to say or do anything embarrassing. I think I might have crushed Tristan’s hand a little when I felt the wheels lift off the ground. And I know I did when we zoomed straight up into the sky. Then the plane tipped to the side, turning. For a minute, I became dizzy. It felt like I was on a carnival ride. I breathed slowly.
He leaned in to me. That was the only thing about the flight, so far, that I liked. We were close. Really close. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I muttered.
Thankfully, we straightened out and if we were climbing higher it wasn’t on such a steep angle. I heard myself sigh with relief. Then I looked out the window. Mistake. Once again, I squeezed Tristan’s hand. “Tell me, Tristan, what do you like to do in your free time?” I asked, anxious for a distraction as I jerked my gaze toward him.
“I enjoy mountain climbing,” he said. “Being outdoors, breathing fresh air. I feel alive.” His expression reflected his words, and for a moment, I didn’t care about the fact that we were miles above the ground and could crash to our death. I was drawn in, captivated. “Have you ever been?”
Me? Mountain climbing? That was funny. “The closest I’ve been to a mountain is an indoor rock-climbing wall.”
“Maybe someday you’ll go with me.”
Was that an invitation? My heart did a little hop in my chest. “Maybe.”
“I plan one trip a year,” he said. His thumb skimmed back and forth over the back of my hand. It was a little touch, but wow, what an impact it had. My face was getting warm. Other parts too. “I go to a different location each time. Last year, it was Mount Tai, in China, one of China’s Five Great Mountains. It was an experience of a lifetime, even though one climbs a staircase, rather than the natural face of the mountain.”
“That must’ve been one heck of a long staircase,” I said, studying his features. His face was so perfect, right down to the little mole on his cheekbone. Eyes, and the thick, dark eyelashes framing them. Nose, straight and perfectly proportioned for his face. Lips.
Oh, those lips.
“. . . over seven thousand steps . . .” He was talking about something, but I was mesmerized, captivated, not hearing much of anything.
I tried to shake myself out of my stupor. Focus, you twit. A man like this expects a woman to be intelligent, well-spoken. “Seven thousand steps. I can’t imagine.”
He continued, “There are temples along the way. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Sounds fascinating.” Of course, I was much more fascinated by the man sitting next to me, holding my hand.
“It was.” His voice sounded a little less jubilant. I wondered why.
“You sound . . . sad.”
“I’m not. I’m just . . .” He stared at me long and hard. “I went alone. I do a lot of things alone. There was a time when I believed that was best. But maybe not anymore.”
What was he trying to tell me?
I had no idea how to respond. Was this billionaire, who owned so much, who had limos and private planes and Daves at his fingertips . . . lonely?
“Where are you going this year?” I asked.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I didn’t know anything about mountains. I couldn’t make any suggestions. So, instead of giving some lame response, I said, “You seem very passionate about climbing. I’m sure it will be somewhere wonderful.”
His gaze sharpened. It almost felt like he was trying to look inside me, to read my mind. “I’m sure it will. Tell me, Alice, do you have a passion?”
“A passion?” I repeated. “No, I don’t think so. I enjoy dancing. I took ballet for many years.”
“Dance.” Some kind of expression flashed on his face for a moment, and then poof, it was gone. “You danced for years, and yet you don’t consider it a passion?”
“No. I don’t dance anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t love it enough to make it my life. And I wasn’t committed, nor great enough to dance in a professional ballet company. And if you look outside of ballet, there aren’t many jobs for professional dancers, at least not ones that allow you to keep your clothes on.”
I swear, his gaze flicked south for the briefest moment, to my nonexistent chest. Yes, if I’d had any aspirations of being a Vegas showgirl, I would have had to pay for some boobs. Clearly, my super-duper Victoria’s Secret push-up bra wasn’t hiding that fact.
“I understand.”
“Thus, I accepted the scholarship from Barnard and entered their accounting program. I had thought about continuing lessons while I was in school, but juggling both school and dance, both time-wise and financially, wasn’t working. I had to give one up.”
“What about now? You’ve graduated.”
“I’m not graduated yet. But I am finished with classes. My graduation is in a week and a half.”
His smile made my insides hop around. “Then you have a reason to celebrate.”
“I do.”
“We shall celebrate.” He leaned closer, cupped my cheek. His thumb grazed my cheekbone. “I’d like to make a confession.”
“What confession?” I asked, my gaze locked to his. I was breathless. Was he going to kiss me?
“Being trapped in the elevator was no accident.”
“What do you mean, no accident? Did you stop it?”
“I did.”
My heart jerked in my chest.
Nobody had ever gone to such extreme measures to spend time alone with me. It was romantic, straight out of a movie. And yet it was also slightly scary. Almost stalker-ish.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“I needed to talk to you, to find out if you were really as fascinating on the inside as you were on the outside.”
Fascinating? He thought I was fascinating?
“And . . . ?”
He leaned closer still, and my eyelids fluttered shut. Just before they closed completely, I saw something dark flash in his eyes. Raw male hunger. His lips grazed mine, barely touching them. Little tremors quaked through my whole body.
When he didn’t kiss me again, I opened my eyes.
He was still holding my face, looking at me. “Does that answer your question?”
“Not really. I think you might need to try again, and this time make your point a little clearer.”
“Hmm.” His gaze flicked to the pilot, sitting in front of us. His hand inched down the side of my face, his thumb stroking my bottom lip. “Later. We’ll be at our destination soon.” His voice was low, husky, and full of carnal need.
A quiver shimmied up my spine. There was no doubt where this was going. And I was excited and nervous, both. To think my first time doing . . . it . . . might be with a man like Tristan Stark. A powerful, rich, mysterious man who owned a private plane and traveled the world, climbing mountains and rescuing starving artists from third-world countries. I wondered if I was dreaming.
I must have been smiling to myself. Tristan squeezed my hand and leaned over to whisper, “What are you thinking about, little Alice? What’s making you smile?”
I turned to him. “It’s a secret.”
His laugh made every nerve in my body rejoice.
I learned fairly soon after that that landing was not as harrowing as taking off. Nevertheless, I was extremely glad to have my feet back on solid ground. I immediately dismissed the notion of someday becoming a flight attendant. Wouldn’t happen.
Not long after we landed, we were whisked away in another limousine, driven down a winding, hilly road, flanked by thick forest. Tristan made the time go by quickly, asking me questions about myself, my friends, my family. When we finally reached our destination, a gorgeous house hidden on a deep, wooded patch of land, I felt he knew just about everything there was to know . . . and then some. Me, I knew far less about him. Whenever I asked a question, he managed, somehow, to turn things around, and get me to talk instead.
He was a sneaky, clever man.
As the car rolled to a stop, Tristan said, “This is where I come when I need to get away. My sanctuary.” He helped me out of the car. I’d never been so thankful to be on solid ground. And when we walked up to the house, he opened the front door for me too, stepping to the side so I could enter first.
Such a gentleman. I’d never been treated better.
The house’s interior was unbelievably gorgeous, of course. The entry opened directly to a wide great room with soaring, vaulted ceilings. The floor was polished dark wood, almost black. The walls were crisp white. And the furnishings were a blend of new and old, rustic and sleekly modern. There were metal accents here and there. Steel light fixtures hung from the beamed ceiling; metal legs on tables; some metal boxes sat on the shelves flanking the huge stone fireplace.
I was in awe.
If someone had told me a few weeks ago that I would go on a date with a man like Tristan, to a place like this, I would have laughed hysterically. I was still having a hard time believing it was all real.
“Dinner is ready. Are you hungry?” Tristan led me toward a door exiting out onto a huge covered deck. A table was set for us, drinks poured. But my gaze didn’t linger on the table long, not when there was something far more amazing to look at just beyond it.
A lake. Still, blue waters glistening in the sun.
“Wow,” I said. “What a view.” A hawk swooped down, landing on what appeared to be a perch for it standing no more than ten feet from the end of the deck. “Is that . . . your pet?”
“I’d say, I’m more his pet,” Tristan said, amusement making his voice light. “He comes to me when he wants something.” Tristan lifted the cover off one of the plates, pulled a little bit of meat off, and, after donning a thick leather glove, offered the morsel to the raptor. It snatched it, consumed it in one swallow, sharp bird eyes staring at me.
If it was expecting me to do that, it was going to be disappointed.
“I think he’s still hungry,” I pointed out.
“No, he’s just spoiled.” Tristan pulled off the glove, returned it to its place, and pulled out a chair for me. “Please, sit.”
I sat, thanking him when he pushed in my chair. I went for a drink first. It was wine. Very good wine. I didn’t drink alcohol often, so I knew I didn’t want to overdo it. I sipped again, and the cool, fruity liquid slid down my throat. That was delicious. It would be so easy to drink too much. I took another sip. Smooth.
My gaze traveled from Tristan’s handsome face to the lake and back again. “This has been quite an adventure. I wasn’t expecting something so extravagant. More, a nice dinner at a restaurant.”
“I prefer privacy.”
“I understand.” At that statement, an alarm sounded in my head.
After a bad experience my freshman year, I’d become somewhat paranoid, suspecting every older man who showed an interest in me was married, looking for clues. Tristan was most definitely older than me. But up until now, I hadn’t felt any reason to suspect he might be married. Now that I thought about it, that would be a good reason to throw me in a plane and fly me far, far away from home.
When he lifted his wineglass—he was a lefty—I checked his ring finger. No ring. No tan line.
“I’m not married. I’m just a private person.” He looked at me over the rim of his glass.
My cheeks heated. Really, had I been that obvious? “A friend of mine was dating a man for a while, for almost four months. It got pretty serious. Or so she thought. She was expecting a wedding proposal down the road. Until she found out her boyfriend was already married. And his wife was pregnant.”
“I’m sorry.” He set down his glass, still studying me with those dark, sharp eyes of his. “Was he your first love?”
I blinked, trying to decide if I should even try to deny the truth. No, what point was there? Sure, it would make me look like an idiot, having failed to see the signs right away that Brad was married. But maybe that was okay. I’d never told anyone what really happened between Brad and me. Not even Jenn. I was too ashamed. Perhaps it was time to let it go. “He was.” I quickly decided to try Tristan’s tactic. “What about you? Who was your first love?”
“I haven’t found my first love yet.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Tristan was at least five years older than me. If I had to guess, I’d say he was around thirty. How was it he hadn’t fallen in love at least once in thirty years?
Was he that unattainable? Did he have commitment issues? Did he have intimacy issues?
“Like I said on the plane, I’ve primarily focused on my work.” He lifted the cover off his plate and motioned for me to do the same. As he speared a potato with his fork, he added, “What relationships I have pursued, I’ve kept casual. No strings. No entanglements. No complications. My life is already fairly complicated.”
As if he’d planned it—to illustrate his point—his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, checked the screen, apologized, and left the table.
That left me and the hawk sitting out there, for maybe twenty minutes. By the time he’d returned, I’d eaten as much of my dinner as I wanted and was ready to do something besides sit on the deck and stare at the lake.
He returned, apologizing profusely. His eyes flicked to my plate, which was covered once again. “Have you had enough to eat?”
“I’m finished.” I patted my stomach. “That was a lot of food. Delicious, though.”
“I’m through as well. Come, let’s go for a walk.” He took my hand, led me across the deck and down some steps to a path. It hooked to the left, cutting through a small patch of forest before ending at a private sandy beach.
I inhaled, smelling lush green life and dirt and water. “If I owned this property, I don’t think I’d ever want to leave.”
“I don’t ever want to leave.” He released my hand, angled himself to study me.
I felt his gaze on me as I kicked off my shoes. It had been a long time since I’d felt sand under my bare feet. Warm. Heaven. I padded down to the water’s edge. It was colder than I expected. I did a little hop, then spun around as I heard a low chuckle.
