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cut off an important limb in order to spend the rest of the evening with her. When one man had called her 'his Venus' on a date, she had initially been enchanted, only to find that he had meant something akin to a Venus fly trap, but for the male sex rather than an insect. While not overly complimentary, it was hardly insulting and she had thought at the time that her success with Matthews would be virtually guaranteed. It was to her horror, just two days after she had taken an unbreakable five year contract with Zystrom, to find out that not only did Matthews prefer blondes, but that he used them exclusively to all other hair-colour variants.
    Marianna had initially thought the situation could be easily solved with a simple purchase of hair dye. Not so. Like 'enhanced' breasts, which were expressly forbidden in the Zystrom contract, Matthews could spot a fake blonde from a neighbouring continent, which meant that all of Marianna's time and effort had been for naught. She had been left to rot in the outermost corner of the building, positioned carefully behind one of the tallest potted palms the open plan office boasted, as if she were an offensive smell that needed to be covered up and disguised. Within a single week she had wilted like a wallflower, one denied both sun and water.
    To make matters worse, without Matthews' stamp of approval upon her body, her concealed position made sure no one else would take pity on her libido either. Never had she been so close and yet so damn far from achieving her objective. Finding herself trapped without recourse for escape, her body entered a living hell that felt a little like a five year prison sentence, but much, much worse. You could get away with the odd orgasm in a prison cell, under the cover of darkness. People occasionally talked to you in prison and you weren't awarded leper status simply by possessing the wrong gene with regards to your hair colour. Why did he have to be the only man immune to her charms?
    Never had time dragged so slowly. Each day was a nightmare that only the dullness of routine and an automaton feature she wasn't consciously aware she possessed managed to push her past into the next. She was not getting any younger and there was no option to run and lick her wounds after realising the grave mistake made. And yet, here she was, nearly two years after the date of her inception, finally where she belonged. The question was why? Had Matthews suddenly had a change of heart, or was he temporarily colour-blind? There was always the possibility that Cinderella's fairy godmother had taken to drink and begun to muddle names about. Their names shared the same number of syllables, if nothing else. Whatever the reason that enabled her body to be in close proximity to that of his, she ached to be used and abused in every way imaginable.
    Repositioning herself over the cold wooden table, she felt it flatten her ample breasts and dig into the soft flesh of her stomach. Letting her chin rest squarely on the polished surface, the belt dangled from her teeth and grazed the floor. Sensing his impatience, she stiffened in anticipation and could almost feel the waves of tension radiate from his taut frame. It was odd, but she had never seen him anything but sub-zero cool and calmly in control of all he surveyed, even when he stood to lose millions. Neither money nor business was responsible for his mood and she would happily bet on the fact. Her curiosity was piqued. It would stay that way. Her claws were well and truly sheathed in all dealings with this man. When hands that were always rock-steady shook when he grappled with her skirt, she didn't know whether to be pleased or terrified.
    'I'm waiting,' a terse voice reminded her.
    That focused her attention. She'd forgotten the amount of trouble she'd managed to mire herself in and she'd barely been with him ten minutes. Marianna was going to have to try harder to succeed, if she didn't want to fall at the first hurdle and