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yesterday.
    “Ms Carter rejected you? I can’t believe it.”
    Richard looked up at his best friend from his folded masterpiece in shock. “You knew?” He hadn’t told Dante about his plan to ask Serena to marry him, or about their long-term arrangement. He’d always considered the matter private. Yet somehow his best friend had known.
    Dante shook his head. “Of course I knew. Why do you think I mentioned Neil keeping Patrick out of the business? I was hoping you’d take the bait and ask your little engineer. I’ve seen the way you talk to her at every meeting. You’ve been dominating that woman for years.” Richard only stared at his friend open-mouthed, and Dante smiled bigger. “She didn’t exactly keep your relationship a secret either. The way her head bowed and shoulders slumped every time you even looked at her. I know what a woman submitting to her Master looks like.”
    Richard nodded. Dante knew better than any that look of submission on a woman’s face. He’d trained more than enough subs in his day to see the need and desperation from miles away.
    “I’m surprised she turned you down. I don’t know if I’ve seen a woman so desperate to be claimed by her Master as that sweetheart.”
    Richard curled his hands into his thighs, fighting back the rage firing his blood at the easy nickname Dante had given Serena. He was her Master, whether she realised it or not. He could call her anything he wanted, but no one else held that right.
    “Don’t worry, lover boy,” his friend joked with a smile that would be so satisfying to smack off his face. “I have no intention of touching your kitten. I’m not interested in already claimed women. You know that.”
    That was true. Dante was an honourable man. In all the years they’d been friends, which stretched out more than two decades, he’d never seen Dante chase after a claimed woman. But when it came to Serena, Richard wasn’t rational. He never had been.
    He’d spent more time than he would admit hating the other men who had touched Serena. He despised the man who had trained her in the lifestyle, almost as much as he thrilled at finding such a perfect, already trained submissive under his control.
    “So how’d you screw up your proposal to Little Miss Numbers down there, to force her to say no?”
    Richard shook his head and took a gulp of his coffee. Given how little he’d slept last night, replaying all that had happened, trying to determine where he’d gone wrong, he should just be injecting the caffeine right into his veins. “I don’t know.”
    “You must have done something. What did you say to her?”
    Richard took another long pull of coffee, enjoying the punishing burn down his throat. “I talked about the Argonaut deal and how they were holding up the contract because of some puritanical ideas about my recreational habits, and that if we got married it might be enough to loosen their reins and complete the merger.”
    Dante sighed, dropping his head into his hand. “You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”
    Richard glared up at his best friend, clenching the porcelain cup tight in his hand. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.
    “Did she say anything to you after that proposal?” Dante continued on, his words muffled in his palm. “Did she give you any indication how she felt about being asked?”
    Richard thought for a second, replaying the interaction over again in his mind. “She asked about her job. I told her she didn’t have to worry. I’d take care of her.”
    “Moron,” Dante cursed again. “She’s the lead engineer at one of the biggest airlines in the country, if not the world. You think that’s a job she just happened upon to pay the bills. She cares about it. She loves it.”
    Richard paused. He knew she cared about her job. She was determined and hard-working. Was that why she’d turned him down? Because he didn’t think his wife should work for him? If so, why wouldn’t she just say it?