Free Hypnotized by the Billionaire by Winter Gemissant Page A

cage, he wanted them to stare at me -- but he strode over to me and said I was a bad girl, that I was flirting and that was a naughty thing to do. So he blindfolded me for the rest of the night.” She bit her lip, as though she could barely contain her excitement just thinking about it.
    I, on the other hand, was skeptical. “You let this guy handcuff you to a cage, then he got mad at you for other guys looking at you?” I repeated.
    “Well I belong to him and he didn’t want them to think they could just do whatever they wanted to me.”
    “Even when he handcuffed you there himself to tease them, making you practically bait,” I said, stone-flat.
    “Of course. I told him what I wanted him to do to me. He can do whatever he wants to me, and if he says I was flirting, then I must have been flirting.” She licked her lips and touched a strand of her hair, twirling it slightly as she stared off towards the atrium’s tall bright ceiling. “If I do it again, he’s sure to punish me like I’d deserve.” She moved the strand of light pink hair away from her eyes and looked at me as though I were the one who was daft.
    I couldn’t take it anymore. “You have to stand up for yourself, Cass, Christ!” I stood up, picking up my coffee to go back to my office on a higher floor. “I don’t know what this Master’s done to you, but please try to come back to your senses.”
    Cass looked after me, but didn’t try to stop me as I started to walk off. From behind my clicking heels, I faintly heard her voice trail after me, saying, “You don’t understand, Lydia.”
    I pretended not to hear her though, and continued on my way, punching the elevator button as though it were a missile launch activator. Whenever I was mad I poured myself into my work further, and as I seethed over the groveling slut Cass had suddenly let herself be turned into, I typed faster, losing myself in the work and letting the hours slip by. Cass was a strong, independent young woman, fierce and fiery and always ready to stand up for her rights, she was the one who had introduced me to online forums of smart women in tech and cool feminist blogs and suddenly here she was glassy-eyed over some Master who was having the time of his life handcuffing a girl to a cage in a dirty club. That Cass was so willing to throw her old persona under the bus made me furious. It made me want to sink my teeth into a pillow and scream with rage, but instead I buckled down and just worked harder, pushing myself to make as much headway with my current project as possible. And so by the time I started coming down from my anger-high, I was alone in the office, waving others away saying I just needed another hour, just an hour more, just a little more time...
    I softly walked to the main office door and clicked the lock with a soft turn of the key. My cube light glowed solo in the otherwise dark office. So when a hand suddenly grazed my shoulder from behind, I stiffened in pure shock, emitting only a sharp intake of breath.
    Incidents. It was an incident. And the incident was happening to me. A shiver ran down my spine as I slowly swiveled my chair around.

2.
    “Lydia -- it is Lydia, isn’t it?”
    His voice was deep and calm, as though he were asking me to sign in at a doctor’s appointment or sign a piece of paperwork at the bank, rather than the question from a man standing too close to comfort to my chair, blocking my exit. His eyes were dark in the soft light of my cubicle, his hair a deep chestnut, and he smelled like a mixture of rich tobacco -- and I mean rich as in oh-my-god expensive because you know that smell when it hits you and I’d been in its presence once or twice in my life before -- and an undertone of teak wood, as though he were bringing the essence of a man’s leather-bound book library into my tidy little cubicle.
    I nodded my head slowly. “Yes.” There was really no denying it. The must that surrounded him throbbed with a vital sort of