THE NEXT MORNING, ELLA ENTERED the activity room like a cloud of depression was hanging over her head. Her back was hunched, and her eyes remained down. She had not bothered putting on any makeup that morning, nor had she done anything with her hair. She didn’t care how she looked anymore; it didn’t matter anyway.
It was time to tell Mr. Harden she was done; she was packing up and getting out of the hotel. She didn’t know why the thought filled her with such overwhelming sadness, but that didn’t matter, either. There was nothing he could say or do to change her mind.
With her eyes cast down, she didn’t notice the new man in the room. But she heard the change in voice when he spoke to her.
“Well, well, well,” the voice said. “We meet again.”
Ella’s picked up her head in shock. Her eyes went as large as saucers. Goosebumps rose across her arms. “Mister…mister….”
“Cox,” he said, raising his brows. “You do remember my name, don’t you, Ella?”
“Yes, Sir,” she stammered, “I just wasn’t expecting you here.”
“Your time with Mr. Harden is finished. I’m your trainer now. Your last one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means, Ella, if you get past me, you’re done with your basic training, and you get to stay on as a mistress of the Hotel Bentmoore. But if you don’t, you get shown the door. No last chances, no extra credit. I’m the last step in this process of selection, and the hardest trainer to pass. So how about you tell me right now if you have any intention of doing what it’ll take to finish this, cause I don’t need you wasting my time.”
“I—” It was on the tip of Ella’s tongue to blurt out she’d had every intention of calling it quits not one minute before. But as she looked at Mr. Cox staring at her so arrogantly, the words died in her throat, and ire rose in their place.
Mr. Cox noticed her moment of hesitation, and pounced on it. “If you can’t answer a simple yes or no question now, there’s no way you’re going to be able to finish this. So why don’t you and I just agree right now you’re not cut out for the job, and call it a day? Nobody’s going to say you weren’t good enough.” His tone told her clearly there would be somebody to say she hadn’t been good enough, namely him, and Ella’s hackles rose.
“What the hell do you know about me?” She shouted. “You have no idea what I’ve been put through since I got here! I’ve been flogged, paddled, cropped—”
Mr. Cox waved his hand away. “That’s all par for the course. Besides, being a Bentmoore mistress has nothing to do with how much punishment you can take. It’s about what’s in here.” He pointed to his temple. “It’s about the attitude. You think you’ve got it? Show me. At least try to look like a Bentmoore mistress. Since the moment you walked in here, you’ve done nothing but slouch and flinch away from me.” His tone turned mocking. “Poor little girl, what happened? Someone take your teddy bear away?”
Ella’s jaws clenched. Fire blazed in her eyes. But without saying a word, she fixed her posture, smoothed her features the way Mr. Harden had taught her to, and served Mr. Cox a derisive stare, one laden with challenge.
She began to walk around her new trainer in a wide circle, sashaying her hips and keeping her shoulders back, using an easy, relaxed gait. As she sauntered around Mr. Cox, she tilted her head to gaze at him, pulling his eyes in to stare at her with potent magnetism.
Mr. Cox turned his head over his shoulder to follow her around, until she had finished her short circuit and was back where she had started. Ella jutted out her chin and put her hand on her hip, looking sure of herself.
Mr. Cox clapped his hands. “Very good Ella,” he sneered. “That would have been perfect, if you were trying to model down a runway at a high-school fashion show.” He smiled in the face of Ella’s scowl. “But really, it was a good try—for a beginner. I have no doubt it was a vast improvement from what Harden had to deal with when he first started working with you.”
For a moment, Ella’s whole face flushed. Then she smiled.
“Thank you,” she said.
Mr. Cox frowned. “That wasn’t a compliment, you know.”
“I know. You were negging me.”
“Negging you?”
“You’re unfamiliar with the word? It means passing off subtle insults disguised as crass compliments to a woman, just to shake her confidence. Men do it to throw a woman off balance, so she’ll be more open to their sexual advances.”
Mr. Cox’s jaw ticked. “I know what negging means!”
“Then you know men only do it when they think they have to make a woman feel self-conscious and awkward about herself, just so they can have a chance with her—otherwise they wouldn’t have a chance at all.” She pointed at his chest. “You were negging me, which means you thought you had to throw me off balance just to have a shot with me. It was nice of you to acknowledge that. It was true, of course—you wouldn’t have a shot in hell with me—but it was still nice of you to acknowledge that. So thank you.”
To her surprise, Mr. Cox smiled. “Touché, sweetheart. But you’re forgetting one thing: I’ve got more than just a shot with you—I’ve got you. You’re here, and under my care now, which means I can do whatever I want with you. You don’t like it? There’s the door.”
He waited to see what she would do, the smile never wavering from his face.
Ella’s expression went from surprise, to anger, to disconcertion, and finally settled on fury…but at the same time, a curious light had leapt into her eyes, one that intrigued him.
“You can’t just do whatever you want with me,” she said. “I’m not your slave! You have to honor my limits! Mr. Harden said so!”
“Did he now.” Mr. Cox’s grin was menacing. “Mr. Harden is a much more refined gentleman than I am. He probably did his duty and taught you all about boundaries, and negotiations, and safewords.”
“Yes….”
“You’re not under Mr. Harden’s rule anymore, Ella. You’re under mine. I don’t put much stock in safewords, and I certainly don’t negotiate fair.” His eyes grew lecherous as her face paled. “Poor little Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole,” he mocked. “Will she run back home, like the scared little girl she is? Or will she follow directions and open her eyes to a whole new world? Which is it to be, Ella?”
“I’m not some scared little girl!”
“Then prove it.” Again, he waited, and watched to see what she would do.
Ella wished she could wipe that smug look off his face. She vowed to herself right then and there that somehow, she would find a way.
“What is your first order for me?” She asked in a low hiss, adding as an afterthought, “Sir.”
Mr. Cox’s grin was huge.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” he said.
“You told her what?”
“I told her I don’t care about safewords. Well, that’s not a hundred percent right….I told her I don’t put much stock in them—which we both know is true.”
“But why did you tell her that? You might have just scared her away completely.”
“Oh, I didn’t, Mr. Bentmoore, believe me. If anything, I made her rise to the challenge. What I told her is the truth, because I can’t expect her to be honest with me if I’m not completely honest with her from the get-go. She needs this from me, I can tell.”
“You better be right, Cox.”
“I am.” His face lit up. “And she finds me exciting, I can see it in her eyes. She’s looking for a challenge, and she knows I can give it to her. She’s looking forward to some fun, just as much as I am.” He chuckled, lost in thought. “She’s got courage, challenging me. That girl has spirit.”
“Yes, she does.” Mr. Bentmoore’s eyes narrowed, noticing the look on Mr. Cox’s face. “Be careful, Cox.”
“She doesn’t need me to be careful. She needs me to give her a swift kick in the ass.”
“I didn’t mean her, I meant you. Don’t get ahead of yourself with this one.”
Mr. Cox looked down at his boss, genuinely confused. “I don’t know what you mean, Sir.”
Mr. Bentmoore sighed. “Never mind…there’s no point trying to warn you, anyway. Have you started in on her yet?”
“Not yet. I’m letting her simmer for a couple hours. Some meat needs to be slow cooked, you know.”
