Just thinking about it made my cock perk up.

Plenty of time for that later.

I spent the next several hours taking care of the things that had been badly neglected for the last week: trash, laundry, general tidying. I refused to hire a housekeeper because I didn’t like the idea of someone else going through my things, but there were times I regretted my own stubbornness. When my mother insisted that Will and I learn basic housekeeping skills, this probably wasn’t what she had in mind. Scrubbing the toilet wasn’t a task for the future head of the Turner Group—and yet, there I was.

When my apartment was clean, and I had showered and eaten, I looked around and realized that I was at loose ends.

It had happened to me before, in the aftermath of intense bouts of work. I felt aimless for a few days without the constant pressure of deadlines and to-do lists, and then remembered that I was a real person with hobbies and a social life. But the few days until normal life clicked back into place were always disconcerting.

Later, after everything was over, I couldn’t have said why I decided to go to the Silver Cross Club that afternoon. Boredom was part of it, and a vague sense that I had neglected the business for too long, although Germaine was certainly more than capable of handling anything but the most dire of emergencies. Maybe part of it was wistful nostalgia for the not-so-long-ago days when Sasha had been little more than a sex toy, and not a complex, fully realized person with hopes and dreams. I felt guilty, I realized, for treating her poorly, and for being the sort of man who willingly paid a woman a quarter of a million dollars for a month of sex.

Christ. What the fuck had I been thinking? I must have been in some sort of fugue state. That wasn’t me. I didn’t exploit women, or take advantage of their weaknesses, and yet my actions over the past couple of weeks indicated that I most certainly did. The cognitive dissonance was unpleasant, to say the least. It had been easier when Sasha was just an object.

I was man enough to admit that at least part of it was the result of injured pride. She had looked so helpless and sweet, that first day I met her, and I gave her my business card thinking that she was the sort of girl I might like to take out to dinner. And then when I saw her on stage at the club later that night, showing herself off for a roomful of men, I had felt foolish. Like she was mocking me, somehow.

I hadn’t treated her well.

And so maybe the ultimate reason I went to the club that afternoon was to enact a sort of penance. Atone for my sins, somehow. Return to the scene of the crime and undo it all.

I wasn’t thinking in those terms at the time, of course. And it’s difficult to ascribe motives post hoc. But there was certainly an element of guilt involved.

I decided to walk to the club. The weather report claimed that the temperature and humidity had dropped overnight, and I lived close enough—a little over a mile—that walking wasn’t a hardship in good weather. I’d spent the last week cooped up indoors, sweating over the Bywater documents, praying I hadn’t missed something that would turn a profitable buyout into a fiscal disaster. It would do me good to get some fresh air.

I arrived at the club shortly before opening. I didn’t recognize the man at the front door, but he seemed to recognize me, because he nodded politely and ushered me inside. I wondered if Germaine had a picture of me somewhere in her office that she showed to the new employees. I wouldn’t put it past her.

My eyes were sun-dazzled after being outside, and once I was within the interior of the club, I paused for a moment to let my vision adjust. A small group of dancers and servers clustered around the bar, laughing at a story the bartender was telling, and they all turned to look at me and began giggling and whispering behind their hands. One of them peeled off from the group and headed for the dancers’ dressing room in the back—probably to notify Poppy. I really had to get Germaine to do something about that shrieking harpy. Fire her ass, maybe. Demote her to dishwasher.

When I could see again, I headed for Germaine’s office, ignoring the silence that fell at the bar as I passed. It was good that they were afraid of me. Fear was a useful tool: it kept people from trying to talk to me. The less idiotic yammering I had to listen to, the better.

Germaine was typing on her computer when I walked into her office, but when I shut the door behind me, she looked up. Her face settled into a carefully neutral expression as she recognized who had interrupted her. I knew that Germaine disapproved of me, although I had never quite figured out why; but I didn’t really give a fuck as long as she stayed professional. And she always was—almost to a fault.

“Mr. Turner,” she greeted me. “I trust you’re doing well.”

“As always,” I said. “How are you, Germaine?”

“Very well, thank you,” she said, and then, pleasantries taken care of, folded her hands on top of her desk and gave me a bland, expectant look.

I realized I had no actual reason for being at the club, and consequently had nothing of substance to say to Germaine. Part of me liked the idea of baiting her into lengthy, pointless small talk, but most of me wanted to get the fuck out of her office before she could figure out that I was full of shit. “I’ll let you get back to work,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know I was here. It’s good seeing you, Germaine.”

I turned to leave, but her voice interrupted me. “Is your arrangement with Sassy working out to your liking?”

Slowly, I turned back to face her. “All right, Germaine. Let’s hear it. It’s clear that you’re unhappy about my relationship with Sasha. Kindly explain the nature of your objections.”

She said nothing, her lips compressed into a thin line.

“Well, let it out,” I said, amused now by her obvious discomfort. “I’m not going to throw a tantrum, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’d have to be an idiot to fire you.”

She sighed. “Very well. I think it’s unprofessional to mix business and pleasure. Sassy is one of my best and most reliable dancers, and you’ve eliminated her from the schedule for an entire month. Her regulars are unhappy. The other dancers are suspicious about her sudden disappearance, and I’ve been wasting far too much of my time quelling rumors. And frankly, Mr. Turner, I’ve always considered you to be something of a wild card. I appreciate your company’s investment in the club, but your unannounced visits always seem to spark panic amongst my workers, and I don’t appreciate your constant nosing about in my bookkeeping, as though I’m doing something illicit.”