Three and a Half Weeks(191)

“I’m sorry but Ella’s gone.”

What? “Gone?”

“Yes. Forgive my lack of manners. I’m Mariah, Ella’s friend and roommate—former roommate now, I guess. Ella left the country two days ago.”

“Left the country? How could that be? She never mentioned any plans to that effect when I saw her four days ago.”

Mariah shrugged. “I didn’t see it coming either but she packed her bags in a rush, handed me her share of next month’s rent and said adios, promising to keep in touch. I’m sorry, but that’s all I know.”

“Thank you,” he said, and turned away. Whether it was true or her friend was lying was immaterial; he had to be gracious about it until he knew for certain. On his way home, as his heart thundered in his chest in a cold-sweat panic, he outlined in his mind how he’d find her. Be logical and proactive, he reminded himself. Hopefully she was using plastic since her cell phone was disconnected. Credit cards and cell phones leave a trail of breadcrumbs.



Two weeks passed, and after zero luck in scouting out her location, he called his security expert to recommend an investigator. He needed to run somebody to ground.

Forty-eight hours later, he had her new address in front of him, courtesy of Allen Larson, the PI he’d hired. Still, he wasn’t sure of his next step. Knowing where she was now was comforting enough to allow him some time for reflection and perhaps time to try to resist the inevitable. He didn’t want to give in to the weakness of love. Emotion was debilitating; detachment was empowering. For a little while, that became his new mantra. Kickboxing became his new obsession.



Exactly two weeks after receiving the information on Ella’s location, he stepped off a Virgin Air jet at Heathrow, a piece of paper with an address written on it in his hand. Would she be happy to see him or horrified he found her? He just didn’t know, so he took a cautious approach: he waited outside her flat, sitting on a park bench for several hours at a stretch. When he first spotted her coming out of the brick building, his heartbeat seemed to falter for a moment, then thrummed strongly like a motor revving while his whole chest tightened painfully. It was so good to see her beautiful face. He’d missed it so much.

That was the moment when he had to confront reality: despite his best efforts and his diligent attempt to distance himself from all things romantic, he’d fallen in love. And, another slap in the face: chances were rather excellent that his love was unrequited. He was Ian Blackmon, one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, so said Fortune, People, Maxim, and Forbes, and the one girl he loves probably despises him and all of his evil ways.



The very evening he walked into Archipelago and saw her for the first time, he probably began his descent into life as a besotted fool. She was exquisitely beautiful but Ian had seen so many gorgeous women—most wealthy men do. Physically beautiful people almost always use their looks to trade up in life, so he always had lots of them fawning around him.

But it was more than mere looks. Ella had something else, a sort of dual persona going on. On the one hand, she was pristine innocence, almost angelic in her purity. Warring with the innocence, however, was a kind of innate femme-fatale allure, daring men—with her azure eyes—to come closer so she could destroy them with her charms, a kind of vagina dentata, the nightmare of anyone with a penis and a healthy libido. It sucked him in immediately.

On their first date, he’d decided he would mold her to be his next submissive if she were at all amenable. He could easily make it worth her while financially and she was a struggling student. In return, he could feed off some of that innocent charm while nurturing her undiscovered femme fatale. He pursued her with a single-minded determination.

Her virginity threw him for a minute or two—he wasn’t expecting it and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. What he did know beyond a shadow of a doubt, virgin or no virgin, was that she wasn’t leaving his house that night without him fucking her, one way or another. Her virginity merely caused him to reconsider his plans. His planned domination became a seduction and he found it every bit as satisfying as any BDSM scene could be. Maybe even more.

Did some part of him recognize that very night that she was his, or more aptly, that he was hers? Very possibly.



He went back to the States without ever making contact with her. For one thing, he knew he wouldn’t be successful. Too much time had already passed and she had made no effort to get in touch with him. She was done with him the moment he picked up the single tail. His dour conclusion was that he’d have to live without her and so he went home.