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“Thirty,” my father says. No way we’re going that high.

Yet here we are! We’ve begun this massive charade.

I let my father do the talking. He’s the negotiator in the family. If he needs it, he’ll bring in the big guns – my mother. She knows how to charm people like the Anderssens. She’ll sashay in with her sexy dresses and red lips, bypassing Kennedy and going straight for Lara’s jugular.

“Come on, lovely, cut us a break. We know how much you wanna sell…” Gag. Gag.

We haven’t reached those levels of desperation yet. Besides, my father doesn’t want to put my mother through that. They may be divorced, but they’re still friendly.

Whatever that means these days.

Take, for instance, my relationship with Kathleen. We’re friendly. Yeah. Friendly. Even before all this bullshit with the sex and bets and whatnot, our banter was laced with a mutual understanding. We were sore about what happened years ago, but it’s not like we made our business decisions based on it. Far from it. It was more like… let’s avoid each other if we can help it. Avoid the embarrassment. In public, however, we were friendly to each other.

Now that we’ve had sex… twice? Shit, we’re past friendly. We’re practically melting in each other’s arms when we’re in the same room. I think. I haven’t seen Katie since we hooked up in an empty room.

It makes winning our stupid, drunken bet bittersweet. I’ll tease her about it, but I don’t expect her to put out. It was a bet. We were drunk. Whatever. I’m content with never bringing it up again. I mean, if I lost by some stroke of shit luck, I would never go crawling to her with a leash in my mouth. So why would I expect that from her?

I make dumb bets when I’m drunk, but I know when to cut them off. So I won. Whatever. As beautiful as it would be to pin that woman down and make her mine, I will hold off. There are other ways to court her.

Oh, don’t you see? I’m making my peace with the fact that I want her again. And again.

I don’t know how to approach her yet. Suggesting, hey, maybe we should have something casual until we end up in “real” relationships with other people? We’re not going to “play,” as much as I want to. But I need to get that out of my head. Kathleen’s a Domme. And no matter how close we may skirt to her begging for me, it’s not going to be in the way I ultimately like. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep giving it to her, however.

Or take her out on a real date.

Or invite her into my home.

It could work. Keep it simple. Couple times a month. We might run into each other with other partners at Midnight. Maybe I’ll watch her and she’ll watch me. Once in a while, we’ll hook up when we can’t take it anymore. Yes, I think I’d like that.

How to ask her, though? I think the best way would be to seduce her a third time and then bring it up when we’re post-climax and she’s thinking about how good I feel both in and on her.

I mean, it wouldn’t work as a relationship, but it could work casually, right?

Shit, I’m supposed to be paying attention to this meeting.

We are nowhere near reaching an agreement by the end of the long day. Vivian’s fingers are going to fall off from all the notes she’s taking. She mentions her husband and toddler and how much she wishes to get home to them. I don’t blame her. She just came back from maternity leave a few months ago. Our company is generous with it, but it was still less than a year. She wants to be with her son and husband, who works from home so he can take care of the baby. I feel bad returning Vivian all frazzled, but what can I do? This is business.

This is… something strange I feel.

I still haven’t shaken those endorphins from Friday. You know, the ones that say I love Katie and want to tell her so. This is what has led me to making decisions about asking her to be my casual partner.

I’m home by seven, weary and tired of listening to other people. Once my father has a hand in the negotiations, I’ll be left to talk to the designers and contractors about what we want to do first. We’re speedy about the whole thing, but it will take weeks, nonetheless. Weeks I’ll be working my ass off and needing plenty of stress relief.

Odds are good that I’ll need to find a semi-permanent sub during those times to keep the edge off. Not even Katie will help after a while.

Fuck, Katie.

Kathleen, I mean. I can’t let her be “Katie” until she’s in my presence and we have some privacy. Gotta keep some distance between us.

It’s as if the universe is listening to me. Not five seconds later, my phone buzzes with a message from her.

I never received a reply to my teasing yesterday. Who knows why? Maybe she’s mad. Maybe she’s busy. Maybe she couldn’t think of something witty to retort. Could be any number of things, but most likely this is what I’ve been waiting for.

My chance.

“Don’t know what you could possibly be talking about.”

Before I can think of anything to tease her with, I hit the call button, sit back, and let my overinflated sense of self-worth take over.