Page 108 of Dominion’s Collar

"That's not the leather one," she says.

"No."

Her eyes hold mine. The friendship between us took damage when my cover broke. We both know it. The repair won't be a single conversation. It'll be showing up, being honest, earning back the trust I borrowed against. Tonight is the first installment.

She sets a Negroni on the bar without asking what I want. She already knows.

"The pearls suit you," she says. And then: "Go find your Dom before he stares a hole through the back of your head."

I glance over my shoulder. Sebastien is in the booth. The scotch has arrived. He's watching me from across the room with the focused attention I first mistook for surveillance and later understood was something far more costly.

I cross the floor. The cushion is where it always is. I lower myself onto it and settle against his leg, and the soreness between my thighs from the desk reminds me exactly how we spent the afternoon.

His hand finds the back of my neck, fingers resting against the lock of the permanent collar.

The weight of his hand is the counterpart to the weight of the pearls. Between them I am held. Not restrained. Belonging.

"You're staring at the room like you own it," I say without looking up.

"I'm staring at you."

"Same thing, apparently."

His thumb moves against the lock. The corner of his mouth shifts by a degree. On Sebastien, that's a standing ovation.

Margot stops at the booth. She looks at the collar. Looks at Sebastien. The expression on her face is complex: approval layered over residual anger layered over something that might be relief.

"Permanent?" she asks.

"Yes," Sebastien says.

"Good." She turns to me. "Welcome to the family, Natalie. The real one this time."

She walks away before either of us can respond, which is such a specifically Margot exit that I actually smile.

Across the room, Remy is at the far end of the bar with Isabella tucked against his side. She says something close to his ear and his hand tightens on the small of her back. He bends to answer, his mouth near her temple. The gesture is private enough that I look away.

Luc appears from somewhere behind the bar with a bourbon and the look of a man who has been counting the seconds until he's allowed to speak. Simone catches his sleeve as he passes her. She says something I can't hear. Luc grins without breaking stride, which tells me she told him to behave.

"So," Luc says, looking at the collar. "You finally emptied the drawer."

"Luc." Sebastien's voice carries the tone of a warning that knows it will be ignored.

"I'm just saying. That box has been in there since before I started coming to the townhouse. I was beginning to think it was decorative."

"It wasn't decorative."

"Clearly." Luc lifts his bourbon toward me. "Congratulations. He's impossible, but he's consistent."

Sebastien's hand tightens fractionally on my neck. "Leave."

Luc grins. Drinks. Doesn't leave. Because Luc Pascal has never once done what Sebastien told him to do on the first request, and the friendship lives in exactly that refusal.

Ezra passes the booth on his way to the stairs. He slows long enough to register the pearls, glances at Sebastien, and says two words: "About time."

Sebastien responds with one: "Go."

Ezra's grin is wide enough to light the stairwell. He grabs Luc’s sleeve, pulling him away as he goes.