Page 18 of Dominion’s Collar

She picks up her Negroni, takes a deliberate sip, and sets it down.

"You seem very certain about what surrender costs," she says. "What does dominance cost you?"

The question catches me below the guard I didn't know I'd dropped.

I don't answer immediately. I've spent this entire conversation reading her hesitations. Now I'm the one choosing my words, and the delay tells her more than the answer will.

She notices. Her gaze sharpens on my hesitation the way mine sharpened on hers.

"Responsibility," I say.

"That's not a cost. That's a job description."

She's right. And I'm not going to tell her why.

"You don't think responsibility costs?"

"I think a man who sits in a booth every night watching people who didn't ask him to protect them has a different answer." She leans forward by a degree. "I think you said responsibility because it's true enough to sound honest and vague enough to hide behind."

My hand stills on the tumbler.

"Careful, Natalie."

Her eyes hold mine. "Why?"

"Because you're confusing access with permission."

"And you're confusing silence with an answer."

She found something. She knows she found it. The curiosity sharpens behind her eyes, pulling her toward the crack I just opened.

"The knowledge that if you miss something, someone else pays for it." I didn't plan to say that much. The edge of the answer, offered to a woman who refused to accept the polished version. Elysium stays behind the door where it lives.

Natalie goes still.

"Who did you miss?"

The precision takes my breath. She said who, not what.

"You haven't earned that answer."

My voice has dropped into the register I use when a scene needs to end. She hears it.

The writer in her retreats, not from fear but from tactical intelligence. She files the answer alongside whatever else she's collecting about me.

"I'll keep that in mind," she says. The composure is back. The flush isn't gone.

I get up. The scotch stays on the bar, untouched.

"Your research," I say. "Is it going to include firsthand experience?"

"I haven't decided."

"Decide." The word comes out in a register I didn't plan. Command, not conversation.

Her eyebrows lift.

"And when you do, don't ask Renata for a recommendation."