Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Monica Belle

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Copyright

About the Book

Sexy daydreams are shy Laura’s only escape from the dull routines of her life. But with the arrival of an email ordering her to dress provocatively, she wonders if her secret fantasies about her colleagues are about to become true. Unable to resist the new and more daring instructions that arrive by email, she begins to slip deeper into dangerous water with several men. But when her controller finally reveals himself, she’s in for a shock and a far greater involvement in his illicit games. Because this powerful figure possesses an uncanny understanding of her most shameful and intense desire – to surrender to a master in every way.

About the Author

Monica Belle is an Oxbridge graduate and the author of several successful Black Lace novels, including Black Lipstick Kisses, Bound In Blue, Noble Vices, Office Perks, Pagan Heat, The Boss, The Choice, To Seek a Master, Valentina’s Rules, Wild By Nature and Wild In The Country.

Also by Monica Belle:

Noble Vices

Valentina’s Rules

Wild in the Country

Wild By Nature

Office Perks

Pagan Heat

Bound in Blue

The Boss

1

LAURA SLIPPED INTO the window seat just in time to prevent the Devil from getting it first. He was one of the regular commuters, nicknamed for his neatly trimmed beard and the dash of white in his hair which, with an aquiline face and a smart dark suit, gave him a distinctly Satanic look. Others included Darcy, Mr Brown, the Grey Man, Miss Scarlett, Hovis Boy and the Tramp. All seven took the same trains each day, into Cambridge on the 7:55 and back on the 17:40, providing fuel for her imagination to stave off the boredom of commuting.

She had no idea where any of them lived, or what they did, only at which stations they got on and off and a few personal habits that allowed her to invent fantasy lives for each. Darcy was the attractive one, tall, with an athletic build and an easy manner that suggested an appealing combination of humour and masculinity, perhaps appealing enough for her to have made an advance had the plain gold band on his ring finger not implied that somebody else had got him first.

In her imagination there was no ring and one day the two of them would be alone in carriage. There would be no need for any of the social niceties and careful testing of each other’s defences so essential to real life. He would know she was willing and simply take her, calm and confident as he stripped her naked, had her kneel to take him in her mouth, lifted her onto his erection and had her, still cool and poised in his perfectly cut office suit as he brought her to heaven again and again.

None of the others had Darcy’s allure. There was something stern about the Devil that she found intriguing but also disturbing in a way she didn’t fully understand, yet he was at least twice her age, so she preferred to think of him as the villain from one of the old-fashioned crime thrillers she liked to read, the sort of man Darcy would rescue her from before taking her as his reward.

Mr Brown and the Grey Man made a pair, both middle-aged men of middle height, probably in middle management and middle everything else. Only in the way they dressed did they differ, the one in a scruffy brown suit that matched his thinning brown hair, the other plain and grey. Mr Brown, she liked to imagine, had a secret home life, perhaps attending wife-swapping parties where he would dress up in garishly colourful women’s underwear and watch the other couples having sex. The Grey Man she thought of as an automaton, or perhaps an android, built at one of the research companies in Cambridge and being road tested to see if anybody spotted him.

Miss Scarlett was either a spy or the scheming mistress of some wealthy industrialist, depending on Laura’s mood, while the Tramp was an eccentric millionaire who would one day drop dead and leave her his entire fortune for smiling at him twice a day for the last four years. Hovis Boy was simply Hovis Boy, a spotty youth whose sole distinguishing characteristic was the sandwiches he carried in a plastic bread wrapper.

Settling more comfortably into her seat, she spent a moment watching the lines of dark brick houses move past as the train gathered speed, before taking her book from her bag. It was one she’d found in a charity shop near work, a paperback published in the 1950s and full of the unashamedly red-blooded heroes and yielding heroines she enjoyed. It was called Taken to Turkey, and she had started it that morning, introducing herself to the beautiful Evangeline Tarrington, the superbly handsome Mark Frobisher and the wicked Lord Jasper Mauleverer. Just twenty pages in, and Evangeline had already been kidnapped by Lord Jasper, only for his car to be ambushed by Bulgarian bandits en route to Istanbul, a highly promising situation.

The Bulgarian bandits were everything Laura could have hoped for, and kept her occupied all the way to King’s Lynn. As she walked from the station she was lost in a daydream, one in which she was Evangeline, but instead of being rescued in the nick of time by the gallant Mark Frobisher she was made the plaything of the bandit chief. Better still, the chief could have his wicked way with her, only for Frobisher to arrive a moment too late. The two men would fight it out as she lay naked and trembling in the furs beneath them, but when the Englishman finally triumphed he would be unable to resist, and instead of carrying her to safety would take his turn on top of her. Even better than that, Frobisher and the chief could turn out to be old friends from some earlier adventure, get thoroughly drunk on arrack and share her. She would kneel among the furs, naked, her bottom lifted to the chief’s thrusts as she sucked on her supposed rescuer’s erection, thoroughly used as they chatted casually of other girls they’d given the same undignified treatment.

Laura was smiling as she walked, oblivious to everything but the vivid fantasy in her head, so that it was only when she reached her flat did she realise that she’d left her smart leather bookmark on the train. It was only a company one, given out to all junior employees as a blanket Christmas present the year before, and she quickly put her irritation aside, along with her fantasy as she settled down to the mundane tasks of the evening. Smudge needed to be walked, and she had to eat something, if only beans on toast, while she’d also have to iron a fresh blouse for the morning.

The last detail turned her mind back to work, something she did her best to avoid when not actually in the office. Given what EAS paid her, it was hardly reasonable for them to expect her to devote her free time as well as the regular nine to five, yet that seemed to be what was expected of her, especially by Mr Henderson. ‘Look smart,’ was one of his many watchwords, repeated at every opportunity and underlined with numerous remarks on her appearance and a clothing allowance on top of her PA’s salary. The clothing allowance at least was welcome, although she would have preferred to spend it on something other than designer suits and expensive blouses, at least occasionally.

Laura bit her lip as she considered her boss. His comments had never crossed the line into anything that could be considered harassment, and yet the implication that her looks were important to her job was clear. The little approving nods when she made a special effort with herself, the way he introduced her to clients as if showing off a trophy, even the way he’d positioned their desks so that she had to walk the full width of the office for every tiny thing, all of it suggested that a major part of her work was to look sexy.

The worst part of it was that in different circumstances she wouldn’t have minded. He was tall, powerfully built and quite commanding, all features she liked in a man, so much so that when she had first joined EAS she had allowed herself to fantasise about being taken roughly over his desk. That was before she’d discovered he was married, while on closer acquaintance she had come to realise that there was something faintly sleazy about him, although she could never quite come to grips with what it was.

As she finished the blouse she remembered her resolve not to allow work to intrude on her private time. They were visiting clients in the morning, a Peterborough firm who wanted to upgrade their ancient oil insulated switchgear to SF6 gas. Mr Henderson had stressed the importance of proper preparation, but then he always did and the situation with Evangeline Tarrington was far more interesting than any amount of switchgear.

Now a little tired but feeling pleasantly lazy, Laura turned on her bath, pouring a liberal portion of oil into the stream from the hot tap so that she could already smell the hot jasmine scent as she went to her bedroom to undress. The little ritual of dealing with her clothes was soon complete and she turned back to her book, eager to discover how Mark managed to rescue Evangeline from the clutches of the bandits, as he inevitably would.

He did, distracting the guards by exploding an old Mills Bomb he happened to have with him on the far side of their camp, rushing in to slit the chief’s tent at the back, extracting Evangeline and make good his escape before anybody even noticed. As he fled he carried her over his shoulder, a thoroughly undignified position that brought a smile to Laura’s face as she imagined herself as the heroine. It was much too early in the book for the couple to do more than share an uncertain kiss, but Laura read on, waiting for the subtle change in the sound of the running bathwater that would tell her it was full enough. To her surprise Mark Frobisher wasn’t making gallant remarks but seemed to be rather cross.

‘You little fool!’ Frobisher blustered angrily. ‘You might have got us both killed!’

Evangeline’s pretty mouth fell open, too shocked by his unexpected wrath to respond. Frobisher shook his head, his expression setting in a determined scowl as he appeared to reach a decision. He sat down on the running board of the great Bentley.

‘Come here,’ he growled, commandingly.

Evangeline obeyed, unable to do otherwise. Frobisher reached out, taking her gently but firmly by the wrist to pull her in to his body. Her maiden modesty welling strong in her bosom, Evangeline struggled against him, although her true desire was to yield. He was too strong for her in any event, pulling her close with ease, but not for the intimacy of a kiss. Rather, Evangeline found herself drawn forcibly down across his lap and, as her clothing was adjusted behind, her mouth had come open in astonished outrage. She was to be spanked.

Laura’s mouth had also come open in astonishment and outrage. It was not at all what she’d been expecting. Normally the hero and heroine didn’t even kiss until the fourth or fifth chapter, while she had invariably had to fill in all the more juicy details for herself. Not this time.

She read the piece again, and a third time, enjoying the little thrill of indignation the words gave her. That wasn’t how heroes behaved, not normally. They were supposed to be dashing and chivalrous, a little brusque perhaps, or strong and silent, but never the sort of raving pervert who’d get off on spanking a woman’s bottom. Then again, there was no suggestion that he was doing it for his enjoyment. On the contrary, Evangeline had deliberately eluded her chaperone, allowing Lord Jasper to kidnap her. Then she’d failed to escape during a drive of several hundred miles during which there had been several opportunities to contact the authorities.

All this was pointed out to Evangeline while her bottom was smacked. There wasn’t the slightest hint that Mark was doing anything other than providing some badly needed discipline to a spoilt brat. There was nothing remotely sexual in his actions, except in that it meant he saw Evangeline’s bare bottom, certainly nothing perverse, but the same could not be said for the sharp thrill the scene gave Laura.

She was trying to push it from her mind as she hurried to the bath, which was now in danger of overflowing. Masculine confident men who knew what they wanted were one thing, but to be turned across a man’s knee and have her bottom smacked was so far beyond the boundaries of acceptable behaviour that she felt as if she was a traitor to her sex just for reading about it, while to surrender to the warm need between her thighs was unthinkable.

It was also irresistible. From the moment she slid into the hot scented water she knew she was going to have to play with herself. The fantasies she’d deliberately allowed to build up in her head, her sense of gentle tiredness, the knowledge that nobody could catch her and nobody would ever know, all conspired to make her need too strong, and yet even as she allowed one hand to slip between her thighs and the other to one breast she was determined that whatever thoughts in her head at the moment of climax they would not involve having her bare bottom smacked as she was held down across a man’s lap.

Evangeline had been bare bottomed too, of that Laura was certain. The words of Taken to Turkey were coy, but there could be no mistaking the implication of the expression ‘adjusted behind’. Mark Frobisher had bared Evangeline Tarrington’s bottom. Laura gave a shiver and her fingers began to work between the lips of her sex as she imagined how it would feel – the helplessness, the indignation, the shame – as her skirt was lifted up over her legs and around her hips, exposing the seat of her knickers to the man’s view, to the utter bastard’s view. No, that wasn’t fair, because she’d have deserved it, just as Evangeline had.

In no way would that have lessened the awful feelings, and they would have grown ten times worse when the time came to have her knickers taken down, a hundred times worse, unbearable, and yet she’d be trapped, held helpless across a strong man’s knees, bare and wriggling and silly as her bottom was stripped for the final, intolerable outrage of being spanked.

Laura’s back arched, her lips already parted in rising excitement, only for her to shake herself, forcing the disturbing thoughts from her head. It just wasn’t right, not to imagine herself being handled that way. Fifty years had passed since the book was written, fifty years in which women had fought free from the sort of crass, macho bullshit represented by the scene in the book. Yet even as she struggled to think of something more acceptable to her personal values a sneaky little voice was whispering to her, and it was only a fantasy after all, that really being taken from behind across the seat of a commuter train wasn’t so very much more dignified, and that nobody need know in any case.

Again she began to massage her sex, trying to imagine how Darcy might treat her if they were ever in a carriage alone, one of her favourite fantasies. It was always much the same, his voice as he told her she was to be stripped, allowing no room for refusal, his hands on her body as he peeled off her clothes, the feel and taste of his cock in her mouth, the curt order to kneel on a seat and lift her bottom, not for spanking, but so that he could enter her from behind, no, not for spanking … not for spanking.

Laura gave in, a low moan escaping her lips as she surrendered to what she really needed to think about. It didn’t even much matter who did it, just so long as he was big, and male, and took no nonsense as he levered her across his legs, stripped her bottom bare and spanked her. She cried out as she started to come, playing the same awful sequence over and over in her head, bent over, bared, and smacked. Her legs had come high and open, her hand was locked tight to her breast, squeezing so hard her nails had dug into her flesh, but she was unable to stop herself, her fingers working on the sensitive bud between her lips as peak after peak tore through her, stopping only when she could bear it no more.

With that she collapsed back into the bath, her breath coming out in a long sigh of absolute satisfaction even as the inevitable feelings of shame welled up inside her, made worse by the fact that she knew full well it wouldn’t be the last time. Never before had she experienced an orgasm as intense.

2

LAURA STILL FELT guilty in the morning, but that did not dispel an underlying excitement for what she had discovered. For once she hurried, going through her morning ritual with considerably less care than Mr Henderson would have expected for such an important day, but his intrusion into her thoughts only bred resentment. She was his from nine in the morning until five in the evening, with an hour for lunch, and he had no right to expect her to waste what little precious time was left. That, or as much as was possible, she intended to devote to Taken to Turkey, largely in the hope that there would be another spanking scene, this time described in rather more detail.

She was disappointed, although not entirely. Mark Frobisher had no sooner dealt with Evangeline’s bottom than he was neatly coshed from behind by Lord Jasper Mauleverer, who turned out to have watched the entire procedure. That was quite exciting for Laura, with the added humiliation of an audience, but Lord Jasper proved to be a pretty poor villain, enjoying the view and making a few intimate remarks to set Evangeline’s upper cheeks aflame as well as her lower ones, but completely failing to take proper advantage of her dishevelled state.

He did force her to walk behind him on a string and with her hands tied behind her back as they returned to his car, but that was plainly necessary, as he’d already tied her up once when he first kidnapped her. Both scenes were good, but fell well short of the spanking, while the ensuing car chase through the Sredna Gora mountains provided no more than conventional thrills. Only when Mark Frobisher’s Bentley overheated did things start to look up, with Lord Jasper declaring that it was about time Evangeline paid for all the trouble she’d caused before giving a single laugh of unspeakable malevolence.

The train had been filling up as she read, with a typical assortment of complete strangers, Darcy, Mr Brown and Hovis Boy at King’s Lynn, the Grey Man and the Tramp at Downham Market, Miss Scarlett and the Devil at Ely. By then only a few free seats remained, and the Devil excused himself politely as his hip bumped against Laura’s. She murmured something in reply and shut her book, embarrassed by the thought of him reading it out of the corner of his eye while she enjoyed the horrid thrill of discovering what Lord Jasper planned for Evangeline.

Instead, she let her thoughts drift, thinking of how much the Devil resembled Lord Jasper in her imagination, which presumably meant that she’d subconsciously connected the two. It was easy to go further with the idea. Darcy was the perfect model for Mark Frobisher, and Miss Scarlett perhaps not unlike the chaperone who might have been bribed to allow Evangeline to give her the slip. The only one remotely like the Bulgarian chief was Mr Brown, and he needed a darker complexion and rather more hair, including a large and bushy moustache, while he was really too dull to fit in with Laura’s fantasies in any case.

She was still in a daydream when the train pulled in at Cambridge and as she walked to work, but was brought suddenly down to earth by the sight of Mr Henderson standing beside his company Mondeo in the car park at EAS. She ducked down to check her appearance in the wing mirror of a convenient 4x4, only to end up blushing as she realised it was occupied by an elderly woman with an expression of carefully cultivated disapproval. As she approached Mr Henderson she wished she’d spent a bit more time on her hair, gone for another suit, higher heels, a splash of colour somewhere and, most especially, the seamed stockings that always earned her one of his approving nods but cost the earth, were a pain to put on and seemed to ladder at a single glance. He clearly agreed.

‘Not quite the style I’d have expected today, Laura. Look smart, look smart, that’s my motto.’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘Well, we shall just have to do our best. This is an important contract, Laura, not just for the company, but for me personally. Land this one and there’s every chance I’ll be head of marketing this time next year. I need you to be one hundred and ten per cent behind me.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Laura got into the Mondeo, wondering how it would be possible to be one hundred and ten per cent behind anybody, unless it involved having a bit sticking out to one side or at the top, which in Mr Henderson’s case would have been impossible for her and most other people. She had at least got the relevant papers together, and began to go through them as he pulled out of the car park, heading east on the Newmarket Road.

Mr Henderson had begun on another of his pet peeves, other road users, who he assumed were all out merely to pass the time of day, while he alone had important business. Laura had heard it all before and made the appropriate comments at the appropriate junctures, meanwhile working through the order in which to present the virtues of their 24,000 volt SF6 switchgear system. Mr Henderson knew it by heart, but would expect the papers handed to him at exactly the right moments and in the right sequence, thus demonstrating efficiency. Only when he’d got up to speed on the duel carriageway did he turn back to the task in hand.

‘The meeting is at Setchal Manor.’

The name meant nothing to Laura, but she responded politely. Presently he turned north, into the flat fen country, and again, following the instructions of his satnav down a narrow straight lane raised above the level of the fields. After a mile the scenery changed to carefully landscaped ridges and hollows set with clumps of trees, small lakes, bunkers and carefully manicured greens. Mr Henderson gave a satisfied nod, stating the obvious.

‘A golf club.’

‘Yes.’

‘An expensive one, too, unless I’m greatly mistaken. This Mr Drake has taste.’

‘I hope he doesn’t expect us to play.’

‘Nothing was mentioned, but if he does, we’ll have to. Be prepared for the unexpected, Laura.’

It was another of his pet maxims, and one she’d always felt was particularly silly. After all, if you had prepared for something then it wasn’t really unexpected, while it was impossible to prepare for everything unless you were going to carry around an impossible amount of stuff, including, in this case, a full set of golf clubs. Not that it would have done her much good, as her sole experience of golf was being told off by a man who looked like a retired Colonel, while enjoying a hasty fumble with an ex-boyfriend on the links near Cromer.

Setchal Manor was a large house of red brick and flint, fronted by mature cedars and a weather-beaten stone colonnade, all of which gave it an air of prestige and made Laura feel small and nervous. An impressive set of double doors stood open, exposing a smaller, glass set within and the reception area beyond. Mr Henderson announced them and they were shown into the bar, a great panelled room hung with trophies and boards listing past luminaries of the club from a date well back in the nineteenth century.

Mr Drake was already there, a man even taller than Mr Henderson, also younger and with an open yet assertive manner Laura found simultaneously appealing and intimidating. His PA was worse, a Miss Manston-Jones, whose public school accent, tailored clothes and air of friendly condescension gave the impression that she was really only there because Daddy thought it would do her good to mix with the proles for a while.

Despite feeling well out of her depth, Laura did her best to remain businesslike and efficient, or at least to look businesslike and efficient. That meant following Mr Henderson’s rules, which included never refusing a drink from a client. After two large gin and tonics she was feeling a little more confident and a lot less steady, neither of which helped when Mr Drake made the suggestion she’d been dreading all morning.

‘I think that takes care of the business end of things. How about nine holes before lunch?’

Mr Henderson responded without batting an eyelid. ‘An excellent idea.’

Laura knew better than to object, but clung to the hope that she and Miss Manston-Jones might not be expected to play. After all, they were hardly dressed for the part, in tight skirts and heels, with Miss Manston-Jones’ skirt inevitably that little bit tighter and her heels that little bit higher. The hope was short lived. Mr Drake drained his Scotch before adding a fresh horror to the experience as well as dashing her hopes.

‘How about fifty pounds a hole, just to make it interesting? No handicap, and that goes for the girls, too.’

Mr Henderson responded with another favourite line.

‘I’ve never turned down a bet yet.’

‘That’s what I like to hear. We’ll get changed then, and meet up at the first tee. I take it you brought something casual?’

‘Never without it.’

Laura reached a decision. It was better to be ticked off by the boss immediately than make a complete fool of herself, lose him several hundred pounds and then get ticked off.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I didn’t know we’d be playing.’

‘Be prepared for the unexpected, Laura.’

Miss Manston-Jones had stood up.

‘Don’t worry, I expect I can find you something.’

As she spoke her eyes had flicked up and down Laura’s body, a survey she seemed to find amusing, to judge by her faint smile. Laura soon found out why. She’d been telling herself that their figures were similar, but the white slacks she was given proved at least a size too small, making it difficult to wriggle her bottom into them and leaving her deeply conscious of her rear view as they walked out onto the links. Mr Henderson made one of his mildly ambiguous remarks.

‘Glad to see you found something, Laura. You’ll do very nicely like that, I’m sure.’

He had held out a club to her as he spoke, leaving it open as to whether he meant she’d do nicely at golf or for their visual entertainment in between strokes, and as usual Laura was left wondering if it wasn’t just her imagination. Even if it was, she couldn’t agree with him, as she was certain she wasn’t going to do well no matter how she was dressed.

Both men had bags of clubs, and Laura felt her heart sink further as Miss Manston-Jones made a confident selection. She’d obviously played before, and when she hit her ball it flew arrow straight and over halfway down the fairway. Doing her best to feign confidence, Laura went through the same ritual, selecting a ball, noting the number on her score card, and balancing it on a tee, where it stayed after her third attempt. Standing back, she gave the club an experimental swing, which felt surprisingly good. Sure that she could hit the ball a reasonable distance and in more or less the right direction, she stepped forwards a little, braced herself and swung the club down as hard as she could, sending the ball backwards about three feet. Miss Manston-Jones was trying not to snigger as she spoke.

‘Let me show you how to stand.’

Laura stood aside, feeling helpless as the other woman quickly teed the ball up a second time, then demonstrated the correct stance.

‘You need to place your feet about shoulder width apart, with your knees bent slightly so that your weight is evenly distributed between your heels and the balls of your feet, and far enough back so that you’re comfortable with the clubface positioned directly behind the ball. Try it.’

Laura nodded doubtfully and attempted the stance, immediately failing to meet Miss Manston-Jones’ approval.

‘No, no. The ball should be midway between your feet.’

Laura tried again, painfully conscious that both men were looking on with obvious amusement. Again Miss Manston-Jones was unsatisfied.

‘No. Let me show you.’

Miss Manston-Jones stepped close behind Laura, pressed against her as she demonstrated how best to hold and swing the club. Laura did her best to concentrate on what she was being told and not on the fact that had either man been in the same position as Miss Manston-Jones it would have left what was between his legs pressed firmly against the over tight seat of her slacks. At last the other woman seemed satisfied and stepped back.

‘Now try.’

Laura swung again, doing her best to follow instructions. This time her club hit the ball, sending it high in the air to fall at the edge of the fairway slightly less than half as far down as the others. Miss Manston-Jones gave a firm nod.

‘Not bad at all, for a beginner.’

A grateful smile forced itself onto Laura’s face in defiance of a deeper urge to plant one muddy shoe hard against the seat of Miss Manston-Jones’ slacks.

The game began, for Laura, a long series of embarrassments. Not only did Miss Manston-Jones insist on correcting her at every opportunity, usually with physical assistance, but her ball seemed to be possessed by a particularly malicious gremlin with a taste for sand, water, trees and long grass. Despite Mr Henderson’s best efforts they lost hole after hole, until Mr Drake finally inflicted the final humiliation by offering to scrap the bet.

Laura declined, adopting her stance for the seventh hole with a new determination, her muscles tense, her legs well braced, fired with aggression as she swung her club high and brought it down with a crack that sent the ball down the fairway on a perfect line, to bounce twice and land on the green no more than a yard from the hole. Thoroughly pleased with herself, she turned to receive the adulation she was due from the others, only to find all three of them looking at her, but not her face. Miss Manston-Jones’ raised a finger.

‘Laura, I think you ought to cover yourself behind. Your trousers have split.’

Laura spent the rest of the meeting flushing pink at every look from either Mr Henderson or Mr Drake. Both had thought her accident highly amusing, despite superficial attempts at sympathy. Miss Manston-Jones had been little better, helping Laura as best she could but with laughter in her voice even after they had changed once more. Most galling of all, when they gathered in the dining room she discovered that the incident had helped create camaraderie between the two men at her expense, which enabled Mr Henderson to leave with the coveted contract in his briefcase and his face set in what Laura considered a thoroughly fatuous grin.

As they drove back he spoke of his promotion, now considered in the bag, and hinted that as PA to the head of marketing she could expect an increment in her own salary. Laura gave an absent-minded thanks, wondering if she’d even have the nerve to stay on at all when the story of what had happened that morning was sure to have circulated around the entire company within days, if not hours. Mr Henderson was known for his fund of funny stories, often at the expense of his colleagues, and yet there had to be at least a chance of persuading him to keep quite. Asking couldn’t make the situation any worse.

‘Um … Mr Henderson, I’d be very grateful if you don’t tell anybody what happened this morning.’

He laughed.

‘I bet you would! Don’t worry, you can count on my discretion.’

He’d reached out as he spoke, and for one moment she thought he was going to place his hand on her knee, only for him to change gear instead. Laura let out her breath to dispel the sudden tension, wondering if the gesture had been innocent, or a hint that some little favour would be needed to ensure her silence. He said nothing more, instead starting to explain the work she would need to do in support of the order they’d secured. Laura relaxed, sure that she was being unfairly suspicious and that both his subtly ambiguous remarks and the implication of the gesture he’d just made were no more than the products of her over-active imagination.

Once back at EAS she was kept busy liaising with other departments to organise the work they had brought in and writing up Mr Henderson’s report to his line manager. It was nearly five o’clock before she’d finished, and she opened Outlook Express in the hope that there would be no emails that needed attending to before she went home. There were only four in all, one from Brian, the company humorist, with a series of jokes about different farm animals changing light bulbs, two queries from colleagues she was able to answer immediately and without difficulty, and a fourth, from somebody called simply The Controller, which she nearly deleted as spam before curiosity got the better of her. Clicking on it, she brought the message window up to reveal a single line. WEAR STOCKINGS TOMORROW.

Laura stared at the message, possibilities flicking through her mind: first that it was merely spam after all, then that it was somebody playing a joke on her, which almost certainly meant that Mr Henderson had broken his promise, and finally that it might be from Mr Henderson himself, as the opening gambit in a game of blackmail and seduction. Immediately angry, she called up the message source, reading carefully though the data to see if she could shed any further light on the message.

It certainly wasn’t from Mr Henderson’s normal address, or anybody else’s within EAS, but that meant very little. He, or anybody else, could have used an anonymous server, thus covering their trail in case she complained. That made it seem likely that it was Mr Henderson, and that her suspicions had been right all along, with him merely waiting his chance before making his move. She rose, determined to confront him, only to sit down again. He would simply deny it, and she had no proof. The accusation would annoy him, whether he had sent the message or not, and he would then undoubtedly tell everybody about her splitting her slacks, making her the laughing stock of the office. She could already imagine how much fun Brian would have, and they’d never got on.

After a moment’s hesitation she deleted the message, then consigned it to oblivion, telling herself that whoever had sent it couldn’t possibly know she’d read it first. She shut her computer down and began to tidy up, all the while with the incident preying on her mind. As she walked to the station she was trying to work out who could have sent it, why, and what she could do. There seemed to be three main options.

The message might simply be from a joker, a random pervert who didn’t even know her, or some chancer, in which case it was best ignored and there would be no consequences.

It might be genuine, in which case she could ignore it and hope that whoever had sent it gave up, which was the sensible option but almost certainly meant she’d never catch him.

It might be genuine and she could do as she was told, pretending to go along with him so that she could catch the bastard. That would be highly satisfying, and there was no denying her curiosity, but the idea of putting on stockings at the command of some unknown man gave her an all-body hot flush compounded of indignation, shame and something else, to which she was very definitely not going to admit.

3

AS SHE RODE the train back towards King’s Lynn, Laura found it impossible to concentrate on her book. It should have been a good part too, with Lord Jasper tying Evangeline to the branch of a tree with her hands above her head for some unspecified fate, only for her to be rescued in the nick of time once more. Normally her fertile imagination would have provided a dozen ways to specify the heroine’s fate, leaving her in the state of arousal and anticipation in which she liked to keep herself for the evening. Now it was impossible, with reality intruding no matter how hard she tried to concentrate.

Nothing in the message had suggested any real threat, yet she found a new comfort in Smudge as she walked him along the river and she made doubly sure her door was locked. Simply ignoring the message was clearly not an option, and as she ate the Chinese meal she had treated herself to in order to compensate for a thoroughly bad day, she found herself thinking about it once again, but in terms of the sort of crime one of her favourite detectives might have been called on to solve.

Mr Henderson was definitely her prime suspect. He liked stockings, and seemed to fancy her, which supplied his motive, while he knew her work email and might feel he had a hold over her, which supplied his means. The only evidence against him was that in four years as her boss he had never actually made a move on her.

Everybody else at work, quite a few friends and numerous clients knew her work email, so that wasn’t much help, but the message had at least implied that whoever had sent it knew she hadn’t been wearing stockings that day. Mr Henderson had known, because it had been chilly enough on the golf course for her to want to keep her tights on under the now ruined slacks, so he’d seen. It was just as well she had too, because otherwise he and Mr Drake would have been treated to a view of her knickers, which showed a large pink teddy bear mooning and had ‘A Bear Behind’ written across the seat.

As far as she knew, the only other people who could possibly have known she had tights on were Mr Drake and Miss Manston-Jones, both of whom had seen, and both of whom had her work email on the information sheets she’d given them that morning. Miss Manston-Jones didn’t seem a very likely suspect, even if she had seemed just a bit too keen to get to grips with Laura when trying to teach her golf. It wasn’t hard to imagine her as a dyke, and quite a butch one at that, yet it was hard to imagine her, or any woman, using that approach.

Mr Drake was a more serious possibility, and one she found hard to resent. He was very much her type of man: tall, self-confident, just a little stern. The idea of being under his control appealed, so much so that she knew she would be prepared to forgive him what from any ordinary man would have been a disturbing, even creepy, approach. Unfortunately she would not be seeing him the following day, so he had nothing to gain from the knowledge that she was wearing stockings, nor have any way of finding out if she’d obeyed. The same was true for Miss Manston-Jones, which left the finger of suspicion pointed very firmly at Mr Henderson.

She could not be certain. Another man at EAS might have seen far enough up her skirt to realise she was wearing tights, even Brian, who might well have sent her the message as a childish and kinky joke. There had been other women in the changing rooms at Setchal Manor, but they could be ruled out easily, as could any of her fellow passengers on the train into work. Neither group knew who she was.

Then again, if one of the commuters had picked up the bookmark she’d lost they would know her work email. She pondered the possibility, but she was sure she’d dropped it when she got out at King’s Lynn, either in the train or on the platform and both Darcy and Mr Brown had got out before her. Hovis Boy had lingered, tangled up in the rucksack he’d been carrying, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him as the sort of little pervert who’d look up her skirt. He had to be a possibility, which was a relief in that she would have no difficulty at all in confronting him.

In fact, it might even be possible to conduct an experiment.