Shadow Lane Volume 9 by Eve Howard

Author:Eve Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781926585581
Publisher: CCB Publishing
Published: 2010-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The History of Hugo Sands Part 4

Modern Spanking Romance

The cruelest phase of winter was holding Random Point in its grip. Consequently, Hugo Sands Antiques stood virtually empty from morning to night. However, in the back offices, Hugo and his new editorial assistant, Mercedes, were putting out an esoteric magazine so intriguing that many readers were subscribing to it years in advance.

In addition to being his latest lover, Hugo’s pretty new employee was also a grindingly accurate historical scholar whose field of interest overlapped with his own. Clearly she would some day write very good books and he liked the idea of being her first patron.

But in spite of her probity and focused intelligence, Mercedes was still an inexperienced girl without a clue of how to manage a dominant male. This fact was driven home to Hugo on the one-month anniversary of their first meeting. He had spent the morning ice-skating on the duck pond across from his shop and only came in around noon. On entering his office he was disquieted to see the mail already open on his desk.

“Mercedes, why did you open the mail?” he demanded when she entered his office a moment later.

“I just wanted to get the letters to type for the next issue,” she explained, pushing a tendril of straight, shiny ash blonde hair back behind one delicate ear.

“Please don’t do that again, dear,” he said, managing to control his annoyance along with his impulse to slap her bottom very hard.

“I’m sorry,” she replied, going pale. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to.”

“That’s just basic business etiquette, honey,” he said mildly.

Sitting down he began to leaf through the letters. The envelopes she’d opened contained subscription payments and orders for sample issues. The letters specifically addressed to Hugo she’d left sealed. Hugo took a deep breath and felt calmer. These still unopened envelopes contained various missives from female readers; some confiding their dreams and frustrations, others submitting personal ads and a few extremely motivated individuals petitioning to personally correspond with the editor of the New Rod Quarterly.

Hugo didn’t like to tell Mercedes that he had an unofficial fan club, composed of ardently submissive women, who wrote regularly to proposition, challenge, tease, bait, woo and seduce him. Nor did he wish to admit that some of them he encouraged.

Mercedes returned a few minutes later with a coffee tray.

“I wouldn’t have opened this one, but it wasn’t marked personal or specifically addressed to you,” she produced a heavy, gold edged card on which was scrawled a short note, paper clipped to a photo of a striking brunette. “I’m sorry. It never occurred to me that you actually have women pursuing you,” she said, unable to conceal her distress at the discovery. “Excuse me,” she said and vanished back into her small office.

Hugo studied the photo of the smart beauty, then read the accompanying note. “Dear Hugo,” it began, “Your magazine is flawless and your photo is hot. If you’re ever in Manhattan on a Saturday night, come play with me at The Vault.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.