Carly On Her Knees

Chapter Three-1

Chapter Three

It had not been Carly’s wish to attend the embassy party that night. In fact, she avoided the stuffy affairs when she could—which was most of the time since she turned eighteen. But a family friend Margaret had insisted she go. A woman of quiet, easy strength, Margaret had been with her when her mother died, supporting her in her comforting arms. It would be just plain wrong to turn down her plans for that evening. She was also with the State Dept, and though stationed in London, her trip to Paris was as much business as pleasure. The embassy event was one she could not miss.

“We’ll stay just a short while—I have to make an appearance, and it would probably do you good,” she used a motherly tone of voice, then gave Carly a playful wink. “But after we’ve said our hellos, we’ll sneak out and see what kind of nastiness you’ve been getting into these last few months.” She grasped Carly’s slight body against her large one, giving her a hug that went straight to her heart.

It was actually an easy sell. In fact, Carly wondered if she might run into Dana at the party, which could make for a few interesting moments she’d be sure to relish. Regardless, she would not turn down an evening with such a close friend.

“Don’t you look like quite a charmer,” Margaret exclaimed as the two broke their embrace. She made Carly stand back so she could appraise her carefully. “That’s quite some cleavage.” She raised her brows meaningfully. The cream-colored sweater dress was sexy, as were all of Carly’s dresses, although the shawl collar of this one dipped particularly low between her breasts, drawing both the eye and the imagination. If anything, the dress emphasized the size of her chest, making her look much bustier than she actually was. She paired it with dark hose and pewter boots. Without trying, her ‘throw anything together and it works’ style of dressing managed to create a look of casual indifference that would fly in the face of the fancy-dressed embassy crowd. At one time she’d been in awe of these affairs, all dressed up in her satin party clothes and black patent Maryjanes. But it was far more reasonable that a girl in her mid-twenties would cop an attitude when it came to evenings like this one. In fact, she hardly let the many stares bother her when at one time she would have been too embarrassed to stick out in a crowd as the token oddball.

She walked through the crowd of guests, looking painfully bored while Margaret greeted her old friends with firm hugs and plenty of newsy tidbits about her life. More than once, Carly was made to suffer through an introduction that yielded an enthusiastic response. ‘I knew your father,’ or ‘Your mother and I were quite close once. Poor thing.’ Then for a time, Carly excused herself from Margaret and went in search of the bathroom and a drink. Just as she was leaving the bar with her second martini, she turned back toward the crowded room and stopped in her tracks; she almost spilled her drink she stopped so fast. Dana Durrant had just entered the room and was standing not more than ten feet away, with James Battles at her side. They were close enough to be a couple, in fact, his arm was casually resting on her waist with an air of familiarity that suggested this was not the first time they’d been together.

Carly looked from one face to the next conveying her confusion but not saying a word. The pair looked as shocked as Carly was.

“Carly, dear, how nice to see you,” Dana finally recovered enough to exclaim, “although I’m a little surprised.” She put her arm around James’ waist and gave him a squeeze, “My husband, James, although I think you may already know him.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied faintly. Though she was obviously shaken, she managed to spit out an abrupt, “Nice to see you together. Sorry I can’t stay to talk.”

She didn’t wait for a reply to head off toward the balcony where she’d last seen Margaret. She spent the next half hour avoiding the two, although her mind was lost in an endless stream of thoughts as she struggled to understand what had just taken place. As soon as Margaret took note of her brooding silence, and inquired about what was wrong, Carly announced that she’d really prefer to leave, if that was all right with her. Margaret needed no further explanation; Carly’s internal battle was obvious. The two women were on their way to a bistro for dinner not more than five minutes later, and though Carly did her best to mask her feelings for Margaret’s sake, the incident would remain foremost in her mind for the rest of the night.

The next day, Carly went about her life pretending that nothing had happen, even though that proved difficult with James calling nearly every half hour. She refused to answer his dozen calls since she couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. At least now she had a perfectly respectable reason for ending the affair—as if she needed one. She would not look back. She just needed to handle the matter of Dana, and to do that, she marched into the woman’s embassy office two days later, holsters on, both guns drawn and a well-rehearsed opening salvo ready to fire. Inside she was shaking like a leaf. Though she usually avoided confrontation as if it were the plague, this one couldn’t be so easily dismissed.

“What was it? James needed s*x and you were incapable of satisfying him?” she leveled the woman with a cold stare and her hostile tone. It seemed awkward, like a badly rehearsed script. However past experience with Dana had taught her that she couldn’t afford to be anything but unyieldingly firm or the woman would twist the meeting to her advantage.

Unfortunately for Carly, Dana was on her game from the moment she walked in. After giving her a token nod, she went back to her reading, her eyes determinedly glued to a report and refusing to look up, a familiar ploy to take control that Carly had seen before.

“Look at me, Dana!” Her emotions were rising fast.

A few seconds more and Dana finally looked up, as imperious as ever, a curt retort right on the tip of her tongue, although suddenly she had a change of heart and softened slightly into a more erotic mood, eyes lighting mischievously. “You know I’d really like to cane that naughty ass of yours, Carly. Might ease the tension… how about it?”

Carly looked back stunned. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Oh c’mon, a good dose of submission would do you wonders right now.”

“Like I’d ever have anything to do with you again!”

Getting nowhere with the impulsive come-on, Dana reverted back to her autocratic form, tightening her body as she gave her visitor an icy stare.

“So why are you here if you never want anything to do with me again?”

“Because I think you owe me an explanation.”

“Why didn’t you ask James? Could be a wealth of information there. Oh, that’s right, you’re refusing his calls.”

“I had the feeling that you would give me the answers I wanted. The real answers.”

The woman smiled at last. “Yes, you’ll get the straight answers from me. James would try to salvage something, I’m sure. Since I no longer have any vested interest in your affair with my husband, I can be candid.”

Carly mulled the comment until the truth began to dawn on its own. “You set me up.”

“Yes, I set you up. I had my reasons. Good ones, in fact.”

“And what do you want from me now?”

“Let’s backtrack first, darling.”

“Don’t call me darling!” Carly could feel her entire body bristling with rage, though she immediately squashed the emotion. The very worst thing to do would be to let the woman rile her more than she already was. “Just tell me the truth, please.”

“All right, Carly, you know the business I’m in, the work I do. You’ve given me information a dozen times, all useful, but basically simple stuff I could probably have gleaned myself with little effort. I set you up with James because I needed to know how you’d respond to a dominant man. Me? I’d slap their face if they tried to do the things that James did to you. But I had a feeling that you’d be different. You have a different disposition, a different requirement of a man. You already have a predilection for submission, that I knew. But I needed to see how far it might be taken. I had to be sure how you’d respond.”

“Why is that?” she looked incredulous.

“Be patient and I’ll tell you.”

“And why James?”

“I had to use a man I could trust.”

“But your own husband!”

“Oh, my dear, ours is not a romantic marriage. It hasn’t been for a long time. Not that this is information you really need to know. But James and I are friends and he rather liked the assignment I gave him with you. Just as I hoped, you fell for the game. I have to say I never thought he’d take it so far or that it would last so long as it has. At one time a few months ago, I assumed your affair was over. I had a shock of my own last night to find out that quite the opposite is true.”

“Well you can be sure that James and I are over now, and so are you and me.”

“Yes, I can see that you would be upset. But there was a good reason.”

“Which you have still not told me.”

“It’s a delicate matter, which I have been mulling over, especially this morning in light of last night’s revelations. I was almost ready to forget my grand idea, but then new developments have occurred in the last forty eights hours that make my original plan feasible, and almost critical at this point.”

Annoyed by the woman’s vague speech, Carly shifted her weight to her left hip and pursed her lips. “How about you cut to the chase, Dana. I have things to do.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you do.” She cleared her throat, then reaching down, she unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a file. She smiled officiously when she looked up. “Byron Haverleigh, the name might be familiar to you if you read the papers?”

“I don’t read the papers. Never heard of the man.”

“Well, perhaps that’s good. The less you know, the less intimidated you’ll be, although I’m counting on the ease by which you are intimidated to work in your favor. In fact, I can’t think of any woman who would be more suitable for this role than you.”

Carly peered at her cautiously. “This doesn’t sound like our normal arrangement.”

“It’s not. Byron Haverleigh is a wealthy industrialist, or at least he was. For twenty years he took his family business from a multimillion dollar venture to a billion dollar conglomerate. About ten years ago he retired from his executive post, saying he’d had enough of the corporate world. Since then he’s become the consummate Renaissance man. He took up skydiving, deep sea fishing. He races sailboats, courts Hollywood stars, writes published poetry, is a fanatic patron of the arts, as well as championing ecological issues and Third World economic development. He goes where his heart leads he told Larry King on a show a couple years ago, and by the looks of it, his heart is as wide as the Indian Ocean, considering all the projects and adventures he undertakes. He has connections all over the world, relationships with heads of state and manages to have a good relationship with everyone from the Castro government to the prime minister of England to Middle Eastern heads of state. He considers no place or person off limits. Intimidated yet?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Yes, who wouldn’t?” she slyly rejoined, as if she had a personal experience with such intimidation. “It is his ready access to certain heads of state that has become troubling for the US government. We have reason to believe that there’s a hidden agenda behind Byron’s far flung activities. Certain information that he would be privy to, specifics on top secret projects associated with his company have been falling into the hands of the wrong people. It’s very possible that Haverleigh himself is the source of these leaks.” Dana continued to elaborate on her premise, holding Carly’s wide-eyed fascination, the topic so juicy that for a moment she forgot the purpose of her visit.

“So you think that I can get close to this man?”

“I do.” Dana smiled again.