I considered her for a moment. Her frustration was a tangible thing, giving her an aura of electric instability. I decided silence was probably my best recourse.

But she continued unprompted, “So what was I supposed to do? Huh? That money is as much mine as it is his; I earned it! I supported him through everything, let him use me for his sick fantasies, put up with his bitch mother and annoying sister.”

“You never loved him,” I said, more to myself than to her. Despite my decision to stay quiet, the words slipped out, my heart hurting a little on Ronan’s behalf.

“What? Love him? Love Ronan? He doesn’t want love. He wants a fuck toy. He’s messed up. All he wants, all he’s ever wanted, is just someone to play with, to control, boss around. He said he wanted to take care of me, but what he wanted was to control me. Of course I didn’t love him.”

My phone chose that moment to chime. I held her gaze for a beat, her words distressing me for so many reasons. I didn’t even know where to start. So I turned my attention to the screen.

“You can check your bank balance. The funds have been transferred.” I was impressed with how composed I sounded.

She stood abruptly, pulled a glittery pink thing from her glittery pink purse and began tapping away at the screen. She also continued speaking—mumbling to herself, really—though I wished she wouldn’t.

“You know this already. I don’t have to tell you how sick he is, how he won’t touch you unless you can’t touch him. But maybe you like it, maybe you’re just as messed up as he is….”

Mercifully, she was finally quiet. I saw the exact moment she read her bank balance because her eyes brightened. She sniffed, wiped her hand across her nose, and then actually smiled.

“Well, screw all of you. I’m about to be a star, and you can all go to hell.”

Without even a backward glance, she strolled to the door and left, slamming it on her way out.

I waited maybe three seconds then bolted for the pictures, sending a few skidding toward the wall in my haste. I forced myself to calm down, again gritting my teeth, and then flipped the first one toward me. Every muscle in my body was tense as I consumed the image.

Then I frowned at it, confused, because for all of Brona’s ranting about how sick Ronan was, I didn’t see anything all that objectionable. If this was her Hail Mary pass, if this was what she’d been threatening Ronan with and ranting about for months, then it won the award for most anticlimactic blackmail moment in the history of the world.

Yes, she had a collar on, but it looked like one of those fashion collars. There was a leash or a strap attached to it, but Ronan held it almost absentmindedly around his wrist. It wasn’t tight. She wasn’t being choked.

She was bent over the arm of a chair, wearing a black leather bustier with feathers, and her hands were tied with what looked like the same material as the leash, likely a leather strap, and her legs were cuffed to a spreader bar, holding them open. She wore nothing else. Ronan was behind her. His eyes were closed, his hands were on her hips, and he was taking her from behind.

I checked the rest of photos, and they were basically time-elapsed images of the same thing. I then searched the photos for other things like whips or implements of pain. I found none. I noted in one of the pictures you could see clearly that Brona had a scarf or silk tie over her mouth, but it looked loose. She’d hardly been gagged.

Feeling both relieved and oddly excited, I was struck by the anomalous irony of the situation. I was looking at photos of Ronan having sex with another woman, and rather than jealousy I was picturing myself in her position, with my legs held apart and my hands bound as Ronan used my body for pleasure.

“I saw Brona on my way out.”

I stiffened, straightened, sucked in a sharp breath, and my eyes flew to the door.

Ronan stood just at the entrance, his eyes wary but intent as they searched my face then dropped to the pictures in my hands. He stepped all the way in and shut the door with a soft click.

“She said you were sick, just like me.” His words were teasing, though they carried an edge of something that sounded a lot like hope. He stalked toward me, looking painfully delicious in a charcoal grey suit.

I gathered a deep breath then let the pictures fall to the desk, arranging the images so he could see them as he approached.

“Joan convinced her to sell them plus a tape of the two of you.”

He nodded absentmindedly, glancing at the pictures. “Have you watched the tape?”

“No. I don’t have a mini-DV player.”

He turned his gaze to mine, ensnared it. He looked cautious; his stare was probing. “But you would have? If you had a player for it?”

I met his stare and gave him honesty. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. The pictures paint a pretty clear picture on their own. Ronan, do you think…?” I paused, trying to figure out how to ask my next question. At length I blurted, “Do you think there is anything else? Do you think Brona might blackmail you with something else? Or is this it?”

“This is it.” He indicated the photos with a tilt of his head. “As far as I know, this is the worst of it.”

“The worst of it….” I echoed, scanning the pictures.

“And what do you think? Of the pictures.”

“I think….” I swallowed with effort, tilted my chin up to fight my instinctive urge to look away. “I think I don’t like seeing pictures of you with someone else.”