Chapter 8: The Unexpected Visitor
The rain had gentled to a constant, murmuring drizzle by the time Catriona’s key turned in the lock. Her client meeting had run long, a tedious negotiation over floral budgets that had left her buzzing with a need for the sharp, clean lines of her own world. She shouldered the door open, damp coat in hand, the words “I’m home, tell me you ordered Thai” already forming on her lips.
They died there.
The scene in the living room was a still life of trespass. Aidan stood near the wet bar, his posture rigid, a familiar tension in his shoulders she hadn’t seen since the early days of their arrangement. And on her favorite rug, the deep burgundy one, knelt a woman Catriona didn’t know.
Soaking wet denim, a tangled mess of dark hair, eyes red-rimmed and fixed on Aidan with a naked, hopeless hunger. The girl—woman, really, maybe mid-twenties—was on her knees, her hands twisting in her lap. The air didn’t smell like whiskey anymore. It smelled like rain-damped cotton, cheap perfume, and desperation.
“Cat,” Aidan said, his voice careful, neutral. A warning tone.
Catriona let her coat slide to the floor. She didn’t move further in. She became very still, her planner’s mind absorbing the details: the abandoned, half-full glass of Aidan’s good Scotch on the coffee table, the muddy footprint on the pale hardwood by the entrance, the way the woman’s shivering made her whole body seem to vibrate.
“I see we have a guest,” Catriona said, her tone cool, conversational. “You should have texted. I’d have picked up more wine.”
“Catriona, this is Jenna,” Aidan said. He didn’t move to come between them. “Jenna, this is my partner, Catriona.”
Jenna’s eyes flickered to Catriona, wide with a fear that was quickly swallowed by a defiant, miserable pride. “I know who she is,” Jenna said, her voice husky from crying.
“Of course you do.” Catriona finally stepped forward, her heels silent on the rug. She circled slightly, not approaching Aidan, but studying Jenna from this new angle. The girl was pretty in a worn-out way, with the kind of sharp features that looked better with smile lines than with the deep grooves of anxiety currently etching them. “And you are… a former student, I assume? Given the dramatic entrance and the palpable sense of regret hanging in the air.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Aidan started, but Catriona held up a single finger, her gaze never leaving Jenna.
“Let her answer.”
Jenna licked her lips. “It was two years ago. A semester. It was… it was a mistake. He ended it. I transferred. But I couldn’t…” She took a shaky breath, her eyes darting back to Aidan as if he were a lifeline. “I saw your picture. In that society magazine. About your penthouse. I just… I needed to see you. One more time.”
Catriona felt a strange, cold excitement trickle down her spine. This wasn’t Chloe’s eager-to-please submission. This was a wild, feral thing. A breach of the controlled universe she’d built. It should have made her furious. Instead, it sparked a terrible, curious fascination.
“You needed to see him,” Catriona repeated softly. “And now that you have? What is it you need, Jenna?”
The question seemed to unravel the last of Jenna’s composure. A tear escaped, tracking through a smudge of mascara. “I don’t know. I just… I can’t stop thinking about him. About how it felt.”
Catriona moved then, walking slowly to stand beside Aidan. She didn’t touch him. She leaned back against the bar, facing Jenna, mirroring Aidan’s stance. A united front. “How it felt,” she echoed. “You mean his cock. That’s what you can’t stop thinking about. The legendary Aidan. You had a taste, and now you’re a junkie, shaking on my floor.”
Jenna flinched, but she didn’t look away. A spark of anger lit in her wet eyes. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I do.” Catriona’s smile was thin, razor-sharp. “You’re not special in that, darling. Look at you. You’re drowning. And you think he’s the only one who can pull you out.” She finally turned her head to look at Aidan. His jaw was tight, his green eyes guarded. “You called me. Why?”
“Because it’s your domain,” he said simply, quietly. “And this… this isn’t a guest. This is a situation.”
His words were the final key. Her domain. A situation to be managed. The cold excitement warmed, spreading through her, a familiar sense of authorship taking hold. The shock crystallized into a plan, clear and gleaming.
“Get up, Jenna,” Catriona said, not unkindly.
Jenna hesitated, then pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. She was shorter than Catriona had realized, drowning in her wet clothes.
“You came here for a feeling. A memory. You wanted to be with him again.” Catriona stepped away from the bar, closing the distance between them. She could smell the rain on Jenna’s skin, see the rapid pulse in her throat. “But you don’t get to have him. He’s not yours to take. You understand that, don’t you?”
Jenna nodded, a miserable, defeated jerk of her head.
“Good.” Catriona reached out, not touching her, but gesturing to the sleek, modern sofa. “Sit. You’re a mess.”
Jenna sat on the very edge of the cushion, back rigid.
Catriona turned to Aidan. “Pour her another drink. The good stuff. She looks like she needs it.” She then addressed Jenna again, her voice dropping into a confidential, almost soothing register. “Here is what is going to happen. You are going to have your one more night. But not in the way you imagined. You are going to have it as a lesson. A lesson in what it truly means to be with him when you have no claim, no right, no future.”
She saw the confusion in Jenna’s face, the dawning, terrified hope.
“Aidan,” Catriona said, not looking back at him. “Are you comfortable with this? She is an uninvited complication. But I find I’m… curious.”
There was a long pause. Then, the soft clink of glass as Aidan poured three fingers of amber liquid. “It’s your show,” he said, and the warm, easygoing demeanor was gone, replaced by something darker, more focused. The professor was gone. The instrument of her will remained.
Catriona finally smiled, a real one, all predator. “Perfect.” She took the glass from Aidan and placed it in Jenna’s trembling hands. “Drink. Then get out of those wet clothes. You’re staying for dinner. And after, Jenna, you’re going to learn the difference between having a memory and being used to create one for someone else.”
Jenna’s breath hitched, her knuckles white around the glass. The defiance was gone, replaced by a submissive, awestruck terror that was far more palatable.
Catriona walked back to where her coat lay in a heap, picking it up slowly. The penthouse felt different now. The storm outside, the blurred city lights, the scent of desperate desire—it was no longer an intrusion. It was the perfect setting for her newest, most unexpected production. She hung up her coat, smooth and deliberate, every movement a declaration of absolute control.
“Now,” she said, turning back to the room, her amber eyes alight. “Let’s begin.”