Page 13 of Worth the Risk

“Isabella,” she answered, disclosing her full first name, something she hadn’t done in a year.

Why now, with him?

“I like Bella, but Isabella suits you more. It’s beautiful...”

Though he didn’t say it, her brain filled in the implied,just like you.

She blushed, feeling a little flustered. “Thank you. My parents picked it out.”

The sound of his deep chuckle sent shivers down her spine. “They did a fine job.”

Bella’s heart skipped a beat. Before she could come up with an intelligent response, he released her arm and her gaze and walked away.

She stared after him, watching until his broad shoulders and dark head disappeared in the throng of people.

“Ahem...”

Bella glanced down, finding Ben staring up at her, a knowing grin on his lips.

“I’m sure ogling Dano is far more interesting than cleaning up broken glass, but this would go faster if you’d hold the dustpan while I sweep.”

“Dano?” she asked, not denying the ogling part.

“Dan Ogilvie. The dom you were drooling over.”

She touched her chin, checking, before she could stop it, which had her boss chuckling.

Bella crouched and held the pan for him to whisk in his pile of glass. After she dumped it in the metal trash can he’d brought with him, they did a second sweep, and a third for the tiniest shards since a lot of the women were barefoot.

When she rose, she apologized again. “I’m really sorry about the broken glasses and the mess, Ben.” At his frown, she quickly added what she’d forgotten. “Sir, I mean. I swear I’ll get that straight.”

He waved her off. “About Dan, Bella. Being vanilla and a newbie thrown into a sea of kink, I feel I should warn you about him.”

“What? His age? I know he’s older. I was thinking fortyish. Please don’t tell me he’s well preserved and old enough to be my grandfather.”

“He’s forty-two, I’m pretty sure.”

Bella did the mental math. Fifteen years wasn’t so much. If he’d said fifty-two, she might have had second thoughts. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. Dan is a great guy, and you’d be safe with him...”

“I hear abutin there,” she muttered, cutting in. “There’s always abut. What is it? Is he into something freaky?”

“This is a kink club, Bella,” he drawled. “We’re all into something freaky.”

“Oh. Right.”

What a stupid thing to say. How long would it be until she didn’t act like a fish out of water?

Ben usually laughed at her naivete. Once he’d called her a wide-eyed little newbie, but he looked serious now. “I’m just saying he might be too much for you.”

“How so?”

“Dan is a sadist.”

She’d heard the term, had even used it about some of Lorenzo’s bloodthirsty rent collectors, but, in this context, she didn’t think he meant getting off on beating someone to a bloody pulp to get the money they owed.

“What does that mean at Club Decadence, exactly?”

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