Page 56 of Pressure

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When Lance and Marissa arrived back at Solitaire that night, they went straight to work on rebuilding the club website. Lance used his considerable wealth to have all new servers, computers, and other hardware brought in to replace the old equipment. There would be no chance of any malware or trackers staying behind on the new setup.

Marissa really wanted to run with a new form of encryption she’d been playing with, so he let her. They were paying her for her expertise, and he needed to prove to her that he wanted her on his team as an equal and not just another of his employees.

The next morning, he got on the phone with Elijah and Patrick to discuss whether or not to hold parties the following weekend.

"Here's the problem with canceling," Elijah said. "We've got two of our European members flying in. They'll be in the country for two weeks and were planning to attend both weekends of parties in between business. They're some of our elite members who pay a lot of money. I know we don't offer a ton of special treatment, but if we can find a way to feel safe enough to host these parties, I think we should."

Lance agreed.

"I’m not sure safe is the word I would use, but I feel OK about hosting the parties this weekend," he said before giving them the full rundown of their visit to the prison.

"So, it is my father?" Patrick said, disgust evident in his voice.

"It seems that way."

"Holly wants to go visit him," Elijah said with obvious displeasure.

"So, tell her no," Patrick said.

Elijah sighed. "I can't."

Lance had a feeling he was stepping in some family drama that he didn't exactly want to hear, but he waited patiently for his turn to speak.

"Why the hell not? Your collar is around her neck, your ring is on her finger. She doesn't need to be around him," Patrick said.

"You know that's not how this works. Can you tell Austin what kind of cases she takes, or not to see her father?"

Patrick blew out a breath. "No. But you know she'll listen to you."

"Yeah. She will. But she'll also be pissed at me, and I would be a shit Dom for violating the agreement we have. After I stopped her from going to the trial and she went anyway—no thanks to you—we had an extensive discussion and I agreed not to stop her from seeing him if she really wanted to. She hasn't tried to. I think because she really doesn't want to. But now she does, because she knows it would be good for someone to get into his head and figure out what’s going on. I would go with her if I could, but I know she’ll get him to open up more if she goes alone."

"God damn it. I can go with her,” Patrick said.

Lance cleared his throat so the two men wouldn't forget about him.

"Sorry, Lance," Eli said. "And Patrick, you're welcome to ask, but I won't force her to take you."

Patrick sighed. "OK. I guess that's all I can ask."

"Can we get back to this weekend, please?" Lance asked.

"Yes. If you feel safe, I say we go ahead with it. We've got the e-mail out to our members, and so far, we've only got one vote to cancel, and everyone is in your corner."

Lance had purposely stayed away from the e-mail account, unsure if his ego could take the hit if the membership rejected him or wanted him ousted. It was good to hear that their members had faith in the leadership of Solitaire.

"David is coming and bringing a few friends."

"Are they members? I know he's our founder but dang, we really don't want to let a bunch of strangers in."

"Relax, buddy. They're all members. Emily and Dr. Malincoat. He's even convinced Jasmine Darlington to take a weekend off and show up with Simon."

Lance smiled at that. Simon was a fixture at the club, but his partner and Mistress was a fashion designer who split her time between New York and Los Angeles where she dressed a lot of famous people. They technically lived two hours from Solitaire, but Jasmine rarely attended parties and allowed Simon to see other people at the club.

Lance was far too possessive to ever let his submissive see other people, but he was glad the couple had an arrangement that worked for them.

"Sounds good. So, the consensus is that we'll be having the parties and things will continue as normal for now. When is Holly going to see her dad?"

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