The fundraiser had been a cage of champagne flutes and calculated smiles, and Elena had performed flawlessly. She had worn the gown Adrian selected, a slip of midnight silk that plunged to her navel and left her back entirely bare, and she had worked the room with the precision of a woman who had spent months learning exactly how power flowed through desire. Two investors had committed before the entrée arrived. A third had followed her to the terrace and stammered his intentions while she stood with the night wind biting her bare skin, her nipples peaked and visible through the silk, her expression serene. She had not even needed to touch him.

Now the limousine glided through the sleeping streets of Boston, the partition raised, the chauffeur sealed away behind smoked glass. The city slid past the windows in a blur of amber and shadow, and Elena sat with her spine against the leather seat, her body humming with the residual electricity of the evening. The gown had ridden up her thighs, revealing the tops of her stockings and the bare, damp skin above them. She had worn nothing else. Adrian had forbidden it.