Wade’s manager, with whom the young man is also having an affair, hatches a plan to push the owner of the company out. The plan backfires, forcing the man to quit. He also dumps Wade, leaving the young man with nowhere to go. Wade can’t afford to quit, so he accepts an amended contact that puts him under the thumb of the vindictive Albion. Albion is a dominant with a strong sadistic streak. He despises Wade for what he allowed to happen and enjoys making the young man do the most demeaning things. But as Albion watches Wade, he sees that the young man has strong submissive tendencies. He sometimes seems to enjoy the degradation Albion dishes out, and that pushes his dominant buttons in curious ways.
Wrong on so many levels
The premise that gets Wade under Albion’s supervision is almost eye-rollingly unlikely. When Albion decides to take the relationship outside of work, it’s wrong on so many levels to start with. They do eventually get to a good place where both of them get their needs satisfied. Stories like this are essentially fantasy, so you just need to go with it.
The point of view switches between Wade and Albion in each chapter. Wade is an interesting character. He’s a submissive that gets aroused by degradation, which might be hard to relate to, but is still believable. The risk with a character like Wade is that they can appear to be a doormat. While the young man puts up with things you or I might not, we know enough about what he is thinking to see that it’s a conscious decision on his part to consent to what’s happening, even if that consent is slightly dubious in the circumstances.
Albion is a tough character to like, at least at first. His treatment of Wade is vindictive, to say the least. He also becomes reckless as he takes advantage of Wade’s submissive side, opening up Albion and his company to all sorts of legal issues, as well as potentially endangering Wade by putting him in a position where his consent may be doubtful. But, this is fundamentally a romance, so you can rest assured that Albion makes things right in the end.
“The Ownership Clause” is available from Amazon (commissionable link).
