Chapter 43. Pillow Talk
In the broad red bed, she lay curled around her lover, playing idly with the hairs on his chest. Despite the beginnings of gray, it was still a strong chest, and she stared at the picture they made in the mirror on the ceiling. He always made her feel lazy after. Like she didn’t have a bone left in her body. Not many men could do that to her. Even fewer bothered to try. If she wasn’t so sure that letting him know that she was available whenever he wanted would have made him want her less, she would have liked to have spent more time with him.
But playing hard to get made the having all the more worth striving for. Certainly with this man. Though it wasn’t a half-bad tactic to use on herself. It made them both want it more.
“I have to think of a suitable punishment,” she pouted. “A girl shouldn’t lie to her mother.”
“Ummm,” he muttered, also sated. “Let me take care of Thorndale. I’ve already got plans for him. That’s why I waited to tell you.”
“You’ve known for a while then? You shouldn’t have waited to tell me. I’m going to make you pay for that,” she said, switching seamlessly from annoyed to seductive.
“You always do,” he smiled down at her, kissing her forehead in a gesture that were he another man she would have called tender. From him, it was merely possessive, and perhaps a little bit patronizing. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“No,” she smiled, already making plans, “You really shouldn’t. But I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt too bad. As long as you promise me that it will be me that gets to punish the brat for what she’s done. I’m her mother after all. I know you too well. I can tell you have something in mind for Dawn already.”
“I never could hide anything from you, could I?”
Warming to his subject, he sat up in bed. As he talked, Glory watched as he became hard again. He didn’t often do that anymore. He was getting old. They both were. But the thought of what he was suggesting obviously excited him.
“Do you know what Dawn is afraid of? I mean really afraid of?”
Glory pouted but didn’t answer. Dawn ought to be afraid of her, but she wasn’t. Glory was smart enough to know that.
“Her father,” he answered.
Glory couldn’t believe it. “Her father? She doesn’t even know who he is.”
“Exactly. He could be anybody. He could be me. Should have been me.”
She smiled then. After all this time, he still hadn’t given that up. She had guessed right, and over the years she had become more and more sure of it. The fact that she hadn't initially picked him for her lover, that she’d chosen someone else over him, that’s why he still kept coming back to her. It tied him to her in ways that softer emotions never could.
In her business, she had found that most people’s capacity for love was severely over rated. But there were those people whose capacity for hatred and jealously knew no bounds. She knew that her lover was one of them. The knowledge that he had been her second choice had eaten away at him over the years, until the hate was strong and so long established that nothing would ever dim it – not even the long anticipated revenge for the imagined wrong. Sweetly she smiled and turned the knife, “That still bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “How could you have picked that ignorant rube over me?”
“He was very dashing when he was younger. Very gallant too.” Oh, how she loved to rub it in, all the things that he was not, and never had been. She never admitted to him that those qualities had never attracted her at all.
“He was goddamned useless,” he swore. She’d gotten him riled up now, like she knew that she would. “You seduced him, and then he went running with his tail between his legs, and never spoke to you again. What was the point?”
“I have his daughter,” she explained patiently. They had discussed this very thing a hundred times before. She knew it just made him hate them both more – the daughter that he felt should have been his, and the man who had fathered her. The hatred bound him to her even tighter. “At some point she could have been useful to me,” Glory continued. “I could have blackmailed him with the knowledge.”
“Ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Besides, it’s going to come out soon anyway. Thorndale’s asked for a DNA test to be run. It’s awfully amusing watching them all scurry about seeking furtive answers. They’ll eventually figure it out, and I wish I could be there when they tell him. I’ll have to see if I can find a way to arrange it. But I still don’t understand why you would feel the need to try to blackmail the idiot for anything, when you have me to protect you. I’m worth ten of him.”
“Well, I didn’t know that I’d keep you interested for so long, now did I?” Glory huffed. Of course that had been part of her plan all along, but she wasn’t fool enough to say it. It had been a long shot at best. She’d been amazed at how well it had worked. “It’s been fifteen years. I might have suspected that you would be interested in someone younger by now. After all, there’s been plenty of girls here to choose from. And you did sample some of them.”
That had made her angry, yet she had let it go. She had long ago made sure that none of her staff would ever fully satisfy his needs unless the request came through her. She didn’t say any of this, but continued on a more cheerful note. “Yet you still come back to me. Tell me, do you love me?” She said it mockingly, as if she knew that that couldn’t possibly be the answer.
“Love doesn’t exist,” he said flatly. He too had learned that lesson long ago. “I would have thought that you, of all people, would have known that. But I suppose you’re just teasing me. You know what keeps me coming back to you.”
“Yes,” she admitted, and decided to be honest for once. “You need to prove that you are the better man. That you would have been the better choice. Tell me, how would it change things if you really were Dawn’s father? Would you… would you… care?” She said it like it was a dirty word. “Or would you be obsessed with her just as you are now?”
He looked over to the woman on the bed, surprised. He thought that he had hidden his interest in the child very well over the years, although it had always been obvious that he hated her father. He felt that he had been amazingly patient waiting until the girl turned fourteen. By all rights, he should have had her then, only Glory had gotten greedy. After all, she only had the one daughter to sell. He had been forced to watch while Glory had made the deal with Thorndale. It had been an amazing piece of luck that the millionaire bachelor didn’t want her. Of course in the end, it really wouldn’t have mattered.
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious, from the way you look at her. From the way you’re acting now.” She stroked her hand over his hard phallus. “You never get that hard a second time, at least not without some work on my part. Just thinking about the girl excites you. I want to know why. Is it because you could have been her father?”
“What? I am not Dawn’s father, and we both know that.”
“No, you’re not her father. Her father has forgotten that anything ever happened between us, and he likes it that way. If what you are telling me is true, he has blocked it from his memory to the point where he can’t even see what’s right in front of his face. I am sure that you find no end of pleasure in that fact. But you – you’re still looking after her, in your own way of course, and you’re still here with me – almost fifteen years later.”
“You mean to say you planned it all this way?”
She shrugged, and decided that she’d tell him just a bit. What did it matter now? His feelings weren’t going to change after fifteen years just because she admitted that she wanted him to feel that way.
“The ties of jealousy and hatred are so much stronger than lust. If I’d given in to you then, you would have forgotten me too. Besides, this way I had two potential allies in high places. I had no way of knowing how things would turn out, now did I? I hoped that you would protect me because of our association. But he would be forced to protect me also, even if he didn’t want to, because of what we had created together. And if that wasn’t enough, I could always have blackmailed him with the proof. His career would have been over. And if even that wasn’t enough, I could have threatened to hurt the child, and then he would be compelled to do whatever I asked.”
“You always were a clever girl,” he intoned, clearly both impressed and aroused.
“Yes, I am,” she answered, pushing him back on the bed. “So, tell me, what do you have in mind for the girl?”
He nuzzled her hair and bit her ear lobe. All this pillow talk was making him want her again. “Let Dawn think that I am her father – it wouldn’t be hard to convince her. She knows I’ve been sniffing around you for years.”
“And then?”
“You know what comes then. It’s what keeps her up at night. Gives her nightmares.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want the girl too traumatized. After all, the point of all this from my viewpoint is that the girl needs to be able to work. She owes me, after all those years of cleaning diapers and runny noses. To say nothing of the fact that I allowed her to stay untouched until she was ready. I don’t want her ruined. Besides, I don’t think I really like the thought of you with my daughter.”
“Really? Becoming possessive in your old age?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “Either way I expect a good payback for all the years of effort it has taken to raise a child. To say nothing of the nine months I spent with her in my belly. She can’t possibly ever earn enough to pay me back for that.”
“I suppose it was uncomfortable,” he agreed. “But you could have terminated the pregnancy. I always wondered why you didn’t.”
“I just told you why I didn’t. I thought the child would come in useful. But it didn’t work out that way, because instead of needing him to protect me, I had you.”
“And now you expect Dawn to work off her debt to you? You know this isn’t a very promising beginning. Thorndale’s already all but ruined her. She thinks she’s a person now. Thinks she has rights, and choices. It may be difficult to convince her to choose the path you want her to. Remember Anya.”
“Anya? Of course. The girl was a gold mine. Insatiable appetite, for men and for money. I should have never let her go.”
“Yes. And it was after being with Thorndale that she decided to quit. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And to add insult to injury, he was the one who convinced you to let her go. Just wanted to remind you that you still owe him for that. Aside from the fact that he may be ruining your daughter. You wanted him to train her, and look what he’s done instead. Turned her against you, to the point where she is telling you lies.”
“But he is paying.”
“Yes, but you’ve just said that you want more than a few months of work out of the girl. What if after he gets tired of paying for nothing, she refuses to go to anyone else?”
“She wouldn’t dare.”
“She might. Besides, Thorndale has powerful friends too. He hasn’t done it yet, but he might get the girl taken away from you. Get social services involved. They’d put her in foster care, and you’d have nothing for all your hard work.”
“That’s what you’re for,” she cooed. “To see that I am left alone. To see to it that things like that don’t happen.”
“I might not be able to stop it. Not social services. At least not easily.”
“So, what are you suggesting?”
“I am suggesting, my dear, that there are men other than Thorndale. Men whose tastes are more similar to mine. Men who don’t want a pliant plaything, and are willing to pay for the privilege.”
“You have a particular someone in mind? Someone who would be willing to pay the kind of money Thorndale does?”
“I might. But if I give you the name, then I’d deserve a finder’s fee, wouldn’t I? You know what I want.”
“You want the girl,” she really shouldn’t feel jealous that he wanted her own daughter. Besides, she had an idea of what he wanted her for- it wasn’t something she was personally interested in experiencing. Not unless she was getting paid a hell of a lot of cash – up front. Even then, she’d have to think about it. “Wouldn’t that decrease her value?”
“Not necessarily. Not if I find you the right buyer.”
“You know that’s of tantamount importance to me. Well, that and that I’d like to see the brat get what she deserves almost as much as you do. Thorndale’s been far too lenient with her – I am sure that it has given her an exaggerated feeling of her importance. It’s not like the world is going to end just because one little girl loses her virginity.”
“No, it’s not, is it? At least, not our world. Since she decided to defy your wishes, she might find it a little less pleasant than the alternative would have been. But, that doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“Why should it? I’ve already done more for the little ingrate than she had any right to expect. Starting with the fact that I allowed her to be born in the first place. She’s been nothing but an inconvenience to me ever since.”
“Good. Because if things go as I suspect they will, I don’t imagine that she’ll be calling you on the phone to tell you how things are going. Should I collect her?”
“No. Wait until you have a client and I’ve negotiated the deal. Then, let’s say you can have her for a night, before we ship her off. That sound fair?”
“A month.”
“Too long. What if he won’t wait? Two days.”
“Not enough time to instill the proper attitude. It has to be longer.”
“All right then, a week. But only if he’s willing to wait.”
“It’ll do.”
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A/N: Sorry if that wasn’t the chapter you were expecting. What can I say? I’m evil.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Well, hope everyone enjoyed their holiday, because things in fic land are going to start heading south quickly.