Queen (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (21 page)

My face warms, almost feverish, as my mouth spews my passion. I know I’ve lost her when her eyes glaze with confusion. I shrug and go back to commanding the computer to do as I want. I’m hooked to the net and trying to communicate with my professor’s computer without
him knowing. If I succeed he’ll have to take me into his program. What I’m doing is illegal, but if I accomplish it- no harm, no foal.

“Do you think we’ll be able to read comics and books on the internet s
omeday?” Whitt asks excitedly.

“No doubt, Sunshine.
If you beg nicely I may create a program just for you.” I wink at him when he sticks his tongue out at me. “casse-couille,” I tease.

“Wh
at does that mean?” Whitt asks. He tips his head to the side and flashes me confused, blue eyes.

“If you’d do your Fr
ench homework, you may find out,” I taunt him.

Our good humor deflates the instant the wicked bitch of the East glides into my office. I nearly growl. This is my domain- No Mrs. Whittenhowers shall pass.

“What the fuck do you want now,” rolls off my tongue with no concern for the listening minors in the room. To say that Cora and I hate each other would be an understatement. We actually went an entire month without seeing or hearing each other- that was a good month.

The mousy looking lady with pit-viper fangs whips out a seamstress tape and I cringe into my seat. No.
Fucking. Way.

“Measure me instead. We’
re both in our last trimester.” Katherine uses her diplomatic skills she’s learned as a budding Junior Senator’s wife. She and I are due around the same time. She has a tiny future Whitney Preston growing in her tummy.

“My child,” she stresses
my
and I want to kill her. “Is that size,” she points at my bump. “I need to know how big he is.” She walks towards me and I jump up from my chair.

“Listen, bitch, I’m six-foot-tall and pushing one-eighty. Your freakishly thin body and mine are not the same size no matter how you measure us. Use your sister-in-law.” Kate flinches when I call her Cora’s sister-in-law. I flash her a shit-eating grin. Cora’s nothing to me, but a
casse-couille- a pain in the ass.

Our animosity erupted when I had to endure being in my room during a party celebrating the upcoming birth of Daniel Whittenhower III. I
keep replaying the sight of her hands on Grant and I see her death in my mind- repeatedly.

Today’s visit is to measure for the newest baby-bump pad. She has to look pregnant for the baby-shower in two weeks. With all the socialites feeling up her bump, she can’t use the Velcro pad thingy you use at the matern
ity clothing stores- nope, she’s getting a molded, synthetic skin baby-bump. This will be her third because as I grow, so does she.

I glare at her and retake my seat. Good luck getting to my abdomen, bitch. I cross my arms over
my
Niel.
Mine
, I glare at her.

She starts to walk to me. “Cora,” his voice barks from the hallway. It’s usually smooth as glass. Today it’s
as cutting as a shard. “Kate, please take Cora into the powder-room and have her measure you. I wouldn’t push my luck, Cora. Hormones are a wicked mistress. Entering a room with two pregnant women is a bad idea, especially when they both despise you. Does your greed eclipse your sense of self-preservation?”

Grant walks into the room avo
iding Cora by several feet. He’s right; if she were to touch him, I’d break her fingers. The closer to Niel’s birth the more mother lion I turn. Territorial doesn’t cover it.

“How about we both take a break from our work,” he pops a brow and dents a dimple trying to charm me. I roll my eyes at his eff
orts, but I rise from my seat.

“You’re in for it now, naught
y boy.” I say under my breath.

“Mistress, punish me for my indiscretions,” he whispers salaciously.

“Don’t regret what you’ve asked for,” I say out loud as I leave the room.

Grant follows me like a well-trained puppy. Fate and Kristal’s giggles follow me down the hall.

“You’re waving your ass at me begging for a spanking,” Grant murmurs near my ear.

“It wouldn’t be you giving the spanking. Don’t temp me,” I tease him.

“Would you really be willing to do that?” He looks so eager that I laugh. Who knew?

“Do you want a pink ass, Mr. Whittenhower?” I tap him with my palm as we walk down the hall towards our rooms. “I can accommodate you.”

“Yes,” he breathes out. His eyes dilate to the size of dinner plates and his skin flushes.

“I
bet you can’t wait until Niel’s born so we can play roughly again,” I salaciously tease him.

His eyes clear and he sobers up. “I want to wait for as long as he needs. I want him healthy and happy.”

His hand softy rounds my belly and I close my eyes. We’re hanging on a precarious edge. We either fall to our deaths or pull ourselves to safety. The constant stress is killing me and I try to hide it because he feeds off of my emotions. Our lives may not be hanging by a thread, but our happiness is.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Mrs. Whittenhower,” please
take your son from the nanny.

I wince when the photographer calls me the nanny, but it’s the Mrs. Whittenhower and your son in the same sentence that has me seeing red.

The photographer is here to take a family portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Whittenhower and the heir to the Whittenhower throne- my son.

I lean forward and place my son into Cora’s awaiting, outstretched arms. I try not to touch her because the thought makes me physically sick. But not nearly as sick as when Niel is settled into her embrace. I haven’t cried since my mother’s passing, but this nearly brings the moisture to my eyes. It prickles and burns almost as painfully as the fissure in my heart.
Pure fucking torturous, agony.

I’ve felt death and loss deeper than anyone. The loss of my parents was crippling. But there isn’t a word for the emotions I feel as I hand Cora my child
for the very first time. I watch her hold him to her chest and pose for shot after shot for the photographer.

The fake, saccharin expression on her face as she smiles from the camera makes me hate her. I’ve never hated anyone b
efore, not even Daniel I. His ploys gave me my son. How could I hate anyone for that? But Cora, I loathe the bitch.

In the six months since Niel’s birth she hasn’t so much as looked in his direction and now she sits as if she’s posing for a magazine spread about her nomination for mother of the year. Niel is pawn to her- a way to get the Whittenhower money.

I don’t want the Whittenhower money, I’ll make my own. What I want is my son in my arms. I want the world to know that that precious boy was created by his father and me. While it may have been forced it was still filled with mutual affection. Niel’s demeanor is proof of our bond.

I run to the powder room and heave into the toilet as I did almost a year and a half ago. I threw up at the thought of whoring myself out and then having to give my child away. Now I throw up
for a similar reason- reality.

Watching Grant and Cora cuddle up on the sofa while holding my son drove home the reason I’
m here. It’s easy to get lost in the daily life that Grant and I use to escape reality. We eat together as a family. We read Whitt and Niel stories every night as they drift to sleep. We talk about our hopes and dreams of the future. Grant writes beside me as I string algorithms together into usable sequences. And as we lie in bed each night we plot for our escape.

I heave up bile in fear that our plans of escape will be thwarted and that the scene on the sofa that plays out before the camera is my future reality- a future without Niel in my arms. A future without Grant’s soft, calming voice and his playful presence.
A future without Whitt’s mischievous wit.

The stress is crippling. I’ve held it together the best I could. When the anxiety overcomes me I hide from Grant- I withdrawal because h
e feeds from my emotions. If I’m strong, he’s strong. If I’m happy, he’s happy. If I show how afraid I am, he will undoubtedly become petrified. He’s already stressed and I worry about how he will deal with it. He doesn’t have the constitution for it.

I pull myself together the best I can and return to the parlor. I lean against the archway and watch as Cora poses in different spots in the room using my son as a prop. Grant looks physically ill and he keeps looking at me to make sure
that I’m alright. I give him an impassive expression because it’s all I can muster.

Priscilla went to Ka
therine’s for the day because she didn’t have the stomach to watch this charade unfold. Daniel I stands proudly watching his daughter-in-law flaunt herself. He even has the nerve to pose in a photo with Cora and Niel. When the photographer requests that Grant join them Daniel waves him off.

A shit-storm of fury brews in my body as I watch the disrespect that Grant’s father throws at him. I feel his violation as if it were my own.

Whitt comes in and holds my hand. He’s grown so much lately. He’s going to be tall when he’s an adult. He’s already more of a man at seven and a half than his father is in his fifties.

The photographer poses Cora, Grant, and Niel on the sofa and Whitt
makes a choking sound in the back of his throat. I smile at the kid who will forever bring me joy and sunshine.

“Mr. and Mrs. Whittenhower, could you kiss for the camera. I think it would be the best shot,” th
e photographer says excitedly.

I instantly flee the room.
It’s one thing to hold my child and pretend it’s your own. It’s another thing to touch my Grant. But I cannot stand idly by and watch as something as intimate as a kiss is captured on film. Especially with my child held in their arms.

It’s a fabrication of a life that doesn’t exist. Every person who
reads the newspaper will read the lie, see the phony posed family, and believe it.

I run up the stair with Whitt on my heels. I know he won’t leave me be so I go to his room. Being
in the room that I share with Grant when my emotions are so raw would be a disaster.

“That’s wrong,” Whitt says angrily. “He can’t do th
at. Someone needs to stop it.”

“I’m trying my best, Sunshine. I can’t work miracles,” I whine because what I really want to do is bawl like a baby, but the tears won’t come.

“Grant’s weak. He should stand up and say that you’re his wife,” the child practically growls. He doesn’t sound like a kid. A man’s voice and words flow from a child’s mouth. After all this time I’m still not used to it.

“Grant is Grant. Whitt, you must accept him,” I defend.

“If you were mine and gave me a child I’d never let you go. I’d tell the world,” he says quietly and scowls.

“People are different. It doesn’t make Grant less of a man, just not a dominant one. I’m
dominant enough for both of us,” I mumble.

Whitt turns from me and goes and hides in the corner of his room. He faces the wall and his little back is quivering. I touch him and he flinches. I know he’s crying and he thinks that
if he does he’s not a man. Daniel I is huge on telling Daniel II what it means to be a man. And most of the time he’s wrong.

“It takes a lot of courage to cry. A woman doesn’t cry because she’s weak, she cries to relieve the pressure. I know you’re frustrated and that’s why you’re crying. I envy you. I wish I could join you.”

I pull him away from the wall and he allows it. I sit on his bed and drag him into my lap. Ever since I had Niel he won’t let me hold him anymore. Every time I’ve tried he’d say that the man holds the woman. I let it go because he’s trying to figure out his identity. But tonight I hold him and he holds me back. If I could cry, I would. I’d love to release my inner-miseries.

“I’ll be Niel’s father if Grant can’t be.” Whitt sniffles against my shirt. I smile against his hair. He’s such a little man and to think that his father finds him weak.

“Grant’s doing a good job, Whitt.” I try to hide the smile that creeps into my voice.

“I promise that Niel will always have a father,” he says in that
ominous voice of his. It always reminds me of when a premonition chills my skin, but with Whitt it’s like he can read our fates as if they’re written before him.

“Thank you,” I whisper against the top of his head and I pray.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“I’m sorry about today. I felt your pain. I can’t apologize enough.” Grant’s voice is soft and quiet in the near-dark room.

I lift my face for a tender kiss. Our mouths linger for a long time until I grunt from a hearty pull at my breast.