Rich Promise (16 page)

“Don’t you mind? I mean, it’ll be difficult finding private time to be…together.”

“I don’t think I have much choice. If it makes you feel any better, I’d do exactly the same as you in your situation. Family comes first. At least you can tolerate a gag. I daresay you’ll be needing it. There’s always weekends at my place—or in Leeds.”

“But I won’t be able to do that. I can’t just go off and leave them…”

“Which is another reason for getting my brother on your side. There’s no shortage of babysitters here.”

I tilt my chin up, look him in the eye, and start to believe. Really believe. This could work. It will work. We could be happy here, all of us.

I curl my arm around the back of his neck, reaching up to lay my lips across his. He opens his mouth, sucking my tongue inside as he deepens the kiss. I’m oblivious to the discomfort in my backside as I wriggle around to kneel astride his legs, kissing him hungrily. Dan leans back, accepting my passionate, wordless thank you. His hands are in my hair, then he lowers them to caress my breasts through my cotton business shirt. He starts to unfasten the buttons, but stops abruptly. He breaks the kiss by placing his palms at each side of my head and lifting me away.

“Not so fast, gorgeous. We haven’t finished talking yet. Then comes your second appointment with my quirt. Then we talk to Nathan. Then comes the fucking part. By the time we get to that, you’ll be even more eager, I imagine.

“I’m already quite eager enough, Sir.”

“Nice and wet?”

I nod. “Shame to waste it, Sir. I’m just saying…”

“Save your saying for the rest of this story of yours. Tell me about what happened in Barrow, at the foster home.”

His expression is serious again, stern. He won’t be relenting about this. I shift to the side, tucking my knees under my chin now, as I position myself alongside him.

“It was nice. More than nice. It was wonderful to see Lucy and Maisie again. The foster parents are lovely people. They’ve been well looked after. Happy even. Well, Lucy’s always happy. Maisie, though, she’s harder to please. She’s a lot like I used to be, doesn’t trust people easily. She seemed relaxed, secure. I think that’s important, don’t you?”

His smile is brief, slightly crooked. “I imagine so. I don’t recall a time I didn’t feel secure though. Perhaps I’ve been lucky.”

It certainly sounds like it to me, though I don’t say that. Instead, “But, I thought your parents split up. Didn’t you say your father re-married and that Nathan’s your step-brother?” I seem to recall something along these lines from the day I first arrived, just before the wedding. In fairness though, my head was all over the place that day. I peer at Dan, suddenly afraid I may have poked around where he didn’t want me to go. Not that this ever stops
him
, but even so.

“Yes, he is. But my parents didn’t split up. My mother died when I was a baby. It was always just me and my dad—till I was eleven that is, then he met Julia. That was Nathan’s mum, my step-mum. Nathan was eleven too and when they married, we became a family together. Julia was lovely, my dad adored her and I did too. She adopted me, my dad adopted Nathan, and that was that. Until she died, suddenly, when we were both fifteen.” A shadow flickers across his gorgeous face. “A brain tumor, so aggressive it was unbelievable. She was diagnosed and dead within weeks. Nothing anyone could do.”

I stare at him, horrified. “Oh, how awful. That’s terrible. Poor Nathan.” And it occurs to me, quite out of the blue, that despite all my ambivalence about my own mother, and to describe my feelings there as being mixed is an understatement. She is at least alive. Somewhere. The possibility of reconciliation might seem remote, but it’s there. I shelve that errant thought, back in the present with Dan.

“Poor all of us. It was a dreadful time. We were all in shock.” He regards me solemnly. “But I don’t think Nathan was any more grief-stricken than I was, or my dad. We all loved her, we all missed her. Nathan had us, he still had his family, and we stuck together. We helped each other. You’d have to ask Nathan to be sure, but I don’t believe my father ever made any distinction between us. He loved Nathan every bit as much as he loved me. He’s married again now, and living in Atlanta. Nathan followed in his footsteps I suppose, as he was an architect too. It was me who broke the family mold to train as a vet.”

Dan pauses, meets my gaze. This is as much personal information as I’ve ever managed to get out of him, and I appreciate it. Dan’s a private man, not given to emotional outpouring, but maybe he just knew I needed to hear this. I needed to know why he and Nathan, will get it, will understand why I’m so driven on this matter of my sisters. He’s some way toward it, but of course, there’s more to my story. The awful, shameful ‘more’ that’s so blighted my life for as long as I can remember. My horrible secret, that soon won’t be a secret any longer.

“But we digress. You were saying…” Sure enough, he’s like a dog with a bone, pursuing this to the very end.

“Right, so, I told Lucy and Maisie that I’d seen the social worker and wanted to offer them a home. They’re really excited. Maisie wants a horse…”

“I see. But what does your mother want? I assume she has some say in all of this.” With pin-point accuracy, he hits the nail right on the head. Precision bombing at its unerring best. I lower my eyes, stare at my hands folded across my knees as I answer.

“I don’t know. I didn’t speak to her. I can’t. She’s in jail.”

“They have phones, even in prisons. If she’s still on remand, she’d be able to take a call.”

I glance at him sharply. I hadn’t realized that. Never gave it a thought, in fact. Still, it doesn’t signify. I’ve no intention of contacting her. Sally MacDonald probably will, though, and I fully expect my mother to raise objections to me looking after Lucy and Maisie, just for the hell of it. She has no good reason to be awkward, but I wouldn’t put it past her. She only ever asked me to help out in the past to save her own skin. My heart sinks. After sentencing, there’ll be less she can do about it, surely, but right now, while she’s still theoretically innocent until proven guilty she probably does wield a lot of influence. They are her children, not mine. However little she deserves them.

Dan takes my chin in his hand and tips my face up. He watches me, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I’m guessing the prospect of discussing this with your mother is not attractive to you. Tell me about her.”

I shake my head, unable to speak. I never talk about my mother, except perhaps to Freya. But she knows all about the skeletons I keep hidden. Probably. I never actually came right out and told her, but she knows what my mother used to get up to, why she was in and out of prison. And Freya was my friend all the time I was constantly running away from home. Both she and Margaret will have managed to join up the dots I imagine.

Dan tightens his fingers around my chin when I make to pull away. “Tell me, Summer. It’s clear you don’t get on. Why is that?”

“Do you have to ask? Drugs? Illegal immigrants? Dumping her children to swan off to Spain?”

“Right. But the first two you’ve only known about for two days. What’s this about Spain?”

I briefly relate the story of my dash from a secure job in Bristol, a job with promise and prospects, to mop up after yet another of my mother’s escapades. Dan listens without interruption. When I fall silent again, he continues to stroke my chin pensively with the pad of his thumb. He holds my gaze, his expression cool, assessing, fitting the pieces together. Exposing the gaps.

Eventually, he speaks again, “Why Bristol? Why were you there, living so far away? Why weren’t you staying with Freya? Or even living with your mother and sisters in Barrow? You say you love your family—well, your sisters—and I believe that. It’s obvious that you do. So why do you just up and disappear? The last time you rushed off to Bristol, you were running from me, yes?” He waits, and I close my eyes before nodding briefly.

“Thought so. What were you running from the first time?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to refuse to tell him—or to lie. That would be easier. I could attempt to fob him off with some tale about wanting to make my own way in the world, wanting to learn an honest profession, build a career. All of those have some truth in them, maybe just a sliver. But the great, awesome, all-encompassing reality is now staring me in the face. I open my mouth, and it’s out.

“I ran away from home.”

“I see. Why, Summer?”

“I-I ran away a lot of times. To Margaret’s usually. She fostered me when I was a teenager, and I just kept on going back there. When I needed to escape. Freya was my friend, Margaret was like a mother to me.”

“But you had a mother.”

“No. I had a pimp.”

His eyes widen, just a fraction, but he doesn’t speak. Still he doesn’t interrupt me. I haul in a long, ragged breath and carry on.

“I was about fifteen when it started in earnest. She was tired, getting old. Her clients—is that the right word for them?”

He frowns, doesn’t answer. Won’t allow me to digress.

“Well, they wanted someone a bit fresher, I suppose, younger. And she saw no reason why I shouldn’t help out. And it wasn’t as if she expected me to go on the streets. Her clients came to our house. It was all safe enough, she said. Lots of people do it, the oldest profession, and all that…” My voice is breaking, I’ve never, ever said it all out loud like this before. Not even to Freya and Margaret.

I chance a look at Dan, try to gauge how he’s taking all this. His expression gives nothing away. I take that as vaguely encouraging. At least he’s not looking at me with disgust. I press on, determined now to get it all out there. I’ve started, that was the worst part. It’s downhill from here.

“I was sixteen before I actually, finally, agreed though. Our rent hadn’t been paid, the council were getting close to evicting us, or so I thought. So, I gave in. I felt I’d no choice. She can be very persuasive, my mother.”

“What happened?” His voice is soft, very low. There’s a warmth in his eyes, a sympathy I didn’t dare hope for.

“I waited in her bedroom, and she sent the man up. I never saw him, well, only his lower legs. I looked at the floor, then kept my eyes shut the entire time. I lay still, just did as he told me, didn’t struggle, or make any sound. I don’t think, looking back, I was much of a bargain really. He didn’t complain, though, just paid up. My mother was pleased, said I’d done well and she was proud of me. I wasn’t. I hated myself, hated her, hated all the men she ever sent up the stairs to me.”

Tears are streaming again, flowing unchecked down my face. Neither one of us makes any attempt to stem them. I look up at Dan, hoping for something, anything. Any sort of signal that he could forgive this. It comes in the form of a kiss. A light, chaste kiss, on my forehead. He smiles at me, a sweet, tender smile. I see nothing of blame or anger, or the special sort of loathing I reserve for this dark corner of my past.

“How long did this continue for?”

“A couple of years, on and off. I’d run away whenever I could, stay at Margaret’s for a while, until my mother managed to threaten or blackmail me into going back. Usually it’d be something to do with Lucy and Maisie. They were missing me, one of them was ill. It always worked. I was such a mug. I knew what would happen, what always happened. It only finally stopped when Freya won her money and bought the apartment in Kendal and I moved in there with her. Even then, though, my mother kept getting in touch, ringing me, texting, showing up at the door. If I wasn’t prepared to do my bit, as she saw it, she wanted handouts, wanted Freya to pay her debts off, slip her a few hundred quid. Freya probably would, as well, but I never let her. In the end, I went to Bristol to stop all of that. I figured if I wasn’t there, if I left the area completely, she’d stop pestering Freya. And me.”

“But you came back.”

“I had a phone call. My mother, naturally. She said Lucy and Maisie were about to be taken into care if I didn’t come home and help out. Looking back, I think it might have been better for them if I’d stayed away. But I didn’t. I always go back.”

“Well, that’s lucky for me, I suppose. I’d never have come across you again if you’d stayed in Bristol.” His lopsided smile is beautiful to me. A small shoot of optimism starts to unfurl, to spread its tendrils around my tense body. He doesn’t regret getting involved with me, doesn’t seem to intend to reject me. I’ve yet to hear a shred of disapproval from him, though it must be there, somewhere. How could he not?

“What are you going to do now?” I whisper my question, and hold my breath as he contemplates my tear-stained face

“Well, sweetheart, I reckon we’ve a busy afternoon still ahead of us. I owe you a punishment spanking—I’ve lost count of how many lies you’ve told me over the time we’ve been together, though, so I don’t think the quirt will be much use to us. My hand, I think, unless you’re still too sore, in which case I’d be happy to leave it until another time. Then I’ll fuck you, because I think you need that. And I definitely do. Then we need to talk to Nathan, get matters sorted for the social worker’s inspection on Friday. How does that sound?

“It sounds wonderful. And I’m not that sore any more so even the spanking…”
Especially the spanking.

“Glad to hear it. But?” His head is tilted to one side as he waits for me to elaborate.

“But what?” I’m not sure what he’s after now.

“Something’s still on your mind. What is it?”

“It’s just… Well, I mean…I had no idea you’d be so…relaxed about this. Don’t you mind? That I was a prostitute?”

His face hardens. “Yes, I mind. I mind that you were a scared child, made to do something you hated because you had no choice. If I could get my hands on any of the bastards who took advantage of your vulnerability, I think it’s safe to say I’d tear a few heads off. Or better still, their dicks. I mind that your early sexual experiences were so horrendous, but at least I better understand why you were so shaken by what happened at the club. A lot of things make sense now.”

I stare at him, remembering vividly the utter bewilderment I felt that night. “You shocked me. Really stunned me. I’d had orgasms before, occasionally, but they were hard work and never with anyone else there. That evening I spent with you, you just made me feel…out of control. My body wasn’t my own anymore. I was terrified, confused. I needed time to think. So I ran away to hide again—like I always do.”