The Mistress (13 page)

“What did you say to him?”

“Two words—
tell me.
”

Tell me.

And he had. And as he told her the truth of what he was, what she was, what they could be together if she chose, she felt like an amnesiac waking from the haze of forgetfulness and finally remembering herself. The only secrets he’d told her that night were the ones she already knew without knowing she knew them.

If you choose, Little One...I can own you. You would be my property, mine alone.

And her heart had answered before her mouth could find the words.

Of course you own me. You always have....

“But your Wesley, you didn’t want him to tell you what was down the rabbit hole.” Marie-Laure leaned forward and gave Nora a darkly amused grin.

“No, I didn’t. I think instinctively I knew I would be lost down there. I was right. Thoroughbred royalty. Southern gentility. And God, the money everywhere. Old money, new money, mob money. I do my damnedest to avoid the mob. I’d rather not end up like my father did.”

“Not your world?”

“Not at all. I like our version of royalty better than the vanilla version.”

Money bought nothing in Kingsley’s world but a key to the front door. Once inside, they built their own kingdoms. Dominants with boring day jobs earned respect with the power they created out of their own dignity and desires. Exquisite submissives—male and female—who laid themselves out on the altar of sacrifice and sexuality in order to find themselves at someone else’s feet. Wesley always accused the people of her world of putting on costumes and playing dress-up. He had no idea that the suits and the ties and the beige pumps and navy slacks her people wore during the day were the real costumes that they shed when they came out after dark. Nora remembered that night of her birthday party, curled up on the couch in her ducky pajamas, which felt as much like a costume as her kink-wear. He didn’t understand her world of role-play even as the woman he held in his arms played a role for him.

“But that’s what you left Griffin for? A night of being boring and ‘vanilla’ as you call it with your Wesley?”

Nora nodded. “I liked it. No...I loved it. It was a role I was playing, but one I liked playing.”

“Playing house?”

Nora smiled before she remembered she had a man with a knife at her side and was sitting on the bed of a sociopath.

“Exactly. Playing house. Husband. Wife. Home of our own. Dinner on the table. No kids, thank God, unless you count Wes. It was... Here’s the thing,” Nora said, shifting position as her foot had started to fall asleep. “That day, my birthday, Wes and I went out to eat. He took me for Indian food at this great hole-in-the-wall place by his school. One of his friends he played basketball with was there. Someone from his church, too. And he introduced me to them like...nothing. I was Søren’s property for ten years from age eighteen to about twenty-eight. I’ve been in love with him since I was fifteen and now I’m thirty-four. Almost twenty years. In twenty years, we’ve never done that, never gone out to dinner together just the two of us. Not around here. We can’t. Too risky. Can’t even go to a hole-in-the-wall Indian place. A shame, right? The man speaks Hindi, and he fucking loves Indian food.”

“You wanted a different life than my husband could give you? That’s why the boy?”

Nora swallowed.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Wes is...he’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known. Life is weird when you’re a professional Dominatrix. One day I would have dinner with Ilsa Strix and I’d ask her questions like ‘So when you put the three hundred and thirteen needles into that guy’s dick, did you charge by the time or the needle?’ Or you’re hanging out at the club and the seventy-year-old age-play fetishist shuffles past you in his diaper and bonnet. You go a solid week and you realize you haven’t had a single conversation or day that didn’t have something to do with kink or sex or money. You have enough nights like that and you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, on the subway ride of your life, you got off at the wrong stop. Wes was a different stop. A prettier neighborhood. Good schools. Nicer scenery.”

“Did you belong there? With your Wesley in his world?”

“He thought I did, and since it’s his world, it’s his decision.”

“That’s a wonderful nonanswer.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Tell me this truth. Your Wesley...would he have given you anything you asked for?”

“His family is richer than God, turns out. I guess he was ready to tell me that. Or was at least testing the waters to see if I was ready to hear that. But yes, I think he would have given me anything that night. Even his virginity if I’d asked for it, although I loved him too much to take it.”

Marie-Laure tapped her chin and seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. Nora stared at the woman who still retained the ghost of her former beauty. Who was this woman who thirty years later still hated Søren enough she would torture him like this? By stealing his heart from him? What did she want? Vengeance? Retribution? His body? His love?

“Would your Wesley have given you his life had you asked for it?”

Nora went still and cold at the question.

“I don’t know. I would never ask him to give up his life for mine. I wouldn’t let Søren leave the priesthood for me. I tried to get Wesley out of my world before he got even more hurt. I don’t ask people to sacrifice themselves for me.”

“I do.”

“You ask people to sacrifice themselves for you?”

“No. I asked my husband to sacrifice himself for you.”

16

THE KNIGHT

W
es kept his eyes closed and breathed through his nose. The last thing he wanted to do was puke his guts out in front of Laila. She’d been through enough today. Dealing with him throwing up and passing out was about the last thing in the world she needed right now.

“Here. Drink.”

He heard Laila’s accented voice right next to him, sensed her presence.

“Don’t. Let me,” she said as he opened his eyes and reached for the small glass of orange juice she held in her hand. “Your hands are shaking. I’ll hold it.”

She brought the glass to his lips.

He drank rapidly and soon the orange juice was gone.

“Where’s your kit?” Laila laid her hand on his forehead.

“Backpack. In the front room.”

“I’ll get it. Don’t stand up.”

Wesley knew he probably couldn’t stand up even if he tried. He cursed himself over his own stupidity. Driving for two days, panicking all the while, he’d barely eaten anything. No wonder he was crashing like this. Good thing Laila had recognized his symptoms before he’d simply fainted and gone into DKA. He would have woken up in the hospital and been useless to anyone, Nora especially, for days.

He heard Laila’s footsteps on the tile bathroom floor and he managed to pry his eyes open.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m such an idiot. I know better than to skip meals.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“Didn’t I say that to you like five minutes ago? ‘Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault’?”

“It’s a good line.” He watched as Laila dug through his backpack and pulled out a small black leather bag. “This it?”

He nodded.

She unzipped the bag and took out his insulin meter.

“I think I can do this myself,” Wes said as she took his hand in hers and swabbed his finger with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

“Sit. Breathe. I can do this. I do it all the time.”

“On dogs.”

“It’s all the same to me.” She grinned at him and he was suddenly struck by her beauty. How had he not noticed before that this girl who’d dropped out of nowhere into this nightmare was easily the prettiest thing he’d seen since...well, since Nora. Not that they looked anything alike. Laila had blond hair like her uncle and sky-blue eyes, high cheekbones and a dizzying smile. Even the nasty gash on her cheek couldn’t mar her beauty.

“You’re staring at me.” She pricked his finger with the lancet. “Does my face look that bad?”

“What? No. I was just noticing the resemblance between you and your uncle.”

“We both look like my grandmother.”

“She must have been beautiful. I mean, since you are. He’s not. I mean, he might be but he’s not my type.”

Laila grinned again as she slid the testing strip into Wes’s blood sugar meter.

“Most women would tell you he’s beautiful. My aunt especially.”

“It’s so weird that you call Nora your ‘aunt.’ I can’t get used to it.”

Laila shrugged. “I don’t remember a time that she wasn’t in his life. There are pictures of her holding me when I was only four or five years old.”

“Did she visit you all a lot?”

“Once a year. Sometimes more, sometimes less. How did you meet her?”

Wesley stiffened. This conversation would be a lot easier if Laila didn’t consider Nora part of the family. What was he going to say to her? Oh, your aunt and I have been sleeping together for the past week. Yes, your uncle knows. Long story.

“I worked for her,” he said, deciding not to rock her world any more than it had been tonight. “She taught a class at my school, a writing class. We’d talk all the time after class. Theology, philosophy...sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll. We talked about everything. At the end of the semester, she asked me if I wanted to move in. She wanted an assistant.”

“You lived with her?”

“It sounds bad, I guess.” And it was bad. Oh, man, the constant shit he got from his friends when he moved out of the dorms and in with “smoking-hot Professor Nora” as they called her...he loved it. He might have pretended to be mad when they expressed their envy over all the things he and Nora were no doubt doing under that roof of hers...yeah, he loved it. The guys were beyond jealous. Older woman, erotica writer—the Mrs. Robinson fantasies they had...he let them have them.
Wes Railey does not talk about his sex life,
was his answer to their interrogation. They’d have much more fun with their imaginations than they would with the truth.

“Sounds fun. I’d love to live with her.”

“It was fun. She was a great roommate.”

“Was? You moved out?”

“Yeah, last year. Things got...complicated.”

He didn’t know how else to explain it without going into all the awful details, but Laila didn’t seem the least confused.

“I understand. When she went back to my uncle, he probably didn’t want her having a roommate who looked like you.”

Wes’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I mean, a man,” she said quickly. “He wouldn’t want her living with another man.”

“You knew they broke up?”

Laila blushed again, a guilty look in her bright blue eyes.

“Your blood sugar’s still low.”

“I have a glucose tablet in the bag. And you’re blushing,” Wes said, smiling at her.

She handed him one of his tablets.

“I hate being this pale.”

“You’re not pale right now. You’re bright red.”

“I should have let you pass out.” Laila glared at him before smiling back.

“You should have,” he said. “But I didn’t so now you have to tell me why you’re blushing.”

“I’m blushing because...my uncle doesn’t know that I know he and my aunt broke up.”

“How did you find out? Did Nora tell you?”

“Their room is next to mine. I heard them talking.”

“What did you overhear?”

“Just talking.” He wasn’t sure he believed her. That blush of hers was so bright he wanted to put his sunglasses on. “She came to visit once and I overheard her saying something about leaving him, about him not telling us. He seemed to know she would come back to him. That’s why he didn’t let us know she’d left him.”

“She did go back to him.” Wes closed his eyes again. “He was right.”

“He’s always right.” Laila laughed a little. She had a good laugh—sweet and musical. “Wes? Are you awake?” Laila snapped her fingers by his ears.

“I’m awake. Dizzy. If Nora saw me now, she would kick my ass all the way back to Kentucky.”

“I don’t think she’d be mad at you.”

He nodded with his eyes still closed. She would be mad at him. Furious. God, how much he wanted her here right now yelling at him, telling him how stupid it was of him not to take five fucking minutes to eat something. He wanted her back so badly he’d sell his own body for it. Kidneys, lungs, anything he had to spare to get her back. Thank God for this little bout of low blood sugar. At least everyone would blame his shaking on that and not the truth that he’d simply never been so scared in all his life.

“I went into DKA while living with her. As soon as I was out of the hospital, she lectured me for a solid hour about how much I’d scared her, how I was never allowed to do it again.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad. You’re smiling.”

“It’s almost fun getting chewed out by Nora. I didn’t realize she cared about me that much until...you know, she thought she’d lost me.”

“They say you never know what you have until you’ve lost it.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not true. I always knew what I had. I didn’t need to lose it to know.”

“What did you have?”

Nora, he thought but didn’t say out loud. Laila seemed to take comfort in the idea that Nora and her uncle were in love and back together. For Laila’s sake he’d keep the truth of his relationship with Nora to himself.

“I had my best friend, and I want to get her back again.”

“And we’ll get her back again.” The voice came from the doorway to the bathroom. Wes opened his eyes and saw Søren looking in. “No matter what it takes.”

“Are you sure?” Wes stared up at Søren from the floor.

“Yes.”

“I hope you’re right,” Wes said as he started to drag himself off the floor.

Søren held out his hand to Wes. He only looked at it before standing up on his own even as a wave of dizziness nearly sent him back to the floor.

“I’m always right,” Søren said. “When you’re ready, we’ll leave for the house.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me, Grace and you two.” Søren nodded at him and Laila.

“Not Kingsley?” Wes asked as the dizziness passed and his vision cleared.

“No.” Søren held out an arm and Laila tucked herself against his chest like a bird under a wing. “He’s already gone.”