Fool's Desire

by Poppy Flynn

  Joseph swung back towards him. "Do you have any suggestions?" he asked.

  "Actually, I do," Jake stated confidently. "I suggest you withdraw the takeover bid in favour of a merger. If you do that, I'll persuade Desi to rescind her resignation." He waited a beat before adding, "She'll have to start working part time fairly soon, though. We're planning to start a family straight away."

  The noise Jake knew Joel had made was drowned out by Joseph clapping his hands in glee. "Perfect!" he bellowed, rubbing his palms together. "Consider it done! The takeover is by no means a sure thing, but marriage and children…that's a far more permanent move. Backed by a merger with Universal, we can't fail. Yes, this is absolutely perfect. Now, get out of here and sort things out with that young lady of yours."

  Jake shook his uncle's hand and grinned, heading for the door.

  "Babies, eh?" he could hear Joseph murmuring happily under his breath. The man was really a bit of an old softie when it came to family.

  Jake hadn't made it to the elevator before Joel caught up to him. He pursed his lips and braced himself, wondering what his cousin would have to say.

  Joel launched right in. "You can't do this."

  I beg your pardon?"

  "You can't marry Desi," Joel repeated.

  "I hate to burst your bubble, buddy, but there's pretty much nothing that's going to stop that now."

  "You don't love her," Joel implored.

  Jake laughed and shook his head. "Of course, I do!" he told his cousin.

  "Okay, but you're not in love with her. Not like I…" he trailed off.

  "Not like what, Joel? Not like you're in love with Anita? Cos I'm pretty sure that Desi and I have a hell of a lot more going for us than you and that piranha. Or has Anita suddenly had a change of heart and embraced the kink? Oh, wait! Maybe you're going to give it all up for her? Hell, maybe it's true love, after all, if that's the case." Jake scoffed sarcastically, "Cos I sure as hell can't imagine that she's going to let you carry on taking subs at the club. Will she even let you continue ownership of the club, Joel? You know, with us 'perverts'. Let me know when you have to sell up, cuz. I'll be happy to buy you out."

  Joel's face grew darker and darker. "Anita knows nothing about the club," he hissed.

  Jake nodded. "So, it's a safe bet to assume that she won't be joining us, then. So, what, you planning to be unfaithful before you're even married are you, Joel?"

  "This isn't about me!" Joel snapped. "You and Desi are not right for each other."

  Jake raised a sceptical eyebrow. "And just how do you work that out, huh? Because I can tell you right now that Desi and I have a damn lot going for us, buddy. We're friends. I care about her more than any other woman who's been in my life. I understand her kink…and we both know that she'll take my whip."

  Joel's face contorted, but Jake pressed on, "But even more than that, we understand and respect each other, Joel. We want the same things."

  "Surely, she's not what you really want?" Joel said weakly, bracing against the wall with one arm and looking at the floor.

  "She's beautiful and sweet and funny and, unlike some people, I'm not stupid enough to throw that away." Jake looked pointedly at his cousin.

  "And let's face it, I don't exactly have women lining up like you do, thanks to the likes of Anita and her fucking nasty tongue. Desi accepts me for who I am. You want to start analysing anyone's relationship, Joel, then I suggest you do it to your own. Does Anita accept you for who you are, Joel? Does she even know who you are, what you like, what your kinks are? Will you actually tell her, or are you planning to spend your whole married life living a lie?"

  "That's not the point," Joel gritted out between clenched teeth.

  "The point is that I won't be living a lie, Joel. Desi and I know exactly where we stand and exactly where we're heading."

  "But you don't love her," Joel gasped.

  "What, and you love Anita, do you?"

  "You don't love her," Joel whispered again in desperation.

  "What are you trying to get at, Joel? You think it's any great hardship for me to sleep in the same bed with her? You think I don't want to make love to her, those days when I've woken up beside her. You think I won't take her to the club as my submissive?"

  Joel made a strangled noise deep in his throat.

  "Because I can guarantee you, cousin, it's not, I do, and I will."

  Joel's ragged breaths were audible.

  "There's only one thing that could stop me marrying Desi," Jake snarled, getting right up into Joel's face and calling his bluff. "And he's not man enough to admit what he truly wants, let alone take it. He prides himself on his control, when, really, he's just running away from reality like a pathetic little kid who just can't handle the truth. You call that control, Joel? I call it cowardice. So, don't ever think to lecture me on my relationships when you can't even handle your own and when I'm pretty sure you're condemning yourself to a life sentence with a woman you don't even like…"

  Jake pressed the button for the lift and as he walked through the open doors, he looked back to where Joel stood doubled over with his hands on his knees, looking like a man who was in pain.

  "At least, Desi and I will be happy, Joel. Will you?" he asked as the doors slid closed.

  Chapter 14

  Joel leaned back on the wall next to the elevator and braced his arm on one of his knees as he rubbed his sternum with his free hand. He wondered if he'd eaten something bad because his chest hurt and he felt light headed and nauseous. A gurgle of almost hysterical laughter bubbled up in his throat and he straightened against the wall, throwing his head back and banging it against the hard surface.

  Was he ever going to be honest with himself? he wondered, just as his father came out of his suite, walking over to his son with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

  "You look like shit, Joel. What's going on?" Joseph asked, watching his son's demeanour all too astutely.

  Joel shook his head and closed his eyes, pushing back on the wall until he stood on his own two feet. Before he could speak, the elevator doors slid open again and Anita glided out. Joel gritted his teeth against the irritation he constantly felt towards her. It was only temporary, surely. Just a residual consequence of the vile words he'd overheard her spouting about Jake. It would blow over, eventually.

  "Urgh!" Anita shuddered. "I've just had to share the lift compartment with your perverted cousin."

  Joel stiffened and, from the corner of his eye, saw his father's face redden with indignation.

  "Anita!" Joseph reprimanded, but, clearly, the woman was already too confident of her position to guard her tongue.

  "Oh, come on, Joseph," she sniffed. "I'm about to become part of this family; there's no need to keep up the pretence around me anymore."

  "Pretence?" Joseph sputtered.

  Joel watched in a kind of morbid fascination as his father's colour grew deeper the more enraged he became, even as he wondered if Anita really didn't comprehend what a serious faux pas she was making. He supposed he ought to intervene, but somehow, he couldn't quite bring himself to protect this woman against her own prejudice. Especially since everything she said about Jake, she indirectly levelled at him, too. Could he really marry a woman who would think the same things about him as she believed about his cousin? Would he be able to keep that part of his life a secret from her? Joel furrowed his brow. Did he really want to live his life like that? Jake's recent words rang in his ears… 'Does Anita accept you for who you are, Joel? Does she even know who you are, what you like, what your kinks are? Will you actually tell her, or are you planning to spend your whole life living a lie?' Joel sucked in a breath as reality kicked in and the scene between his father and his fiancée continued to unfold.

  "I'm not sure you're welcome in this family with that kind of attitude, my girl," Joseph uttered coldly, holding himself carefully still in a tell-tale stance that Joel knew meant his father was dangerously close to exploding, but Anita di
dn't read the warning signs. Instead, she rolled her eyes.

  "Oh, please!" Anita snorted. "Every family has its embarrassments; you don't need to shield me from it. Although, I'll admit that I'd prefer you to keep him away from me, whenever possible."

  "I think the feeling's mutual," Joel muttered under his breath.

  Joseph's mouth opened and closed in disbelief, and Joel knew the eruption was close and probably inevitable by now. He felt strangely unmoved by this potentially calamitous altercation between his father and his fiancée, but even that knowledge didn't induce him to step in before things went too far. Instead, he wondered why he'd never noticed how narrow minded and bigoted Anita was.

  "My nephew is not an embarrassment, and neither is he a pervert!" Joseph growled through gritted teeth.

  Anita shook her head. "Look, I understand that we don't talk about it. I realise I was out of line mentioning it to Desirae Harper at the charity ball, but it's just us here. Surely, we can at least be honest with each other."

  Joel stared at Anita as if he'd never seen her before. Maybe he never truly had. How on earth was she ever going to play the role of corporate wife adequately with a mind-set like that? When he had to do business with sheiks with multiple wives, was she going to prove an embarrassment and potential risk to his ventures with her intolerant outlook? He had occasion to meet with a lot of rich ranchers, but they were working men…would she look down her nose at their dusty boots and battered cowboy hats? Some of his friends were openly gay. If she considered Jake a pervert based on rumour and innuendo, how would she react towards overtly alternative relationships? Joel paled at the thought of the damage she might wreak.

  "You did what at the charity ball?" Joseph seethed, fisting his hands by his sides.

  "I told her, of course. I thought she deserved to know the truth."

  "The truth!" Joseph roared. "You wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on your prejudiced, intolerant nose! How dare you spread decade old tittle-tattle conjured up by some scheming gossip columnist who twisted the truth in order to further her career."

  "She's not a 'gossip columnist' and I heard the story directly from the horse's mouth. She's a friend of mine," Anita replied haughtily, undaunted by Joseph's anger.

  Damn it all, the bitch reporter was still trying to get the scoop on the Blackwoods, this time by cosying up to Anita. Joel rolled his eyes in sheer disgust. A friend? Anita definitely wasn't winning herself any brownie points by admitting that to his father. No, siree!

  "And did that horse also point out that everything she accused Jake of only took place within sanctioned establishments between consenting parties? Did she tell you that it was part of a lifestyle, an interest, a relaxation like, say, yoga or Pilates? Or did she, in fact, imply that my nephew went around beating and battering all of his girlfriends? Did she ever actually claim to have been abused?" Joseph's voice had become silky soft, far more dangerous than his loud bellow.

  Anita just looked confused. "Well…no, she never claimed she was abused, as such, just that Jake was a pervert, that he tied her up and used a whip…"

  Joel wondered what she might say about him, if he told her the truth, if she knew about his kink. He wondered what would happen if that information came out after they were married. Would she out him to the world, or would she keep silent in order to protect her own reputation?

  "So, she never added the parts of the truth that explained Jake's behaviour, never exposed those facts that made him anything other than a deviant. Never admitted that she herself was a member of a BDSM club, that she took part in scenes of a sexual nature, with Jake, with other men, with other women. In other words, she twisted the truth to make it into a story that would sell copy, simply because of who it involved, and boosted her career in the process. She used my nephew for her own gain and abused his trust and then wanted to splash his private and personal life all over the gutter press, and when she was stopped from doing that, she resorted to insinuation and innuendo to ruin a young man's reputation. It could just as easily have been Joel, you know."

  Anita sucked in a shocked breath, and her eyes flew to her fiancée.

  "Joel was the bigger fish; it was Joel she was going after. But he had a girlfriend and the bitch couldn't manage to get close enough to him, so she settled for Jake, instead. In fact, the crap she wrote in that article implicated Joel just as much as Jake; did you know that, Anita? Joel was a member of the same BDSM club. But because she had been dating Jake, the spotlight was turned his way, after the injunction prohibited her from naming names.

  A small cry was torn from Anita. "But Joel isn't a pervert…"

  "That's right, Anita," Joseph interrupted. "Joel isn't a pervert and neither is Jake!" Joseph's eyes narrowed. "You, on the other hand, have dragged my family's good name through the mud, in public, no less. You have interfered with Jake's relationship with a woman whom I admire and respect and who I was determined to have working for my company. Who knows what damage your loose lips have done in that respect? I had considered you to be suitable wife material…I've changed my mind, and you are no longer welcome in my circle!" Joseph finished on a low growl.

  Anita's eyes widened for a moment, but then they hardened and a scowl crossed her features that made her look ugly. "Well, unfortunately for you, it's too late for that now," she dared to oppose his father.

  "I already have a ring on my finger." She waved the obscenely gaudy diamond that she had insisted on and placed a hand on her bony hips.

  Completely inappropriately and for reasons quite unfathomable, the thought of having to have sex with this woman suddenly popped into Joel's mind and he couldn't supress the shudder that dragged through his body. He seriously wondered if he would actually be able to perform. The very idea seemed to make his cock shrivel up and hide, and he wondered if he actually needed to justify his reasons for wanting to terminate their engagement? His father had pretty much handed him his freedom on a plate, all he needed to do was act on it.

  His heart ached at the thought of losing Desi. Pushing her away was one thing, but having her permanently off limits in the arms of another man was something else entirely. His mind was so messed up. He'd thought he was in control, but the reality was completely the opposite. He was engaged to a woman he neither wanted or liked, because his father had thought her 'suitable', and now Joseph had changed his mind and would expect Joel to walk the company line. This was his life, for crying out loud. His future, his family, his children, his happiness. When the hell had he ceded control of the most important part of himself to other people. When had his private life become simply an extension of company politics?

  This is what he had been fighting his whole life. This is why the idea of control had always been so important to him—so that he didn't lose these precious parts of himself to the might of the corporation. But somehow, his preoccupation with his feelings for Desi had allowed him to relinquish control of the rest of his life. He had thought it was she who posed the danger to his authority because she made him lose his focus, because she tugged on his heart strings and blew his mind, because his feelings for her were so strong that they scared him to death and he didn't want to admit to his fear, to the weakness she caused in him.

  Instead, he had been so busy running from love and joy and happiness that he had allowed himself to fall victim to his worst nightmare, that his whole life be mapped and acted out at the huge corporate whims for the good of the company. Because the company was bigger than he or his father were, or even the family; they were just the ones who guided it. And all his life, Joel had fought from being swallowed up by its immenseness, to go from guiding the company to have it guiding him.

  But now, he had fallen into its ultimate trap—he was marrying someone for no other reason than she had been considered 'suitable corporate wife material'. He was hiding his true nature, in case it had a negative effect on the company, when, in fact, those with a dominant personality were the only ones truly capable of pushing the
corporation in the direction it needed to take. It was just a company. It wasn't an entity in its own right. Without the right people, it would wither and die, regardless of its size and success so far. It wasn't a coincidence that so many of the directors were Doms. It was a mind-set that was required for success.

  Why had he never understood all this before? He was in control of this company; it wasn't in control of him. That had been his objective all these years and yet, somehow, it had still managed to sneak up and lure him into living for the company instead of living for himself. Well, that was about to end. Right here and right now, he would make a stand against doing what was expected instead of doing what he wanted and then he would go and become the man that he had always pretended to be. The one who was in control of his own destiny.

  Anita and his dad were still facing off against each other, but Joel didn't have time for that right now. He needed to get to Desi, to convince her that he loved her and that he wasn't a complete ass. That she should take a chance on him.

  "Anita, the engagement is off. This was a mistake, and it's better if we don't make it even bigger," he told her as he jabbed at the button for the elevator.

  "What?" Anita screeched, the sound hurting his ears. "Really, Joel. Don't let your father dictate your life!"

  "You're absolutely right, Anita. I'm not going to let him do that, and that's why I'm breaking things off. It would be a complete mistake for me to marry you just because other people once thought it was best for the company image or because it was felt that I needed a suitable hostess when I become full CEO."

  Anita's mouth dropped open. "But…"

  "I don't love you, Anita, and you don't love me, either. You just love my money, my position, and my status. And you know what…" He didn't wait for an answer. "I want somebody who loves me, not because of what I represent, but just for who I am. And I was stupid enough to let that person go."

  The lift arrived and Joel looked at his father, daring Joseph to question his declaration. "But I'm going to try and change that, right now."