by Helen Cooper
“Hey gorgeous.” He walked up to her looking debonair.
“Hi.” Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him, all her emotions coming back to the surface.
“You look beautiful as always.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She was wearing a light grey see-through top, her naked breasts were prominent beneath the top and her nipples were hard from the cold air. He looked down at the maxi-skirt that barely covered her ass and grinned. “I take it you’re ready for the club?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “Aren’t you?” He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of cotton pants.
“If you’re asking if I have any underwear on, then no, I don’t.” He reached over and caressed her face. “I’ve missed you.”
She stared at him and looked into his blue eyes that were so clear and honest. “I don’t want to go down this road again, Joseph.”
“I’m sorry.” He frowned. “I just wanted you to know that my feelings were genuine.”
“For me or for your wife?” she said bitterly and turned away. “Let’s just go.”
“What’s the plan?” Joseph ran to catch up with her.
“We need to find Frank Phillips and I need to talk to him.” Ella’s voice was hard and determined.
“Is that a good idea, Ella? What are you going to say?” Joseph looked at her in concern.
“I have a plan, Joseph.” She stared into his eyes and handed him a pen. “Take this. It’s a video camera. When you see me with Frank, you need to point the tip at me and push the clicker down. It will record sound and audio.”
“What am I going to be recording?” Joseph frowned.
“It doesn’t matter, Joe.” She sighed. “Please just do it. No matter what happens.”
“I don’t know, Ella.”
She pushed him against a wall and snarled at him angrily. “I don’t care what you know, or think or feel anymore, Joseph. You blew it. Do you understand that? Just do as I tell you.”
“Okay, okay.” He put his arms around her and pulled her in closer to him so that her chest was pressed against his. She allowed him to rub her ass for a few seconds before she pulled away.
“Let’s go.” She glared at him, happy with herself for being assertive with him. Once and for all she was done with Joseph trying to dictate their relationship. She was in charge now and she was going to make sure she got what she needed to get Senator Phillips to back off once and for all. They walked up to the building and she wondered if they had the right place. It looked like a desolate warehouse.
“This is it?” She looked at Joseph with a frown.
“I’m pretty sure.” He nodded and they walked around the building. It took them twenty-five minutes to find the entrance as it was hidden behind the trashcans. Ella took a deep breath and knocked on the door and kept a serious face as two security guards studied her and Joseph. She must have done a good job of fooling them because they let her and Joseph in without a word. The loud music and the many people who were engaged in all sorts of sexual activity immediately struck Ella; she’d never seen anything like it before. She tried not to think of Max at this club. He must have been in a really dark place if he had frequented this perverse place.
“Stay behind me but keep up with me,” Ella commanded Joseph and walked around the club. She grabbed a glass of champagne off of a tray and chugged it, she had a feeling that she was going to need to be drunk to get through the evening. She looked around the room to see if she could locate the senator. She’d looked at pictures of him online and she was sure she would recognize him if she saw him. He was handsome, with a superficial likeness to Max, dark brown hair, big blue eyes and a tall and sturdy stature. But that was where the differences ended. Philip had a cold vacant look in his eyes in all the photos she had seen. He looked wild. And some instinct inside of her wanted to tame him. She knew she was being irrational but part of her was looking forward to this evening, to seeing what all the fuss was about. And then she spied him sitting on a red chair all by himself. He was sipping, what she assumed to be a scotch or a brandy. She pushed her shoulders back and walked in his direction, conveniently tripping and falling on him as she walked past him.
“Oh sorry.” She laughed lightly as she stared into his eyes. “I’m awfully clumsy.” She let her breasts brush across his arm as she straightened herself and he looked at her in interest.
“No problem.” He looked away and she cleared her throat and tried again.
“May I join you?” She smiled and sat on his lap, pushing her ass into his crotch.
“I’m actually waiting on someone.”
“I’m sure they won’t mind if I wait with you?’ She brought his hand up to her breast. “It would be a shame if I came all this way for some fun with a handsome stranger and I didn’t get it.”
Frank grabbed her breasts through her top and squeezed them hard. His fingers squeezed her nipples and he whispered in her ear, “Well I don’t want to disappoint a beautiful girl.” He pushed her up and stood up himself. “Come with me.” He grabbed her arm and led her to a room and Ella made sure that Joseph was following them at a distance. She made eye contact with Joseph and he looked furious but she ignored him. She wasn’t his for him to get jealous over. It served him right that he would have to watch her with someone else. Frank led her to a dark room and Ella hoped that the pen camera had the infrared light capabilities that the spy website had promised when she bought it.
Ella felt Frank push her up against the wall and pull her skirt up. His fingers went to her pussy and she felt his rough hands rubbing against her clit roughly. She moaned as he slid his fingers into her and she felt her body trembling with excitement.
“She liked my fingers as well,” he whispered in her ear. Ella stilled at his words, unsure if she had heard him right.
“What?” she whispered.
“Your friend, Sophie? The one dating your brother. She enjoyed it when I fingered her as well.”
Ella pushed him away from her and gasped. “You’re lying.”
“I have a video.” He pushed her back against the wall. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing here, Ms. Van Harkel. It was brave of you to come here but I’d have recognized you anywhere. Your brother had family photos in his dorm at Harvard.”
“Leave my brother alone, Senator Phillips,” she shouted in his ear and he stepped back. “Why don’t you get a life, you asshole?”
“Why don’t you stop sleeping around?” He grabbed her breasts and molded them into his palms. “Even at this moment as you are hating me, your body still wants to know what pleasures I am capable of giving you.”
“No it isn’t,” she lied as her nipples ached for his touch once more.
“I bet you want to know what it would be like to fuck me and Joseph.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Joseph come.” Frank called out to the man who had been cowering in the corner. Joseph walked over slowly and looked at Ella with hurt in his eyes. “Take her to the bed, you know you want to.” He pointed to a large bed in the corner.
Ella stared at the two men in front of her and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to do. When she felt Joseph pick her up, she didn’t stop him. He dropped her on the bed and pulled her top off, falling to her breasts and sucking them eagerly. Ella wriggled on the bed and moaned as she felt herself growing wet. Joseph kissed his way down her stomach and pulled off her skirt before pushing his mouth into her pussy. She groaned and bucked on his mouth, feeling the pressure building up in her. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the feelings of guilt in her mind. And then she felt the fingers pinching her nipples hard. She looked up and saw Frank standing over her playing with her breasts.
“Isn’t it wonderful to feel two men pleasing you at the same time?”
“No,” she whispered but she knew she was lying. She had never felt such intense pleasure in all of her life.
“I think you are lying, Ms. Van Harkel.” He grinned evilly and pulled
his hands away. “But all good things must come to an end I’m afraid. As I told you before I have a meeting.” He smiled at her coolly and walked out of the room. Ella watched him leave with disappointment. But she didn’t have long to miss his departure as moments later she felt Joseph entering her. She clenched her legs around his waist and allowed him to slam into her hard and deep. His cock felt the same that it always had and she cried out as he went faster and faster. She felt her breasts bouncing up and down and Joseph rolled over so that she was now riding him. She closed her eyes and bounced up and down on him and imagined that it was Frank below her. As she pictured Frank’s face, she found that she was even more turned on and felt herself coming hard as Joseph climaxed inside of her. She groaned as she rolled onto the bed next to him and they lay there in the dark in silence. Things had not turned out as she had planned and she wasn’t sure if she could even trust her instincts any longer.
Chapter 18
Max
His meeting with Alexis had gone easily. It scared him how easy it had been. She handed over the signed papers with no trouble and because she had listed him as the father on the birth certificate he didn’t have to go through Frank Phillips. Max stared at Alexis as she babbled on about something. He leaned in towards her and he realized that her pupils were dilated and she was high.
“Alexis, let me take you home.” He grabbed her arm and spoke to her firmly.
“Sorry Max, you had your chance.” She laughed.
“Alexis, are you on drugs right now?”
“Why do you want some?”
“I thought you stopped taking them after rehab?”
“What do you care?” she spat at him. “You never cared before when we were getting high.”
Max sighed and looked at the woman in front of him. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed how coked out she looked. He had been so caught up in making sure that Jacob was going to his and Sophie’s legally that he hadn’t even really paid attention to Alexis.
“I did you a disservice, Alexis. And I want to apologize.”
“You want to apologize to me?” She laughed hysterically.
“I’m sorry, Alexis.” He looked at her with pleading eyes. “Let me take you home.”
“Get your hands off me.” She pushed him. “I don’t give a shit about you Max. Don’t you realize that? I love someone else.”
“So why have you been coming after me?” he asked her quietly.
“Because I don’t want you to be happy. Why should you have the fairytale when I can’t? We were good for each other Max. We both used each other to numb our pain. I don’t care that you never bothered trying to find out what was wrong because I didn’t give a shit about you either or your precious little Sophie.”
“Alexis,” he sighed. “Please let me take you home.”
“I’m going to ‘The X Club’.” She grinned. “I’m finally going to get my man.”
“At the X Club?” He frowned. Who could she be in love with at the club? And then it struck him—what he should have realized all along. “Are you going to see Frank, Alexis?”
“I love him Max and he loves me and you can’t keep me from him anymore. You can’t stop us from being together.”
“I never stopped anything, Alexis.” He looked at her in pity. She wouldn’t be the first woman to get caught in the senator’s trail. Max had seen many women drop out of Harvard after Frank was done with them.
“He should have married me,” she cried out. “I loved him. I wanted him. Why didn’t he marry me?”
“You knew Frank before he married Gloria?” Max frowned, not really remembering them having met before the X Club days.
“He befriended Mitch one summer and we dated.” She looked at him with almost focused eyes. “I’ve loved him ever since.”
Max looked at her in shock. “Then why come after me, why drag me into this mess?”
She looked at him with pity then and cackled. “Frank hated you. I wanted to make him jealous. I wanted him to realize that he wanted me and had to have me. It didn’t work. He was the one who got me to convince you to try The X Club. Who knew you were just as fucked up? Well, I did of course. Who else loves a stupid teenager?”
Max stared at her with anger on his face. “You used me?”
“You used me first, Max,” she screamed. “You never cared about me.”
“You tried to ruin my relationship, Alexis,” he growled at her. “You knew that Sophie was the love of my life and you have done everything you can to ruin that.”
“You ruined it yourself, Max.” Her voice was soft. “You’re a whore. A selfish bratty whore. I don’t care what happens to you or your ‘girl’.” She giggled. “I’m off to go get my happily ever after now.”
Max frowned. He wanted to just leave her and let her do whatever she wanted. But she was right, he had been selfish before and he had failed her. He had failed her as a human being who should care about the emotions of others. He knew what Sophie would do in this situation and sighed. “I can’t let you just leave, Alexis.” He grabbed a hold of her arm.
“Frank is waiting on me,” she screamed.
“Frank is married.” He looked into her eyes, trying to make a real connection so he could get through to her. “Frank is a senator whose goal is to become President, Alexis. He is never going to leave his wife for you. He is never going to marry you. You are never going to play happy family.”
“He loves me and he’s waiting on me at the club.” Her eyes flashed angrily at him.
“Then I’ll take you to the club.”
“I don’t want you to take me.” She struggled against him.
“You’re not going unless it’s with me.” He was obstinate. He owed her this.
“Fine. Let’s go.” She shrugged her shoulders and sang to herself. Max walked besides her with a heavy heart. How had he not seen how troubled she was before?
They drove in silence to the club. Max knew that this was the best way to make Frank believe that he and Sophie were truly over. He already had the second letter ready to be delivered the next day. He’d told Nick what courier was delivering it and he’d passed the information on to Frank. As far as Frank knew, Max’s life was in crumbles all around him. He knew this was all a game to Frank, he didn’t care about Jacob, and he didn’t care about Alexis. He just wanted to make sure that Max’s life was a misery. He didn’t really understand why Frank was so determined to bring him down, but he supposed some people were just mentally twisted. Now that he had the signed paperwork from Alexis, he had all that he needed to stop Frank. Alexis had signed paperwork that had signed all of Jacob’s rights over to Max and Sophie and acknowledged that Senator Frank Phillips was the birth father but was not interested in fathering the child. This paperwork along with the video and photos Max had in his safe contained enough damaging information to make sure that Frank stayed out of his life forever.
He just needed to make sure that Sophie was safe for now. He knew that once Frank thought he and Sophie were done, he would be secure in his position of ultimate power and hierarchy over Max. And once he read that letter and confirmed with Nicholas that he and Sophie were now together, he would believe it. Max hoped that all went according to plan because he was laying it all on the line so that he and Sophie could have a normal happy life together. He could only hope that her love was strong enough to forgive him leaving without telling her the plan. But he knew he couldn’t tell her the truth, he needed her pain and emotions to be real and vulnerable. He needed Frank to look at photos of her, Max knew he was having her followed, and to see the gut-wrenching sadness in her eyes and face. This had been the only way. “Well, we’re here.” He pulled up to the club and turned to a frantic Alexis. “You don’t have to go through with this. Frank’s not worth it, Alexis.”
“I’m going in.” She opened the door and stumbled out of his car and Max sighed. This was a part of the plan that he didn’t want to deal with.
Chapter 19
Sophie
She had been lucky to find a babysitter at the last moment. She hadn’t wanted to leave Jacob but there was no way she wanted to take him to the club with her. And there was no way that she wasn’t going to go. She had been a bad friend in the last couple of years, ignoring the signs that Ella needed help. At first it had seemed innocent and exploratory when Ella had spent the night with different men, but as the numbers had increased Sophie had been worried that there was more going on than met the eye. She had been worried that Ella was a sex addict or had emotional issues but she had never been sure how to bring it up. And she had been too obsessed with her love for Max to bring it up to him. She knew in her heart that she had failed Ella as a friend but starting tonight, she was going to change that.
As soon as Ella had told her she was going to ‘The X Club’ and that Joseph was accompanying her, Sophie knew she was in trouble. Ella was in a downward spiral and Sophie didn’t want anything bad to happen to her friend. She arrived at the club and took a deep breath before going in. This was a much different set-up than ‘The Games’ and she felt overwhelmed and slightly scared. She missed Max. She didn’t know where he was or what he was doing but she just wanted to talk to him, to tell him what was going on, to let him know that she loved him and missed him. She wanted him to hold her close and tell her everything was going to be okay. Because she was scared. Really scared. Not just because she wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again. But because she was scared she was going to make a bad mother. She had already missed an important doctor’s appointment. She couldn’t afford to do that again. She couldn’t afford to miss any more meals. She couldn’t afford the stress. Not when there was another life at stake. She owed it to her baby to be strong. She needed to think of the baby first now. And she was scared she didn’t know how to.