Chapter 15 - Ellie
Questions left unaswered…
I knock on the front door, but no one answers. I knock again and wait. Only after I ring the doorbell, do I hear footsteps on the other side. Carrie answers the door.
“Hey, how are you?” I ask. My voice is flat and mechanical. I just want to get through this and go to the hotel and get some rest.
“We just wanted to thank you and your parents for having us and let you know that we’re going to go to a hotel,” I say without waiting for an answer.
“Oh, okay,” Carrie says quietly. She is dressed in a large puffy sweater and sweatpants. Her eyes are bloodshot and her skin is so pale, I can see the blue veins underneath.
“I’m really sorry about everything, Carrie,” I add. She nods and looks away, wrapping her arms around her shoulders.
“Yeah, me, too,” she says after a moment.
I feel like I need to say something else. But another part of me is urging me to leave. We stopped by. We said our good-byes. Why stick around? Lingering can only make things worse.
“Is Tom still with the police?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Carrie nods and shrugs. Aiden tugs on my shirt slightly. “We should go,” he whispers.
I turn around to leave, but then Carrie says, “The thing is that I still don’t really understand what happened.”
Shit, I say to myself.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I’m just confused about the whole thing. I mean, are you sure that you saw him doing that? Tom isn’t…like that you know?”
“Yes, I know. I was surprised, too.”
“I mean, you know him. He’s a really sweet person.”
I stare at her. I don’t really know how to respond to this. A part of me understands where she’s coming from. But I also know what I saw. And it was Tom. And he was doing horrible things to Caroline.
“Listen, thank you for having us,” Aiden says. “Please tell your parents thank you as well.”
I can tell that Aiden is anxious to get out of here. But before we can make our escape, Mr. and Mrs. Warrenhouse show up at the door.
“We just wanted to stop by and say good-bye,” I say to them. “We’re going to stay at a hotel in town. But thank you so much for having us. You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Warrenhouse says absentmindedly. It’s the morning after and all traces of the perfectly put-together chic woman in impossible high heels with the gorgeous waist and hair are gone. Instead, she is dressed in a comfortable pair of leggings, a large oversized sweater, and slippers. She looks tired and worn out. And not just from the party.
“Tom is doing well,” Mr. Warrenhouse says to Carrie. “I just got off the phone with his lawyer.”
I stare at him. Did he really just say that? Did those words really just come out of his mouth? I don’t know if he had forgotten about us or doesn’t really care that we hear.
“Are you sure?” Carrie asks hopefully. “Do you think it’s going to be okay?”
“Well, no guarantees, of course,” Mr. Warrenhouse says. “But I got him set up with one of my most experienced lawyers. Plus, Tom’s not an idiot. His father’s an attorney.”
I glance over at Aiden. He looks just as shocked as I do.
“Wait a second, I don’t understand,” I say. “Why are you taking Tom’s side? I mean, I know he’s your fiancé, but what about what he did to Caroline?”
“Honey, we know that you strongly believe in what you saw. But you weren’t there the whole time,” Mrs. Warrenhouse says to me. “You don’t know how it all happened.”
I take a step back. Suddenly, she doesn’t look so helpless and broken anymore. She’s embodying her position as a matriarch and taking care of her family. I hate the fact that I ever felt bad for her.
“With all due respect, Tom was the attacker. It doesn’t matter what happened before. Caroline was passed out so she couldn’t possibly give her consent.”
“We know that’s what you believe, honey,” she says in her most disgustingly sweet voice. “But the thing is that life isn’t black and white like that.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re taking his side. I mean, do you want your daughter to marry someone like that? Someone who rapes women?”
“Tom did not rape that girl,” Mr. Warrenhouse says definitively. I really thought that he would at least be on Caroline’s side, but now it’s clear to me that this whole family is fucked.
“Yes, he did, Robert,” Aiden says, taking a step closer to me. My heart skips a beat. He’s on my side. It feels so good to have someone on my side.
“I don’t think it’s a good time to discuss this. We have all had very little sleep and the night has been very stressful,” Mrs. Warrenhouse says. “Thank you for coming.”
“Okay,” I mumble. Aiden takes me by the arm and we walk down the steps off their porch.
“Oh, and, Aiden,” Mr. Warrenhouse yells after us. “I’m sorry, but given everything that’s happened, I don’t think it would be wise for me to invest in Owl at this time. I wish you all the best with your future ventures.”
I can’t help but drop Aiden’s hand. When I reach for it again, Aiden pushes my hand away. I can see the disappointment and sadness on his face, but he quickly composes himself.
“Thank you for your time and consideration,” he says slowly. Wow, what a class act. I want him to run up there and yell at the Warrenhouses and maybe even punch them. But what would that accomplish? Nothing. He doesn’t want to invest in Owl and there’s not much we can do about it.
Aiden unlocks the car and holds the door open for me. A few minutes later, we speed away from this place as quickly as we can.
Chapter 16 - Aiden
When disappointments pile up…
I don’t want Ellie to know just how pissed off I am.
I try to hold it back.
I try to push it somewhere dark within me - to that same deep place where I put all of my dark thoughts.
But I’m only partly successful. Robert Warrenhouse pulling out of Owl is one of the biggest blows I’ve ever suffered. It’s nearly as horrible as Blake pulling out in the first place. But what makes this even more painful is that we finally had a chance. We had an opportunity to get back to where we were. My mind shifts to all of those employees who work for me.
What will they do if Owl goes under?
How will they find new jobs?
They’ll have to move somewhere else. They’ll have to take their kids out of school. Their whole lives will be destroyed.
And for what?
What exactly did I do wrong?
I stood up to Blake for what he did to Ellie; and I stood up for Ellie’s account of what Tom did to Caroline.
Even though all of this happened because Ellie is in my life, I don’t blame her.
Not one bit.
If it weren’t for her my life wouldn’t be nearly as great now, despite all this shit that I’m dealing with. No. She put my life in perspective.
Suddenly, I know what’s important. I know what’s valuable.
Before, I was this successful playboy without much to show for anything. I knew how to have a good time, but that was pretty much it. Now, it feels like I have a family again.
I glance over at Ellie out of the corner of my eye as I drive to the hotel. I want to go back to New York, back to work.
But, for what?
What do I even have to go back to?
Robert Warrenhouse was my last shot. My last opportunity. No other single investor has that much money to play around with and institutional investors aren’t going to touch Owl with a hundred-mile pole, if there were such a thing. No, without a huge infusion of cash, Owl is pretty much over. The Board of Directors will want my head on a spike to save face in front of the shareholders and they’re entitled to it.
They’ll give me a generous severance package, of course, and appoint someone else as CEO. That perso
n will do his or her best to save Owl, but without going into advertising and trying to save the company by having it make money somehow, and not just be a free service, there won’t be much anyone will be able to do.
The only thing I don’t know is exactly how long we will hold on. Will it be a slow decline into obsolescence like what happened to America Online or will we fall straight down to the bottom in a fiery crash like MySpace?
“Are you okay?” Ellie asks, putting my hand over hers.
I shrug and force a smile. My thoughts are running a mile a minute, one over another.
One moment, I want to scream and punch someone for what Blake and Robert have done to me and the next, all I can think about is all the people who work for me and what they’re going to do next. I will still have money.
Not as much as before, not a billionaire anymore.
But, who cares?
I don’t live on a salary of eighty thousand dollars a year like many of my engineers. And then there are the secretaries and the lower-grade employees.
They are single mothers and fathers who support their kids on salaries as small as thirty or forty thousand a year.
What the hell are they going to do?
How much will all of this affect them?
When this thought pops into my head, that’s when my disappointment and hopelessness really turns into anger and fury.
Who the hell does Blake think he is for doing what he’s doing to Owl?
And it’s all because he had his pride hurt a little bit. He did something wrong and a girl stood up to him.
All because of that, he’s acting like the douche that I should’ve known him to be all along.
“Fuck him,” I say, gritting through my teeth.
“What?”
I didn’t realize that that came out aloud. But if I can’t talk about this with Ellie, who can I talk about this with?
“I’m just so pissed at Blake. And Robert,” I say. “I mean, less so Robert, I guess. Since he didn’t really sign anything and his lawyers didn’t go over any of Owl’s internal documents yet. But, still. He’s just pulling out because he’s taking Tom’s side. And for what? Why the hell is he taking Tom’s side? What a dick.”
“I know, right? I mean, I thought that they would be happy that they found out the truth about who Tom was before their daughter married him. But I guess not.”
“The thing is that some people don’t want to know the truth. They just want to live in their little bubble. They’d rather pretend that everything is okay than come face to face with facts.”
Ellie nods and a tear rolls down her cheek.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I’m just sad. I mean, you didn’t know Tom. But there was a lot of good about him. Of course, what he did is unforgivable. But I just don’t even understand how the hell it happened. Or why. I mean, we were friends for a very long time. We were really close. And he never showed himself to be someone who is capable of anything like this.”
“Some people just snap, I guess,” I say. “I never thought Blake would do anything like what he did on the yacht either.”
She nods. Little does she know, but I know exactly what she’s feeling right now. I knew Blake was a bit of a chauvinist and an asshole, but I had no idea he was capable of anything that he did on the yacht with Ellie. He took it too far, and finding out something like that about your friend is devastating. To say the least.
“So, what are we going to do now?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling into the parking lot. “Get some sleep, I guess.”
“Sleep sounds like heaven,” Ellie says.
I thought this would be a hotel, but it’s actually an inn. The Poplar Inn, to be exact. It has a white picket fence, a wraparound porch, and thick pine trees all around.
An older woman comes out to greet us as soon as we come up onto the porch. She welcomes us in and tells us what time we can expect breakfast the following morning.
Chapter 17 - Ellie
At the Poplar Inn…
Aiden carries our bags into the room. It’s not modern in the least, but it is incredibly charming. The walls are covered in flowery wallpaper and the dresser and the nightstands are covered with way too many knickknacks.
This room was definitely decorated by an older woman with a little too many doilies to find homes for, but there’s something sweet about it as well.
Plus, the view.
Wow, the view is amazing.
I walk up to the large bay window and stare at the brooding ocean just outside. The clouds have swept in, as if to tell us that there’s nothing good out in the world for today and we need to just stay put.
“Isn’t the ocean beautiful?” I ask as Aiden walks up to me and puts his arms around me.
“Yes,” he whispers. “But not as beautiful as you.”
A big smile comes over my face. I try to push it aside, but my lips just part without my consent.
“I want you,” he whispers in my ear, nibbling at the outer edge a bit. Shivers run down my spine. Suddenly, within a moment, all those thoughts I had on our way over here disappear. It’s not that I’m not concerned about what’s going to happen with everything in the future, it’s that I just don’t really care about it right now.
“I want you, too,” I say. Without fully realizing what I’m doing, I just let my body do what it wants. I sink down to my knees on the carpeted floor. I pull down his pants. Not all the way down, but just enough to access the goods.
Aiden exhales deeply with his whole body.
“Ellie—“ he starts to say, but I stop him.
“Shhh,” I say.
I wrap my hands around his hard penis and lick the top. He reaches back and steadies himself a little with the chair behind him.
I close my eyes and hold him close. I put the head in my mouth and start to suck gently. The softness of his skin makes me moan. I lose myself in the intoxicating way that he smells.
I speed up a little, his whole body starting to shake. It starts like a ripple, but quickly becomes something more powerful like a vibration.
“Ellie, this is…amazing,” he says slowly. The words barely come out as I continue to work on him.
“Does it feel good?” I whisper through the licks. I flutter my tongue across the underneath part and feel as my own body shivers from the arousal and delight.
I want this to last for a long time. I want to make him wait for it.
“God…Ellie. Your mouth. You’re amazing. Keep doing that. Just like that,” he moans, tossing his head back.
I get so turned on by his pleasure that I feel myself getting wet. His hands make their way down my throat and toward my breasts.
He rubs my nipples over and over in the same rhythm as I suck on him.
I love how slowly it started out and how aroused and hard he got in a matter of moments.
I feel in control, but I can’t make it last. I want him to orgasm. I want to put him over the edge.
My head bobs up as I pleasure him, stroking him with one hand and tugging and pulling on him with my mouth. I lick the veins that pop out of his hard cock and I slide my tongue over them, outlining them.
Just when I think Aiden can’t get any bigger, he continues to swell and grow even thicker and longer. I look up at him occasionally and watch how much pleasure I’m giving him. He thrusts his hips in and out and I wrap my hands around his perfect ass.
“I’m getting close,” he moans without opening his eyes.
A part of me wants to make him wait. To tease him, just like he teased me. But I can’t wait myself. I’m completely stripped to my basic needs and the only thing I can think of is how I can make him orgasm and how good it’s going to be.
No, I’m not as strong as him. I can’t contain my excitement the same way. The thought of him reaching his climax in my mouth makes me crazed. I feel greedy and I don’t care.
I grip his butt even more and move my head faster and faster. I’m be
coming frantic. He moans louder and louder. My jaw starts to feel sore, but I work through the pain. I’m desperate for his climax. I need it like I have never needed anything before.
The first spurt comes so quickly that it catches me off guard. I struggle to swallow. Aiden continues to thrust against the back of my throat with his cock throbbing inside of my mouth with each pulsation. His body starts to shake as I take everything he has. His moans become louder and louder, but become muddled when he runs out of breath.
After the first few thrusts, Aiden collapses on the arm chair behind him, and I continue to lick him until he’s clean. His large cock doesn’t soften a bit and moves up and down a bit to meet my mouth. His cock is definitely ready to fuck me if I want it, but when I look up at his face, I can see that he is fully spent.
“Oh… my… God… Ellie,” Aiden finally manages to utter.
“Was that good?” I ask coyly, wiping my mouth and getting up from my knees. He nods frantically and I smile.
“Good,” I say and head to the bed. I don’t want anything from him in return. I just wanted that. And now, I need to rest.
It takes Aiden a few moments to gather himself. But within a few minutes, he plops down on the bed next to me with a loud thump. He runs his fingers along my arm and gives me a little peck on the back of my hand.
Chapter 18 - Ellie
After some sleep…
I don’t remember falling asleep, but it’s pitch black when I finally wake up. I wake up late in the evening with Aiden asleep next to me.
My stomach is grumbling in pain. I haven’t eaten anything since this morning’s Starbucks.
As I try to run over everything that has happened, I get a headache and decide to give up instead. There’s no point in thinking about all that right now.
I stretch my arms out and sit up. What I do actually need now is a glass of water. I walk over to the bathroom and cup some water into my mouth.
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