“Well, what?” I shrugged.
I’d been battling the angel on one shoulder and devil on the other for the better part of the afternoon. I couldn’t decide what to do, but I was fairly confident that I was screwed either way.
I could tell my parents about the meeting and who the organizers were, and they could nip it in the bud before it could happen. I had a location and a time, thanks to my little rendezvous with Ellie, and I could give up that information and save my inheritance. And, you know, prevent myself from becoming a homeless bum. Always a plus.
And collect my $25,000. I mean, that was part of the plan, no?
Or I could tell them to go to hell and let the Sweetopia employees have their little meeting to finalize their list of demands for their strike. It wasn’t as if my parents didn’t deserve everything they were being served.
I spent the part of the afternoon that wasn’t busy wrestling with the proverbial angel and demon doing some research in the company books. Colleen basically told me to get lost for the rest of the day; she didn’t want to see me. So I found a computer with wi-fi over in the arcade office. Buster said he didn’t mind if I fooled around on it. I concocted some sort of bullshit story for why I needed it, but I was actually hacking into a bunch of tax and banking info.
So, I might have been an art history junkie in college, but I happened to be a whiz with computers. Always have been. I didn’t see much of a reason to pursue it as a career because, hello, silver spoon and all that. So I picked something I was passionate about: art. But I could hack in and do some programming and other technical crap. I didn’t think my parents had any idea the extent of my abilities, or they probably would have put me to work on writing software programs for the park or creating databases or something. Ugh, that shit is so boring.
Anyway, everything Colleen, Buster, and Jolie had told me in the past few weeks was absolutely correct. Actually, it was even worse than they thought because it turned out my parents made a hell of a lot more money than even I imagined. And I had already known they were filthy stinkin’ rich.
Some of the assets were hidden in separate trust funds set up for my brothers and me, and my parents were constantly shifting money in there so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it. The three of us were their bouncing baby tax shelters.
I was shocked to discover an account with my name on it with over five mil in it.
FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!
And here they were trying to entice me with 25K. Hell, it was probably coming out of my own account that they’d been building since I was in elementary school. The deposits actually went back that far.
“Cyrus Anthony!” my mother yelled, startling me back to the dinner table where my brothers had both begun to dig into their meals.
My father sat clenching his fork in one hand and steadily sipping on what looked to be scotch with the other. He was looking increasingly stabby the longer I refrained from answering my mother.
“What?!” I thundered back at them.
“What did you find out today?” my mother asked, turning on a dime to make her voice pleasant and light, like we were enjoying a tea-time discussion about tending heirloom roses.
“Did you talk to Ms. Cox?” my father pressed. He shot a look over to my brother Clem, who raised his eyebrows at me in expectation.
I had not told either of my brothers of my financial discoveries today, nor did I plan to. No, that was a little nugget I planned to keep to myself.
“They’re meeting tomorrow night,” I filled everyone in. “At The Roost. Five PM.”
“And the organizers?” my father demanded in what was little more than a growl.
“Are you planning to fire them?” I questioned.
“First thing in the morning,” he bellowed.
“You know, some of your employees have families,” I countered. “Did you ever think about that?”
“What about my family?” My father’s eyes narrowed as he looked from me to my mother and then to each of my brothers. “I have to take care of my own family, you know. If my employees are having a hard time taking care of their families, maybe they should do what I did: work my ass off and start their own damn company. Then they can call their own shots and find out how fucking hard it is to succeed.”
I said nothing.
No one said anything, as a matter of fact.
“I expect you to hand over a list of names of everyone involved tomorrow by 8 AM,” he finally said, setting his fork down on his plate and placing his napkin on the table. Then he scooted his chair back and stomped off toward his office.
I was too keyed up to eat. I glanced at my mother, silently requesting her permission to be excused, and then I fled the dining room, not stopping until I was behind the wheel of my old beat-up truck. Marcus’s truck.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now. I had managed to burn my bridge with Colleen, and then Jolie too. She probably wouldn’t believe my real reasons for kissing Ellie in the gift shop. Hell, she didn’t even know my real identity. It was beyond too late to fix that.
Or was it?
Jolie
“I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could.”
My words became faster and softer as I tried to make myself sound like a train chugging off into the distance. I closed The Little Engine That Could and glanced down at River, who had fallen asleep already. His little dark head was nestled against the pillows, and he wore such an adorable look of innocence on his face. He truly looked like an angel.
I was glad I got to spend a few minutes with him tonight, though I was hoping we had longer together before he drifted off to sleep. All the drugs they were pumping him full of made him so tired. That and helping him with his homework the school sent over completely drained the poor kid.
Only a couple more days of this and he’d be back home. And after tomorrow night’s press conference, things would start returning to normal. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe I’d be famous, and River’s medical bill problems would be solved, and I’d be offered a role in the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
Hey, it didn’t hurt to dream.
I was going to stay with him a few minutes longer until I was sure he was sound asleep, and then I had to get to my appointment with Mr. Barry. I’d canceled last week, and he made it pretty clear if I continued to cancel, he was going to find a new Domme.
I needed the five hundred dollars a month he paid me. It made me sound like a horrible mother to leave my son in the hospital alone while I went to spank some old dude, but I was, in fact, doing it for that aforementioned son. For both of my sons, really.
I was wearing my usual BDSM attire, a black latex corset, under a loose-fitting dress. I’d have to put on my lace-up boots in the car. Getting into the corset by myself wasn’t really an option because I could never lace it tight enough. My mother always had to help me get ready before I left the house.
My life was complicated. And a little weird.
I stood up, taking one more look at River before turning toward the door. My blood began to boil when I saw a familiar dark head poking his way in.
“Marcus!” I had to stop myself before I screamed and risked waking River up. “What the—what are you doing here?” I did manage to keep myself from using the F word, but only barely.
“Jolie, we need to talk,” he said, pushing his way inside the small sterile room. He glanced around, his gaze falling on my son, who was hooked to a variety of tubes and monitors.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I fired back, crossing my arms over my breasts.
“Is this your son?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, one of the things I was going to tell you today after work, but you didn’t show up. Instead, I guess you chose to spend your time with that chick in the gift shop.”
“It’s not what you think,” he told me. “Nothing about me is what you think. That’s why we need to talk.”
“I have to
go.” I began to walk toward the door. “That means you need to go too.”
“Where are you going?” He followed me out the door and down the hall.
“It’s none of your business,” I assured him as I pressed the elevator button. A nurse gave me a nasty glare as she passed, but I ignored her. I was sure all the nurses and doctors around here thought I was a tramp and a horrible mother, but I didn’t give a flying fuck what they thought. All I knew is that I was doing the damn best I could.
Marcus climbed into the elevator after me even though I was shooting daggers at him from my eyes. Then he followed me out the automatic hospital doors and all the way to my car. I didn’t say one single word to him the entire trek.
Finally, when we reached my car, I whirled around to face him. “I have to go. I have another commitment.” I sneered the last word more than I meant to.
He grabbed me by the waist, then he jerked his eyes up to meet mine. “What are you wearing under here? You’re still wearing your corset?” He peered into my car. “Where’s the rest of your costume?
My dress was all one piece, but I didn’t suppose he realized that. His eyes fell on the thigh-high black latex boots in my back seat and my black bag that carried all of my implements: whips, riding crops, restraints, paddles, etc. It was a veritable BDSM arsenal in there.
I was silent, waiting for him to start making some connections. Yeah, he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t as he appeared. This was why I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him in the first place. Between my sons and my dominatrix gig, there was just no room for a normal relationship with a normal guy. Even a hot Brit with a beard and glasses.
“Jolie, what’s going on?” His dark eyes bored into me as I unlocked my car door. It was so old that the key fob didn’t work anymore.
Once I unlocked all four doors, I reached into the back seat to grab my boots. I was running out of time to get to the dungeon where Mr. Barry was waiting for me. Still refusing to answer, I plopped myself down in the driver seat and took off my flip flops.
“Are you going to answer me?”
I glanced up at him and found a pleading look on his face, bordering on desperate. I huffed out a sigh. “I’m a professional Domme, okay? I have an appointment with a client.”
A groove between his eyebrows appeared as his gaze darted across my face, down to my boots and then back up again.
Well, I’d done it now. As if he wasn’t already put off by my having a sick child, I was sure my dominatrix gig would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He wanted me to be The Red Velvet Queen, not Mistress Magenta.
But why did I care? It wasn’t like I had feelings for him—
Ugh.
I did have some feelings. Otherwise, why would it have stung so bad to see him kissing Ellie in the gift shop earlier today? Why would I care what he thought of my kids or my second job if I didn’t have some semblance of feelings for him?
“What time is your appointment?” he asked. Not at all what I was expecting him to say.
“It’s in fifteen minutes,” I answered. “And I can’t be late. I’m about to be fired.”
He looked off into the distance for a second before glancing back to me. “How much does he pay you?”
“What?” I laughed. “What difference does it make?”
He set his lips in a firm line as he drew in a deep breath, making his nostrils flare. “Whatever he pays you, I’ll pay you double if you just cancel your…whatever you call it…and have dinner with me.”
I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. “What the fuck, Marcus? You think you can just buy my good graces after I caught you kissing another girl? I know it’s not like we’d agreed to exclusivity…but for fuck’s sake, you’re messing around with two women at work? Not very smart. Especially since she and I are friends.”
“Like I said, that wasn’t what it seemed. I was just trying to acquire some information—”
I didn’t respond to that. I was still trying to wrap my head around how I got into this situation. Oh, yeah, by thinking with my pussy instead of my brain. That’s how.
“Just tell me how much. I will give you double,” he reiterated.
“On your salary at Sweetopia? You can’t afford me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “My clients pay me five hundred a month.”
“I can give you a thousand cash tonight.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Right.” I looked him up and down. He was a kid in his mid-twenties. A foreign exchange student, basically, a recent college grad who hadn’t even nailed down a fulltime job yet.
“I can give you…” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and took out a wad of cash, which he began to count.
I ripped the wallet out of his hand when I saw all the gold and platinum credit cards tucked into their slots. I flipped it over and glanced down at his driver’s license, which looked to be a regular Florida one.
I was expecting to see the name Marcus Young, but that is not what appeared.
Cyrus Anthony Sweet.
That was what his license said.
A sensation I hadn’t experienced since the morning I woke up and River’s dad was gone, leaving nothing, no note and none of his possessions behind, welled up in me like magma rocketing up a volcano. It was a burning, searing pain, ripping through my gut and funneling every bit of fear, anger, and hurt I had floating around in my body into one whirling, twirling cylinder of rage.
“Jolie, I can explain—”
I didn’t even finish putting on my boots. After dropping the wallet into his waiting hands, I threw the second boot in the back seat and swung my legs into the car. I wanted to scream obscenities at him, but I couldn’t even look at him. I had no idea what expression crossed his face as I started up my car, slammed my door, and squealed out of the parking lot.
Not only that, I didn’t fucking care.
14
Cy
I didn’t know how long I stood in the parking lot after Jolie drove off in a huff. I couldn’t blame her. Yes, she’d hidden her second job and her son’s health from me, but that was nothing compared to me pretending to be an entirely different person. A different nationality even.
Her secrets were, well, completely understandable. They weren’t the type of things you’d tell someone you barely knew—they were things you told someone once you had gotten to know them a little. And I’m sure those were the things she was planning to tell me earlier today at work. And I would have been there to hear them if Colleen hadn’t called me into her office.
Colleen. I needed to speak with her. It only took me a few minutes to hack into the employee database to find her address and phone number. I thought about calling first, but I figured there was little chance she would answer, let alone invite me over.
I didn’t know much about Colleen’s personal life, but when I pulled up to her house, some things became clearer. She lived in a modest ranch-style brick home that had two palm trees in the front yard. There was a “welcome” flag flying on the porch and a couple of Adirondack chairs painted in bright teal.
Taking a deep, bolstering breath, I marched up the rock-lined walkway to her front door and rang the doorbell. I had ditched my glasses and would forgo the accent too. No need for those things now.
A teenage girl with a confused look on her face answered. “Hello?”
“Are you Colleen’s daughter?”
A funny, embarrassed smirk appeared. “Yes?”
“Is your mom home? I need to speak with her.”
She stood there for a moment, confusion still wrinkling her brows.
“I work with her at Sweetopia,” I explained.
“Just a sec.” She disappeared down the hallway, and in moments, she was replaced with an older, more filled-out version of herself.
“Marcus?” Colleen huffed out. “I mean Cy.”
“Hey, can I come in? I want to talk to you.”
She pursed her lips and reluctantly swung the door open. “What do yo
u want?” she asked as she guided me into a small parlor off the foyer. She gestured to the loveseat as she took the armchair across from it.
“Is everything okay?” a tall, gray-haired man with a deep voice asked from the entryway once I got settled.
I stood up and extended my hand to him. “I’m Cy Sweet.”
“Oh. Right,” he said as if he’d already heard this story. He turned to his wife. “You okay?”
“This is my husband, James.” She gave the man a pointed look as if to say she wasn’t impressed by his lack of introduction. “I’m fine, honey. This won’t take long.”
“I just got back from talking to Jolie at the hospital,” I started.
“What? How did you—”
“I called all the area hospitals till I found the one that had admitted a River Daniels.”
She rolled her eyes. “Does privacy even mean anything to you? I’m surprised they gave out that information.”
“British accents and adding M.D. to your name really seem to help.” I chuckled. I had found out her son’s last name from hacking into the employee information database at work. Same place I found Colleen’s address.
“So why are you here?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me. Her expression was nearly as intense as it had been earlier in her office.
“I want to help her,” I explained. “I just found out she has a second job. And I know the issue she has with my parents and her benefits at work. I just want to help. Monetarily.”
“You rich people are all alike,” she seethed. “You think you can just sweep in and drop some cash on a situation, and it will fix everything. It’s so fucking cocky.”
I couldn’t refute her accusation. But money could solve a lot of problems—if that wasn’t the case, then why would Sweetopia employees be organizing this protest? They wanted more money, better benefits, and they were willing to strike and call for a boycott to get them. Those things would deprive my family of money. It was all about money. It always was.
“Why don’t you talk to your parents and get them to change their policies?” Colleen suggested. “Why don’t you get them to make some changes before the media gets involved and there’s a strike and boycott, and they’re made to look like assholes, probably on national TV? Maybe international…”
Sweetest Obsessions - Anthology Page 56