“The pleasure is all mine,” he said to me. I jumped as two strong hands squeezed my shoulders. I felt Victor’s body looming just behind mine.
“Ian, you sleazebag,” the woman said, pulling him away from me. I let out a breath of relief as Victor’s grip on me lessened.
“Well, it’s a bit cold out so we’re going to head in,” Victor said as he started to turn away from the peculiar couple. “Perhaps I’ll see you a little later on then,” his voice was strained.
Ian Monaghan gave us a small salute as he and the woman continued up the steps to the house.
“Ugh,” Victor muttered to himself.
For a moment it seemed like he had forgotten I was still standing there. “Are you all right?” I asked hesitantly.
“I absolutely loathe that man. He used to work for my company while my father was still alive. He was one of the people who trained me when I first started working there. He would suck up to my father while at the same time belittling me in front of him in the hopes that my father would give Ian the company after he was dead.” Victor clenched and unclenched his fists before finding my hand to hold. We started walking up the steps again. “Thankfully my father was smart enough to see through his deceit and ended up firing him. He now works for a sad airline company with terrible services located in the middle of nowhere. And now he’s got himself a gold digger too, it looks like.”
“Karma’s a bitch,” I told him. I wasn’t sure where I heard those words before, but it seemed appropriate for the situation.
Victor surprised me by laughing. “Yeah, it is.” He squeezed my hand.
After mingling with a handful of people, whose names I had already forgotten, Victor pulled me into a corner. He looked quickly over my head and cursed over my breath. “What happened...?” I began to ask, but he cut me short.
“Could you get some champagne for the two of us, Dove?”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but suddenly thought better of it. I was back to being his submissive. There wasn’t anywhere in the contract that told me I could question my Dominant. “Yes, Sir.” I answered quietly.
I walked through a throng of people to get to the bar, and the entire time I was praying that none of them would want to stop me and ask questions. Too late. A middle aged man was idling around the bar, and seemed to welcome my presence as I walked up next to him. “May I have two glasses of champagne,” I asked the bartender shyly. Fortunately for me, the bartender spoke enough English to know what I requested. The middle aged man held his own glass of champagne; he leaned into my line of sight and gave me a small wave with the glass still in his hand.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said to me jovially. I could tell the alcohol he was drinking was starting to get to his head. I began to look for my escape.
“Oh, uh...I’m with Victor Draper.”
The man’s eyebrows rose high at the mention of Victor’s name. “Oh, I see. Victor has got himself a new one to carry around. Not so bad looking either.” Did he know I was still standing there listening to him, or did he think he was talking to himself? I made a move to walk away from him, but he put an arm out, stopping me. “What’s your name?”
“D-dove.” The bartender had already given me my drinks and I was now standing there awkwardly, not knowing how to end the conversation at all.
“Dove,” the man’s breath reeked of vodka as he leaned closer to me. “And what is it you do, Dove?”
What do I do? I fuck Victor Draper, I wanted to tell him. That would at least make him stop talking. “I’m an artist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be taking these drinks back to Victor.” Before the drunken man got too close I was able to shimmy around him. I quickly walked back through the crowd, not looking back, hoping that he didn’t have the nerve to follow me back towards Victor.
When I returned with the drinks I glanced behind me, relieved to see I had not been followed. I turned back to Victor who was a little further down the room and noticed a woman standing next to him. She was very pretty, wearing a short, blood red dress that showed off her long, smooth legs. The color of her dress contrasted beautifully with her dark hair that draped like wet paint over her slim shoulders. She had her hand on Victor’s arm in a familiar gesture, as the two of them seemed to be deep in conversation. I stood a few steps away, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward and not really sure how to approach them, or if Victor even wanted me to.
After a few seconds, the woman noticed me. She walked over and took a glass of champagne from my hand. Did she think I was one of the servers? My face turned red, but I didn’t protest. Wordlessly, I handed the other glass to Victor. To my surprise, he wrapped an arm possessively around my waist and pulled me close to my side, forcing the woman to back up a bit to give us some room. “This is Annabel Harris,” he told me. “Annabel, this is Dove.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I told Annabel, trying to keep my voice from sounding too wary. It was the first time since that night at the dinner party at Victor’s party that I saw another woman act familiar around Victor. I already wasn’t too fond of her.
The woman raised an eyebrow at me, assessing me from head to toe. Okay, so now I knew she didn’t like me either. Fantastic.
“Anyway,” she said, turning her body back towards Victor as though she was trying to leave me out of their conversation. She gave Victor a sly smile and completely ignored me.
“What was it you wanted to tell me, Annabel,” Victor’s voice was cautious.
“Oh, you’re going to hate me for this, Vic, but I thought I should warn you.”
Vic? I grinded my teeth down hard.
“Warn me about what?” Victor sounded as though he were coaxing a small child. Perhaps Victor didn’t have any high standards for her either.
“I wanted to show you a certain someone who had just arrived a few minutes ago.” She pointed to a tall woman in another group on the other side of the room.
Sure, she could’ve been pointing to any of those people talking in the group, but I knew it had to been her. She was tall, and had light blonde hair that was braided and pinned around the crown of her head like a halo. She wore a shapeless pale cream dress that stopped just above her knees in a 1920s flapper style. She was absolutely, completely, and utterly a beautiful woman and the sight of her cherubic red lips and wide blue eyes was enough to make feel envious and awestruck. She looked like an actress from one of those black and white silent movies.
“Wow, she’s gorgeous,” I couldn’t keep myself from muttering.
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it Victor,” Annabel couldn’t mask the glee from her voice.
When Victor turned to the direction the woman was pointing, his grip on me suddenly tightened. I had to hold back from yelping in pain. Victor cursed profusely under his breath. Before I could say anything he turned, steering me straight towards the exit. “We’re leaving,” he announced.
“Why?” I was practically stumbling down the stairs of the chateau to try to keep up with his pace.
“I don’t want to be in the same room as that woman.”
Curiosity got the better of me. I glanced back at the beautiful, tall woman who was gradually fading off in the distance behind us. “Who is she?” I asked.
“My ex-wife.”
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Bonds of Fate - Part 1 (An Erotic Romance) Page 9