Glamour
Page 19
“Your father does too. We also love one another.”
Natalie slapped her hands against her side as she let out an exasperated breath. “I know. I always thought I wanted what you have, but then with Dexter…”
Claire reached for her daughter’s hand and led her to a small sofa where they sat. “When I found a man I loved more than life itself and whose love for me was overwhelming, I was alone. I didn’t have my mother. I’m not unhappy with the final result, but let me just say that the journey would’ve been easier if I wouldn’t have made it alone. I know you aren’t ready to hear or say more. I can see it in your eyes. They’re mine. They always have been, different from Nate’s and so much different from Nichol’s. Natalie, you are me.”
“I’m not…” A tear trickled from her freshly painted eyes as her words faded away.
“You are. The question I asked—if he’s good to you—was the same question your Uncle John asked me a long time ago. You answered it exactly as I did.”
“Mom?”
“No matter what I need to do,” Claire said, “I want you and Dexter to know that I won’t judge you. I won’t lose my baby or her babies. Your father will be more difficult, but leave him to me. Please promise me that no matter what the future holds, no matter your last name, you’ll always be a Rawlings.”
“I don’t know about my name. Dexter and I haven’t discussed…”
Claire smiled. “I don’t mean your legal name. You have a man in your life. One who consumes your thoughts, one who takes up most of the room in your heart, but, baby, there’s always room for more. I know, because there was a time I believed your father was my everything. It’s not that he wasn’t or isn’t. It’s that each time I learned that there was a baby inside me, my heart grew. The same will happen for you. I’m just asking that you also keep a spot for us—for your family and especially for me. No matter what, I’ll be there.”
Natalie leaned into her mother’s embrace. “I love you, Mom.”
After their hug, Claire rose and walked to a bookshelf, reaching for a small box with a ribbon. She came back and handed it to Natalie. “Merry belated Christmas.”
Nat’s eyes watered as she opened the hinged box to the delicate necklace. “It’s like yours and Nichol’s necklaces.” A small pearl sat nestled in a white-gold X.
“It is. I’m not sure why we never had one made for you before. But when you weren’t at Christmas, I realized how much the necklace means to me and to your sister. Your father and I gave your great-grandmother’s necklace to Nichol when she was young. It was your dad who surprised me by having one remade for me. It’s more special that I can even articulate.”
Claire smiled as she touched Nat’s hand. “Yours and mine are identical; they’re replicas. That doesn’t make them less than Nichol’s. It makes ours the same, like us. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. Natalie, you’re no longer our baby.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re a beautiful woman and always know that we’re proud of you.”
Nat’s cheeks filled with pink as her heart swelled. “Thank you, Mom. I was afraid that after Harvard—”
Claire squeezed her hand. “Sometimes life takes a detour and gives us an opportunity to live a life different than we ever imagined. Are you happy with where yours took you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s all that matters. I have another gift for you, but right now, let’s go back downstairs. I think it might be beneficial to keep your father and Dexter supervised.”
Chapter Seventeen
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences…
~ William James
A few weeks later, back in Vermont, Dexter entered their master bedroom suite.
Wearing only one of his shirts, Natalie rose and met her fiancé at the door.
Dexter kissed her hair. “What have you been doing this evening?”
She looked at him through veiled eyes. “Reading.”
Reading didn’t require a submissive gaze. Something wasn’t as it appeared. His eyes went to the sofa where she’d been seated. His neck tensed, the muscles becoming rigid as his gaze landed upon the book she’d been reading. “Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
Natalie went to the sofa and lifted the old book. The pages were yellow and the spine was marred with the scars of multiple readings. On the cover was the title: My Life as It Didn’t Appear.
“Your mother gave you that?”
Natalie nodded.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I guess she decided I wasn’t a baby who needed to be protected anymore. She thought it was time I knew the truth.”
The book, My Life as It Didn’t Appear, dictated by Claire Nichols Rawlings and penned by Meredith Banks, detailed Claire Nichols’s meeting and first marriage to Anthony Rawlings. Upon its publication, it had been an instant bestseller. Through years of legal wrangling, which concluded over fifteen years ago, the Rawlings attorneys successfully had it removed from sale and circulation. The world forgot, ceasing to obsess over old news. There were more important stories. And through it all, somehow, Nat’s parents had managed to keep its existence, as well as its contents, hidden from their baby girl.
“And how does it make you feel about your dad?” Dexter asked.
“You know what it’s about?”
“Bug.”
Her entire body stiffened. He’d asked her a question. Instead of answering, she’d replied with a question. Natalie quickly re-spoke, “No different.”
“How can you say that?”
“How can I not?” Natalie replied. “And before you reprimand me, that is an answer. I don’t feel differently. Why would I?”
Dexter led her to the sofa and they sat. “What do you mean?”
“How could I think less of him when I love you?”
It took Dexter a minute, but then he let go of her hand and went to the bookcase. Behind a false panel—one that she didn’t know existed—Dexter brought out a copy of the same book.
Natalie shook her head as she reached for it. “How?”
“I found it among my father’s things when he died.” Dexter opened the cover and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper. “And this.”
Natalie silently read. It wasn’t legal, no binding contract. It was simply an agreement between college friends. They’d begun a company: CSR – Company Smithers Rawlings. Together they vowed to make it great, uniting their families and lives forever.
“What happened?” Nat asked.
“After a few years your dad bought my dad out. It was very amicable. Mr. Rawlings paid my father a generous sum. They both went on to do very well. It was the part about keeping the families united that got me thinking. Then I read the book and looked into the Rawlings family. That was when I knew…”
Natalie laid the book on the sofa and fell to her knees. Her bare core clenched as she scooted between his spread legs. Looking up, she spoke. “It was when you knew I belonged to you.”
“Yes, bug. That we belonged together. I knew what I wanted, what I needed. And after watching you for a while, I knew in my heart that you were born to be my queen.”
“But my dad…” It wasn’t easy for her to read the things her father had done to her mother. It was even more difficult to say them. “…she awoke to luxury?”
“Is that a question?”
“I think it is.”
“I didn’t use your mother’s story as a guide. It simply gave me an idea of how you’d respond. Think about it. Your mother came from a simple life. Your father gave her what she’d never experienced.”
Natalie nodded. “A detour. I came from wealth—from everything.”
“And did you appreciate it?”
“No, not really. It just was. I didn’t question it. I appreciate it more now.”
Dexter kissed her hair. “I love you, Nat. Do you think that one
day you’d want to write down our story for our daughter to read?”
Her cheeks warmed. “No, I’d rather keep it in my heart. But if one day I think she needs to hear it, I’ll share.”
“You will?”
“I will. It helps to know that there isn’t anything wrong with me. I’m not the only one to experience these feelings.”
“What feelings?”
“Love so overpowering it consumes me. An irrational yet intoxicating need to both please you and make you happy that supersedes all else, even my own safety.”
“No. Your safety was never and will never be in question. I told you that safety is a matter of trust. Do you trust me?”
“I do.” After all of the things he’d done and all that she willingly accepted, how could she not?
“Danger,” Dexter went on, “is something else. However, eliciting your tears doesn’t put you in danger. It’s never to harm you. It’s to hurt you. There’s a difference. What we do is controlled pain, learning how much you can handle, how much you’re willing to sacrifice for me. It’s seeing my marks on your skin and hearing your cries. That doesn’t make me want to harm you, but to worship you.”
Nat nodded. “I understand. After a few weeks in that room, I found myself anxious for your arrival while at the same time scared. I feared I was going crazy. I mean, I shouldn’t have wanted what I knew you’d do.” She looked at the book. “Now I know that I’m not crazy. Like my mom has said: it is what it is. Don’t fight what you can’t change. Now it makes more sense.
“It’s what we enjoy behind closed doors. And that’s okay.” She smiled. “You asked what I’d sacrifice. For you, my king, anything. I’d move naked into a simple room in our basement if you desired.”
Dexter’s eyes shone as he reached for the buttons lining the front of her shirt-dress. “I think I like having you here in our room, naked and on your knees.”
“I love you,” she said as she leaned back on her bent toes, shifting to his desired position.
After he’d opened her shirt-dress, he looked down to her spread legs. “Are you wet, my queen?”
“Yes.”
“What will you do to earn the right to come?”
Her heart hammered within her chest as her thighs glistened. “Like everything else, that decision is yours. I willing give you control. As always, my answer is anything.”
“Forever and always.”
* * *
For More…
If you haven’t read the beginning of this story…if this was your first introduction to Tony and Claire Rawlings or maybe you began their story, but didn’t complete it, it’s not too late.
The Consequences series is five full-length books: Consequences, Truth, Convicted, Revealed, and Beyond the Consequences. For more insight into Tony Rawlings, after the series has been read, there are two companions: Behind His Eyes Consequences and Behind His Eyes Truth. Book one, Consequences, is free on all channels.
Thank you for reading Natalie and Dexter’s Prince and the Pauper story, Ripples, a story where physical chains are more freeing than figurative ones, and in finding a new life, the princess becomes the queen.
I hope you enjoyed the consequences…
LINK to Consequences series on all platforms:
www.aleatharomig.com/consequences-series
ROYAL MATTRESS
A Princess and the Pea Story
Nicola Rendell
“True story.”
– Hans Christian Andersen, The Princess and the Pea
1
Dave
Before I start, I need to put one thing out there: I was born Ivan Alexander Hallsett Ratislav Stefanik IV, Exiled Prince of Greater Moravia and Lower Bohemia. But for fuck’s sake, call me Dave.
Five years ago, I was living just far enough outside Newark that it didn’t feel like I was anywhere near Newark. I’d bought and renovated an estate halfway between Montclair and Falls River. It was ten acres, with a long driveway and rolling hills. When I first saw it, the real estate agent called it palatial. Exactly.
But the house and name aside, I was otherwise pretty much an ordinary guy from New Jersey. I liked my coffee black and my Jets games close until the second half of the fourth quarter. I paid for my Beemer in cash, and I had all my bills on autopay. I mowed my own lawn, because who the hell doesn’t like riding a John Deere, but I had a service do my laundry because doing laundry is dead-ass in the middle of the category of life is too goddamned short.
Not to be an ass about it, but for a guy in my late thirties, I felt like I was a pretty good catch. I could hang with those militant fanatics at CrossFit if I had to. I could run a half marathon without getting totally winded. I took a lot of hard looks in the mirror and thought, Solid. Not like some fairy-tale prince or whatever, but not bad. Good head of hair, strong jaw, respectable abs.
And doing just fine on the money front.
Unlike the Ivan Alexanders I through III, who burned through the family “fortune” like a god-awful Fourth of July mishap in a bone-dry national forest, I had no choice but to make my own way in the world. So I did. After I got my MBA, I decided I’d focus on what I’d decided was the only sure thing after death and taxes.
Mattresses.
Yeah, yeah, I know. You thought I was going to say food-delivery apps or drones or some shit. But no, mattresses. Everybody needs a mattress. A good mattress, though. Not one of those cheap, springy pieces of shit that jabs you in the spleen all night long. I got into the game before Tempur-Pedic and Posturepedic and the rest. Royal Mattress was the first: I zeroed in on the luxury mattress market, and wouldn’t you know it? It worked. Like pennies from pillow-top heaven, the money rolled in. I had everything I could ever want. Cars, houses, vacations, a killer stock portfolio. A regulation-sized pool table. I was thinking about buying a yacht. But there was one thing I didn’t have: the most important thing of all.
Someone to share it with.
I had shit luck with women, and I always had. Truly, epically, comically bad luck. The kind of shit luck that my buddies laughed about until they cried into their beers. Fuck, remember the time that woman put a flaming empty popcorn bag of dog shit on your porch? Hideously bad. The thing was, I had an old-fashioned belief in the one. I really believed, in my gut, that somewhere out there, there was a woman who needed me as much as I needed her. I really thought that when I met her, I’d know. I believed we would be two parts of a whole. I once knew a guy from Mexico who said that down there they say two halves of the same orange. I felt it in my bones. I was waiting for her, the other half of my orange. She’d make everything fall into place.
I looked for her everywhere. I kept my mind open. I didn’t pull some douchebag move about only liking skinny blondes or some shit. No way. I figured she could be anybody—the sparkle had to be inside someone, and all I had to do was keep looking. So I became a serial first-dater. I went out with a kind-hearted nurse. A red-lipped gold digger. Two different socialist vegans. Women with rhinestones stuck into their nail polish and who said things like, “Totes awesome!” A librarian. A preschool teacher. A lady who specialized in some rare fern fossil found only on the eastern slope of Colorado. I ran the whole gamut. But the one wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Part of it, of course, was totally my fault. Who the fuck walks into the ocean and says, “I’m looking for a fish, but I don’t know what kind of fish. All I know is, not that fish.” Or maybe only idiots believe in orange halves. But what I did know was it wasn’t all my fault. The other part had nothing to do with me, but it was something I’d inherited. And no, I’m not talking about my name.
I’m talking about Grandma Katrina.
Unlike me, who had about as much interest in claiming my “hereditary title” as picking up a medication-resistant skin infection at the gym, Grandma Katrina was into it. Her online poker handle was BaronessStefanik. When she met someone for the first time, she’d hold her hand out, palm down and wrist bent. Totally Queen of England. She was
old-school exiled royalty from irrelevant dissolved non-nations. (There are more of us than you’d think. Seriously.) But Grandma Katrina was also a goddamned unicorn in the world of “where’d-you-say-you’re-from?” royal families. She was one part Serbo-Croat-Moravian-Bohemian princess, one part card-carrying Wiccan, and a 100%-devoted gold-level member of Ancestry.com. And she was absolutely determined to see me married before she “drop-kicked the bottle of Smirnoff.” Her words, not mine.
One wintry Sunday night, when she was over at my house for dinner, I studied her in the way people study statues and paintings and the wreckage of non-fatal car accidents. She’d outlived two husbands, both my parents, and an African gray parrot named Franz Ferdinand. Fucking told you. Unicorn. Nobody, including me, had any idea how old she was. Somewhere between 80 and 119. Strong as an ox, whip smart, no filter at all, and no patience for bullshit whatsoever.
At that moment, she was hunched over the iPad I bought her, with a phone book beside her, scanning the names. Around her neck, on a long piece of pink yarn, she wore a glass God’s Eye that she bought on her retirement cruise to Greece. In addition to being a practicing Wiccan—so help you God if you stumbled into her bedroom unannounced—she had a seriously unnerving interest in grassroots revolutionary movements. That night she was wearing her favorite hoodie, with Che Guevara’s face on the front. She believed that the only way to reclaim the lands formerly known as “Greater Moravia and Lower Bohemia,” but now known as, you know, the Balkans, was by a carefully planned royal coup. Like I said, into it.
Outside, the wind whistled against the double-paned windows. I poured myself a scotch and looked out into the blowing snow. I heard the sound of Grandma putting a line through something in the phone book with her stubby golf pencil, which made me suspect she was up to no good again. Then she hammered out some letters into the iPad and gasped.