Empowered

by Cynthia Dane

  “That she was an alcoholic?”

  “Among other things. I don’t know how much of it was her trauma and how much was her actual personality, but the more she drank, the more violent she became. I finally left her after she attacked me during one of her rages.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I took Victor with me. I couldn’t stand to think what she would do to our son. He’s a baby, for God’s sake. Not that any child should have to deal with that, but one as small and helpless as that? I didn’t want to think about what she could do to him, and I didn’t want to think about what I could do to her if she ever did lay a hand on him.”

  Sarah didn’t want to imagine that, either. I’ve seen men in that protective mode. Nigel had done unspeakable things in the name of his sister’s safety. What was a man capable of when it came to his own child? “Obviously she cleaned up her act if she’s living here with your son.”

  “Yeah. That.” Sarah could flash him her tits and Lucas still wouldn’t be cheered up after sharing a story like that. “I filed for divorce. Part of the reason it took us so long to finalize the damn thing was because of custody. I was willing to give her whatever money she wanted, but I demanded full custody. My lawyers blew hers out of the courtroom, but by that time she had gone through rehab again and sobered up. Even I was almost moved when she claimed to be a changed woman who needed her son to stay on the right path. Since Victor is so young and we lived in different countries, the judge decided to give her custody with the most ridiculous visitation rights you’ve ever seen for me.”

  “Hardly seems fair.”

  He thought she was being sarcastic, but Sarah meant every word. Lucas probably didn’t have evidence of his wife’s rages and the possible danger to their child. He was a man who traveled all around the world for business, and she was a stay-at-home woman who hinged her recovery on taking care of her son. Bullshit.

  “I’ve born it for the past year. Made sure they were well taken care of. I hold no animosity toward her family, and I don’t hold much against Jill, either. She’s stayed sober so far, but what if she slips again? Besides, Victor is going to be old enough for school soon, and quite frankly, I want him in Denmark. Unless I can convince my wife’s family to move back to Copenhagen, however, I have no choice but to fight for custody again.”

  Sarah could be as discerning as Mr. Blackbourne. “That’s why you’re here. Working with Mr. Monroe is a convenient cover.”

  “Damon’s doing me a favor. He doesn’t need my help or expertise. Nor do I need to be ignoring other business matters back in Europe. But I need to be here to build a case. I need to be near my son. When we end up back in a courtroom, I need him to be able to say that he knows me and loves me. I can’t do that if I’m in the middle of Europe most of the time.”

  Sarah let out a low whistle. “Good luck with that. Seriously.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes. Lucas ordered another round of drinks and pondered his life in the bottom of his bourbon glass. Sarah combed her flattened hair with her fingers and wondered what she would do if she were in his shoes. Guess I’ll never know, will I? The thought forced her brows to furrow.

  Life was such bullshit.

  Lucas reached across their table and lightly placed his hand on hers. A friendly gesture. Nothing more, she supposed. “You’re not the only one trying to make sense of things. Forgive me for thinking dating you might be a nice reprieve from everything going on my life.”

  Was that an honest apology? Because Sarah had been thinking the same thing. “Sorry for using you as an escape to empower myself.” Now she couldn’t say something like that. Oh, well.

  “I’m sincerely sorry for snooping where my nose didn’t belong. I honestly didn’t think I would uncover what I did about you.”

  “You mean the affair I had with my boss’s father and getting knocked up with his baby?”

  “And the other stuff that happened after that.”

  “Yeah, well…” God, what should she say? “Shit fucks you up.”

  “I’m still missing quite a bit of details, of course. Not that I need you to tell me them.”

  “After you told me about your drunken ex-wife smacking you around?” Ouch. She probably shouldn’t have put it that way, but it was already out there. “Seems unfair to not share my own toxic drama.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  But she was already thinking about it. The casual sex with a man she was only somewhat attracted to. The dawning realization that she was pregnant. Telling the father that he might be having a second son when the first was thirty years old. Waking up to blood and fear. Being told she would never have children again. Going to her mother’s house for a month and feeling so empty that she wondered if she would ever reclaim her soul again.

  That was when I first felt like a completely separate entity from my brother. He could never get pregnant. He could never know what it was like to lose a child growing inside of him. He couldn’t be taken advantage of like that. The sexism Sarah faced in the world had felt so miniscule when she had her brother to lean on for most of her life. A fact of reality. A “oh, yes, that exists, doesn’t it?” state of mind she could no longer embrace.

  Sarah was alone in that. Her thoughts, her fears, her crippling feelings… only she could overcome them, if she chose to live that long.

  When she slowly opened up about those experiences, she felt like she was talking about someone else. Some other Sarah who went through unspeakable tragedy and pretended nothing happened, because what could she do? She couldn’t shut down. She couldn’t retreat from the world. Her brother lost his job trying to protect her from the man who hurt her. She had to keep working in a highly competitive job. Mr. Monroe had already fired her once. It was Mrs. Monroe who re-hired her.

  Life went on. Sarah found her ways to cope in her off-time. What else could she do?

  So she told him everything. The coercion, when she was so convinced that she was in control of the situation with Russell Monroe. The pregnancy. The way that man lured her into comfort and promised her whatever she wanted, aside from marriage, of course. Sarah was fine with that. She would take her baby and live a peaceful life somewhere. Maybe Nigel would come with them and be the awesome uncle he was born to be. Sarah didn’t need a husband when she had a twin brother for people to make incest jokes about.

  “I thought of it as our baby.”

  The tears slowly fell when she remembered what he said two nights ago.

  The miscarriage. The doctor’s diagnosis. Retreating from the world and wishing her mother knew how to make it better. Finding out months later that her brother was pushing pregnant Alice Monroe down stairs because Russell was a eugenic who didn’t want her – or Sarah, for that matter – tainting his gene pool. If Nigel hadn’t agreed to do the horrible thing, Russell threatened to rape, beat, whatever he could think of regarding Sarah’s bodily autonomy. He knew how to get to Nigel. That’s what a manipulative sociopath like him did.

  Only then did Sarah also find out Russell’s roll in her miscarriage and infertility.

  “He drugged my drink – that I shouldn’t have even been having, but I couldn’t help myself – and had his bodyguard beat me when I was passed out. He couldn’t even do it himself.” She swallowed the last of her drink. “Sometimes I wonder how the man did it. Did he use his fists? Punched my stomach until I started to bleed from my cunt? Or did he use a small club? Did Russell watch to make sure the job was done? Or did he leave the room to go have a drink with his son? How much of a coward was he, really?”

  “My God, Sarah.” Lucas looked like he was going to be sick. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you know how painful that office is sometimes? I walk in and see the same people I did back then. It’s the same sounds and smells. Then there’s Alice, pregnant with her husband’s baby, and I think… I could’ve had my baby by now. I could’ve had him and been happy. I didn’t even think of it as my boss’s sibling. It wasn’t about that. It was
about making that choice. Those people took all my choices away. They took away my ability to choose whether or not I had my baby, what I did with our lives, if I could even keep my job. I feel like an indentured servant, because if I walk away from that stressful place, my brother and I will end up on the street. What do we do? Go back to our mother? She wouldn’t understand.”

  “I didn’t know it was that intense.”

  “I mean, I don’t resent them. They didn’t do anything.” Sarah shrugged. “But they remind me. They trigger those memories whenever I see them.”

  “If you could quit Monday morning, would you?”

  “You mean hand in my resignation and walk right back out again?” Sounded like a dream. “Absolutely. But I’m not about to do that without a contingency in place.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “You keep asking me that.”

  Lucas leaned forward, his blue eyes full of a determination Sarah had yet to witness. “Because you haven’t given me a straight answer since I first asked it. You’re holding back.”

  “I’ve never been dishonest about what I want from my life.”

  “Then perhaps you don’t quite know what it is you want.”

  Sarah wanted to be offended, but discovered she didn’t have the energy to expend on such intense emotions. “You know what I want right now?”

  Lucas didn’t take his eyes off her. “What?”

  “I want to curl up in bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist.”

  A small smile tugged on the corner of Lucas’s mouth. “That sounds nice.”

  Nice? That’s all you have to say about it? Sarah was on the verge of inviting him back to her hotel room. Maybe not for sex. (Okay, for sex.) But some of that lying in bed and pretending that the world didn’t exist. Not beyond the two of them, anyway.

  Nice, though? Come on, this was his chance to make a move. Unless he didn’t want Sarah anymore… which was preposterous. He wouldn’t have told her half his life story if he wasn’t in the market to take her home.

  “Know what I want right now?”

  Sarah could not contain her flirtatious glance. “What?”

  She should have anticipated his answer. “You.”

  “Even after all that?”

  “Listening to you open up only makes me understand you more. Which makes me want you more.”

  Sarah wanted to call him ridiculous, but she was too flattered to respond with anything but a brush of her hand against his skin. After that, going home with anyone but him felt sacrilegious.

  Chapter 14

  The rest of the world certainly did not exist once they were in Lucas’s hotel room. His bodyguard stayed well out of their way, giving his employer and the girlfriend plenty of privacy to explore the meaning of a world without traumatic chaos.

  Sarah almost detested how safe she felt in his arms. Whether her cheek was pressed against his naked skin or her hands splayed across his chest, ah… she definitely hated how foreign of a feeling this was. She had felt plenty comfortable with other lovers before. Many wonderful one-night stands had made sure her safety and consent were top priority, but this? This was a different kind of safety. This was the assurance that the evils of the world could not touch her as long as they were together. If his sweat touched her tongue and his fingers touched her inner walls, not a damn thing could touch them. That was the law. The rule. The promise made between them and the universe.

  She didn’t want to let go.

  They made love. Genuine, passionate love unlike Sarah had allowed herself to experience before. She had slow and sensual sex before. Men had made her feel more than special in bed. But this was her first time embracing the emotional side of sex and how it could bring two people together. Of course, she denied it at first. When something as strange as that attempts to take hold of a woman, she’s inclined to dismiss it. Where was it the first hundred times she had sex? Where was it when a baby came to her? Where was it when she grieved? Became a woman? Lost the innocence she never knew she had?

  This was the kind of thing that only existed in fiction. Those fantastical romance novels that Sarah never gave the time of day because they weren’t realistic enough. How could that be possible? Sex was sex. Sometimes you found someone good enough at sex to fall in love with them. Or at least what someone thought was love.

  The way Lucas caressed her, kissed her, brought parts of her to life she never knew were dormant… that was the practice of a skilled lover, right? It didn’t say anything about the feeling enveloping Sarah every time he purred against her warm skin or tenderly thrust into her. And she definitely didn’t feel anything when they rolled over and she straddled him for the next five minutes, her hands bracing against the breadth of his chest and her energy allowing her to escape the whole damn planet and go wherever the hell it wanted. His grip on her hips and ass kept her steady as she threw her head back and pretended this was how it had always been. That she had only known the loving touch of a man, instead of whatever emotionless hole she usually found herself in.

  Did she come? Was climax a simple trick of the mind, anyway? If she climaxed during regular sex, was it the same as having an orgasm with a man who made her feel safe to express this side of herself? Even if he was barely a known entity in her life?

  Before, she had hunted for sex with whatever half-decent man would have her in a bid to reclaim her control, to claim in the first place that she was empowered. But it wasn’t until that night, when she rode Lucas Blackbourne like a woman taming her first stallion, that she understood what she meant by searching for empowerment.

  She didn’t care that he toppled her over when her orgasm finally abated. She was happy to have him on top of her again, nuzzling the crook of her neck and leaving lingering kisses on her lips. Lucas entered her with only half the usual confidence, even though he was so hard Sarah almost worried he would finish within two seconds.

  “Has it ever felt like this for you before?”

  Sarah opened her eyes. The room was dark, save for the city lights glowing outside the uncovered windows. Even so, she had a clear view of Lucas’s face, his neck, his torso as all three hovered over her.

  “Felt like what?”

  “Like this.”

  She closed her eyes again, head sinking deeply into the hotel pillow. “No. Never.”

  “Is that good? I mean, is it good that it feels like this finally?”

  “Shut up. Take me.”

  He kissed her so hard she lost the ability to breathe.

  “What do you want, Angel?”

  She said the first thing to pop into her addled mind. “Say my real name.”

  “Sarah.”

  He pinned her hands above her head and lost himself in her after that. Sarah anticipated his climax to the point she almost begged him to finally give her what she wanted. What was left between them? While she understood his apprehensions now – he was already roped into one surprise child by a woman who intentionally got pregnant – there was no reason for them with her. For the first time in over a year, Sarah was at peace with having sex for the sake of it, not as a thrill, and certainly not as a way to play God with her life.

  And for the first time, she was not annoyed when he pulled out and spent himself between her thighs. Sarah kissed his cheek at the first sign of his eyes glazing over and his lips mouthing the words I’m coming.

  Later, when she made the decision to spend the night and travel back home with him in the morning, Sarah curled up next to him and promptly forgot that the rest of the world existed.

  “I like you,” Lucas said, his hand entwined with hers beneath the covers. Sarah lightly played with his chest hairs and considered stroking his cock back to life. Anything to keep him from talking during a nice moment like this. “I mean it. Maybe the best thing that could have happened to me in this country was you waltzing up to me in that ridiculous wig in a sex club.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “What do you think I’m sayin
g?”

  She sighed against his chest. “I’d rather you come out and say it.”

  He unhooked his hand from her hers and wrapped his arm around her clinging body. “Maybe there’s something here?”

  “Just ask me to be your girlfriend.”

  Lucas squeezed her until she whimpered. Sometimes the man didn’t understand the full extent of his strength. “It’s not that simple, is it?”

  “No. Because you’re going through shit and so am I.” Sarah repositioned herself until her head rested on his shoulder and they both stared up at the ceiling. “Plus I’m not keen on my boss knowing. He might throw a fit behind the scenes.”

  “At me, you mean.”

  “He’s afraid to say anything to me. Whether because he pities me or because his wife has already chewed him out regarding me… don’t really care. It’s kinda funny.”

  “Point taken. I wouldn’t want to make work any more uncomfortable for you.”

  “Says the man who kept sending me flowers and flirting with me on my phone.”

  “I can dial it back if you like.”

  “What’s the fun in that?”

  “Sending flowers is a bit suspicious.”

  “Now you’re making me think this is going to be a clandestine affair.”