Still, I knew we could be more. That we were more. That the absence of his command was really an absence of my submission. I’d walled off a part of me from him and so he’d walled off a part of himself from me. Intentional or not, I wasn’t sure, though I suspected it was the latter. Maybe he noticed it too, but I doubted he’d done it purposefully. And now that this was how we were with each other, perhaps he was as uncertain as I was how to return to what we’d been.
“If you’d rather not…” he said when I hadn’t moved or responded.
I shook my head from my thoughts. “No, I want to. Sorry. I guess the champagne gave me a little bit of a buzz.” I sat next to him on the sofa, curling my feet up underneath me as I burrowed into his side.
“Are you too buzzed for a serious discussion?”
“Nope. Just buzzed enough to feel good. Are you going to kill it?”
“I don’t plan on it.” He drew me tighter to him, stroking his fingers down my arm. “I’m only wondering why you want to delay going back to London. Have you changed your mind about living there?”
“I haven’t. I’m dying to take Cleo home and settle in where there’s more space. Even with the additional suite, this place is rather small and stifling.”
He was silent a beat, and I sensed he was trying to figure me out. I liked his curiosity enough to not rush to giving him answers. It was rare that I had an upper hand with him, and I wanted to relish it a little longer before laying down my cards.
“I hope you didn’t offer to throw the engagement party on my account,” he said after a time. “I’m very appreciative, but it wasn’t necessary.”
I sat up so I could look at him. “Yes, it was for you, you silly. And for her. I’m not that close to Genevieve, but I do love her and want to be part of her life.”
“I love that about you.”
His declaration gave me the confidence to reveal more. “But also it was for me. It will give me something to do besides be cooped up in here all the time while we go after Werner.”
The air turned electric. I could feel the charge emanating off his body as he studied me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, I think it should stay in the family.”
“And you have a plan for that? I doubt you would bring this up if you didn’t.”
It wasn’t quite a plan that I had, but rather a desire. A desire to give my husband what he needed. A desire to lay my heart at his feet. A desire to show him that I was a strong woman, but not so strong that I couldn’t also be sometimes mastered.
Just, how to turn that desire into action?
I turned my body so I was facing him completely. “I’ve been so stuck on making sure you didn’t go head-to-head with Hudson, and I still feel that’s the right choice, but I was too preoccupied to realize there are other ways to get what it is you’re after. Not the CEO position—even if we could manage that, this isn’t the time. Cleo needs a father who isn’t working all the time, and that would definitely keep us in the States, which is not where I want to be in the long run.
“But majority shares—or at least equal shares with Hudson. That could be doable.”
His eyes narrowed, considering. “You think Hudson might be amenable to selling us one percent now that Genevieve is marrying his brother?”
“Possibly. I think it’s worth trying. But if he won’t, there could be another way.” I ran my teeth across my bottom lip. “I want to help you find a way.”
“Go on.” I could practically hear his pulse tick up.
My own heart was racing. “Hudson owns forty-two percent. We own forty percent. There are still those other eighteen percent shares.”
It wasn’t news to him how the shares had been distributed. Werner Media was still privately-owned—family-owned for the most part. The company had been started years ago by my grandfather and his brother, Chester. When Uncle Chester had died, his fifty percent had been distributed among his children, just as Grandpa Werner’s shares had been passed to my father and Uncle Ron, but no one had had the ambition to run the company like my father had. So little by little, he’d bought family members out of most of their shares. A few relatives had since sold their remaining shares to outside parties who were unwilling to sell again, but there were four cousins that still owned two percent each.
Edward guessed where I was going and shook his head. “I’ve already approached the other shareholders. They’ve all said no to selling.”
“You approached them when you were still an enemy of my father. Now you’re part of an alliance with him. You’ll have been validated in their eyes. Also, since the values of those shares have dropped recently with Ron’s trial, some may be more interested in bailing now.”
“Possibly.” He wasn’t convinced, but I hadn’t expected he would be.
The real benefit of my involvement came with what I offered next. “If none of the outsiders are interested, I could talk to my cousins. None of us are particularly close, but I’m pretty sure I have some sway with two or three of them, especially if I leveraged some family secrets here and there. Buying out any one of them would make us equal with Hudson. Buying one percent off two of them would do the trick too.”
His eyes sparked with something I hadn’t seen in months. “Buying them all out would put us ahead of Hudson.”
For half a second, I worried I’d made a mistake bringing this up. I didn’t want to hold him back, but his ambition scared me at times. It was too monstrous. Too much a life of its own.
Instead of pulling back, though, as I would have done in the past, I gave him the chance to step up to the common ground as I had. “I don’t think we need to be greedy. He still has power in unexpected ways. I’d prefer to strive for equality. For now.”
Again he considered. Seconds passed, long and thick, until he reached his hand up to caress my cheek. “This isn’t for you. This is for me, isn’t it? You’d really help me go after those shares?”
“If it’s still what you want, yes. I will.”
In one swift move, he lifted me from his side, brought me to straddle his lap, and kissed me. Kissed me hard. Kissed me like he hadn’t in months, with hunger and desperation and worship and control. His cock pressed intently at the space between my legs and my pussy wept with eagerness as finally, finally, his mouth took mine with rough authority, a reminder of how he’d fucked me once upon a time. A promise of how he planned to fuck me again.
And then the urgent wail of a hungry baby burst through the monitor. My breasts leaked in response, my nipples aching with the need to express.
Reluctantly we broke apart. “I’ll heat her bottle,” I offered.
He shook his head. “Go pump,” he said, and I shivered at the emphatic tone in his voice. “I’ll bring her to you when she’s been fed.”
I walked to the bedroom, wet and unsatisfied, but a smile curved boastfully on my lips. We’d had our bumps, but I could see a path for us now, a path that might not be easy, but one that I was confident we could walk together.
Nine
Edward
“‘The market’s reaction to the alliance between Werner Media, Accelecom’—that’s daddy’s company, Cleo-Leo—‘and Pierce Industries has been strong, despite the recent drama surrounding former Werner CEO Warren Werner’s brother Ron. This support is likely due to the manufacturing giant Pierce Industries and their contribution of tech components enabling the partners to not only make plans to lay cable networks in the near future, but also to dominate the field.’” I frowned at the words I’d just read. “Well, that’s bloody rubbish. As if Pierce is the reason for anything that’s successful.”
“You’ve bored her to sleep.”
I peered up at the soft voice to see Celia standing in the doorway between our suite and the adjoining bedroom we’d been using for a nursery. She nodded toward the bundle in my left arm, and I looked down to find the baby that had been wriggling only a moment before was now fast asleep.
I chuckled. “I don’t blam
e you, kiddo. Talk of Pierce Industries bores me too.”
“I know they encourage reading to your child from an early age, but do you really think business magazines are the most appropriate choice of material?”
I shrugged. “She was fussy, and it needed to be read. Seemed like a two birds with one stone sort of situation.”
Celia’s smile was filled with adoration, and it warmed my chest recognizing it was meant for me as much as our daughter. “Better be careful. I’m at risk of being charmed.”
“Oh, you’re charmed all right.” I tossed the iPad onto the ground so I could cradle Cleo with both arms as I stood from the rocking chair. We’d had it brought in only a few weeks before, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how we’d got on without it. “She’s charmed too, as you can tell.”
Celia laughed, a sound that turned into a yawn as she stretched her arms overhead. “You should have woken me. I would have taken her.” She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “Oh, it’s not even six. Where’s Elsa?”
I set the baby down in her crib, careful not to disturb her slumber. “I sent her home early. And why would I wake you? You don’t get nearly the amount of sleep as you should, and caring for our child isn’t a job designated strictly to you and our nanny.”
“Look at you win bonus points. You’ve been so good about being here for her, but I also appreciate that you have a full-time job on top of it.”
I turned to study her, suspecting she needed validation for expecting me to participate in raising our baby. She wanted my involvement as much as I needed to be involved, but neither of us had experience with a household where the father shared in the child-rearing duties. It was new ground for both of us, and though it was often bumpy, I was grateful to be walking it with her at my side.
“It’s hardly a hardship to cuddle with Cleo,” I assured in a hushed voice, picking up the baby monitor as I crossed to my wife. “But it’s also nice to have a break, so if we want her to stay sleeping, we best get out of here.”
Once the door was closed behind us and Celia had taken the monitor so she could check the volume, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. “Should we start thinking about dinner?”
She cocked her head, exposing her neck, and I suddenly regretted making our kiss so brief. Dinner, it seemed, was not what I was hungry for.
“I need a shower first,” she said, pulling away. “I changed before I fell asleep on the couch, and I still smell like spit-up.”
She smelled perfectly fine to me. I was tempted to tell her so or to offer to help her smell like something else, but I was conscientious of making sure my wife had time for the pleasures of ordinary things like bathing that were often foregone in the hustle and bustle of motherhood.
Recognizing that didn’t mean I was noble enough to resist imposing. “I’ll join you.”
“Good.” She threw a saucy look over her shoulder as I followed her through the bedroom into the bathroom where she set the monitor on the counter. “I can tell you about the phone call I had this morning.”
I would have frowned if she hadn’t chosen that moment to peel her shirt over her head. Men could say what they would about children killing all desire—they hadn’t seen my wife in a nursing bra. Her breasts pushing full and plump against the lace cups turned my cock to stone.
“Talking wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” I said, tossing my tie on the floor then quickly undoing my cufflinks.
“I think you’ll be interested in this particular conversation.” She shimmied out of her yoga pants, leaving them in a heap with the discarded top before reaching in the shower to turn on the water.
“Nothing is as interesting to me right now as you taking off your clothes. But go ahead and try to prove me wrong. Who was this phone call from?”
“Hudson.” The name echoed against the tile, giving it more emphasis than it would have had if she’d said it while facing me instead of the faucet.
It was a suburb effect, intended or not.
I froze mid-unbuttoning my dress shirt. She was right—I was interested in this conversation. “Go on.”
Seemingly happy with the water temperature, she turned back toward me. “He wanted to talk about the engagement party we’re throwing for Chandler and Genevieve.”
“News travels fast.” I continued the task of loosening my shirt, my pace slower than it was a moment before, distracted by the change in conversation as much as I was by the damp spot at the front of Celia’s panties.
“It does always seem like Hudson is the first to know most everything.” She stepped into me and grabbed my shirt, tugging it out of my pants as I finished unbuttoning, then helping me discard it.
I slipped my hand inside her panties to cup her cunt while the other played with the strap of her bra. “This needs to go.”
She tried not to react, but I saw the flash of lust in her eyes at the command. Or perhaps she was merely responding to my fingers skating along her seam. Her breath caught when I skimmed higher, against the bud under the hood of skin. She clutched onto me, her eyes closed, as she shivered.
I loved her like this—playing strong while falling apart. A beautiful dichotomy orchestrated with the touch of my hand.
“You’re distracting me,” she moaned.
“That’s the point.”
“Two can play this game.” She stroked her hand up the length of my cock, still buried inside my trousers. “Now that I have your attention, I can go on. Hudson is concerned about everyone’s ‘comfort’—his word, not mine. Wants to be sure there won’t be much reason for me to interact with his precious wife.”
The scratch of her nails up my length made me hiss. “He really is scared of you, isn’t he?”
“Eh, he’s protective. His efforts to look after his own would rival yours.”
“I doubt it.” I tugged again at her bra, reminding her she was not as naked as I wanted her then shooed her hand away so I could be rid of my own clothes. Talking was fine and I appreciated the tales of her days, but if all her Pierce news amounted to was talk of upcoming nuptials, I was of the mind to postpone it.
Celia, though she got the hint about stripping, wasn’t ready to give up the conversation. “Anyway, I agreed to let him approve the seating chart—”
“—That was generous—”
“—and then I told him we weren’t leaving the States without a bigger share in Werner.”
Nearly completely undressed, I paused in the midst of tugging off my sock. While I normally didn’t find talk of business very erotic, I was suddenly extremely aroused. “And what did he say?”
“That he wouldn’t sell, of course.” She stepped out of her panties and tossed them aside with her toe. “But I also reminded him there were other ways for us to get what we wanted, that we were serious about going after them, and that the only way we could ever truly move on from this outdated feud was to give us equal stakes in the company.”
As much as I loved Celia shattering because of me, I equally loved her dominating others. Especially when it was on my behalf.
I prowled toward her, backing her into the walk-in shower. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to you than I am right now.”
She smiled coyly but with pride. “He said he’d think about it.”
“He won’t.”
“He might.”
Her back hit the wall, and I caged her in with my forearms pressed against the tile on either side of her head. I stared at her lips, plump and inviting. “Bloody greedy.” I didn’t know anymore if I was speaking about Pierce or myself.
“I don’t think this is about money.”
I forced myself to focus, lifting my eyes up to meet hers. This really was a significant turn of events. It had been one day since she’d told me she would join me in the pursuit of Werner, and if there had been any question as to whether or not it was simply lip service, I couldn’t doubt her now. She’d thrown the gauntlet.
And Pierce had stood his gr
ound.
It was such a ridiculous business move. He had no reason to keep that controlling interest when he didn’t ever exercise any authority in the company. With our alliance, it was possible he could face monopoly accusations if his investment ever became public, a risk that didn’t concern me since Accelecom was foreign-owned. Pierce knew I’d pay well over the market value. So why was he so obstinate?
“He is scared of you,” I said, finally seeing the situation with clarity. My wife hadn’t just been a nuisance to him as I’d previously suspected—she’d been an outright threat.
Fuck, that was hot.
I cupped my hand over her breast, letting the weight of it settle in my hand. “To think you’re a dragon after all.”
“You’ve reminded me plenty of times that I’m not.”
“That’s how a man dominates a woman, don’t you know?” She gasped as I pinched her nipple, rivulets of milk running down her skin as it mixed with the streaming water. “Tells her she’s something other than she is enough times that eventually she believes it.”
“You mean they gaslight? Who knew?”
I bent to tug at her peaked nipple with my teeth, despite knowing it would cause more letdown. Her breasts had been more or less off-limits because of the mess it made, a mess only she cared about. In the shower, though, she didn’t have that excuse, and I took full advantage, expecting still to be scolded.
When she pushed me off of her a second later, however, it wasn’t the nipple play that earned the scolding. “Are you admitting you gaslit me? I was a dragon this whole time and you made me believe I was only a little bird?”
“You’ll always be my little bird, bird,” I said, chuckling. I ran my knuckles down the side of her cheek, my smile fading. “But you were also always a dragon.”
“You did gaslight me!” Rather than being angry, her expression seemed victorious.
It was a victory that I wasn’t ready to let her have. “Perhaps it wasn’t about you. Did you think of that? It was about me not wanting to believe you were a dragon. For my own sake.”
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