"Not me, your wife."
"Your mother?"
"No, your wife."
"I don"t think..." She tried starting her s.h.i.+t but I cut her off. No sense in putting this s.h.i.+t off, and that"s exactly what she"d be after.
"Not in front of my kid." I said it in a way that my daughter wouldn"t know that her daddy was on the cusp of murder, but there was no mistaking the bite in my voice to the adults in the room.
"You remember Zania?" I brought her forward so he could see her.
"Of course I remember, but I thought..." He kept looking back and forth between the two of them as if trying to fit the pieces together, but there was no sign of distress in him.
"Well, your wife thought that Camille was a better pick for the family, so she threatened Zania into leaving.
Zania was pregnant with our child when she was run out of town, now Mia"s sick." I gave him the condensed version for the sake of my kid, who was ill but not stupid.
"You, Joy, you did this thing?" He lifted Mia into his lap and I helped her get settled. She was quieter than usual, as if she understood the severity of the moment.
"We were losing him to her. You remember how it was when he was with her. He hardly showed any interest in the business. Everything was about her."
"That"s what usually happens when you"re in love for the first time. Not that you"d know, you"ve never loved anyone or anything but yourself."
He stopped and looked down at the child on his lap, running his hand over her hair gently. There were tears in his eyes when he looked up again.
"I"ve always known that about you, always knew that you have no heart. I knew you only married me for my name and wealth, but that was okay because it suited my purposes.
I"ve put up with you all these years." He rolled his chair over to his desk and removed a thick manila envelope.
"In here are years of reports I"ve been collecting on your escapades, too bad this one slipped by me. For that I"m sorry Zania, and you too my son. I hope you can forgive me one day."
"Carlton what is that?" His wife made a move towards him but I checked her.
"So what, now I"m not to be trusted to go near my own husband?"
"That"s up to him I"ll wait and hear what he has to say about that, but as long as my daughter is on his lap you don"t go near him." I really and truly felt no way about the look of hurt on her face.
"It"s okay son you don"t have to worry about me, and as long as there"s breath in my body no harm will come to Mia." He kissed her drooping little head then.
"Son, is it okay if I call Martha to take Mia to the kitchen for some milk and cookies?"
"Sure dad." I knew what he was really after, that"s the only reason I was willing to let her out of my sight here in this house.
"A grandchild. Thanks son thanks Zania." He rang the bell and the housekeeper came in to take Zania away.
"If you need us we"re right here okay sweetheart, you just go and have some cookies and milk and be a good girl for daddy okay."
"Yes daddy." Like any other five year old she was more than happy to go off with Martha at the promise of cookies.
"She"s a beautiful little girl son, congratulations to you both. As for you Joy, this was the last straw. You harmed my son, that"s a f.u.c.king game changer."
The look he turned on her then was cold and venomous. Now I know where I get it.
"You can"t be serious, I was just doing what I thought was right..."
"That"s your problem Joy, you"re always only doing what you think is right, funny that it"s always what serves you best.
I want you out of this house immediately."
"Carlton, think very carefully now..."
"No you think. I have one grandchild and there will be more in the future. If I know my son, he"s not going to let you anywhere near them.
If I stick with you, I"ll find myself guilty by a.s.sociation. I find that as I"m growing older and I"m stuck in this chair or only able to get around with a cane, I like the idea of having my grandkids around me."
"I"ll take you for everything and I"ll get it too. All these years of us being married not to mention what I brought to the business..."
"If you don"t want what"s in here to become public knowledge you"ll leave with the clothes on your back and not make a peep.
You spent your inheritance before the ink was even dry on our marriage certificate. You"ve been spending my money like it grows on trees for the past thirty odd years, it all ends today."
"You can"t cut me out, think of all I"ve done..."
"I am thinking about all you"ve done. And the bad outweighs the good every time. Now I"m prepared to give you a quarter of a million dollars and not a penny more."
d.a.m.n that"s cold, especially since he"s worth more than nine billion. This ought to be good.
I walked back over to where Zania sat on the couch, with Mia out of the line of fire I could relax.
"How are you doing baby, you haven"t said anything since we"ve been here."
"It"s so sad, so sad and pointless."
"Don"t you go feeling sorry for her, after what she did she"s getting off easy."
"Cord, you scare me, she"s your mom, can"t you find it in your heart to give her another chance?"
"f.u.c.k no what are you nuts? She couldn"t live long enough to give back what she stole from me."
"Did you know this would happen?" She looked to where my parents were squaring off.
"Kinda, I know dad, I knew that he"d feel the same way about what she did to me as I do about what she did to Mia.
Let that be a lesson to you. Next time I won"t let you off the hook so easy." She slapped my shoulder as we turned back to them again.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and brought her in close so I could kiss her temple as I placed my hand on her tummy where my kid slept.
I ignored Joy as she haggled back and forth with dad over what she thought was rightfully hers. She gave up trying to get me to acknowledge her when I turned my back on her and pretended that she wasn"t there.
Things got a little heated there when dad refused to budge and started airing some of her misdeeds. s.h.i.+t that I"d never known about but wasn"t surprised to hear.
The lies she"d told and the manipulations of other people"s lives.
By the time it was time to go dad had already instructed the servants to pack her up and get her out before the sun went down.
I wasn"t going to lose any sleep over it. The only thing I care about now is my little family and their happiness.
That night after we"d put our daughter to sleep after a story told by both of us, I took her to bed. It was the fist time we"d actually be going to bed without the past between us.
Though I"d been softening towards her a bit in the last few days, I still hadn"t relented enough to let my guard down all the way.
Now with everything out in the open and behind us, I didn"t have to keep the walls up.
It was a new experience having her for nothing more than the pleasure of it. My child was already resting safely in her womb; this coming together was for us and us alone.
I touched her with gentle hands, bringing her to a fever pitch with my fingers and tongue, before finally sliding into her body. Home!
"Do you love me?" I looked deeply into her eyes as she lifted into me, our bodies molded together as I left my c.o.c.k buried to the hilt inside her.
"Yes, very much." I took her smiling mouth, taking her words of love into me, before reaching over to the nightstand to get the ring I"d hidden there while she was in the shower.
I slipped it onto her finger as I started to move inside her again. "Try getting away from me now." She squeezed around my c.o.c.k and cried out for joy.
EPILOGUE.
CORD.
"Babe put that down, how many times do I have to tell you about lifting s.h.i.+t?" It"s a good thing I"d decided to play hooky from the office in the middle of the day.
If I hadn"t I wouldn"t have been in time to catch her moving furniture around again in her condition.
"Cord for the love of Pete how many times must I tell you that there"s nothing wrong with me doing this? I"ve done this twice already remember?"
"Whatever, you"re not moving furniture while you"re eight and a half months pregnant. Where the h.e.l.l is everyone?"
She waddled over to a chair and sat with a longsuffering sigh. "Grandma and your dad took the rugrats out for ice cream."
"Oh they did did they?" I tugged on my tie as I moved towards her. "So we have the place to ourselves?" I was already shrugging out of my s.h.i.+rt by the time I stood in front of her.
Her eyes were doing that dreamy thing they do whenever she looks at me, which makes me feel ten feet tall. "Am I doing you here or in our bed?"
"Such a sweet talker." She"s full of s.h.i.+t. In the four years we"ve been married she"s been giving me s.h.i.+t for pouncing on her every chance I get, but I can"t help it, I have six years to make up for after all, and there never seems to be enough time.
For all her complaining, she"s never once turned me away. Now as I hovered over her, looking down at her pregnant beauty I marveled at my luck.
To have gained her love not once but twice, somebody must really be looking out for me.
"I love you princess." Sometimes like now, it really hits home, all that I held in my arms, all that was mine.
My life has been complete these last few years. There"ve been so many twists and turns that it was sometimes hard to keep up.
Dad went through with the divorce, Zania found him some place in Arizona that was supposed to help get him back on his feet, and no matter how I poo-pooed her new-age c.r.a.p, he came back three months later a changed man.
He was moving around a lot better these days and hardly ever used the chair anymore, though getting him back in the office has proven to be a nonstarter so far. He prefers to spend his days spoiling his grandkids or flirting with Zania"s grandmother Estelle, who we"d brought out to live with us.
I still keep tabs on his wife, not for any sentimental reasons, but because I wasn"t about to get bitten by the same snake twice.
Camille"s gallery was closed within weeks of the call I made, and the follow-ups to all the necessary parties, warning them what would happen if they extended her a helping hand. Needless to say, no one wanted any part of that s.h.i.+t.
There were quite a few whispers about all the shake-ups in the Helmwsworth dynasty, and since I wasn"t about to involve my woman and child in a scandal, I put the lid on that s.h.i.+t quick.
When I married Zania one-month later, tongues really started wagging, not to mention the rumor mill when they found out about Mia, and later when Zania started showing.
And that brings me to the most h.e.l.lish period of my existence, except for when she was away from me. Her pregnancy.
It"s a wonder she was carrying our third as we speak, because after that ordeal I was sure I would never in my life do that f.u.c.kery again.
The morning sickness was a b.i.t.c.h and a half, and it lasted until her fifth month. She was cranky, bossy and a royal pain in my a.s.s with her cravings and s.h.i.+t.
Mia and I learned to skirt around her crazy by being each other"s allies and that"s how we got through it, until whatever had possessed her decided to leave.
Junior was born a healthy strapping bruiser, who was also my image. A bone of contention for his mother, but something his grandfather and I were only too proud to boast about to anyone who would listen.
He"d been a perfect match for his big sister, who was now a fully recovered little girl who kept her parents and grandparents hopping.
When I look at her now I can hardly see the sick little girl that had come into my life four years ago; but daddy is still a bit overprotective because I can never forget how close I"d come to losing it all.
Now with the house empty except for us two, which was a rare occurrence, since we"d brought her grandmother to live with us and my dad practically lived here now, I just wanted her, the feel and taste of her on my tongue.
"You sure this is okay baby, you"re not hurting anywhere are you?"
"Uh-uh." She lowered herself to a supine position while I lowered my pants a little and fished my d.i.c.k out. Couldn"t get bare a.s.sed naked, because there were way too many close calls in this house.
"We"ll make it quick." I caressed her b.u.t.terball stomach first before moving my fingers down to her slit. She was already wet and hungry for me so it didn"t take much more than my fingers moving inside her and a thumb on her c.l.i.t to get her on board.
I slipped into her wet heat and started stroking, enjoying the feel of her wrapped around me. The warm gush hit me before her "oh s.h.i.+t" and I knew what had happened.
"You"ve got to be s.h.i.+tting me." I pulled out of her body like I"d been scorched and looked down at the mess between us.
"Your kids have no manners. This one isn"t here yet and already he"s starting s.h.i.+t.
Stay there I"ll get something to clean you up and call the hospital." I was going to take this s.h.i.+t calmly and not lose it like I did the first time I dealt with this bulls.h.i.+t.