Chapter 18
Ivy
3 days later
Wear this. A driver will come to pick you up at six.
A white dress. I take the garment out of the red box it came in. It’s a gorgeous, sequined, and form-fitting dress. I turn it around. Make that a backless dress. It’s reminiscent of the one I wore eight years ago, only this one is a more mature, less ethereal version. This is a much sexier version, one designed to make the wearer look as irresistible as possible. Beneath it is a pair of white stilettos to match the dress and a diamond-encrusted purse that’s probably worth more than the stuff I’m going to put in it.
An overwhelming sense of trepidation takes over as I anticipate tonight. When I made that deal with Damien at that meeting, I didn’t think he was going to cash in so soon. Living in the same place with him feels like wandering in a sexually charged minefield. Now that he knows where I stand, I feel exposed. Just making breakfast this morning felt more eventful than it actually was. Lake had requested pancakes and raspberries the night before, and I rose early to make them. The second Damien entered, I felt his presence, even though my back was to him.
“You cook?” He had said with a frown on his face.
“I own a bakery. It would be odd if I didn’t know how to make a pancake.”
He scoffed in disbelief. “Yeah, but you’re not the one doing the baking there, are you?”
Instead of being irritated by his low opinion of me, my body was more concerned with how close he had gotten as he stood behind me, looking over my shoulder while I flipped a pancake. Heat rose in my cheeks that shamelessly had nothing to do with the stove but with the flashes of images that invaded my mind. Images of Damien wrapping his arms around me and drawing me into his chest as he dropped sweet kisses on my neck. I felt so embarrassed by my train of thoughts I almost burned the cake.
As though he knew what I was thinking, his hand brushed mine as he reached over to grab one of the nine pancakes that were on the plate next to the stove. It was a simple act, but it made my heart flutter.
“Huh,” he said after tasting the cake. “Better than I expected.” I put the last cake on the plate and turn to face him. Only to find him standing close to me. Too close. He looked fresh, well groomed, in his suit and combed hair. A direct contrast to my pajamas and messy bun. No one had a right to be as handsome as he was that morning. I got trapped in the pools of his beautiful eyes as I continued to stare. The energy swirling around us increased as more salacious images of the things I wanted him to do to me flashed across my mind. His finger brushed my cheek. I gasped. “There’s flour on your—” he leaned forward and I was sure he was about to kiss me when —
“Mom makes the best pancakes in the world.” Lake’s voice broke through the sexual haze. Part of me was glad, while another part cursed my son. Damien stepped back and said to me, “I’m going to send a package to your workplace. Please follow the instructions inside.”
I will myself to the present and back to my tiny office at the back of the kitchen. The background noise of kitchen utensils and people calling orders is the only noise that filters into the office. It is in contrast to the glamor of the dress I am holding. He wants me to wear this before leaving work. I am mortified by the image of walking past my employees wearing a shimmering cocktail dress while a town car waits for me outside.
Sonya would never let me leave it down. She will want all the details. Where I’m going. What I will do there. If only I knew. There’s nothing else written on the card except the single sentence. Yeah, no. I am wearing a coat on top.
Time ticks slowly for the rest of the day as I try not to think about what Damien has in store for me. I distract myself with work, of which there’s more recently. Ever since all the drama in the papers, the shop has been getting a lot of customers and is usually full even during the non-peak hours. It’s so busy that I have to help the front staff with taking orders a lot more often.
“Hopefully they’re coming for the gossip and staying for the pastries,” Sage, our barista, said during the early days. It’s been a month since she said that and the business hasn’t slowed down. We’re even getting bulk orders from nearby offices, something that didn’t happen before. To think I was close to closing just a few months ago, to being perpetually busy. I guess I have Damien to thank as well.
Time is ticking slowly all day, but when the clock strikes five, it seems to speed up and before I know it; I am getting into my office to prepare. I put on the dress and shoes and just as I am putting on the coat, Sonya bursts in.
Fuck. I should have locked the door.
“I wanted your approval on this d—Oh?” She leans back, eyebrows raised. “Is there a date you’re going to?”
“Something like that.”
She narrows her eyes. “With baby daddy?”
I nod, feeling the disappointment radiating from her. She tsk tsks, shaking her head.
“What?”
Sonya raises her hands in mock surrender. “Listen, I get it. Even an old lesbian like me can see how hot that man is.”
“It’s complicated.” I don’t know how else to explain to her my relationship with him. I don’t even know how to explain it to myself.
“Uh-huh.”
“What?”
She sighs. “Just don’t go falling in love with him. He strikes me as the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.”
“You’ve never met him!”
“I can tell a personality from just looking at a person on a screen. Call it my second talent.”
I button up the coat and brush it down to make sure the knee-length dress is not showing. “And what’s your first?”
“Cooking up a mean pastry.”
I get a text on my phone. Damien’s driver is outside.
***
I wait for Damien in his office. He wasn’t there when his driver opened the door and told me to take a seat and promptly left. It’s been five minutes since I came and there’s no sign of him anywhere. Should I call him? Only his phone is on his desk. I get up to ask his assistant when a door to the right of his bookshelf opens, and he walks out. He has changed out of his suit and is wearing a tuxedo.
“You look good,” I say, feeling embarrassed for staring too long.
He gestures his head up. “Let me see.” I unbutton the coat under his intense gaze and remove it. I throw it on a chair and face him. The hunger in his eyes is unmistakable. A rush of electricity snakes up and down my spine. “Turn around.” His voice is hoarse with desire. I do as he says, slowly giving him the view of my back. The dress is backless, down to my lower back. A bra wouldn’t have worked with it, but it offers enough support to render one unnecessary.
He goes silent. Does he not like it? I am about to turn and ask when I feel his hands go around my waist. Slowly, he swivels me around. My heart races. Damien dips his head and captures my lips with his in a kiss that’s lazy, but quickly burns up with desire and consumes us both. His hands slide down to my buttocks and he draws me against his hot and throbbing erection. I hear a strained moan and am shocked to find that it’s coming from me.
After what feels both like an eternity and a mere second, he lets go of me. “Damn. You might be worth the price I paid.” His voice is raspy and strained.
My heart flutters and I have to remind myself that what he sees is a desirable woman and nothing more. But there’s something bitter in the way he speaks of me as though I am a commodity. “Are you saying I am a whore?”
He scoffs. “I am not aware of any whore who’s worth a billion dollars.”
He clasps my hand and leads me towards another door. This one is on the opposite side of the one he came through. “Come on. If we don’t leave soon, I might end up fucking you here. And that’s not how I want to unwrap my present.”
We enter a dark corridor that goes to a stairwell that leads to a door on top of the building. Damien opens it and ahelicopter is waiting for us.
“Where are we going?” I ask over the whirring noise of the helicopter blades. Forty-five minutes later, I find out. The mechanical bird lands on the grounds of an estate in the Hamptons. An estate I know like the back of my hand.
“You bought my dad’s place?” I remember the estate being sold soon after Dad died. No one in our family wanted it and Mom desperately needed money, like always. I just didn’t think she would sell it to him, of all people.
“Yes.” He gets out of the helicopter and offers his hand. Absentmindedly, I take it. “My mom’s something else.”
“No need to call your mother a traitor. She sold it to a tech billionaire who then sold it to me after his company went up in flames. I basically bought it at a discount.”
“So you can rub it in my face?” I couldn’t hide the distaste I felt.
“As an investment. Not everything I do is about you.”
“So bringing me here is mere coincidence?”
“No. That part is deliberate.”
I wonder what he has in store for me. A creeping sensation tickles the back of the neck. Whatever is going to happen tonight, I doubt any of it is going to be good. I steal a glance at Damien and try to gauge his mood and guess his intentions as he leads me not to the house, but to the other side of the estate. He is unreadable, but he doesn’t have his usual menacing look. Maybe it might not be bad. Maybe he wants to restart things. That hope is immediately crushed when I see us enter the maze.
I feel my hand go clammy under his. We come to a stop at the center where a candlelit table is set. The fountain is working and is decorated with tiny lights around the statue. A lot of the tiny lights are dotted around the maze, making them look like tiny fireflies. It’s a recreation of our fateful night but a lot classier. Damien’s events organizer would make my mother jealous if she were to see this. Maybe he’s not being malicious.
My heart warms as he draws a chair and gestures for me to sit. I perch myself onto the plush chair and Damien goes to sit on the other end of the small round table. A server appears out of one exit with a bottle of wine and pours it into the two glasses on the table. Damien waits for the server to leave before lifting his glass to his mouth.
“Why are you wining and dining a sure thing?”
“You’re worth billions of dollars. Shouldn’t I savor the moment?”
“So you’re not doing it out of some twisted vengeance?”
He takes a sip of his wine. “Drink,” he says. Or more precisely, orders. I stretch my fingers under the table to release tension and when I’m sure they won’t shake with nervousness, I take a sip of the wine.
“Delicious.” It tastes old, decadent, and European.
“It should be. It’s an expensive barrel of Bordeaux. Your birth year, actually.”
“Wow. I don’t think you needed to woo me. I am a sure thing.”
“Mere coincidence.”
My cheeks redden and I take my gaze away from his own intense one. The hunger in his eyes hasn’t lessened ever since we came here. I turn my attention to the fountain next to me. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
“How can I not? This place holds special memories, after all.” His words are tinged with hurt he can’t erase, even though he tries to sound nonchalant. I have never apologized to him. My goal was to explain myself and when I found out I was pregnant, all I wanted was to let him know about Lake, and when he refused… Well, it all turned to rage. “Damien.”
I am interrupted by a team of servers carrying plates of food. They place the starter in front of us and leave once again. The food looks amazing. Miles better than the stuff I’ve been eating for the past eight years. I follow Damien’s lead and bite into the little bread with mushrooms and liver on it.
“How was Lake when you left him?” Damien asks.
“He’s getting along with Greta. When I called, I could hardly speak to him. He was too enamored with the toy plane you gave him.”
“I’m glad he likes it.”
“Look.” I put down my spoon. “I understand why you’re doing all you can with Lake, but you risk spoiling him if you grant him his every wish.”
“What’s wrong with giving him the life I never had?” He takes another bite of the bread.
“For one, you risk turning him into a trust fund baby. I thought you hated those.”
Damien leans back into his chair, having finished his food. “I’m only making up for lost time.”
A retort is on the tip of my tongue. If you cared so much, you shouldn’t have ignored me. The truth is, it is looking more and more likely he will never admit it. He was young. He wanted to achieve his dreams and party. I’m sure the possibility of my pregnancy struck him, but he didn’t want to go through with it because a child would have put a hold on his ambitions. The more I think about it, the bitter I become. Not because I had to have Lake, but because he could live his life without facing consequences. “You shouldn’t have ignored me,” I finally say, tired of bottling my feelings.
He sighs, “This again.”
“You brought it up.”
“I would never refuse my son.”
“And I would never hide him from a father who wants him.”
“I guess we are at an impasse.”
We enter an uncomfortable silence that’s broken by the servers coming again with plates of the entrée. One takes the empty plates away and the other places the ones with food on the table. I choose to focus on the food once they’re gone. Ignoring Damien, however, is hard. Sometimes, his leg will brush against mine and now and then, I can feel his fiery gaze on me. It’s searing and searching, driving me insane with need. It makes no sense. “You hate me,” I say out loud without intending.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why do you want me?”
“Don’t you want me to? I know what I feel is not one-sided.”
“I do.”
He takes in a harsh breath. “At least that’s one thing we can agree on.”
Energy crackles in the air. We say no more to each other for the rest of the meal, preferring to eat in silence. After we’re done, we leave the maze and take a stroll on the grounds of the estate, consciously avoiding the parts with the most painful memories. We walk in the opposite direction of the cottage while making small talk. The evening is warm enough for me to not need a jacket and Damien is considerate enough to use the pathways instead of walking on grass. I tell him about my business and he tells me about his.
“Were your partners mad at you for not being able to secure the sale?” I ask.
“A few were pissed they couldn’t get their hands into Hawthorne Inc, but most have been understanding. Since I have a board seat, Nolan and I have agreed to share ideas on how to take the company forward.”
“Nolan and you?” The last time the two spoke, Nolan looked like he wanted to take Damien’s eyes out.“What changed?”
“Maybe he realized that I was telling the truth. That the company is stagnating, and it needs a little freshening up. Malls are going out of fashion and if Hawthorne Inc clings to department stores, the brand will wither and die soon and so will the company.”
“I’m just surprised he’s willing to take your advice at all.”
“He can be stubborn, but he’s willing to see sense sometimes.” We come to a stop and I soon realize that we are now a few feet away from the cottage. Out of everything here, it looks the most unchanged.
“I thought you have demolished it brick by brick.”
His eyes shine under the bright moonlight. The starlit sky makes him look like a dark and irresistible entity coming to take me to the netherworld. “The thought came to me, but it’s too cute to destroy. I suppose the investor in me won.” We’re somehow standing too close. My breathing becomes erratic as he takes another step closer. “You shimmer.” His voice is as low enough to be a whisper. “Like a nymph.”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Damien’s arm wraps around my waist, and he gently pulls me to him. “Yes. But not like this.” Before I can ask what he means by that, he dips his head and licks my lips, coaxing my mouth open. His tongue tastes of the peppermint he took at the end of the dinner with a faint hint of the vanilla dessert we had. But there’s nothing vanilla about the way he kisses. He devours me until I am weak and putty in his arms. His hands are all over me all at once. They slide up and down my back, gripping my butt, caressing my neck, driving me insane, arousing the desire within me that’s been bubbling all night. His erection probs at my belly and my body responds with a spark of electricity traveling to my center.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he whispers against my lips. I draw his mouth back to mine and he gasps. Confirmation that he’s driven by desire, just as I am, is all I need to be bold and deepen my kiss. I feel his hands go down to my thighs and up my dress. It’s my turn to gasp when he lifts me and wraps my legs around his waist. I continue kissing him as he makes his way. Where? I don’t know. A few moments later, he hits against a barrier. A door. He opens it and we enter the dark interior. He flicks a light switch, and I let go of his lips.
We’ve entered the cottage. It looks almost like nothing has changed except maybe that it has been cleaned. Everything else is in its place. A time capsule of that night. I feel a prickling sensation in my tear ducts as I realize what this is. The dress, similar to the one I had eight years ago. The dinner at the center of the maze. And now the cottage. I wrestle myself from his embrace, and he lets me go without a fight.
“Nothing is coincidence,” I say, looking around. It’s as if I’ve traveled back in time to eight years ago.
“Take off your clothes.” The intensity of the desire in his voice is only matched by the darkness on his face. He looks like a person who will not take no for an answer. Nor do I want to refuse him. As pathetic as it sounds, I want to take part in this twisted punishment he has in store for me. I step back a few paces until I am a couple of inches away from the bed. Slowly, I open the little zipper on the side until the dress is loose enough to slip out of.I remove my arms out and let it fall to my feet. His nostrils flare.
He steps forward, his eyes glued to my body. I try not to let the intensity of his stare get to my insecurity. My body is no longer what it was like back then. My hips are fuller and my breasts are bigger, but my belly is a little loose and there’s a dark line on it where a c-section was performed. I try not to think of the thighs that aren’t as toned as they used to be and the breasts that aren’t as perky. I raise my chin in defiance.
“Take off everything,” he says.
Trembling with excitement, I remove the scrap of lace covering my pussy and slip out of my shoes. I don’t know what sixth sense made me groom my pussy a few days ago, but I thank it right now.
“Kneel.”
I fall to my knees on the shag rug in front of the bed. He steps forward, unbuttoning his pants. Such a move should not be as sexy as it does to me, but my mouth waters and my center clenches as he unzips his fly and pulls out his thick throbbing cock in front of me. He doesn’t need to issue a fourth command. I take hold of his cock and stroke it, a little mesmerized by its size. Pre-cum seeps out of the tip and without thinking, I lick it. I lick the head before taking it fully into my mouth.
I lick and suck, taking more and more of his cock. My gaze wanders to his face, and he brushes my hair as though in approval. The slut in me rejoices at this and I take more of him. The little slut takes over. She wants to please him. Pleasure him and drive him to the brink of ecstasy. She is so aroused by the act that I rub my nipples. One hand holds his cock in place as he thrusts while the other wanders down to my pussy, eager to rub a throbbing clit.
“Don’t touch yourself.” His voice is rough, making his command that much fiery. I let go and I whimper in frustration against his cock. He thrusts even faster. His movements become jerkier and the grip on my head tight. He’s about to come. I prepare myself for a flood of his seed in my mouth, but he abruptly pulls out. I look up at him, wondering what I’ve done wrong.
“Get on the bed.”
I stand up so I can sit on the bed, but he quickly turns me around and positions me so that I am on my knees, facing the headboard. I hear the rushed rustling of clothes. Foil paper being ripped, the sound of latex rolling down on skin, the bed dipping and finally, his hands gripping my buttocks. They slide down to my pussy and stroke an attention-hungry clit. His fingers dip inside me and he groans when he feels how wet I am. “Fuck, you’re such a slut. How does one punish a slut when they’re so hungry for it?” I moan and arch my back, too aroused to note what he’s saying, “So needy.”
He withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his throbbing cock. I scream when he enters me. He’s too big. My pussy feels too tight around him. He pauses. “Is it too much?” It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone. The last time I slept with someone was here. With him. Suddenly I feel exposed. As though he can read my thoughts.
I shake my head and thrust backward. “No. Please don’t stop.”
He thrusts inside. Slowly at first, as though he’s unsure if I am telling the truth. Then he increases his pace and with that, the pain disappears and pleasure soon takes over. His strokes are rough, quick, and deep. Punishing. Brutal. And yet…sweet. My knees buckle and my chest drops to the bed. Damien keeps his unrelenting pace. His hands grip my thighs tightly. The zipper of his pants hits my butt. My nipples brush against the duvet. Flesh slaps against flesh. Harder and harder until he freezes, jerks, and floods into the condom. He thrusts in two more strokes and my orgasm comes rushing and I cry into the bed linen as I ride the wave of ecstasy.