I was awakened by a pair of horns blaring “The Eyes of Texas” in my ear. Like a lovesick teenager in a drunken stupor, I’d changed all my ringtones last night to ones with “Texas” themes in honor of the woman who’d broken my heart.
Huh! I jumped in my chair. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings, realize where I was and find my phone. It was in my front pocket. “Hello?”
“Hey, boss. It’s Kate.”
“Yeah, Kate! What did you find out?” My stomach lurched, and I wondered how close the nearest bathroom was. The rumblings in my gut warned me I was going to need one.
“Where are you, boss? What’s that I hear in the background?”
“Nothing. What did you find out?”
“Quentin, you’re in a casino, aren’t you? Those are slot machines I hear, aren’t they?”
I rubbed my aching temples with my fingers. “None of your fucking business, Kate. Now what’s the matter with Sophie?”
Kate’s mission had been to call Dr. Morgan pretending to be Sophie. She was to say that she needed to reschedule her appointment and obtain as much information about the upcoming doctor’s visit as she could without coming across suspiciously.
“No need to be so testy. I’m just jealous. Stuck in a cubicle all week, ya know?”
“Sophie, Kate! What the fuck is wrong with Sophie?” If I could have reached my hands through the phone to strangle the information out of her I would have.
“God, anyone ever tell you that you are not a morning person?”
I seethed quietly and took a deep breath.
“Well, I don’t know if you would say anything is wrong with her, boss. But this Sophie chick—she’s pregnant.”
“What?” Something in my throat caught, and I choked.
“You okay, boss?”
I dropped the phone on the floor, sputtering. I picked up a watered-down drink next to the slot machine I was sitting in front of and took a slug, refusing to acknowledge that I just inhaled some cigarette ashes from a drink that was likely not mine.
When my coughing fit subsided, I picked the phone up off the ground. “Sorry. Dropped the phone. Tell me everything you found out.” My legs shook, and I scanned the room for a waitress.
“Well, your plan worked like a charm. They believed I was her. I asked them if there was anything I needed to bring to my appointment, and they said the only things I needed to bring to my first prenatal checkup were the date of my last period and a list of any medications I’ve taken, though they recommend I stop taking everything. I rescheduled the appointment. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure. Just call back next week and cancel it, all right?”
“Sure thing, Quentin. You all right? I take it this is not good news?” Having Kate be the bearer of this news over the phone while I sat in the Indian Village Casino with a raging hangover qualified as surreal.
“Uh yeah. It’s kind of a shock.”
But it was a good one. I’d been so afraid that I was going to lose Sophie in a permanent way that I hadn’t even entertained the possibility that she could be pregnant. Now it made sense—the fatigue, the decreased appetite, the fainting. And we’d been incredibly remiss about birth control.
“Okay, boss. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I hung up, slipped the phone back in my pocket and stared at the cartoon frogs hopping on the machine in front of me. Suddenly I felt as sober as a judge. I stood up and a fresh wave of nausea washed over me. A trip to the bathroom relieved me of my stomach contents, then I headed into the closest restaurant where I found a relatively quiet table in the back corner.
When the waitress came by I ordered a pot of coffee, a farmer’s omelet, a side of French toast, potatoes and a fruit plate.
“Worked up an appetite, I see.” She smiled.
I read her nametag. “Dee Dee, I just found out I’m going to be a father. I’ve gotta sober up and celebrate.”
Sensing a bigger tip might accompany my expansive mood, Dee Dee’s grin broadened. “Congratulations! What happy news.”
Happy and completely unexpected news. The more I thought about it, the more I concluded that Sophie already knew about this and had been keeping it from me on purpose. A twinge of anger rose in my belly when I thought about her keeping my child from me. My son. It would be a boy, I just knew it.
I had to remember I betrayed Sophie, at least in her mind. If we were going to move forward together even a step, I needed to look at this from her perspective too. At least try to understand where she could be coming from. Seeing as she was going to be the mother of my child, the least I could do was give her the benefit of the doubt.
Ever since Sophie left me, I’d tried to forget about her. Even though I’d put a Herculean effort into it, I’d never succeeded. While we’d been together I’d lied to her—catfished her really. From her perspective I had to be the most untrustworthy man in the world. I’d believed we couldn’t come back from that. I believed her when she’d said I singlehandedly destroyed what I loved most—her, and everything between us.
I’d taken an exquisitely innocent and beautiful woman, turned her into a filthy whore for my own enjoyment. Then, convinced of my penchant for destruction, I destroyed our love too. And I did it all to protect her. I should have known that no matter what I did, I would ruin it all anyway.
But now that Sophie was going to have my baby, maybe there was a chance for us after all …
5
Quentin
“You’re going to be a father?” Dr. Beckett appeared surprised at the news, but not to the extent I’d been.
I recounted for her the events that led up to my finding out this information.
“So you’re happy about this. Even though the mother withheld this information from you and presumably doesn’t want you to know.”
“She has good reason to be upset with me.”
“You said that you deceived her. Now, by not telling you about the pregnancy, she is, in turn, deceiving you.”
I thought I saw a hint of disapproval on the doc’s face. “I take responsibility for the turn things have taken between me and Sophie. What I did was rather unforgivable. I can’t blame her.”
“Why is that?”
“You have to understand that it all started because I was trying to protect her.”
“From you?”
“Yes. It may sound crazy, but after Kaitlyn tried to kill herself, I started to feel I was cursed. That bad things were going to happen to people around me.”
“Kaitlyn is your former submissive?”
“Yes. When we were involved she became too dependent on me, wanted more than I could give her so I had to break things off with her. After I did, she started stalking me—at least that’s what I called it …”
“What do you mean, stalking?”
“She found out where I lived, and I’d come home from working at the studio and she’d be there, on my back porch, naked except for a coat. I’d tell her to go home. Things would escalate. One time I had to drive her home and when I wouldn’t tell her I loved her she opened the car door while I was driving and threatened to jump out.”
“She sounds unstable.”
“I believe she was, so I cut off all communication with her. Not long after that she hanged herself.”
“In a suicide attempt?”
“Yes.”
“But she didn’t die?”
“No, but she almost did. She’s brain dead. Her mother harbors what the doctors consider to be false hope. I can’t blame her. If Sam had been put on machines, I don’t know if I would’ve had the strength to let him go.”
“You visit Kaitlyn?”
“Not often, but I do sometimes.”
“Tell me about that.”
“There’s not much to tell. I feel guilty. Like I should have been able to save her. Like if she’d never known me none of it would have happened.”
“But you weren’t in contact with her when she did it.”
&
nbsp; I shrugged.
Silence.
“You take on a lot of burdens. Some that might not even belong to you.”
“Perhaps.”
“What other bad things have you tried to prevent but failed?”
“My mother had cancer. I couldn’t stop that. Of course, my son’s death.”
Dr. Beckett nodded.
“So, when I saw Sophie growing closer, more dependent on me, I felt the need to put some distance between us.”
“Two thousand miles wasn’t enough?” I think the doc was trying to be funny, but I wasn’t sure so I ignored her.
“No. It was the emotional part I’m talking about. I didn’t think things would end well for her if she stayed with me, so I wanted her to realize that there were other Doms out there who could make her happy.
“I actually got the idea last fall when I got an email from a guy … I assumed it was a man because he said he was, but then I realized that he could be a female or a mass murderer or any number of things other than who he claimed to be. I mean, this is the Internet we’re talking about. Anyway, he said he wanted me to mentor him and help him become an online Dom.
“How did you respond?”
“By asking him questions about his expectations, asking if he had a submissive. When he said he hoped to be able to use my submissive I laughed and told the guy to get lost. But it got me thinking …
“I knew I was cursed. I felt guilty, like maybe I was getting paid back for the hardcore fantasies that ran through my mind all the time. I’d enjoyed objectifying women for as long as I could remember. And I don’t mean seeing them pose prettily in the center of a men’s magazine. I mean I love seeing them bound, gagged, and helpless. I love smacking their ass, hearing them cry in pain, seeing tears stream down their faces. That turned me on.
“It felt wrong to want those things, so I locked those fantasies away in the back of my mind for years. Until after my son died and my wife left. Until I had nothing left to lose if I let my dark side out to play. But when I did a girl wound up in the hospital.”
Dr. Beckett furrowed her brow. “You were not responsible for that, Quentin.”
She probably thought that’s what I was paying her to say.
Absolution for a price.
Fuck that. I knew better.
I continued, “So I took my play online. It worked for a while. Gave me an outlet that I desperately needed. I found the more I kept my sexual appetites alive, the easier the music flowed from my brain onto the page. Over time I had numerous online submissives. We used cameras, but there was always distance between me and them. Most had busy lives and even though I never knowingly entered into a D/s relationship with someone who was already taken, I suspected some of them were married and had a husband who wouldn’t abuse them the way I would. Not everyone understands the cravings those of us in Dominant/submissive relationships have.”
She nodded.
“Kaitlyn and I met online, but since she happened to live nearby, after a while she convinced me to meet her in person. Things between us disintegrated from there, and after that disaster, I went back to online only.”
“But things were different with Sophie?”
“Yes, from the beginning I loved how different she was from the other women I’d dominated. So sweet and innocent. The others had always come with a worldliness that comforted me. I never felt I was doing anything wrong with those women. They’d been around the block, you know?
“Sophie had been a breath of fresh air. A bright Easter lily peeking up through the snow, daring me to trample her with my boot. And I did. God forgive me, I did. I used her, defiled her, shamed her in every way I could think of. Yet she always came back to me that same fresh bloom with an open and giving heart. “
“Eventually you met with her in person too. Why did you agree to that?”
“Lust. Selfishness.”
I’d never told Sophie this, but it was then, the first time I laid eyes upon her, that I became hers forever.
The image of her sitting at the table waiting so patiently for me is burned indelibly into my soul. The memory haunts me—anticipation lining her pretty face, her dark hair tumbling down her back. Those luscious red lips of hers pursed into a nervous pout. Fidgeting with those long fingers, smoothing her skirt while her eyes darted around the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of me.
“But there were numerous women you were attracted to. Why do you think you have a unique response to her?”
“She was good. You know? She represented not only the good in the world, but the good in me. If I was dark, she was light. I wanted to believe she could save me from myself. But instead, I destroyed her.”
I could tell Dr. Beckett was going to challenge that statement, but I didn’t want to hear her bullshit so I plowed ahead. “As time went on I grew afraid that my darkness would one day completely eclipse the light in her, so I tried to dilute my influence with a ruse that now seems asinine at best, cruel at worst.”
“The one where you pretended to be another Dom?”
I nodded.
“I’d like to talk more about that next session if that’s all right.”
I shrugged.
That was in the past. When it had only been Sophie and myself, I was prepared to accept the dissolution of our relationship. After all, I’d been the reason for it.
Free of my dark influence, I envisioned Sophie returning to the happy, joyful life I wanted her to live.
But now that she was carrying my child, I had to find a way to let her light shine on me again.
I’d have to find a way to bury my dark side, because getting her back was my only option.
6
Quentin
That night I dreamed. Fitful dreams.
Dreams of Sam.
His voice called to me from the end of a long hallway. Following the sound of his voice, I tried to find him.
“Daddy,” the voice called, but each time I got close enough that I should have found him, the voice moved farther away. The hallway kept growing. Each time I sensed the end was in sight, I would reach it, but it would continue on.
A never-ending house of horror. The horror being that I could never reach my son. My boy who cried for me, who needed me, but whom I could never save no matter how many times I tried.
I woke up in a cold sweat, and as I lay there trying to get my breathing to return to normal, I realized that for the first time, it wasn’t Sam who had been calling to me from the end of the hall.
It was the child Sophie was carrying.
The next morning I got out of bed with the firm resolution to begin Operation Get Sophie Back.
We had problems, yes, but couples had problems. And when you had a child together, you had to work through those challenges or push them aside. As parents-to-be, Sophie and I would need to put our differences aside for the good of the baby. Or at least learn to live with them.
I was committed to it, but I wasn’t sure how she would feel.
To test the waters, I sent her an email telling her I’d like to see her. I offered to fly down to Texas if she would just agree to meet with me. When ten minutes went by without a response, I sent her a text message saying the same thing.
She ignored both, and I realized I was going to need reinforcements.
I wasn’t sure if Sophie’s best friend Sydney would be on my team or not, but I knew I’d be able to count on her mother Bunny. There was no way the society doyenne would approve of her daughter giving birth to her grandchild out of wedlock. And as superficial as it might be, Bunny was impressed that I’d won an Academy Award. She’d kill to be able to tell her friends that her daughter married an Oscar-winning composer. And at this point I wasn’t above exploiting any advantage I could get.
But having Bunny in my corner might backfire with Sophie. She and her mother had such differing views on most things that I decided to keep Bunny in my back pocket in case I needed some big guns. Certainly I could get her to back me up if I needed it
.
Bunny wasn’t the only member of Sophie’s family I needed on my side. The Davenports were a wealthy, important family in Texas. Tradition held a significant amount of weight with them. If I was going to do things right, I’d need Sophie’s father’s blessing before I asked her for her hand in marriage. They were a traditional family in that way. Since we were already mucking things up in the Davenport’s eyes by getting pregnant before marriage, the least I could do to prevent further issues with my future in-laws was carry out the proposal in the proper order.
I scrambled myself an egg, and tried to remain positive.
Sophie would get back to me. My seed was growing inside of her. She’d call me.
Only she didn’t call me back. She didn’t text, or return my email either. I had to take some deep breaths, but I was determined not to let this deter me. She was simply going to require some convincing.
Which was fine. Understandable even.
When Kate knocked on my door an hour later, I was online booking my airline ticket to Fort Worth for the upcoming weekend. “Come in!”
Kate let herself in. “Hey, boss, what are you doing?” Kate was currently staying with her family in Oregon, so when I asked her to come up, it was only a few hours drive. Kate was young, tech savvy, and usually she could do her job from anywhere. But today I needed her help in person.
“Just booking my plane ticket.”
“Oh? Where you going?”
I smiled. “Fort Worth.”
“That’s where your girlfriend lives, right—the pregnant one?”
“Technically she’s my ex-girlfriend, but she’s about to be my fiancée, so yeah. Same difference.”
Kate looked alarmed. “What do you mean? You haven’t brought her around yet?”
“Difficult to do when she won’t return my texts. Or my calls. Or anything.”
Kate let her backpack slide to the floor, and she scrunched up her eyebrows. “You’re not stalking this girl, are you Quentin?”
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