The Mistress and the Mouse

by JJ Giles

  “Fuck you!” She launched out of the bed to put some distance between them. “None of this matters because you’re getting married with or without me. So why don’t you just haul it on down the road and marry your little society chick or whatever the hell she is and have a nice life?”

  He slumped to remember those cruel words that day, words spoken in anger, rejection, in the haze of drunkenness and despair. He hadn’t even remembered them since then, but that was the real hurt in this for her. To think she had been cast aside for someone prettier, wealthier and younger...on her fortieth birthday.

  Somehow he had forgotten all about it.

  “Morgan...” He pleaded for patience.

  With a sarcastic sneer, she turned from him and grabbed a robe.

  “Honey, there’s no one in this world for me but you.”

  Quickly, she turned and bored down on him like an ominous storm cloud. “So you were just jerkin’ me?” It sounded as if he attempted murder.

  No, it hadn’t been just to hurt her. It was more of a defensive action. “Morgan, that morning I thought my father had been kidnapped and just my fear of that scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t talked to or seen my father before that for ten years...except once. But to think he was in that kind of danger scared the shit out of me. And then to find out he only moved out pissed me off.”

  “What? You didn’t know you loved your father?”

  “Honestly, no. Not until that morning and the thought that he was gonna die really fucked me up. And then I got back home and you were definitely more interested in what was going on with him than your birthday present.”

  “That seemed to be what was on your mind that day!”

  Without will, his chin dropped to his chest. He had always known she loved him, but not quite enough to marry him. “If I had given you a chance to answer, if I weren’t equally afraid of suffering yet more rejection, were you going to say yes this time?”

  She recoiled from the question. She wasn’t getting married. But hell, maybe she should get married. What the hell. But that was a miserable reason to marry him or anyone. Not doing anything better that day. She couldn’t answer.

  “Morgan, I don’t want to be alone anymore like my father is alone, Alex is alone, even my stupid mother is so very alone. And there’s no other woman, Honey. There never has been. I can’t even get it up for another woman unless you tell me to.”

  She snarled a little, thinking of Caroline Gregory. “Brian, we weren’t alone. But for some reason, you think that being married is insurance against loneliness and being alone? It made your father all the lonelier.”

  “I understand that now. And all I really want is for things to be the way they were. If you just tell me you can still be in love with me, that’ll be plenty good enough. If you just tell me that someday you can get over what I’ve done.”

  She could only stare incredulously. The man before her was her sweet little Mouse, yet he wasn’t anymore, somehow. That he was Brian Abernathy, the Brian Abernathy still didn’t compute into any equation she could decipher.

  The thought of Jerry Abernathy and his desire for her chilled her now. That Jerry merely paid her invoices for as long as she had sent them as he would pay the electricity bill. That there were no ridiculously expensive gifts to gain her undivided attention. Not even extravagant dinners, only that trip to St. Maarten and only because he needed her. Jerry didn’t use his money to impress her but then neither had Brian in all these years. Brian was just there, adoring her, making her birthday cakes by himself even though they looked like screamin’ hell and tasted worse. Even though those cakes had a taper from the dining room table plunged into the center of them.

  Confused, she moved to the end of the bed and fell on it. He turned a little but not fully, so as to be closer without smothering her.

  Ah...not one but two incredible men and a sister on the side, she thought bitterly. Even now, if her life depended on being married it would have to be Jerry. Jerry knew who she was. Brian didn’t.

  “Your father?” she gasped. “How is he part of this?”

  With that, he had to get away. “I gave him your name, Honey. I gave him more than your name. When I saw my mother so beat up that time, I went to the Tower and told him if he didn’t get some help I was going to the prosecutor.”

  She nodded, remembering Jerry’s version of that. As if the last piece were carefully cut, it made sense now. Like the mythical Morgan le Fey, she was supposed to cure them all. “You wanted me to discipline your father?” Her eyes narrowed with the prospect of it, as if their relationship required the performance of a Herculean task. “You wanted me to fix this? To save your mother.”

  It was an accusation. Quite still, as if death were rapidly overtaking him, he nodded.

  “Honey, there was nothing there to fix. Your mother is, uhh...” She was going to say something derogatory, something unfit for a son to hear.

  “I know that now. I didn’t know that five months ago but living in the Mansion this last five months, I’ve seen it. I’m pretty certain who my mother is even though I didn’t want to believe it and I’m still in shock. But I know that now, Morgan.”

  “Me...discipline your father?”

  He hesitated. “That was the idea, misguided as it was. Cherry stayed in the penthouse with me last night, I think, because Dad thought I was going to commit suicide over this entire mess I started. Cherry laid out my errors for me quite succinctly. That anyone, including you was never going to get the old man on the floor and that was a natural fact. A law of physics, if you will. Yet Dad was vulnerable in a way I never believed was possible and so were you after I walked out.

  “So imagine my shock when I came to the penthouse to see him last night and it seemed no one was home. I open the door of the Lair and heard the water running in the cleaning room...”

  Her entire body convulsed. “...and you saw me.” Never had she wanted him to know that about her.

  “I never knew, Morgan. I would have thought those e-mails of his would have roused something akin to revulsion in you. It never occurred to me they’d turn you on.”

  “Stop.” Hopelessly, she was ashamed of that very thing. And she curled to protect herself.

  Quickly, he jumped up and went to her. Carefully, he sat her on the bed next to him and wrapped her up. “I don’t want you to be ashamed of that, Baby. I just never knew. And then Cherry told me about the weekend you were in St. Maarten...and all the fun you had... Honey, I just never knew.”

  “Now you do.” She wriggled away from him to the other end of the bed. But she was unable to look at him. And then she remembered Cherry’s glowing appraisal of her brother’s talents.

  Her thoughts, her fears the very foundation upon which she stood seemed merely the gravel loosed before the mountain crumbles and gives way to lie in a pile of ruin.

  Pursuing her, he crawled toward her. “Honey, it’s alright. I can take care of you.”

  Violently, she shook. “So I’ve heard.”

  “Cherry explained that she unwittingly told you about me.”

  “Forgive me, but I don’t think we’ve met.” The sarcasm returned.

  “Morgan, damnit.” He was frustrated now. “Honey, it’s still me. And you don’t begin to understand the kind of exceedingly comfortable and safe environment you create for people. The kind of acceptance you offer to people who absolutely abhor themselves.”

  “Your father tried that one on me a couple of nights ago.”

  “Honey, it’s true. You make it so easy for people to forget about their problems. You brought me home with you that night and I never gave my family another thought for years. I can’t tell you what made me start thinking about them again. Dad thinks I must be out of my mind to expect you to marry me and then find out who I am. He’s probably right. But I don’t want to have to live that life anymore. The reporters, the cameras always watching. The security people constantly around.”

  “Yet, there’s something in yo
u that wants your family.”

  He shrugged.

  “Your father loves you desperately.”

  “I know that now. It wasn’t always so evident, but then I was still a kid not paying a lot of attention. And I’ve judged him very harshly. The hell of it is, it wasn’t even him who beat my mother up last April and I went to the Tower to issue a threat. And he’s not holding it against me, either. He does love me.”

  “And you very much love him. And realized it the day you left me thinking he had been kidnapped.”

  “Yeah. But to think you would accept the real me, the prep school-yacht club-Billionaire Boys Club brat...I didn’t think it was possible. Dad thinks I’m wrong about that, too.”

  The churning inside of her gave way to tumult. She was at least partly responsible for this. Her constant raving about people who can buy and sell anything including love was a very big part of this mess. Ah, but she was in love with them both. How could she ever choose between them now knowing it would do irreversible damage to their relationship? Separate them for all time. And break her heart into so many pieces they could never be retrieved and she would never be whole again.

  “Why did you have to do this?” Her face contorted with sheer agony and she curled onto the bed again, a pillow to her aching gut and wept.

  “I’m so sorry, Morgan.” His own tears mingled with hers as he wrapped around her, clutched to her in near desperation. She turned a little and he pulled her to face him, to hold her head to his shoulder as together they wept over an incomprehensible tangled web.

  “Baby, I love you so much,” he whispered over and over and over as if the very repetition of it could pierce the fabric of any storm cloud and cause it to dissipate. “I’m so sorry.” With every gasping breath as he held even tighter, sobbed ever more softly trying to soothe her desperation.

  Tenderly, he licked at her tears and drank them down. “I went to the Tower yesterday morning. I had his divorce papers...he was happy about that. And then I gave him a wedding invitation. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he opened it. Something inside of him died to see our names on it. I knew then it was true....what Cheryl claimed. That he was in love with you...is in love with you.”

  But she pushed away only enough to stare into him. “Wedding invitation?”

  “Yeah. Alex and I have spent the last five months planning this fabulous wedding. The point is that Dad didn’t know who I’d been living with all these years. It really has him wrecked although he claims that somehow it will work out. I can’t imagine it at this point. Someone, if not all of us is going to be hurt badly here. And I’m so sorry, Morgan.” Addled, he raked through her tangled hair. “I certainly didn’t mean for the world to stop turning.”

  “You’ve been planning a wedding for you and me?”

  Simply miserable, he nodded. “I know how ignorant and selfish that was. When I told Alex how stupid I am he said we should go ahead with the plans on the off-chance you might accept this time. He’s really had a lot of fun with it.”

  To be his wife was something she always wanted but so many things stood in the way. Who he really was and would never tell her was the least of them. The pressure he exerted on her was uncomfortable at best, stultifying at worst. “I’m sorry.” If it had been a few days ago the fact that she was a murderess would have been enough. Now there was a man who knew what she’d done and still loved her.

  Confusion swelled up like a toxic cloud.

  “I’m sorry.” Aching, she slipped out of bed.

  “Morgan.”

  “I’m sorry.” She disappeared into the closet.

  For a short moment he laid there shivering and knew that she was leaving him now. She popped out dressed, a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, her hair barely straightened in a scrunchy.

  “Morgan, please don’t leave.”

  She stood still, peering across the room at him. Again, her face contorted with unspoken agony. “I can’t fix this.” And then she turned and ran.

  “Oh, God,” he screamed like a wounded animal. His first inclination was to break something as she obviously had, the shattered mirror looking very much like the creases in his soul. But hadn’t he broken enough lately? Her heart and soul, his hopes and dreams, his father’s life and will, and maybe the stock market? Broken more than enough as he paced for a moment and then made to chase.

  But what would that do but piss her off again?

  He stood at the top of the stairs and peered down the circular expanse leading to her, wherever she was now. He had expected so much from her, miracles in fact. She had helped so many people, fixed so many hearts, repaired so many souls. Only now he understood why his family couldn’t be saved.

  Debilitated, he went in search of his father. He opened the first door and heard the muted sounds of a man in sleep. Soundlessly, he walked in, left his clothes by the bed and slid between the sheets. With a modicum of curiosity, he tried to remember a night before he left Morgan that he had slept alone. There hadn’t been any, he realized, and he nudged closer to his father.

  Jerry’s eyes fluttered to the feel of a warm body inching closer. Instinctively, he turned toward it and felt the hard contours of a well-built man. He smelled the hair, the skin. It was still his little boy, his precious little baby, and he reached out and wrapped his arms tightly. Filled with gratitude, he pulled Brian’s back to his chest and held tightly to offer to his beautiful son his love, his protection, but most of all his forgiveness as his son wept in his arms.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  In desperation to escape, Morgan ran through the kitchen and out the back door into a dismal day, the rain clouds ready to explode. But there was no escape as the straight strands of shimmering black hair shivered when Cherry turned to the sound of a tortured sob.

  Morgan stopped still to stare into those generous blue eyes a moment. “You’re everywhere.”

  Cherry tossed her head and smiled. “You’re Catholic. Abernathys are, too. Most of us are very fruitful and multiply. The only problem for the world at large is we’re at the top of the food chain.”

  Morgan smiled a little yet fell into a chair simply exhausted.

  “You are in a great deal of pain right now,” Cherry noted softly.

  Morgan could only nod because Cherry was a sister to one and a daughter to the other. Anything she would say they would hear about.

  “Two incredible, exciting men who love you. I’m glad I’m not you right now because how in the hell would you choose between them?”

  Morgan shook a little to hear her thoughts so easily spoken.

  “I’ve been sitting here thinking about that very thing for a while now. If I were Morgan, what the hell would I do other than cut my throat or drive a filet knife into my liver?”

  “Did you come to a conclusion?”

  “Yeah.” Cherry grinned broadly.

  “Pray tell.”

  “I’d tell ‘em both to fuck off and marry Cherry.”

  For a moment Morgan stared into those delightful and beautiful blue eyes. And then she burst into laughter, the horror of the morning’s razor sharpness softened with the humor of it.

  “You think I’m jerkin’ ya’, Baby? Trust me, if they can’t get their shit together, they are out of it. Cherry knows what she wants. And Cherry is absolutely vicious in the pursuit of it, family or not.”

  Still smiling, Morgan sat back a little and relaxed. She’d never really known a woman she had so much in common with...attitude-wise. Perhaps their commonalties ended there. Yet on second thought, it was perhaps only their economic status that separated them. That was also true of her and Brian.

  Yet she was flattered.

  “Just keep me on your list of suitors, Darling,” Cherry said. Hungrily, her tongue swept over her lips to freshen the shock of raging red there.

  Very much wanting to keep Cherry with her now, she asked, “Can I get you something?”

  “I already drank all your coffee. So how ‘bout I go fix us a drin
k and we’ll take a walk.”

  Morgan nodded. She looked around to see where Kitty might be. But if today was Thursday, it was Kitty’s errand day. Or maybe it was Wednesday and Kitty knew they needed food in the house, the population having tripled in twenty four hours time.

  A rocks glass with two inches of bourbon was placed before Morgan. “Oh, shit.”

  “Too early?” She emptied Morgan’s glass into hers and went back to the kitchen. She returned with a quart jar of orange juice.

  “Thank you.” Morgan was genuinely grateful for the help.

  Cherry stood before her with an outstretched arm. “Let’s get some blood back in your brain so you can think.”

  Once again, Morgan grasped that slender hand in desperation to be led away from her travails. They moved over the soft earth out of the garden of Brian’s unlimited imagination into the trees stretching long into the roiling sky. The scent was fresh, comfortable, the darkness under the leaves the perfect light for brooding.

  “I can’t believe I’m screwing my boyfriend’s father and his sister,” Morgan raved with moral indignation.

  Cherry laughed and wrapped her arm around Morgan. “Abernathys keep it all in the family, Honey. It cuts down on the press when a jilted lover wants to collect a fee for services in the form of blackmail.”

  The misery in that thought assaulted Morgan. It never occurred to her to have to be careful who she fell in love with for fear of future retribution. “But you have a lot of girlfriends.”

  “Yeah, but the first important one left me with some serious problems. She did want something to keep her mouth shut and I called Dad about it. Dad told me not to be ashamed of what I am. So she sold her story to some rag, much like my mother did, and then it was all over. Happily enough the press is no longer interested in the fact that I like my women in leather and chains. How ‘bout that!”

  Morgan smiled and hugged a little tighter.

  “But I’m not exactly an important member of the tribunal,” she added. “I don’t stand to inherit control of the company. I don’t have to protect an image worthy of control of trillions of dollars worldwide. People tend to get a little edgy about giving you their money when you’re some kind of freak.”