by Alexis Angel
"It's about time," she says, opening the door and looking at me with her hands on her hips. Her eyes are judging me from all angles. She's wearing a black dress with a particularly short hemline and I wonder what new man she's chasing.
"It's nice to see you too mom," I say. See? I told you. There's no warmth from that woman. Ever.
"Don't give me that look, Becca. Dinner is scheduled for 7, and you're late."
I look at my watch. I'm literally late by three minutes. Honestly, it's such a negligible difference that it's not worth arguing with her about, and she wouldn't care to hear about how busy I was at Kane Price, so I drop it and try to lighten the mood.
"The table looks nice," I say, walking into our formal dinning room. And I mean it. She's managed to set up an extravagant flower arrangement in the center. "What are those, orchids? Are they real?"
"Yes, don't touch them. They're also rare."
She's such a spaz sometimes. I wasn't even considering touching them, so I don't know why she even bothered saying that. I realize what the orchids remind me of. They're the color of unripe bananas—not quite yellow, but not quite green either. I have to say, they definitely make a statement by how unusual they look.
"If only you gave everything as much attention as you do to your flower arrangements," I say with the roll of my eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks. "Oh, don't tell me you want to go down that road again—complaining about what kind of mother I've been. Poor mistreated Becca, is it? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you had a fairytale childhood."
"If you mean the kind of fairytale where the princess is locked in a gilded cage, then sure," I shrug. Does she really not understand that all I ever wanted was her undivided attention? I didn't want to always compete with Joe Fabulous, her flavor of the month.
Just then, our Butler Carl walks into the dinning room, which freezes our hostile banter. "It's good to see you tonight, Becca," he smiles.
At least someone exudes some warmth around here.
He's carrying in the night's appetizers, a basket of warm dinner rolls with Rosemary browned butter. I try to stay away from butter, generally speaking, but this is to die for. It's that good. He's also bringing in Pancetta crisps with crumbled goat cheese and pear chutney.
Eating at home can be a decadent affair. Let me tell you.
"You should really watch your posture," my mom says, tapping me on the back and breaking my food trance. Was I slouching? My mom is never short on criticism. That's for sure.
"I'm fine mom," I snap. I'm in no mood to let her give me shit all night long. My patience only goes so far. I'm not a kid anymore.
Before she can say anything further, we hear the doorbell ring. "I'll get it," I offer. I walk over, unlatch the lock, and open the door.
At first, my eyes have to adjust to the darkness. And it takes my mind a minute to realize who's standing in front of me. There's no doubt that it's a man. A big strong one at that.
He's tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing a perfectly tailored suit.
And he has cobalt blue eyes.
That piercing gaze could only belong to one man … from one night not too long ago.
What the fuck is he doing here?
"Are you going to invite me in, or are you going to stand there all night?" he asks with an open-mouthed smirk. His perfect white teeth seem to glow in the darkness.
For a moment I wonder if an ego that big will fit through the door.
Because standing in front of me is a guy I’ll never forget.
The guy who gave me the best sex of my 21-year old life.
Mason Kane, in the flesh.
Mason
She's staring at me like she's some fucking deer in headlights, and honestly, I'm just as surprised as she is. What are the chances of running into the woman I fucked in a bathroom stall the other day at a bar? Especially here at Lorna's house.
I'll admit; she looks good in that tight skirt she's wearing and I'm reminded why I decided to fuck her in the first place, but I can't afford to get distracted right now.
"Are you going to invite me in, or are you going to stand there all night?" I ask.
I don't have time for the awkward gawking. It is what it is.
I don't want to be here, so it's best to get this all over with as quickly as possible.
She steps back and motions for me to step inside, but still hasn't said a word. This should be an interesting dinner.
I walk inside and look around the place. It's not bad. Lorna has an eye for decorating, and there's certainly a level of opulence. I'll give her that, but that's the only good thing you'll ever hear me say about that fucking woman.
"Welcome, Mason," Lorna says. There's a chill to her voice. Instead of her normal pantsuit attire, she's wearing a black dress that ends well above the knee and a pair of 5-inch black heels. "Please, have a seat." She waves her hand toward the dining room.
She walks over to the long dining room table and motions for me to sit in a chair adjacent to her own, which makes me feel like I'm trapped in a real-world game of chess where she's the queen capable of any move, and I'm just one of her pawns.
If you think that somehow sounds exciting, you're wrong, Gorgeous.
"I'd like to introduce you to my daughter, Becca," Lorna says. I try to stifle my surprise. What the fuck? This is Lorna's daughter? Given our impending marriage, will this now make Becca my stepdaughter? If that's true, then I've fucked my own stepdaughter and the thought of that throws my brain for a loop.
"A Pancetta crisp, sir?" her butler asks me, breaking my train of thought. I smile and nod, and take one. I place it in my mouth and realize it's better than what I was expecting—sweet, salty, and crisp, like bacon, but better, and it's topped with goat cheese and pears, and the sweetness cuts through the salt in all the right ways.
Maybe dinner won't be entirely bad. At least I'll get a good meal out of it.
The butler comes back and begins pouring me a glass of bubbly Chenin Blanc, and when I take a sip, the crackly carbonation matches the crisp Pancetta in a way that makes me smile despite the fact that I'm sitting next to a snake thinly-disguised as a woman in a skin-tight black dress.
"Now that we're all here, I'd like to make an announcement," Lorna says, tapping her wine glass with the edge of her silver spoon making a tinkling sound that breaks our silence. Becca and I both look up. I'm dreading what's about to tumble out of her mouth. It could fucking be anything.
She continues, "Mason and I have gotten engaged."
The sound of someone choking comes from across the table and I see that Becca is having a hard time swallowing her dinner roll. I wonder if I'm gonna have to perform CPR, but she recovers by gulping down her entire glass of wine.
I can tell she's trying hard to contain her surprise, but she's clearly floored by this news. The same thought that crept into my mind has now probably made it into hers.
"You are full of surprises mother," she says. "Shall I say congratulations, or would that be too soon? Maybe I should wait and see if this marriage lasts longer than all the ones before it?"
Lorna bristles at her comment. "Instead of being a bitch, I think you should try and show your mother a little respect."
"Respect?" Becca asks. "Is that what you call this? That's hilarious."
"Careful, Becca. I'd hold that tongue of yours," Lorna says, and her chilly words bring a renewed silence. The kind of deep silence that accompanies a winter storm.
I don't know what's going on between these two, but I'd say they don't have the healthiest of relationships. But can anyone really have a healthy relationship with this devil in disguise? Even I know that anyone who gets close to this bitch gets burned. Just look at what happened to her father.
Their butler, Carl, enters the dining room again, this time bringing us plates of steak. I eagerly cut into it with my knife and see right away that it's a "black and blue" steak, which seems to sum up the way my bruised confidence is feeling righ
t now. It's seared on the outside—almost burned really—but when I drag my knife through it, I see a mixture of blue and red on the inside, and I don't just mean a little rare, but fucking raw. It's blue and bloody, and while I rarely shy away from a good, thick steak, I'm not sure I can stomach this one.
Don't give me that look Gorgeous. You think true meat connoisseurs should enjoy their steaks raw? Well, have you ever eaten a "black and blue" steak? It's a fucking obscene and violent way to eat a slab of meat, and in my opinion, it's a fucking red flag when it comes to sexual partners, and maybe that's why Lorna chose it. Mark my words. Run for the hills.
The problem for me is that even though every fucking alarm bell is going off in my brain, I can't run for the hills. I'm fucking stuck.
I find myself pushing pieces of the steak around my plate when Lorna's cell phone starts vibrating.
"Excuse me, dear," she says, placing her hand on top of mine as she pushes her chair back from the table. "I need to take this call."
Dear? That word from her mouth makes my stomach lurch even more than it already is.
As soon as she's gone, Becca turns to me and says, "You're an asshole. You could've told me. You could've given me some sort of a heads up that a freight train of fucked up news was going to plow into me."
"It's not what you think," I say.
"Is that so? It all looks pretty obvious to me. Do you get off on 'stepdad-stepdaughter' role-playing or something? Is that why you fucked me? Or maybe that isn't it. Are you after my mother's wealth or something? I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of this," she says. "What's in it for you?"
"Look, slow down. First, I had no idea who you were that day at the bar," I say. "I had no idea that you were Lorna Lowell's daughter. And second, I have enough wealth without your mother's. I haven't been called the King of Wall Street for nothing."
"So what is it then? Are her tits that impressive? Has the head of your cock swollen so much that your brain has lost all ability to reason?"
This is a side of Becca I've never seen before. I have to say, she looks kind of hot all riled up like this. This girl has spunk.
"None of the above," I reply. "This has to do with my position with the board."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, tucking her blonde hair behind one ear.
I'm really not in the mood to re-count the whole story to Becca, but I figure this may be my only opportunity. I need to set the record straight.
"Your mother owns a large stake in my company, Kane Price," I say. "So large that according to company bylaws, I had to give her a seat on the Board of Directors. And she's now in the role of Chief Counsel advising all investment matters."
"But I still don't understand," Becca says. "Why would you have to go and marry her? Where's the connection?"
"She basically held my hand to the flame."
Becca laughs. "Give me a break. You're a grown man. Why wouldn't you just say no?"
"It's not that simple," I say, "and if you've watched the news at all, you'd see I recently got myself in a bit of a fucking mess."
"That's putting it mildly," she replies.
"She threatened me. If I didn't agree to marry her, she'd not only bring me down, but the entire company as well. You may not believe me, but I actually give a shit about the thousands of Kane Price employees. Their livelihood is at stake, just as much as mine is."
"Well, I'm still pissed you didn't tell me," Becca says.
"It wasn't my choice," I reply. "That night, I had no way of predicting this."
I can see by the look in Becca's eyes that she still doesn't believe me, but it's too late to convince her any further because I hear Lorna enter the dining room.
"What wasn't your choice?" she asks, her voice sharper than my steak knife.
Fuck my life.
I need to pull something out of my ass to placate her and smooth things over. This should be interesting.
Becca
I watch as Mason tries to cover his tracks with my uber bitch of a mother.
"I was talking about this steak," he says casually. "Becca asked how I could possibly eat my steak this rare, and I just said it wasn't my choice."
Mason looks at me, his eyes pleading with me to play along.
I agree to smooth the situation over with him and jump in with the lie. "Yeah, I half expect it to start mooing again at any moment."
"Grow up, Becca," Lorna says.
If that's the harshest thing she's got for me, I can live with that, so I let it go. What I can't live with is the fact that Mason consented to marry my mother. This feels like one big joke, where a camera crew is going to jump out from the kitchen and say, "Surprise! You've just been a part of one giant prank!"
But of course, I know it's far more serious than that. Still, how could he have agreed to the marriage after what we went through—rescuing me from Robert at the bar, the obnoxious banker who thought he was God's gift to women, and then of course what later happened in the bathroom stall… even he has to remember that.
I watch as Mason turns on the charm for my mother. He's completely ignoring me at this point. H's smiling a little wider, and his body is turned in her direction.
"Beautiful spread," he says to her, motioning at the table, and my mother smiles.
"I can show you a different kind of spread," she purrs, and I want to gag. I mean, literally fucking gag. But this feeling of disgust is mixed with something more … is it jealousy?
Yes, I admit that Mason can be a cocky asshole at times, but he's confident, successful, driven, powerful … and it helps that he's hot. Scorching hot. The good outweighs the bad. Believe me.
Yes, he's technically old enough to be my father … and I guess he is my father now … well, stepfather, but that doesn't make it any less strange, and I mean, if I'm honest, the moment I placed my hands on his chest and my fingers traced the hard edges of his rippling muscles, I knew he was truly a god among men.
He's ripped. Just thinking about those eight, perfect squares of muscles in his abdomen makes me wet. And I can't even think about his faultless 12-inches of manhood … unless I want to be instantly soaking wet during dinner.
If Mason is feeling the same as I am, it's impossible to know because he's completely playing along at this point. He smiles and places his hand on hers.
I watch as the two of them engage in friendly, albeit slightly flirty banter, and I decide to take the evening into my own hands.
"You two are perfect for each other," I say, taking another sip of wine. Carl's been doing a good job of keeping our glasses full all evening.
They both turn and look at me, caught off guard by my remark.
"I thought it was too premature to suggest congratulations," mother says.
"Oh, it is," I continue, smiling, "but who knows? Maybe two wrongs will make a right?"
Now I have Mason's attention. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.
"I just mean that I could never seriously date a man who publicly blows his load on one of the biggest financial news networks."
I figure I should use reverse psychology. If I talk about what he can't have, he'll want it even more.
"That's not my proudest moment with the MarketWatch anchor, Stacy Sawyer," he says. "It wasn't planned; it just happened."
"Just happened?" I ask. Give me a break. Things like that don't just 'happen.'
"Well thankfully you've got me, dear," Lorna purrs devilishly. "That'll never happen again."
I can almost detect a grimace on Mason's face, but he does a good job of hiding it. It goes undetected by my mother.
"You should really think about settling down, Becca," my mother says. "You aren't getting any younger."
I've heard this spiel before. Settle down. Get married. Have kids. As unconventionally career-minded as my mother is, she's also annoying conventional in terms of the advice she insists on dishing out to me.
"I'd settle down if I ever found a man worth settling down for," I reply.
>
I can feel Mason's eyes on me. He has a look that says he's mentally undressing me. Good. That just means my approach is working.
"You can understand that, right Mason?" I ask. "A woman needs a strong, powerful, driven man. A man who is equally powerful in his career and personal life, and who can keep up with me and … what's the correct word here? Keep me satisfied?"
"Satisfied?" he asks. He's shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
"Yes, I need a man who has his fingers on the pulse of my life, if you know what I mean," I smile. "Would you know anything about that, Mr. Kane?"
I can see him take a nervous gulp. His large Adam's apple bobs up and down his throat. I have him in my grasp, and I'm loving it. It's not every day that a woman can say she's made Mason Kane, the Wolf of Wall Street, nervous.
I sit up straight, purposely pushing my breasts out and I give him a deeper view of my cleavage. My mother doesn't notice. She's a few glasses of wine deep at this point in the evening, and is in her own world. I decide to take advantage of that.
Carl brings us a plate of figs, sliced lengthwise and drizzled with honey.
"Do you like figs?" I ask Mason.
"Sometimes."
"You have to know how to eat them," I say, and I decide to demonstrate.
I pick one up and hold it delicately in between my fingers. I make sure Mason is watching and I slowly bring it to my mouth, parting my red lips and then dragging my tongue across the flesh. I lick the sweet honey off of it by dragging the tip of my tongue across its glistening, soft, split ripeness.
Mason's visibly uncomfortable. There's a hunger growing in his eyes that can't be sated by the food on this table. He's shifting his weight from one side to the next in his chair, and not knowing what to do with his hands, he leans back and rubs the back of his neck. I wonder how hard his cock is right now.
