by Ward, Deena
I had to tell you all of this finally, because I don’t know what his influence on you might still be. After what you said last night, how you defended him, I think it’s only right that you should know the truth.
I wanted to tell you everything after the auction the night of the ball. When I realized from your response to my criticisms of Michael’s behavior, how much he had worked on your sympathies, I was afraid that saying anything more against him would only tighten his hold on you. So I said nothing more.
For confirmation of what I’ve told you about Michael and our family matters, feel free to contact Xavier or Paulina Martin. You already know Lilly’s phone number, and she can put you in touch with the Martins. It’s still difficult for Lilly to talk about what happened with Michael. I know I can count on your discretion.
I don’t care if what I’m going to say next makes you angry. I only hope you’ll listen.
You are too good for Michael Weston. He doesn’t deserve you, in any way at all.
There. Now I am done with the subject.
A few last things before I finish. First, a confession.
The night I met you, I knew you were an innocent, in terms of BDSM. I wanted to be sure of what I believed I saw in you, without overtly influencing you. I hoped you would return to the bar to try to find me, so I had a number of people take turns watching the bar, keeping an eye out for you.
The plan was that one of my watchers would introduce themselves to you and see if they could tempt you into going to Private Residence. If they were able to do this, they would contact me and I would go to the club and watch your reaction to the people and the place itself. Your reaction would determine whether or not I would make myself known to you.
I wanted to see your reaction without any pressure that my company might bring to bear. It seems absurd now, but it made sense to me at the time. That is all I can write in my defense. I over-complicated what should have been simple.
Lilly overheard me asking the Martins to take a turn on watch, and she wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to let her have a shift. That is why Lilly met you that night.
As for the rest of it, obviously, Michael attached himself to you before I arrived at the club, he sent Lilly running, and there you have it.
I should have trusted my original instinct, instead of playing a game. I apologize. I hope you won’t blame Lilly, who saw it as an adventure and something she could do to help me, not as something underhanded or dishonest.
Lastly, I must write a few things about what happened at the Frederick Hotel.
It was never my intention to humiliate you. The events of that night underscore the reason why I should confine myself to experienced, trained submissives. Training and evaluation is a talent I obviously lack, even more so than I had formerly believed.
The reason I left you so abruptly that evening was because I had to attend to Aunt Rose. A member of the staff at the nursing home called a few moments before I arrived at the hotel and told me my aunt had been asking for me. They were worried she would get too agitated if I didn’t visit her some time that evening.
I should have cancelled our meeting then, Nonnie. But I wanted to see you, thought it would be okay if I kept it short and sweet. Also, it isn’t uncommon for Aunt Rose to ask for me, and I knew from experience that I could wait a few hours before going to her.
It was selfish of me, selfish to leave you so soon, and selfish to make Aunt Rose wait. Once again, I apologize.
I appreciate you reading this and giving me a chance to explain myself more fully. Please do not respond to this email, as I would not want you to think for a moment that I might be expecting anything from you. I am not.
I only hope for your future happiness and well being.
Regards,
Gibson Reeves
I didn’t know what to think. I reread the letter, taking extra time with certain parts of it. It felt good to have so many things explained, to let go of some of my resentment toward Gibson.
When he wrote that I was too good for my current life, I found it impossible to be angry with him about it. How could he know how hard it had been for me to achieve the little I’d managed to get for myself? He couldn’t understand that I’d been too busy surviving to think about bigger and better. Could someone like Gibson Reeves, with his background and privilege, be expected to understand that sometimes simple survival is success?
I had mixed feelings about the information at the end of his email. I was surprised to learn that he set me up to be led to Private Residence the first time. I reread that part over and over, trying to understand his motives for such complicated maneuverings. He could have just given me his phone number and been done with it. I didn’t understand why I needed to be tested.
Gibson, come to find out, must be an important man, and perhaps that was why he wanted to test me. Someone with his kind of influence and money surely had to be cautious about who they associated with, and maybe that had something to do with the game he played with me. I didn’t know. At least he confessed to what he did.
I could not blame him for leaving me to go to his aunt that night at the Frederick Hotel. However, I had a difficult time accepting that the hard, harsh lesson he taught me that night, too hard and too harsh, was due to his inexperience training and evaluating submissives. It seemed more personal than that, at the time.
Then there was all the information about Michael. What to make of it all? If it were true, then Michael was an abominable liar who had deliberately made me think the worst of Gibson. Why? Why would he do that? Because he was threatened by my interest in Gibson? Because he hated Gibson?
I tried to recall everything Michael told me. He said his father had multiple sclerosis. Not cirrhosis of the liver. The information about the blood pressure med jived in both versions, but described from different viewpoints. Michael insisted his family received little help from Gibson’s father, and none at all from Gibson himself. Michael said injustice, not a head injury, had driven his mother insane.
It was difficult to judge which version sounded more true. I did remember reading an article on the Internet about Gibson taking over a nursing home. Could that have been Rose’s home? Likely, it was. So there was supporting evidence, of a sort.
Michael had said nothing at all about Lilly Smith and his connection to her. Gibson could not be lying about that; it would be too easy to check it. I believed Gibson about Lilly, about her being fostered by the Westons and then later by the Martins.
The big question in regards to Lilly, though, was whether or not I could believe that Michael had seduced and used her so horribly. Did I believe that?
I didn’t want to believe it. How could I want to believe it? I had cared for the man, for a while anyway. I had trusted him. For a while anyway. I even thought I might be in love with him, for a while.
I couldn’t call Lilly and ask her. I couldn’t call the Martins, either.
In all honesty, I didn’t need to.
No matter how much I didn’t want to believe it, I knew it was the truth. All of it, about what Michael had done to Lilly. Knew it like a bone-deep ache.
Even after all this time, I remembered the look on Lilly’s face when she saw Michael that night at Private Residence. Fear. I dismissed it, but it was fear. And discomfort. And it came from a girl who, earlier in the night, had cooly spurned unwanted males with no hesitation and no mercy. Michael, however, as Gibson wrote in his email, sent the formerly-confident Lilly running.
It was true. I knew it.
If I had allowed him, how far might Michael have gone with me? He had played me well, and I wasn’t some twenty-year-old girl in the throes of first love.
When I left Michael I knew I had made an escape of sorts. I hadn’t realized how truly great an escape it was, until now.
I remembered Gibson warning me to protect my interests around Michael. I understood what that meant now.
I remembered Elaine telling me there were two sides to every story.
I was beginning to think that all the truth of those two parts fell entirely on one side -- Gibson’s.
Michael saw my attraction to Gibson, and when he realized I had made a connection with Gibson, Michael said whatever he needed to say to make sure I stayed away from his rival.
A sudden flash. I remembered Michael standing outside in the hallway the night of the ball, waiting for me, waiting for Gibson and me to leave our private room. The look on Michael’s face.
That look. I had read it as vulnerable pride. But that wasn’t it, not at all.
Michael had been standing out there, waiting to find out if Gibson had told me the truth about their shared history. I recalled the strain in Michael’s voice when he asked what I talked about with Gibson, how the strain disappeared when I told him it was nothing.
Bastard. Then he used my guilt to lure me to his apartment one more time. And I didn’t want to think about what happened there. I never wanted to think about that.
I stared at Gibson’s email, heat suffusing my limbs and face. For a while, I hated both men. I hated Michael for obvious reasons. And Gibson, I hated him for getting me involved in all of this in the first place, and for not telling me the truth about Michael from the beginning.
I couldn’t stay angry with Gibson for long. He had tried, I supposed. I had to admit that he tried to warn me, especially at the ball. But it was too late, then. I was already turned against him by Michael’s lies.
I spent the rest of the evening in thought, remembering, sorting the details, refining my understanding. When it was past time for bed, I sat down and wrote an email.
Dear Gibson,
Thank you for that. And I apologize to you, as well. I shouldn’t have said much of what I said, and I regret it.
I wish you, in return, happiness and well being, always.
Best wishes,
Nonnie Crawford
I hit send. Off it went, for better or worse.
Then thirty seconds later, it came right back, with the message that my email was undeliverable. Address not found.
Well, Gibson hadn’t been kidding when he said he didn’t want a response from me.
I supposed I could mail him a real letter, or call his office, or the private number he gave me all those weeks ago.
But I wouldn’t. He clearly didn’t want any more contact with me.
I didn’t understand him. Everything I once thought I knew about him was now in doubt. His every action which I thought supported Michael’s claims against him, I had to rethink now. All of it. Everything.
Who was Gibson Reeves? I was unlikely to ever get an answer.
Chapter 9
Days passed in a kind of muddy flow, time moving thickly and sluggishly. We heard nothing at work about the purchase of the company. I heard nothing about Gibson.
Nights were the worst. I went out with my girlfriends a few times, and out with the Hoytes and some of their friends a few other times. It was difficult not to tell Elaine about Michael’s lies. Gibson hadn’t told me it was okay to tell others, so I held my tongue. I could have used Elaine’s opinion, though.
Michael texted me once more, another command that I phone him. I didn’t respond, and when another week passed with no further contact from him, I was hopeful that he had finally given up his pursuit.
I accepted a date with one of the Doms I met the night of the Hoytes’ play at Private Residence. He was a nice man, good looking, around my age, friendly, responsibly employed. But when he touched my knee and suggested we go to his place, I declined.
When he called for a second date, I told him I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t his fault. I simply didn’t feel anything when he touched me.
He didn’t know he had competition in the form of a specter who visited me in my dreams nearly every night. Damn that Gibson Reeves.
I called Lilly twice, chatted, didn’t ask about Gibson, although I wanted to. Lilly and I went out shopping together one Saturday morning. It was pleasant, and I enjoyed her company, her bright personality.
I asked her if she were still seeing Scott. She said she was, sometimes. She asked me if I was seeing anyone, her voice hesitant. I told her I wasn’t, and that made her smile.
And so the days wore on, another and another. And I began to wonder when I would be done thinking about Gibson Reeves. Make it soon, I thought.
I didn’t know what I would do with him if he suddenly reappeared in my life. I didn’t know much at all about the man I couldn’t stop thinking about, the man I couldn’t stop comparing others to.
I lost a few pounds.
So at least all that crap was good for something.
It was Tuesday, nearly three weeks since the disastrous night that Gibson asked me to move in with him. Isabel called me and two department heads into her office.
Isabel steepled her hands on her desk and said, “I’ve been asked to send some people to the headquarters of Roundtree Holdings for the next few days, and I’ve chosen you three to go.”
My heart slammed in my chest. Gibson.
Terry and Sloan, the heads of the accounting and sales departments, respectively, nodded gravely. I think my mouth fell open, or something equally moronic.
Isabel said, “They wanted people who have a wide knowledge of what we do here. They’ll want to question you some more, and they want you to spend some time with them, checking out how they do things, and giving suggestions about how our company might fit in their organization.”
Terry said, “Okay then. Wow.”
Sloan asked, “So they’re serious? They’re going to buy?”
Isabel shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. We can be sure it hasn’t been ruled out yet, at any rate. I hope it goes without saying, that we want to continue to make a good impression on them.”
Terry and Sloan murmured “of course” in unison. I nodded.
Isabel told us what we would need to take with us, told us we would meet in our office at our usual time and Roundtree would be sending a car to ferry us to their headquarters. We were to plan on doing this both Wednesday and Thursday, and perhaps Friday, too.
Isabel asked me to stay behind after the other two left.
She eyeballed me, hard. “Why do you look like that?”
I didn’t have to ask what she meant. I answered, “I just ... I’m not sure why you chose me. There are others here who are more knowledgeable than me. They should go.”
Isabel said, “True, some people know more than you do. But it doesn’t matter. Terry and Sloan can handle that part. I need you there because I trust you. You’re going to be my eyes and ears.”
“I don’t think I’d make a very good spy.” Especially not since all I could think about was seeing Gibson.
She smiled. “I don’t want you to spy, girl. I want you to meet people, take a look around, remember everything. Get a general impression of the employees, how they do things, how everyone is treated. Get some idea of what we might expect if they do purchase our company.”
“Okay,” I said, “I can try to do that.”
Isabel said, “I’m serious about this. Don’t let them pen you up in some office. Slip away if you have to. Get around. Get about. If you get caught, play dumb. Use your charm and good looks. That’s what they’re for.”
“You really do want me to spy for you.”
“Did I ask you to sneak around and get in their files? No. Just meet and greet, listen, ask the right questions. My only regret is that Gibson Reeves is out of the country right now, so you won’t have a chance to get to know the chief himself.”
Was I happy or sad that Gibson wouldn’t be there? Part of me was relieved. The other part, disappointed. At least it took away much of my nervousness about being put on this task.
I said, “Okay then. I’ll be your eyes and ears.”
“Good.” She looked at me for a moment then said, “I’ve asked a lot of people now about Roundtree, and I’m still convinced it would be positive for us to be bought out by them. Gibson Re
eves, however, is an enigma that I’d like solved.”
Wouldn’t we all, I thought.
She continued, “In the business world, there are different kinds of wealth. There’s a wealth that brings fame and importance through public interest. These are the tycoons on the covers of magazines, in full-page spreads in newspapers, on Web sites and blogs. They may as well be entertainers or athletes.”
She said, “But there are other kinds of wealth, and the most powerful, wealthiest kinds are also the quietest. You won’t read their names on a list of the country’s richest people, even though they control more wealth than the people on the list. If their picture is taken at a charity event, that picture doesn’t get published. If they date a supermodel, that supermodel instantly loses her newsworthiness.”
“What I’m saying is,” she continued, “money and success can buy you fame. But really big money and really big power can buy you perfect privacy, anonymity. I think it’s possible that the latter kind of rich man is what we’re looking at in Gibson Reeves.”
My mouth suddenly went dry.
Isabel laughed at whatever she saw in my face. “It’s not a bad thing, Nonnie, if that’s what Reeves is. He could make things happen for this business that we can only dream about.”
I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. I nodded, willing my face into blankness.
Isabel smacked her hands on her desk and said, “Enough of this speculation. Just go and see what you can see, hear what you can hear. And then come back and tell me all about it.”
I smiled weakly. “Okay, I will.”
Shortly afterward, she sent me on my way. I returned to my office and stewed over my upcoming trip to the headquarters of Roundtree Holdings.
After hearing what Isabel thought about Gibson, that she believed he was some kind of super-wealthy, super-powerful tycoon, I was relieved I wouldn’t be seeing him on my visit. I wouldn’t know what to say to him. I was in something akin to a state of shock.
