Why did people do that?
Have frames aimed outward instead of inward?
My true crime here, of course, was being discovered. I knew even the Dean was banging one of the students—in his case, a history postgrad.
His wife definitely wouldn’t appreciate knowing James had a thing for men.
Sometimes, it was like being back a hundred years in the past.
These dalliances occurred, everyone accepted it, so long as you weren’t caught.
I wouldn’t say anything. Indeed, saw no need to, but the hypocrisy was alarming.
“This won’t affect Phoebe’s graduation?”
James shook his head. “I can rely on the integrity of your grading, can’t I?”
I snorted—couldn’t stop myself. “If anything, I’ve been too harsh on her.”
“Thought as much.” James hummed and his fingers slipped against the rim of his desk. “She’s magna cum laude, Nicholas. The girl deserves to graduate.”
Pride blossomed inside me, even as relief followed it—James was right, Phoebe did deserve to graduate. All her hard work, and caring for Scottie too? She deserved a damn medal.
“I’m glad,” was all I said however.
“Dare I ask—”
“I’m going to marry her,” I interrupted before he could piss me off.
James’s eyes widened. “Does your mother know?”
I bared my teeth at him. “Since when do you think I listen to mommy dearest, James?”
“True.” He winced. “Dammit to hell, Nicholas. Couldn’t you have waited? I’m losing a fine professor because of this idiocy.”
I couldn’t stop my grin. “Would you avoid Liam if you could?”
Though James’s cheeks flushed, he caught my eye with a despairing glance that told me his predicament. Except he had the ties of a wife and children, who had no idea he was gay.
They wouldn’t understand, of course. There was no forgiveness in the world James and I inhabited. Just as there’d be no forgiveness for me when I brought Phoebe into our society. She wasn’t cut from the right cloth, was born on the wrong side of the city, and therefore, was considered worthless.
To me, however, she was everything, and Gina and my parents had better watch themselves if they thought they had a cat in hell’s chance of wrecking what I had with her.
Though I’d make Gina pay for this, I felt no compunction in shaking James’s hand in farewell, heading out of his office, and subsequently leaving the faculty.
It was rather freeing, in fact.
My life had changed the day Phoebe walked into it, and maybe I’d been waiting on this moment since then.
I didn’t want to be a professor anymore.
I didn’t need to be.
Not now.
Was it strange to be smiling the day that my ex-wife’s plans to ruin my life came to fruition?
Perhaps.
But I was going to enjoy it.
Every fucking moment of it.
Neither Phoebe nor Scottie were at the loft when I returned, and I headed toward my desk, collected the packet I had inside the locked drawer, and with a whistle, headed out pretty much as soon as I made it in.
I didn’t bother grabbing my car, instead, I caught a cab to the office which pulled up outside the park where I’d fingered my woman a few weeks ago. The city was teaming, so busy it was miserable. If anything could put a damper on my day, it was that.
I was, I realized, beyond tired of this place. As vibrant as it was, as alive and frenetic, I was ready for something different. Greener pastures, a change. I supposed I just had to convince Phoebe of that.
As I paid the driver, I wondered if I could get Phoebe to agree to at least visiting France. I bet once she arrived there she’d love it, and knowing her past, she would never have imagined a trip there was even possible.
Wondering how we’d go around getting a passport for Scottie, I determined we’d have to adopt him, which would mean I’d have to find her mother. It ran the risk of her worming her way back into our lives, but I was okay with that—especially since we were going to head out of the country soon after.
Still, those thoughts were for later.
When I turned to look up at Gina’s office, I laughed to myself before I began the approach to the gleaming glass doors with a smile. I was feeling remarkably cheerful, if anything. Sure, her ploy had worked, but the war hadn’t been won.
If anything, I’d be the winner because her career meant everything to her, and with this proof? I’d be wrecking it, as well as dampening everything that her parents worked for.
I should have felt guilty, instead, I felt nothing short of delight.
For so long, I’d believed myself a monster because of Gina. It was finally time for her to face the consequences of her actions.
Arriving on the correct floor, I couldn’t help but feel that it was delicious that the only reason I managed to see her boss was because of my father’s name, a name that meant nothing to me, but was important in the city. When he saw me, I smiled at him, handed him the documents, and murmured, “I’d like you to deal with a little problem I’m having.”
He frowned at me. “What kind of problem?”
“I have a stalker, and I need a restraining order. I’d like you to arrange that for me.”
Nicholas
Eight Months later…
“I have a gift for you.” When she ignored me, I sighed. “Phoebe?”
She retained her focus on the stage ahead, a boring musicale my mother had insisted on attending.
“In fact, I have two gifts.”
She still ignored me.
Sulking was her favorite way of making me pay, and dammit to hell, it often worked.
In the darkened shadows of my mother’s box at the opera, I leaned close to her and, straight in her ear, hissed, “Spread your legs.”
I felt her immediate tension, watched as she turned her head to glower at me. “Fuck. You.”
“Please do,” I purred. “Are they spread?”
She gritted her teeth so hard, I feared for her jaw. And when her left eyelid began to flutter, I whispered, “Do it.”
She fought me, God, how she tried. But she didn’t and couldn’t succeed.
This was our code.
One she had to obey.
Even if she didn’t want to.
It was my mastery over her body, the rules I’d inadvertently set in stone at the inception of our relationship, that had her spreading her legs and obeying, even though she wanted to throttle me as she complied.
Her eyes promised death but I welcomed it, so long as it was at her side.
I smirked at her, aware that would infuriate her all the more, but that was what I wanted.
Her fire.
Not her ice.
My mother was like liquid nitrogen. Capable of freezing even a woman like Phoebe, especially when she lorded it over her, using our family’s name and wealth to scare her.
Take tonight.
It was the first time I’d introduced my parents to the woman who was my everything, and they’d brought us to the fucking opera.
I loathed the opera. They knew that. You didn’t have to have blue goddamn blood to appreciate this shit, and yet they’d done it to frighten her. To make her realize what she was and where I came from.