“I’m tired of you insulting my fiancée, who on her worst day is smarter than you’ll ever be. Unlike you, she doesn’t have to prostitute herself to make a living. Unlike you, she’s not a whore.”
The crowd collectively inhales. Rather than concede that he’s been beaten, Richard, because he’s a dumb animal, strikes out. “Like your mother? Because she tried to sell herself to me. That’s where I got the idea that these stupid bitches could be screwed out of their money and into submission.”
I shake my head. “You’d think you’d shut up while you could, but no.”
I punch him again, and he goes down. This time his nose is bleeding as well as the corner of his mouth. Someone—Kaga, I think—shoves a handkerchief at me to wipe away the blood on my hands. But I don’t want to wipe it away. The sight of his blood ignites a fire inside me. All the hate and rage I’ve stored up against him is roaring, and the blood is fanning the flames. Red is all I see.
Howe scrambles back as I stride toward him. Like a scuttling crab, he moves backward until he hits a chair and then a potted plant and then a wall of people. There’s nothing more that I want to do than pick up a chair and bash his head in until he’s not able to talk again. Not able to breathe again.
I’m reaching for the back of a cloth-draped chair when a small hand presses against my arm. “It’s done. Don’t waste your time with that animal.” It’s Tiny, and the rage recedes slightly at her words.
“He needs to pay,” I say through gritted teeth.
“He has. He will. Look around you,” she urges.
The yoke of revenge and hatred still weighs me down. With great effort, I lift my head. The crowd has gathered close, and on their faces I see shock, dismay, and even some satisfaction…which so easily could turn if I press too hard. His father is in the grip of Kaga. I ease back.
“Mr. Fairchild,” I say loudly, trying to regain my composure. A handkerchief is offered again. In fact, not just one but several are being offered. This is a gesture of support, and I’d be stupid—stupid as Howe—if I didn’t take it. I see one being offered by Kitty McFarland, a scion of the community. “Thank you.” I bow my head in a courtly gesture.
She gives me a grim smile. “You look like you need it, son.”
“I do. Fairchild,” I repeat. “I think we’re ready for that announcement. Since Mr. Howe is indisposed, perhaps you can do the honors.”
“Of course! If everyone would gather over here by the dais, I would love to share the generous donation that Ian Kerr has made to the Frick Foundation to benefit the citizens of New York City.”
I take Tiny’s hand and walk toward the dais. Behind me I hear a scuffle, and we both turn back. Richard is being forcibly helped to his feet by two brawny young servers. They begin to drag him out of the atrium with Kaga directing. I give Kaga a nod of appreciation and he returns it.
Turning back, I wrap my arm around Tiny and draw her close.
“Does it hurt?”
“My hand?”
She nods.
“Yes, because I only got to punch him twice. It would hurt a lot less if I got to hit him at least ten more times.”
“I think the pain will lessen with each day. Didn’t you once tell me that?” She’s referring to her mother, and hell, maybe she’s referring to mine too.
“And was I right?”
“You were. But this is the only time I’ll admit it.”
“Good enough for me.”
We stand there then and listen to Fairchild extol the virtues of Sophie Corielli, the mother I had gained for a short time and then lost. But she left me her most prized creation, and that was a bigger gift than any monetary contribution I could ever provide. My arm tightens around Tiny’s shoulders, and she leans into me, placing a hand over my chest.
“I love you, Ian Kerr.”
“I love you, soon-to-be Victoria Kerr.”
TWENTY-FIVE
O
UR
LOVEMAKING
THAT
NIGHT
IS
more tender than fierce, as if we are both comforting each other.
“We’re going to make a baby tonight,” I swear as I thrust slowly inside her.
“Is that right?” She smiles at me, a wicked thing full of naughty promise. Her arms are stretched high above her head, and she undulates slowly beneath me, enjoying the slippery friction of our bodies moving against each other.
Her eyes are half-lidded, weighed down by desire. Through the curtain of her lashes, I see the glow of her eyes. It’s a heady mixture of love and lust, of want and need, of passion and promise. Each stroke of my steel-hard desire is met with her own driving fervor.
“That’s right.” Bending forward, I capture a jutting nipple in my mouth and am rewarded with an arched back and a breathy moan. With one arm, I gather her more closely to me so that she is nearly suspended, pinned to the bed by my rutting cock. “I’m obsessed with you,” I confess, panting slightly. The hold of her snug walls on my cock makes it hard to think. I want to just fall on her and plunge repeatedly into her soft core until my shaft explodes in a mania of pleasure. “I can’t stop thinking about you or wanting you. Everything I do now and forever will be for the sole purpose of making sure that you are fucking satisfied in every way.”
My words are punctuated with increasingly harder thrusts. She meets them readily¸ swiveling her hips and using her feet and legs to meet every press.
“I love your cock,” she moans. “And your mouth.”
“They love you too, bunny.”
Inside the slick recesses of her sex, that cock is pushing toward a finish, and as she begins to tremble around me, I realize I am not alone. Holding her firmly against me with one arm banded around her back, I slip my free hand between us to find her clit.
With my erection hard inside her and rubbing her sensitive tissues with each stroke, she comes apart at the firm caress of my fingers on her delicate flesh.
“Oh,” she gasps and then cries out, “Ian! Please. Now.”
Her words release me, and I thrust inside her with jerky, uncoordinated movements as the orgasm rolls up the base of my balls. But I hold off because I want to her to come with me. I want to feel her milk me until I’m coming so hard that my brain detonates in my head.
“I will want you forever,” I growl into the soft mounds of her breasts. Then, biting down on her tender skin and her plump curves, I mark her. She screams out in ecstasy, her head thrown back and the long line of her jaw exposed to my ravening mouth.
As she shatters in my arms, I jet all the seed ever created into her body while she clings to me like I’m the only port in a storm.
“I wish Mom had seen what happened at the Frick tonight,” Tiny sighs, curling into me. I roll over to fold my arms around her and tuck her into my body.
“She’s here with us.” I stroke her damp back, lightly dusted with sweat from our bed play.
“I hope not,” she jokes. “Like I hope when she’s watching me she takes a few breaks so she doesn’t see this.”
“See what? Me fucking your brains out?”
Tiny rises up on her knees and pushes me onto my back. “How about
me
fucking
your
brains out?”
“Look away, Sophie,” I say. “Your daughter is about to defile me. Worse, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it.”
The entire weekend is spent in bed, exploring and making sure that baby gets made.
O
N
M
ONDAY
, I
FEEL
ENERGIZED
.
And I realize that for the first time, I’m not waking up with the bitter knowledge that my family’s destruction has gone unavenged. In my more rational moments, I acknowledge that letting go and moving on might have been the honorable things to do, but I doubt they would have been as satisfactory.
Page Six
is full of the weekend’s entertainment, but the front page is even better. Below the fold is an article mentioning the troubled fortunes of mayoral candidate Edward Howe and the speculation that he will be dropping out of the race.
Kerr Inc. stock is up when news of the blocked takeover bid by disgruntled board members is leaked by Jake to a reporter friend. That’s all he had to leak to her. The rest of the information she was able to run down on her own.
On the Arts page is a write-up of the gift to the Frick honoring Sophie Corielli. It’s all good today.
The phone rings all morning with congratulations and thanks and innuendos about my mother. The rumors will always dog us, but at least most of the truth has been revealed. Because Kerr Inc. stock is high, I sell a portion of my shares before lunch to start shoring up Nessie’s fund. It saved my business having that fund, and I’d like to get it to solid levels again. It will take time to dig out of the financial hole I’m in, but it will happen.
I’m dragged out of my office by Kaga for lunch at Morimoto.
“It’s all Kerr, all the time in the New York papers. One would think you bought off the press.”
“I did. I bought them with a salacious scandal full of sex, old rivalries, and doomed political futures,” I counter.
“It was an expensive night,” he answers thoughtfully. He’s referring to the information Howe revealed about my mother.
“That was merely the rantings of a madman.” Some people will believe it. Others won’t. I’ll have to live with that.
Kaga dips his head slightly. He won’t ask any other questions. “I’ve been speaking to the director of the Frick about making a donation, but I’d like to tie a specific request to it.”
Now it’s my turn to shake my head. “Sabrina isn’t interested in being a curator at a museum.”
There’s hardly any change to his expression, but I sense his discomfort. I don’t know that anyone’s called him out on his obsession before.
“And you know this, how?”
“Because she wants to be a DJ. I believe she’s expressed that desire more than once to you and Jake.”
He waves his hand. “That was a passing interest when she was a teenager. She’ll be graduating and wanting to enter the real world with a good career.”
“I’m pretty sure that her answer to this will be ‘bullshit.’ Or something even more candid, if I recall Sabrina correctly.”
Kaga narrows his eyes. “You know something. Tell me. Tell me right now, or I’ll be forced to kill you with my chopsticks.”
I feel like living on the edge, so I just smile at Kaga, willing to suffer the consequences. Given that I walk out of Morimoto’s without harm, it seems like every bet I’m making is coming up aces.
TWENTY-SIX
TINY
M
ARCIE
AND
I
ARE
WALKING
down Amsterdam to pick up lunch at Grandaisy Bakery when I see it.
“Marcie.” I shout, pointing toward the street. It’s unnecessary. She’s already off, halfway into the street. In the middle of the intersection between Broadway and Amsterdam there’s a baby carriage. Marcie leaps in front of a cab that’s screeching to a stop. Before she can get to the carriage, another car speeds through the intersection and strikes the carriage, sending it careening to the west side of the intersection.
Another vehicle swerves to avoid striking it but hits another car instead. The sounds of horns, screeching brakes and crunching metal fill the air.
I start toward the carriage, but before I can even take a step, a hand pulls me backward. Stumbling and off-balance with my arms wheeling in circles in the air, I’m pushed forward into the back seat of a black town car.
Before I realize what’s happening, Cecilia Howe is shoving the rest of my body inside and closing the door.
The car takes off immediately, positioned conveniently to head north on Amsterdam and away from the scene of the collision. Confused, I turn back to see if Marcie has saved the baby. Behind us I see cars stopped haphazardly, and toward the southwest corner, Marcie is standing at the side of the carriage, one hand holding a phone to her ear and one hand in her hair scanning the horizon. Scanning it for me.
Shit
. I scramble toward the door, but when I try the handle it’s locked.
“Child safety locks.” Cecilia looks smugly at me. “The door can only be opened from the outside.”
“Fuck this,” I say and press down the window button, but I’m defeated in that too. It’s either broken or some kind of child safety control prevents me from rolling it down. Finally I bang on the raised privacy screen, but there’s no response. “What the hell, Cecilia?”
“It’s been a very bad few days for me,” she says. Holding out her hands, she displays her fingernails, some of which are broken and all have chipped polish. The skin of her hands looks particularly pale and thin.
“This is a bad idea. You think Ian was mad before. He’ll be like an enraged bull; everything will get destroyed.”
“You have so much. You should have just left us alone.” She folds her arms and looks out the window. We’re heading crosstown now toward the Upper East Side.
I pull out my phone, but there’s no signal. She must have some blocking technology in the car. I debate my options. Until the vehicle stops and someone opens the door, I’m stuck in the car. I have to assume that the driver is in on this. Settling back against the seat, I start to plot. Fine. When the car stops, I’ll jump out and run away. I’m healthy, fit, and fast.
Cecilia took me by surprise. That’s the only reason I’m sitting in the back of this car right now.
“Did you set up the carriage thing? Was there even a baby in it?” I ask suddenly.
“People are very easy to manipulate. A child in danger? That’s more important than anything, even you.”
Ian and I are so dumb, so shortsighted. We’ve never viewed Cecilia as anything more than a flighty society wife, but she obviously knew about Richard’s activities. And here she created a stupid but clever diversion that separated me from Marcie and got me into the car with no violence at all. I view her with respectful wariness. Maybe jumping out and running won’t be enough. I feel like I’m stronger than her. My job was one of physical exertion, cycling up and down the streets of Manhattan. Surely I could subdue her in the car.
“I wouldn’t try,” she says, with a slight nod downward. A small, round barrel is pointed directly at my belly. At this close range, she could hit me without even trying. I haven’t ever handled a gun before. Or driven a car. Or been kidnapped. Holy Christ. I kind of want to laugh. This is all so ludicrous.