The Sunday Arrangement (27 page)

The Wednesday after
the threesome, my brother called. He said he’d be flying out Thursday morning
but that he’d need to be gone by Saturday for another business project he was working
on back in New York. I was thrilled—I wouldn’t have to deal with Toby being
there on Sunday. Despite all the work we had to do during the week, I still needed
to plan for my Sunday. I knew I had to plan lightly because I doubted Pierce
had much experience in the area I wanted to dabble in, and I didn’t have a lot
to go on either. I figured if we wanted to explore more in the area, we would
do it later on. At least, I prayed we’d continue with our Sundays after we left
Las Vegas.

I wanted to play
around with some light bondage—scarves, blindfold, light teasing. And I wanted
Pierce to be in charge, to dominate me completely. I trusted him on our Sunday
nights. He’d already been rough with me on our first encounter, and he didn’t
hurt me then. I had several scarves in my possession and a sturdy headboard. And
I could even buy another pair of the golden handcuffs that were now hidden away
in my drawer back at Hart Corp. Finally, I was going to get to use a pair of
them on someone.

My plan was to send him
a note to make sure he wore a tie. After all, we’d need a blindfold for the
evening that I had in mind. In order to get the message to him, I sent him a
pair of plastic toy handcuffs, a can of whipped cream, and a small box of
chocolates. The note said:

Mr.
Maverick,

Can
you guess what I have in mind? Please wear a tie.

~*~*~*~

I picked up my
brother from the strip mid-morning on Thursday. He looked completely exhausted.
I didn’t envy him. Having a newborn and a demanding job was not easy for anyone,
no matter how many times they’d done it.

“I suggest getting as
much sleep as you can while you’re here,” I said. “You look half dead.”

He nodded and rubbed
his tired eyes before looking at me. “I forgot what it was like to have a
newborn, and Tommy won’t sleep in his own bed, so I have little feet kicking me
in the back during the hours I do get to sleep. Meanwhile, Mar has decided to
sleep in the guest room while she’s getting over her cold.”

“I’m sorry it’s been
hard on you,” I said as we got out of the limo. I held the door open for him as
he carried the physical model in his hands. It certainly looked better than it
had the first time. Apparently, Pierce thought the same thing when he first saw
it.

“I love it!” he said.
“That’s exactly what I wanted. You have a gift, Mr. Hart.”

Toby sighed with
relief. “Thank you. I’m happy it’s what you are looking for.”

“Yes. Now that we
have this, we can arrange the meeting with the shareholders and partners. Do
you agree, Ms. Hart?”

I nodded as I looked over
the models—both the 3D computer model and the physical one. The proposed
building had the sharp edges of modern architecture, and yet, at the same time,
it still looked as though it belonged in the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas. “I
agree. I’ll send out the e-mail later this afternoon to my assistant so that
she can set up the meeting with our company’s partners.”

“I’ll have April do
the same.” He looked at the woman standing in the far corner of the room. She’d
stopped standing by his side. April nodded and began working on her tablet.

~*~*~*~

The day passed in a
blur. We worked like madmen in preparation for the proposal presentation. I
picked Toby up from the hotel, where I’d sent him to get some sleep, and took him
to dinner and drinks like we normally did while he was out there with me.

He started drinking
before he’d eaten any food and quickly grew tipsy and a little loose with his
mouth. “Do you know what Dad did to Mom when we were teenagers?” he asked.

I pushed a buttered
roll toward him. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “No,” I said.
“You should eat something. What did he do?”

He picked up the roll
and tore off a piece before shoving it in his mouth. He was clearly irritated.
I hadn’t seen him like that in a long time. It was completely opposite from his
normal, happy attitude. “He cheated on Mom with that Pierce guy’s mother. You
know the woman who went and killed herself with a bunch of pills?”

I stared at Toby. My
world collapsed in on itself. Dad’s affairs weren’t exactly big news.
Apparently the seventeen-year-old blonde that Peter Maverick was blackmailing
him with wasn’t his first conquest outside his marriage vows. I didn’t know how
to respond to Toby. The desire to spill everything I knew was heavy on my mind.
I so wanted to confess all I knew about Dad, and the Mavericks, and this
project. All I could do was take a long drink from my beer, but it did little to
help me relax. “What makes you say that? How can that be? Mom and Dad are still
in love with each other,” I said, playing dumb.

“You don’t remember
how bitter they used to be, do you? He turned to Mom for comfort after Mrs.
Maverick committed suicide. They had to rebuild a relationship from it.”

“How . . . How did
you know?” I asked.

He was quiet for a
moment. “I found out when I was a kid, even before the tabloids did. My report
card had come. I received all A’s, and I was so proud.” He looked down at the
table and frowned. “I wanted Dad to be the first one to see it because I thought
he’d be proud of me. I went up to his office─this was before he had the
waiting area─and his assistant wasn’t at her desk. I noticed the door was
cracked and that he was talking to someone. I decided to wait until he was done
before going in. That was before I heard a woman’s voice, and she wasn’t
exactly talking business with him. I peeked through the door crack and saw him
kissing this strange lady. It wasn’t until after she died and her face was
everywhere that I realized she was Julia Maverick.”

I briefly remembered
hearing about her death and feeling sorry for the Maverick family, but it never
affected me past that point. I’d never given it much thought. I could understand
now why Pierce and Toby would want to hurt our fathers. I knew there must be
more to it, but I didn’t want to think about that at this time.

“Why do you think I
never chose to work for the company?” he asked. “Dad’s a scumbag, always has
been and he always will be. He cheats even the most innocent of people, like
Mom. Like me. Like you.”

“We all make mistakes.
. . . I mean, is Dad supposed to lose everything just because he slipped up a
few times?” I asked before I could stop myself. It felt necessary to say the
words, but even I wasn’t buying into my pathetic attempts at defending my
father. Messing up with a minor was one thing, but causing a woman to kill
herself over their sour affair? That was entirely different, completely
unforgiveable.

I felt numb. Little
bits and pieces of missing information suddenly rushed forward. So many things
that didn’t make sense before now shone with clarity. I hastily stood from the
table. “I need to use the restroom. If the food arrives, eat without me.”

I felt as though I
was having an out-of-body experience as I made my way around people to get to
the restroom. My brain switched over to autopilot. This was a pattern, a
habitual way of life when dealing with the fallout from the man whose blood ran
through my veins. I splashed water on my face, trying to rub away the image of
my father looking so guilty and sorrowful in my living room not too long ago. I
looked into the mirror; mascara dripped down my face like the painted tears of
a sad clown. All those vacations we took without my father, every time he
missed a dinner or a soccer game . . . was it because he was with another woman
every single time? I didn’t know.

And Pierce’s mother, Mrs.
Maverick. Had he actually loved her? Or was she just another exploit like the
sexy seventeen-year-old he’d recently picked up at a bar? Now I was sleeping
with Mrs. Maverick’s son. It was as if history was repeating itself in some weird
way. In that moment, I had the urge to call it all off—the Sundays with Pierce.
Was what we were doing as sinful and outrageous as what my father had done? Was
I well on my way to becoming just like him—one affair after the next?

Clumsily, I took my
phone out of my black clutch and called Kat. Her phone went straight to voice
mail. With a pang, I remembered that I needed to give her more time. Quickly I
hung up before her outgoing message finished. I didn’t want to leave a message.
I then called Pierce before I could change my mind. The phone rang twice before
he picked up.

“Hello?” he answered.

I tried to speak, but
my voice caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say, and it suddenly felt
very stupid to call him. What could I say? That I knew about what our parents had
done and I wanted to call our Sundays off because of it?

“Are you okay,
Lauren?”

 “Sorry. I was just .
. . I was just,” I stammered, “I was calling because I wanted to tell you that
I’m looking forward to Sunday, and that you should be receiving something in
the mail soon.”

There was a long
pause. “Are you sure you’re okay? You sound like you’ve been crying.”

“I do? Must be
allergies. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up before he could respond. I cleaned
up my running makeup and reapplied mascara and powder. Resolved to no longer be
a victim of my father’s wayward life and his outrageous lies, I held my head up
as I left the bathroom. I wasn’t going to be that girl. I wasn’t going to stop
a good thing I had just because my father had fucked everything up. After all,
I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids. No commitments held me from being with
the one man I felt completely understood my sexual desires and my need for
release. With a heavy sigh, I returned to my brother who was now cutting into
the prime rib he’d ordered.

“Are you okay?” he
asked.

I sat down and placed
my napkin back in my lap. I gave him a polite smile. “I will be eventually.”

~*~*~*~

Pierce never asked me
the real reason I called him, much to my relief. My brother went home that
Saturday, and plans for the upcoming meeting continued to move forward, though
I’d lost a bit of my drive. Although it happened years before, having just
found out what my father did, I felt betrayed by him. It was like I was just
learning who he really was, just seeing him clearly for the first time. I wanted
to go to Pierce and tell him that I wanted in on whatever he was planning with
Toby, but I knew that was an impulsive thing to do. I needed to think over my
plans before I acted on them suddenly. Just once, I wanted to think about what
was best for me—not the damn company, or climbing the corporate ladder.

~*~*~*~

Sunday came before I
knew it. I was excited, but not because I was getting to indulge in a fantasy,
but because this would allow me to escape the problems I couldn’t stop thinking
about. And it would allow me to get out some of my frustrations.

For the occasion, I
decided to wear a black push-up corset. It tied in the front for easy access
and gave me a nice wench look, a simple girl ready to be dominated. Thankfully,
it fit wonderfully around my womanly shape. I matched it with a pair of black
lacy panties and black pumps. I answered the door in this attire. He was
surprised, but happy.

“You should dress
like this all the time, Ms. Hart. It’s very becoming on you.”

I said nothing as I
moved aside to let him in. He was holding the can of whipped cream I sent him,
and he was also wearing a black tie that he hadn’t worn earlier in the day.

I led him back to my
room and turned to smile playfully at him. Sitting on the bed, I pulled red
scarves out from underneath the pillows, holding them out to him. He gave me a
look I’d never seen before. It was slightly predatory, but he didn’t have the
same air of savage lust that he had on our first night together. He walked over
to me slowly and placed the can of whipped cream on the end table, taking the
scarves from me. “You know, I had no idea you would like something like this.
We could have been having this kind of fun for a while now.”

I arched my eyebrow
and wondered briefly when exactly he had lost his virginity; he seemed to have
quite a bit of experience for someone just out of college.

He pushed me back
into the pillows and kissed me. He then reached up and undid the tie around his
neck. He took it and placed it over my eyes. I lifted my head and he tied it at
the back. I couldn’t see anything, not even the light coming from the lamp in the
corner of the room. “I doubt I will,” he said. “But if I do anything you aren’t
comfortable with, say ‘red.’”

I nodded. His hands moved
down my arms, and he grasped one of my wrists in his hand. He tied one of the
long scarves around it and tied the ends around the iron ivy at the top of my
headboard. He did the same to the other wrist. I moved my arms to see how well
he tied them; they didn’t come undone.

I could hear him
moving around away from the bed, but I couldn’t quite tell what he was doing. Then
I heard him leave the room, and I worried briefly that he’d left me there with
no way to get free. Soon he returned, however, and my fear subsided. He crawled
onto the bed and came up toward the headboard. I jumped as he placed something
cold on the exposed skin of my chest—it felt like ice. My corset was loosened,
and the sides fell open. I felt the ice travel down to the crevice in between
my breasts. I shivered, but I liked the tingle it left behind as he continued to
move down my stomach. He stopped at my navel to swirl the point around it; the
cold water pooled there. He continued to move farther down, and I anticipated where
he was heading. I wondered if it would hurt, having him put something that cold
near my clit.