Under His Control (For His Pleasure, Book 18) (3 page)

“Last I checked, a trained monkey can’t do advanced mathematics,” Blake joked.

“No, but most monkeys have better social lives than I had.”

“Now that’s just sad.”

“It was sad. Eventually it looked as though I was going to simply continue on at MIT forever. I would be a teacher there, and I had a mentor who wanted me to follow in his footsteps. Everything was laid out in front of me.” Kennedy decided she’d done enough talking around the subject. “But then, one day not that long ago, I was home for the weekend and I needed to get some of my stuff together for a trip I was taking to Canada for a math conference. I knew I’d need my birth certificate when I applied for my passport. So rather than ask my parents for it, I went into the office where I knew they kept all their important files and tax stuff. I searched around, snooping in a way, almost as if I knew that there was something important and secret there.”

Blake had stopped eating for the moment. “Don’t tell me you found out that your parents are actually Russian spies.”

“Don’t joke,” she said. “It’s not funny to me.”

“Sorry.”

She relented. “No, you shouldn’t apologize. I’m being totally crazy about all of it.”

“Enough suspense. What did you find?”

She thought back to that day, and for a split second, it was as if she’d truly been transported back to that time and place. She could see the birth certificate, feel the weight of the paper in her hands, smell the room—she even remembered exactly what she’d been wearing at the time.

Sweatpants, a tank top, and that funky bracelet she’d picked up at a local crafts fair.

And there it had been in black and white on her birth certificate. The names of two totally foreign people were listed as her mother and father.

For a brief time, she’d been convinced that she was hallucinating, or perhaps there had been an error. This was a faulty birth certificate, a joke that her parents had meant to play on her. Anything. Anything to explain away what she was seeing and what it signified.

“And what did it signify?” Blake asked, after she’d recounted that very moment to him.

“That everything I’d believed about myself was a lie. I wasn’t their child—I wasn’t who they’d pretended I was. Seeing that blew everything into a million pieces,”

Kennedy said.

Blake just watched her. “I can understand how that might happen.”

Kennedy looked down, staring at the steps beneath her feet. “At first I intended to confront both of them, yell and insult them. Demand answers. Call them hypocrites for insisting that I always be honest about my life and my decisions, while they’d kept something so important secret. It was my life, my truth, and they’d kept my history from me because it didn’t suit their needs.” She shook her head as if trying to shake free from those painful memories.

“Maybe they were just scared that you wouldn’t consider them your real parents if they told you the truth. Maybe they thought it would hurt you too much if you thought you’d been abandoned at birth.”

“I don’t care why they did it, to be honest. I just know that it explained so much of what I went through and how I never felt quite right in my own skin. And after I had some time to calm down, I realized that I liked having this knowledge and keeping it for me and me alone. It was the first thing I ever had that was mine, really mine, and just for me. I went and researched my parents’ names and although I found nothing about my birth mother, I was able to discover information about my birth father and then his family. That led me to Nicole Jameson.”

From there, Kennedy told Blake about how she’d fallen in love with Nicole Jameson’s exciting fairy tale life—her marriage to Red Jameson, the tabloid stories about them that had gradually shifted from attacking and debasing her, to now--Nicole Jameson was presently almost royalty, even in the tabloids. She was New York’s favorite daughter, the strong and beautiful woman who’d tamed the wild beast that was Red Jameson.

Blake was stunned. By the time Kennedy had explained that she’d decided to drop her studies in Cambridge and move to New York on a whim, with no job and no money, his jaw was open. “I can’t believe you moved to one of the most expensive, challenging cities on earth with no job prospects, no income and no clue about how to survive here.”

“Don’t a thousand actresses do it every month?” she said, smiling.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re not an actress. You had a promising career and a life back in Cambridge.”

“I keep trying to explain this. It wasn’t my life. It was the life that my parents—

my adopted parents—imagined for me and pushed me toward. It wasn’t what I wanted.

And suddenly I was free to be different, to discover the truth of who I am.”

“And who is that?” he asked.

Suddenly, Kennedy was brought back to the present, and what a disastrous present it was. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’ve made a pretty big mess of things so far.”

“It doesn’t seem so bad yet,” Blake replied. “You have a job, an apartment—“

“I got fired,” she told him.

His eyebrows rose. “You got fired? By that sleazy boss who showed up at your apartment?”

She sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Blake stood up, crumpling his foil into a ball and tossing it into a nearly overfilled trashcan on the corner. “Come on, you can tell me the rest while we head back.”

“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet. She hadn’t finished her sandwich—it was good, but she’d lost her appetite. Kennedy threw it in the trash, where the remains were evident to Blake. He gave it an appraising glance.

“So the falafel was a bust—duly noted,” he said.

“Sorry,” she told him.

He grabbed her hand. “Come on. I don’t care if you like the falafel.”

“Yes you do, Blake.”

“Okay, I care. I wanted you to love the place as much as I do.”

“I’ll try again.”

“Tell me the rest of your story,” Blake said, walking briskly.

Kennedy let him hold her hand. She was curious if she’d feel a spark somehow.

Blake was funny and kind and he clearly was interested. She didn’t feel at all scared or threatened by him, and she knew he was handsome and intelligent. Theoretically he was everything a woman could want.

And yet I don’t want him.

It was enough to make a girl crazy, she thought.

“I’m still waiting,” Blake prodded.

“Yeah, right. Well, it gets pretty weird. But you promise you won’t judge?”

“I promise,” he said.

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Please do.” He kept walking with her hand in his.

Kennedy took a deep breath and then started talking.

***

By the time they’d gotten off the subway and started for home, she’d just about finished her story. Needless to say, the humor had gone from Blake’s eyes once she’d begun telling him about her relationship with Easton.

Of course she’d downplayed the sexual parts, but she hadn’t hidden them completely. She’d just sort of glazed past them, but Blake had read between the lines just fine.

As they emerged from underground and into the cool early evening air, Blake seemed subdued.

“That basically sums up my life,” Kennedy said, after some time had passed and they’d been walking without speaking at all. “Are you pretty much disgusted by me now?” she asked him.

Blake stopped and faced her. “Not at all,” he said, finally. “But it does make me want to kill that scumbag boss of yours. What’s his name—Eaton?”

“Easton,” she laughed.

“He’s a jerk.”

She sighed. “I wouldn’t expect you to feel any differently.”

“Do you?” Blake asked, his tone incredulous.

“Well it’s more complicated for me.”

“You could sue that bastard for sexual harassment.”

“Blake—“ she began.

Just as she was about to try and calm him down, she was interrupted by a small group of young men brushing past them, and as they did went, Blake turned, accidentally bumping shoulders with one of the people.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole,” the young man said, his voice harsh, his tone challenging. He actually slowed down and stopped as he waited for Blake’s response.

Blake turned and glared at him. “Okay, whatever buddy.”

The young man couldn’t have been over twenty years old, but he was tall and had a mean look in his eye. His hat was turned sideways, his clothes baggy. “Okay, whatever buddy,” he mimicked Blake, his expression suddenly goofy, his voice taking on an exaggerated quality. “Sure buddy. Okay buddy.” He continued aping Blake, and now his buddies were gathering nearby and laughing, pointing at Blake.

Blake stiffened. “I get it. Very funny. You can move along now.”

“Oh, can we, bitch?” the younger man said, stepping forward suddenly and pushing his chest into Blake’s. His demeanor had turned threatening, aggressive and borderline insane.

His friends were laughing hysterically, though frighteningly—they were also ogling her as well.

She looked around for help, but now the once crowded and friendly streets seemed decidedly unfriendly and almost deserted.

The sky wasn’t very light anymore, as the afternoon sun had begun to fade behind the buildings, and clouds gathered.

“Please, just leave us alone,” she said.

“Hey, his bitch is getting nervous,” an onlooker said.

“Which one is the bitch? Him or her?” someone else asked.

Blake was frightened. “Look, I’m sorry I knocked into you,” he said, trying to move away from his younger adversary. “I apologize, okay?”

The young man cocked his fist and drew back, causing Blake to flinch and cower away from the oncoming blow that never did come.

This made the crew of boys laugh hysterically.

Blake’s attacker dropped his hands. “Man, you really are fucking weak, you know that? If I couldn’t stand up for my girl, I’d fucking kill myself.”

Blake just kept quiet.

Kennedy didn’t dare say another word. She sensed that they were losing interest in tormenting Blake, and she didn’t want to feed the fire by telling them to stop teasing him.

The rowdy boys made a few more comments but without getting much response from Blake or Kennedy, the crew seemed to lose interest. Finally, they left, laughing and calling out insults as they went.

Kennedy approached Blake, who was standing perfectly still while his tormentors walked away. She could see that his hands were shaking violently. “Are you all right?”

she asked, deeply saddened and almost guilty, as if the whole thing had been her fault.

“Fine,” he said shortly, and began walking quickly towards home.

She started after him, hardly able to keep up. “Blake, please, slow down. Are you angry with me?”

He glanced at her, but didn’t make eye contact. “Why would I be angry with you, Kennedy?”

“I don’t know. But you seem really angry, so—“

“Yeah, well maybe everything’s not all about you. Did you ever stop to consider that?” he said, pausing only long enough to say the words before continuing walking even faster.

Kennedy was so stunned that he was yards ahead of her before she’d recovered.

She started walking, but this time she didn’t bother trying to keep up with Blake. He was furious, and he seemed to be as mad at her as he was at the guys who’d scared him in the street.

She didn’t think it was fair that he take it out on her. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and besides, she’d been scared too.

Eventually, they arrived back at the apartment building. Kennedy was relieved to be there, and looking forward to holing up in her apartment and being safe, away from all the excitement and danger the city provided.

It was now, for the first time, that she’d started to gain a tiny amount of appreciation for the safe confines of her old life, and what her parents had tried to provide her.

This is probably exactly what they’ve been trying to prevent me from
experiencing
, Kennedy thought wryly.

Blake fumbled with his keys, but eventually got them sorted and turned the lock on the main door to the building. He opened it and held it open for Kennedy.

She walked past him, trying now to just get away from Blake and his weirdly Jekyll and Hyde personality. She’d really thought he was different too, that he could be a friend, but now those hopes were dashed as well.

“Kennedy, can you wait a second?” he asked, as he went to pull his keys out of the front lock.

“It’s been a long day,” she said. “I’ve had about all the drama I can take.”

“No drama, I promise,” he said, holding up a hand as if to swear on the bible.

She paused at the stairwell. “Okay.”

He approached her, smiling awkwardly. “I’m sorry I got upset back there,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s really not.” He sighed and looked down. “I just…I felt so goddamn helpless and I wanted to stand up to those guys for you.”

“You did stand up to them,” she said, knowing it wasn’t really true.

“Well, I tried,” he said, his hand fluttering as if to wave it all away.

“You tried, and you succeeded. They left us alone, didn’t they?”

He brightened a little bit. “They did. I mean, it could’ve turned out a lot worse, right?”

“Right.” She smiled gently at him.

He smiled back. “I want to talk more about what happened to you with Nicole and Red, and work…and all of it. I really do, Kennedy. I like you a lot. I like spending time together.”

“So do I,” she said, but she had to admit that some of the shine had come off the relationship when Blake had reacted so poorly to the events with those young men.

Kennedy didn’t want to find Blake lacking, but the truth was, she almost felt like she had to protect him in some way.

And with Easton, it had always been quite the opposite. She couldn’t help but wonder how things would’ve turned out differently had those young men tried that crap with Easton.

Well, Easton was a professional kick boxer for God’s sake. How do you think it
would have turned out, Kennedy? You don’t exactly need to be a psychic to know the
answer.

Blake seemed to take comfort in Kennedy’s response. “I’ll drop by again tomorrow,” he said, “if that’s okay with you.”