Claimed by Her Web Master (Web Master #3) (3 page)

“
Y
ou’re going
to be a father?” Dr. Beckett appeared surprised at the news, but not to the extent I’d been.

I recounted for her the events that led up to my finding out this information.

“So you’re happy about this. Even though the mother withheld this information from you and presumably doesn’t want you to know.”

“She has good reason to be upset with me.”

“You said that you deceived her. Now, by not telling you about the pregnancy, she is, in turn, deceiving you.”

I thought I saw a hint of disapproval on the doc’s face. “I take responsibility for the turn things have taken between me and Sophie. What I did was rather unforgivable. I can’t blame her.”

“Why is that?”

“You have to understand that it all started because I was trying to protect her.”

“From you?”

“Yes. It may sound crazy, but after Kaitlyn tried to kill herself, I started to feel I was cursed. That bad things were going to happen to people around me.”

“Kaitlyn is your former submissive?”

“Yes. When we were involved she became too dependent on me, wanted more than I could give her so I had to break things off with her. After I did, she started stalking me—at least that’s what I called it …”

“What do you mean, stalking?”

“She found out where I lived, and I’d come home from working at the studio and she’d be there, on my back porch, naked except for a coat. I’d tell her to go home. Things would escalate. One time I had to drive her home and when I wouldn’t tell her I loved her she opened the car door while I was driving and threatened to jump out.”

“She sounds unstable.”

“I believe she was, so I cut off all communication with her. Not long after that she hanged herself.”

“In a suicide attempt?”

“Yes.”

“But she didn’t die?”

“No, but she almost did. She’s brain dead. Her mother harbors what the doctors consider to be false hope. I can’t blame her. If Sam had been put on machines, I don’t know if I would’ve had the strength to let him go.”

“You visit Kaitlyn?”

“Not often, but I do sometimes.”

“Tell me about that.”

“There’s not much to tell. I feel guilty. Like I should have been able to save her. Like if she’d never known me none of it would have happened.”

“But you weren’t in contact with her when she did it.”

I shrugged.

Silence.

“You take on a lot of burdens. Some that might not even belong to you.”

“Perhaps.”

“What other bad things have you tried to prevent but failed?”

“My mother had cancer. I couldn’t stop that. Of course, my son’s death.”

Dr. Beckett nodded.

“So, when I saw Sophie growing closer, more dependent on me, I felt the need to put some distance between us.”

“Two thousand miles wasn’t enough?” I think the doc was trying to be funny, but I wasn’t sure so I ignored her.

“No. It was the emotional part I’m talking about. I didn’t think things would end well for her if she stayed with me, so I wanted her to realize that there were other Doms out there who could make her happy.

“I actually got the idea last fall when I got an email from a guy … I assumed it was a man because he said he was, but then I realized that he could be a female or a mass murderer or any number of things other than who he claimed to be. I mean, this is the Internet we’re talking about. Anyway, he said he wanted me to mentor him and help him become an online Dom.

“How did you respond?”

“By asking him questions about his expectations, asking if he had a submissive. When he said he hoped to be able to use my submissive I laughed and told the guy to get lost. But it got me thinking …

“I knew I was cursed. I felt guilty, like maybe I was getting paid back for the hardcore fantasies that ran through my mind all the time. I’d enjoyed objectifying women for as long as I could remember. And I don’t mean seeing them pose prettily in the center of a men’s magazine. I mean I love seeing them bound, gagged, and helpless. I love smacking their ass, hearing them cry in pain, seeing tears stream down their faces. That turned me on.

“It felt wrong to want those things, so I locked those fantasies away in the back of my mind for years. Until after my son died and my wife left. Until I had nothing left to lose if I let my dark side out to play. But when I did a girl wound up in the hospital.”

Dr. Beckett furrowed her brow. “You were not responsible for that, Quentin.”

She probably thought that’s what I was paying her to say.

Absolution for a price.

Fuck that. I knew better.

I continued, “So I took my play online. It worked for a while. Gave me an outlet that I desperately needed. I found the more I kept my sexual appetites alive, the easier the music flowed from my brain onto the page. Over time I had numerous online submissives. We used cameras, but there was always distance between me and them. Most had busy lives and even though I never knowingly entered into a D/s relationship with someone who was already taken, I suspected some of them were married and had a husband who wouldn’t abuse them the way I would. Not everyone understands the cravings those of us in Dominant/submissive relationships have.”

She nodded.

“Kaitlyn and I met online, but since she happened to live nearby, after a while she convinced me to meet her in person. Things between us disintegrated from there, and after that disaster, I went back to online only.”

“But things were different with Sophie?”

“Yes, from the beginning I loved how different she was from the other women I’d dominated. So sweet and innocent. The others had always come with a worldliness that comforted me. I never felt I was doing anything wrong with those women. They’d been around the block, you know?

“Sophie had been a breath of fresh air. A bright Easter lily peeking up through the snow, daring me to trample her with my boot. And I did. God forgive me, I did. I used her, defiled her, shamed her in every way I could think of. Yet she always came back to me that same fresh bloom with an open and giving heart. “

“Eventually you met with her in person too. Why did you agree to that?”

“Lust. Selfishness.”

I’d never told Sophie this, but it was then, the first time I laid eyes upon her, that I became hers forever.

The image of her sitting at the table waiting so patiently for me is burned indelibly into my soul. The memory haunts me—anticipation lining her pretty face, her dark hair tumbling down her back. Those luscious red lips of hers pursed into a nervous pout. Fidgeting with those long fingers, smoothing her skirt while her eyes darted around the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of me.

“But there were numerous women you were attracted to. Why do you think you have a unique response to her?”

“She was good. You know? She represented not only the good in the world, but the good in me. If I was dark, she was light. I wanted to believe she could save me from myself. But instead, I destroyed her.”

I could tell Dr. Beckett was going to challenge that statement, but I didn’t want to hear her bullshit so I plowed ahead. “As time went on I grew afraid that my darkness would one day completely eclipse the light in her, so I tried to dilute my influence with a ruse that now seems asinine at best, cruel at worst.”

“The one where you pretended to be another Dom?”

I nodded.

“I’d like to talk more about that next session if that’s all right.”

I shrugged.

That was in the past. When it had only been Sophie and myself, I was prepared to accept the dissolution of our relationship. After all, I’d been the reason for it.

Free of my dark influence, I envisioned Sophie returning to the happy, joyful life I wanted her to live.

But now that she was carrying my child, I had to find a way to let her light shine on me again.

I’d have to find a way to bury my dark side, because getting her back was my only option.

T
hat night I dreamed
. Fitful dreams.

Dreams of Sam.

His voice called to me from the end of a long hallway. Following the sound of his voice, I tried to find him.

“Daddy,” the voice called, but each time I got close enough that I should have found him, the voice moved farther away. The hallway kept growing. Each time I sensed the end was in sight, I would reach it, but it would continue on.

A never-ending house of horror. The horror being that I could never reach my son. My boy who cried for me, who needed me, but whom I could never save no matter how many times I tried.

I woke up in a cold sweat, and as I lay there trying to get my breathing to return to normal, I realized that for the first time, it wasn’t Sam who had been calling to me from the end of the hall.

It was the child Sophie was carrying.

* * *

T
he next morning
I got out of bed with the firm resolution to begin Operation Get Sophie Back.

We had problems, yes, but couples had problems. And when you had a child together, you had to work through those challenges or push them aside. As parents-to-be, Sophie and I would need to put our differences aside for the good of the baby. Or at least learn to live with them.

I was committed to it, but I wasn’t sure how she would feel.

To test the waters, I sent her an email telling her I’d like to see her. I offered to fly down to Texas if she would just agree to meet with me. When ten minutes went by without a response, I sent her a text message saying the same thing.

She ignored both, and I realized I was going to need reinforcements.

I wasn’t sure if Sophie’s best friend Sydney would be on my team or not, but I knew I’d be able to count on her mother Bunny. There was no way the society doyenne would approve of her daughter giving birth to her grandchild out of wedlock. And as superficial as it might be, Bunny was impressed that I’d won an Academy Award. She’d kill to be able to tell her friends that her daughter married an Oscar-winning composer. And at this point I wasn’t above exploiting any advantage I could get.

But having Bunny in my corner might backfire with Sophie. She and her mother had such differing views on most things that I decided to keep Bunny in my back pocket in case I needed some big guns. Certainly I could get her to back me up if I needed it.

Bunny wasn’t the only member of Sophie’s family I needed on my side. The Davenports were a wealthy, important family in Texas. Tradition held a significant amount of weight with them. If I was going to do things right, I’d need Sophie’s father’s blessing before I asked her for her hand in marriage. They were a traditional family in that way. Since we were already mucking things up in the Davenport’s eyes by getting pregnant before marriage, the least I could do to prevent further issues with my future in-laws was carry out the proposal in the proper order.

I scrambled myself an egg, and tried to remain positive.

Sophie would get back to me. My seed was growing inside of her. She’d call me.

Only she didn’t call me back. She didn’t text, or return my email either. I had to take some deep breaths, but I was determined not to let this deter me. She was simply going to require some convincing.

Which was fine. Understandable even.

When Kate knocked on my door an hour later, I was online booking my airline ticket to Fort Worth for the upcoming weekend. “Come in!”

Kate let herself in. “Hey, boss, what are you doing?” Kate was currently staying with her family in Oregon, so when I asked her to come up, it was only a few hours drive. Kate was young, tech savvy, and usually she could do her job from anywhere. But today I needed her help in person.

“Just booking my plane ticket.”

“Oh? Where you going?”

I smiled. “Fort Worth.”

“That’s where your girlfriend lives, right—the pregnant one?”

“Technically she’s my ex-girlfriend, but she’s about to be my fiancée, so yeah. Same difference.”

Kate looked alarmed. “What do you mean? You haven’t brought her around yet?”

“Difficult to do when she won’t return my texts. Or my calls. Or anything.”

Kate let her backpack slide to the floor, and she scrunched up her eyebrows. “You’re not stalking this girl, are you Quentin?”

“What are you talking about? I’m planning to propose to her. That’s why you’re here. I need you to help me pick out a ring.”

“Okaaaay.” She didn’t look convinced.

I drove. It took almost an hour to get to the jewelry store Kate had scoped out for me. It was off the beaten path, but as Kate pointed out, there was no reason to go to the most expensive store in Seattle when you could find beautifully handcrafted jewelry from a local craftsman who didn’t have to pay the expensive overhead and who had rings that were just as nice. She had compared the quality of diamonds available at a variety of stores and at what prices. I was impressed that she’d found the highest quality at the best price. There was no reason to give a chain store extra money just because they required a bigger marketing budget.

The minute we walked through the door I knew we were in the right place. The decor was upscale, but the atmosphere was comfortable. I didn’t feel like I would be judged by snobbish salespeople, but I also didn’t feel like I needed a bodyguard to get out of the neighborhood alive.

“How may I help you today?” a plump little woman asked as she approached us from behind the counter. She had a pleasant smile and I imagined she made a lasagna every Sunday night that was the pride of her family.

“I’d like to see your engagement rings please.”

“Ah, is this the lucky lady?” The woman nodded toward Kate.

“No, ma’am.” Kate was quick to answer.

“No. She lives in Texas. I asked my friend here to come with me to help me decide.”

“Aha. Smart thinking bringing reinforcements. Do you know what kind of ring she wants—your intended?”

“Her name is Sophie, and no, I’m not sure. Kate, from what I told you—what do you think?” I’d asked Kate to research engagement rings, how they fit with personality and such. I wish I knew exactly what Sophie wanted, but she and I had never even had a conversation about rings, or engagements for that matter.

“I think we’ve ruled out marquis, emerald, and oval,” Kate said.

I peered into the case. “I like that one.” I pointed at a square diamond and the woman pulled it out of the case and handed it to me.

She chose another two similar rings and laid them on a blue velvet mat on the counter. “These are nice too.”

“What about a cushion cut?” Kate asked. “Those are very feminine. Romantic.”

The woman pulled out another ring in the shape of the square and handed it to Kate.

“What do you think?” Kate asked

“It’s nice. But I was hoping for something a little more exciting. A little flashier while still being somewhat conservative. Also these are a little small …”

The sales lady’s eyes lit up. “I may have just the thing in the back. Wait just a minute.”

I shifted my weight back and forth from one foot to the other. It had been a long time since I’d considered buying a woman a ring, and my first marriage hadn’t turned out so well.

“You okay, boss?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.” The sales lady came back out to the front with a gray velvet box. She opened it to reveal a lovely diamond that would look perfect on Sophie’s finger. I must not have been able to contain my reaction because the sales lady couldn’t stop smiling.

“This princess cut is very traditional, but for a bride who likes a little modern flair as well.”

“That sounds like Sophie the way you described her to me,” Kate said.

“How big is that stone?” I asked.

“The center stone is 4.5 carats with another carat in the setting.”

“It’s breathtaking, Quentin. There’s not a girl alive who wouldn’t love it.” Kate nodded her approval.

The saleswoman and I discussed “the four Cs” until I was satisfied the ring was good enough for my Sophie. Then I gave her my black AMEX, and she wrapped the ring up in a little box with gold wrapping paper and topped by a mini bow.

“See, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Kate asked.

“No,” I agreed. “That was the easy part.”

The hard part was going to be getting her to say yes.