Queen (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (20 page)

“You’ll do just fine. You aren’t built to lie, but I’ve never met someone as charming and engaging as you. Just be yourself and remember that the child they’re congratulating you on is yours and always will be. No matter what happens with me, he’ll always be your son.”

He’ll always be my son too, even if he doesn’t know it. Nothing will change the fact that I carry him, that my blood will flow in his veins. Someday when we meet again, he will know who I am because we’re connected. I tell myself this every moment of the day because to do anything less would be mental torture.

“I love you, Regina,” Grant says reverently and holds my hand. “But I worry. I’m going to be a father and I’m not ready. It wasn’t something I wanted out of life. I will love him. Hell, I already
do. And I’ll never regret that you and I made another person. But this isn’t the life I want. I’m not sure I can do this,” he sobs.

I pull him into my lap and hold him. He silently cries against my breast, the tears soaking into my shirt and cooling my flesh.

“Grant, tell me how you see your life,” I coax him. “Let’s fantasize for a moment. If you dwell on what you’re about to do, you’ll make it worse.”

“I just want to be alone. I want to write and be inside my own head. What
I want is selfish,” he curses.

“No, it’s not selfish. You’re
allowed to dream of what you want. Tell me more,” I urge him on.

“I wouldn’t be a father or a husband. I’d lock myself away and create. When I was ready to see people I would, but they wouldn’t be the people who wait for me downstairs. Never them,” he says angrily.

I don’t get angry at him. I don’t do the girl-thing where you doubt yourself because the father of your child just admitted that he didn’t want to be around you or your child. I’m not built like that. I understand everything he just said. This isn’t the life I saw for my future either. The difference between him and me is that I will get the future I dreamed of. Nothing will stop me, not even a Whittenhower.

“I will get you that future,” I promise him and mean every word of it. “I love you enough to know what you need and why you need it.”

“I’ve never doubted you, Regina,” he whispers reverently. “But now I have to go downstairs and live the life I wasn’t meant to lead.”

Grant stands up and smoothes his hands down his tuxedo jacket.
He pulls the lapels until the jacket forms to his perfect shoulders.

He’s a sight to behold. My mouth dries up while I gaze at him. The combination of his blue eyes, blond hair, and that self-deprecating smile that brings out his dimple is devastating while in a custom-made tuxedo. He looks like a young James Bond.

My fingers clench his lapel and pull him down to my mouth. I kiss him with all the passion he ignites inside of me. His moan stokes the fire to smoldering temperatures. I pull away before I’m tempted to toss him to the bed and mount him.

“I wanted you to know what’s waiting for you in our suite. Hurry back,” I whisper against his lips.

I walk him to the door and he looks a little lost and unsure. It makes me want to take his hand and walk him down to the ballroom. He reminds me of a child on the first day of kindergarten- no, a puppy and I need to hold his leash or he’ll get lost.

“Yo
u’ll be fine,” I reassure him.

“Regina, I hate reality. I don’t want to live it. It’s too damned stressful for me. It makes me feel crazed,” and he
does sound a little crazed as his voice cracks and wavers.

“I made you a promise and I always keep them. This will not be your future,” I vow.
I abruptly kiss him and shove his ass out the door. I push it shut in his face and lock it. I can’t hold his hand and walk him down there, but I can give him a dose of tough love.

It’s
five minutes before I hear him get the courage to move away from the door and to meet his fate.

I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m freaking out. That tiny voice in my subconscious is screeching. Its siren screams that if being locked inside of a suite while carrying a man’s child as he’s d
ownstairs with his wife doesn’t make me a whore, then it doesn’t know what one is. I can’t avoid my reality just as Grant can’t ignore his. I am a whore. I am a mistress. And I hate it.

I’
m not the type of person who stands idly by. If Grant belongs to anyone, it’s to me. I can’t allow him to go downstairs by himself when he’s feeling lost. The depression and desolation was thick in his voice. It’s my job to make him happy and he isn’t.

I sneak out of my room and
ghost down the labyrinth. I don’t worry about anyone spotting me. The upstairs hallway is so confusing that it’s taken me seven months to learn its bends and twists and I’m still unsure. It’s doubtful that anyone would come up here.

I glue myself to the wall while I peek over the edge of the south staircase’s balcony.
Men and women in black-tie finery chat in the foyer down below. I hiss a curse and hurry across the balcony to the back staircase that leads to the kitchen.

“What are you doing, Regina,” K
ristal smirks at me knowingly.

“The baby was hungry,” I lie and grab a pastry off of a silver tray. I’m not hungry but I don’t like looking like a jealous idiot of a mistress either.

“Follow me,” she says with a wink.

Kris leads me through a few narrow passages that I didn’t know existed. She explains on the way that the staff are to be unseen. It’s creepy, dark, and the wall brushes against my shoulders it’s so narrow. I guess they didn’t plan for gargantuan pregnant women when they made the secrets passageways. I shiver from their ominous feel.

She cracks a panel and the sound of the party hits me full force. The clink of crystal and the murmur of voices are accompanied by the melodious orchestra music.

I press my eye to the crack and peer out and my heart drops to the floor. Daniel and Priscilla are beamingly accepting well wishes. Cora is preening like a bird under everyone’s praise. This is her day, her time to shine. Her fake belly
is patted by each and every well-wisher- her belly that in all rights holds my son- her son.  

Grant holds all of my attention. He’s miserable- a second away from breaking his champagne flute and slicing his wrists. His expression is pure, unadulterated torture. I want to run to him, hold him, and tell him the world is an alright place to live. I don’t want him to leave me. A sob builds in my chest.

And then Cora puts her hand on his fore-arm and my blood boils to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. I hiss and bare my teeth.

Grant flings her hand
away and I feel proud of him. Cora glares at him and when she turns her face she’s glowing beautifully from her fake pregnancy- fake bitch.

Grant start to panic and I’m seconds from opening the panel and running to his rescue. A back blocks my view of him. A tall man with broad shoulders and closely cropped hair leans down and whispers into Grant’s ear. I have no way of knowing what he’s saying, but Grant visibly relaxes.

Grant’s eyes fall shut and his face goes lax when a long fingered hand rests upon his shoulder. I don’t know who the man is, but he heavily influences Grant. I instinctually know that this is the friend he talks about constantly- Zee.

A noise frightens me and I realize that Kristal is no longer with me. I slide the panel shut and try to remember my way to the kitchen through the mazework
of tunnel-like passageways.

I must have turned left when I should’ve turned right and I start to panic. I backtrack and find myself in a completely different place then I started from. I wander for what feels like hours, but it’s probably minutes. My feet hurt from carrying the baby Whittenhower along on my journey. I don’t want to admit defeat, but my last resort will be shouting and hoping that someone will hear me above the din of the party.

A moan startles me and I fuse my back to the wall, for all the good that does me with my huge stomach sticking out in front of me. The next moan is louder and I use it to pinpoint the direction I need to go in order to get out of these walls.

I sneak up not wanting to disturb whoever is making the sounds of passion. I force myself not to hurry even though my bladder is protesting its fullness.

A panel is cracked open. I peer out and see that the wallpaper is gold, not taupe. I’m in the north-side of the house. My fingers clutch the panel when a moan startles me. A young man has another one pressed against the wall and they’re kissing passionately. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s the boys I met nearly a year ago at Hillbrook. The light-haired boy is Adelaide’s intended, Ezra Zeitler, and he and Cortez Abernathy are connected at the lips.

I take a deep breath and prepare to leave the dusty passageway. Idiot fifteen-year-olds aren’t going to keep me from a toilet. A man
with glowing bronze skin and dark hair comes into view and I freeze.

“
There’s a time and a place for this, Son. And this is neither,” he scolds the boys in a deep voice. The timber of the sound makes my eyes slip shut. It hits me like a narcotic to the heart.

Ezra’s pale skin flushes bright pink
and he steals one more tender kiss from his boyfriend. Cortez has changed in the nine months or so since I’ve seen him last. He’s filled out and the cocky air about him is real instead of put on. He takes the kiss and never blushes. He looks to the grown man with an expression I have no name for- it’s almost taunting.

I can’t see the man’s face, only his broad shoulder and the curve of his jaw. When Cortez smirks at him his shoulders tighten beneath his black jacket.

“Don’t push me,” he growls.

“Cort, behave,” Ezra chastises and pulls his boyfriend down the hallway.

The man abruptly turns around and presses his eye to the cracked panel. His amber-colored eye connects with my green. I gasp as my breath hitches in my throat.

Neither of us moves. He holds my gaze and my knees weaken. He doesn’t look a way for an eternity. It’s almost as if he’s silently communicating with me. I can see nothing but that brown eye that has
flecks of gold and bronze. It reminds me of a full-bodied whiskey- he’s meant to be savored.

I’m breathing so hard that I can’t catch my breath. He doesn’t speak, but I can hear the sound of his labored breathing. It flutters my hair and fills my nostrils with his intoxicating scent.

He leaves as abruptly as he came.

I hurry to my room and by the time I get out of the bathroom from doing my
nightly rituals Grant is back.

He is a mess- a complete disaster. Sadness and dep
ression rolls off him and fill the air making it hard to breathe. I’ve never seen him so despondent. His usual carefree playfulness is erased after two hours of playing the Whittenhower game.

I hold him all night long as he cries and frets. I lend him my strength to go on. Living the life of a Whittenhower is killing his soul. He isn’t strong enough to deal with the pressure and stress.
He wasn’t meant for this kind of life. I don’t find him weak because of it. He’s just Grant and I accept him for who he is.

Grant will never be my knight in shining armor.
But it doesn’t matter because I don’t need one. I am Queen and I was meant to take care of those who can’t care for themselves.

Chapter Twenty

“Why are you so obsessed over this computer stuff?” Katherine asks in true curiosity.
I look around the room- my office. I found my own room and took it over, but it never stays empty for long. Kristal and Whitt are tutored in here while I work on my studies. Every day like clock-work, Fate arrives and settles in for a long study session of her own. I’m not stupid; I know they’re keeping an eye on me for Ade and Grant.

Right now Fate is showing Kristal her economics textbook. The maid won’
t be one for long. Six months under Fate’s tutelage has brought out Kristal’s true talent- numbers. 

Whitt bitches and complains for the millionth time
about how much he hates French. If I have to hear him say that his father doesn’t approve of the language one more time I’ll scream. We’ve moved on to Japanese because he’s obsessed with
Manga
- drawing his own version of the comic. Now I have to listen to the choppy fluidity of Japanese. French is prettier to listen to
,
Que será, será .

“It’s the future, Kate
,” I explain.

I type in a few more parts of my coding and pray that it works. I breathe a sigh of relief when the computer does as I command.
That’s right bitch, I’m your creator, do as I bid.

“Someday the inter
net will be in every household and business. We’ll be connected wirelessly to each other. If you need information you can have it at the end of your fingertips. Just imagine how incredible that will be. We’re lucky because we live in a major city. Only a handful of places have access to the web. The possibilities are endless. Imagine your car-phone or that bag-phone you carry around fitting into your pocket with no interruptions.”