KING (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (3 page)

“Welcome home, son,” Daniel’s deep voice flows towards me as I approach his sanctuary. No surprise is evident in his voice, but there is a twinge of fear.

“It’s good to be home. I hate living in cramped quarters,” my son picks up a haughty tone that he only uses in mixed company
, signally that Grandfather isn’t alone. “I can’t wait to be back in my rooms.”

I’m not surprised to find Diane Zeitler elegantly sitting in the Cordovan leather tufted wingback chair that Grandfather is so fond of. It is her chair within his sanctuary. I’ve seen her in it countless times. The oddity would be if she wasn’t in it.

My feet pause mid-stride, almost up-ending myself. Regina solidly hits my back with her ample chest.

“You need tail lights on your ass,” she snickers and places a soft kiss to the nape of my neck. I shiver from the heat of her lips and shudder from the presence sitting on the
sofa.

Like a ghostly apparition from days long gone by, she sits in her usual seat. Years, almost half a decade since I’ve seen her sit in that very spot
, and it still feels as natural as breathing. She, however, looks extremely uncomfortable sitting in the study. She warily smiles and raises a fingertip in hello. The sight of her makes me feel like a small child again. I kill the urge to go hide behind the draperies and spy on Grandfather’s private conversations.

“Well, I see we’re all here,” Daniel elatedly sings. He sh
ows no surprise to see his long-dead son. Diane doesn’t either. I fear my son is a traitor. But then again, Daniel and Diane are excellent opponents.

Niel confidently strides over to Grandfather’s desk and scrounges around. “Ah-ah!” he jubilantly shouts. “How’s it going, Aunt Ade?” No doubt in my mind that the shit is a spy for both camps. He is a sadistic
, twisted, little bastard after all.

“Niel,” Ade says hoarsely, as if she isn’t accustomed to speaking. “You look just like your mother.”

“Ah… I guess that means you think I’m gorgeous,” he teases with a wink, playing off Ade’s unrequited crush on his mother. He hums to himself while unlocking his drawer in the large walnut desk.

I turn my attention from Niel and his captive audience of two, to the siblings that are staring at each other with so much pain that it brings tears to my eyes. Hell, tears are streaming down Regina’s cheeks as she watches Jamie walk at a snail’s pace towar
ds the sister he hasn’t seen in fifteen years.

We turn as
one to offer them a semblance of privacy during their long-awaited reunion. The choked sobs- Adelaide’s- weaken my knees. I woodenly walk to the nearest chair and fall into it.

“Girls,” I call
to distract them from the emotional scene. “Albert has a manifest of all our guests. Please bring it to Lenora and assist her in housing all of our boarders. Whitney, make sure that Ava is in a different wing than Niel’s suite, preferably in an adjoining room with her parents and the twins. Jamie, Adelaide, Regina, Fate, and Kristal will take residence in their old rooms.

“You’re just trying to get us to leave,” Whitney challenges me. “I want to see Auntie Ade,” she whines.

“Right you are,” I smugly say. “Ade is reconnecting with Jamie at the moment. You can slumber with her tonight,” I placate. “I’m sure she would enjoy your company.”

“Niel’s not coming with us,” she states, eyes glaring defiantly. 

“Adults only, doll. He’ll be eighteen in a few weeks.”

“Did you
somehow forget that we’re exactly the same age,” she snarls, thoroughly enraged.

“Not at all… I just figured that you’d rather make sure
he has no access to Miss Zeitler. I assumed that’s where your interests lie, since you haven’t cared for the family business before this moment.”

“Is the basement too close?
” she bitterly says, and I bark a laugh. Diane covers her mouth with her delicate palm, hiding her trilling laughter. The woman always sounds like bells tolling.

“Ha-ha…” Niel mock-laughs,
“Don’t forget that I know this house better than the architect. Good luck with that, cousin,” he stresses their blooded relationship as a dig. Whitney glowers at him, and yanks her minions into action. The three girls stalk off on their mission
: operation house the homeless billionaires.

“Sorry to cut your reunion short,” Niel says without apology. “Pull up a chair and get your right hands limbered up. We have a lot of paperwork to sign.”

“What?” I mumble in confusion. “What the hell, kid?”

“I’ll do this part, since I wouldn’t want you killing each other. Grandfather is willingly giving
you your birthright, but he has two stipulations. First: he won’t leave his home. Second: you’ll hear him and Diane out as the ink dries. Father, contact your Master, we need a witness and a lawyer. Marcus’ is a two-for,” he says with a wink to his mother.

The seventeen
-year-old commands us as if we’re his minions. Not a shock, Jamie pulls out his cell and quickly texts Marcus. A second later the vestibule’s doors creak open. 

Daniel gives me an
‘
I told you so’
look, Diane looks pleased, and Regina looks scared shitless. My wife has voiced her fears of her son when we were in private. Now I wonder if I’ve misread the boy that I’ve raised since he was born.

“Dad,” Niel sadly says to me. “Both sides allowed their emotions to rule them. We aren’t enemies. Sure we’ve hurt each other. But hell, that deadbeat who says he loves us has hurt us more than Diane ever did.” He points at his father in silent accusation. His
pointing finger finds Marcus as he strides into the study.

“He did unmentionable things to his
ex-wife. She did horrid things to him… Blah… blah… blah…ancient history… Auntie has done some really sick shit. Grant… Jamie, whatever the fuck he wants to be called this week, he killed himself for Christ’s sake. Grandfather isn’t a good man, but he loves us to a fault. Mom’s used her body and brains to hurt herself. You refuse to just be yourself. I’m… something is inherently wrong with how I think and feel… None of us are normal. Not one of us is just good or bad. As a peace offering, here is your dynasty. Now sign the papers, and then sit back and shut up.”

I narrow my gaze at my son as I visualize beating the
living shit out of him. His smirk shouts that he knows the direction of my thoughts and he can’t wait for the rematch. It won’t be our first throw-down or even our fiftieth, but my height versus his brawn usually ends with a draw.

“You
’ve all fucked with each other because you could. It’s time to play nice. What is that saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s time to realize you have a common enemy and deep down you idiots love each other.”

Niel picks up two pens- the pens he was given on his last birthday from our grandfather. He places one in my right hand and clenches my fingers around the silver cylinder. With a gentle hand, he repeats the process with his mother.

Daniel pushes the papers across the desk towards my wife and I. We both blankly stare at them, wondering if we are signing our souls to the devil- again. The cheery, colorful
sign here
flags look out of place on the white paper with ominous black type.

When neither of us leans forward to sign our lives away, Niel fists the desk, reminiscent of Daniel doing that very thing time and time again. “Do it!” he hisses. “I even put those girly stickers on the paperwork
, blue for Mom and pink for Dad.” He snickers, going from fist pounding fury to humming jokester in an instant. “Just kidding… or not,” my mentally unbalanced son teases.

Bipolar?
   

Niel taps the paper with his fingertip, humming under his breath. He smiles
in satisfaction when Regina’s pen hits the paper. “I have to meet Gunner and Roarke in the foyer. We need upgraded security on the premises. I’m sending a detail to Dexter’s since he refuses to stay here. I’m not too worried about those who aren’t related to us. All’s good,” he happily says, and snatches a paperweight off the desk.

“Father, heads up,” Niel
announces a split-second before he underhandedly tosses a
Steuben Glass
paperweight at Jamie, who deftly catches it out of the air. Part of me wonders if Niel secretly wanted Jamie’s reflexes to be stunted… or maybe it was me wishing that the eagle landed on Jamie’s deformed face.

“When the meeting comes to a close, I want you to sit at his desk while he stands a few feet in front of you. Throw that fucker as hard as you can and don’t miss.”

Why?
Jamie signs, confusion written across his face.

“It’s his favorite. The eagle you gifted him. It’s the one that broke my mother’s collarbone.
It’s the one that would’ve killed her and my unborn baby sister, courtesy of a smashed skull, if Auntie hadn’t intervened. You get to defend her now since you failed to do it then. Don’t pussy out on us like a fucking coward. Make it hurt,” Niel snarls as he purposely strides from the room.

“Hey,” I call to my son. “Who is king of this castle?”

“You are,” he says without a shadow of a doubt. “You just needed some prodding.” Niel winds his finger in a circular motion. “Family,” he points at all of us. “Don’t kill each other while I’m gone, just silently plot each other’s demise,” he snickers as he disappears out the study’s door.

~Chapter Three~

My signature is written in blurring speed and still Regina beats me to the finish line. Marcus silently signs the documents when we’re finished. His eyes warily dart to Diane and
Daniel. He’s a lefty. Pen in his left hand with Regina in his right. I arch a challenging brow at him for daring to touch my wife, in my house, in my presence.

“We had a deal,” I bite out. When his hand doesn’t leave her sh
oulder, I glare at it. Slowly Marc retracts his hand, looking at me like I’m insane.

“Do we need to renegotiate?” I ask him with false politeness. “We have a year
, and this doesn’t look like private. This is very public. This is before my eyes. I offer your family sanctuary and this is how you repay me, by disrespecting me in my own home.”

“I was just comforting her, th
e same as I’d do for anyone,” Marcus defensively replies.

“Yet you aren’t comforting me or your Jamie- just your lover,” I spit.

“Whitt,” Regina says in her
don’t fuck with me
tone.

“Regina,” I return her tone
, and she winces.

Marcus defuses my building tempest by sitting next to Jamie and Ade
on the sofa. Far enough away not to be the center of the conversation but close enough to still be involved.

“Fine,” I say to my grandfather. “I accepted the gift of my legacy. I accept your first stipulation. You may stay in your rooms. Is she part of that deal?” I ask of Diane and he nods in ascent.

“Fine, but that lunatic isn’t to step foot into my home. I’m only saying yes about Diane because of Ade. I assume she will be residing in Ade’s suite. No Olivia. Huge conflict of interests for me under the circumstances, don’t you think? I’m dating the son that Olivia tried to murder and I’m housing the daughter she threw away like garbage.”

“Olivia is staying at her club,” Diane’
s tinkling voice gains my attention. “I don’t want her near my family or yours. She and I are friends of old, but she is unhinged. There is a reason for all of this, I assure you. Would you like me to explain or your grandfather?”

Regina and I share a look. “Daniel,”
we say in unison.

“Our problems are deeper than you think.
First, I want to clear up a few things. I am not innocent, but I cannot admit that it was entirely my fault, either. What has happened with Diane and her family and Olivia and her family isn’t about me or you. The three of us are affected by outside sources.”

“I want the truth about my parentage and I want it now,”
I demand, a cold, heartless quality tinges my voice.

Daniel solemnly nods and gives into my demands. “
Yes, I took Whitt from Gwen the day he was born,” he speaks to everyone in the study. “No, I didn’t keep Grant and Gwen apart. I wasn’t happy about their affair. I’d expected a better match for Grant, someone in our social circles. But I was ecstatic to have a grandchild on the way. I wanted many children after being an only child, but we had difficulties. I was happy with one son and two daughters, but my son had no head for business. Gwen ran from us when she found out she was pregnant, and later, she bartered for the sale of her son. She used our family for monetary gain, and I happily paid for my heir. I wanted to save you from the pain,” he speaks to his son, “Your mother agreed it was best that we raised Whitt as our own. You were a young man who fell for a con-artist. Not the first in the world, but we didn’t want you to hurt.”

“Did you kill my mother?” I choke out on a sob. I take a moment to even my emotions. I can’t allow Diane and Daniel to know the depths of my pain. I also have to
be a man in front of my wife’s lover. After a couple deep breaths, I accomplish my mission of emotional numbness.