Nola (12 page)

Brandon took the
loss of his grandfather very hard, and he'd turned to his wife for comfort,
which had surprised Nola to no end, although she was very honored by it, too.
One night - several months after he'd passed, Brandon had awakened her in the
middle of the night and cried. Nola had been watching him closely. He hadn't
betrayed any sort of emotion during the entire ritual - not at the wake or the
funeral or for several weeks afterwards. He'd spoken fondly of the old man, but
had never
teared
up or choked up while doing so.

But that night
he had held onto her so tight and cried his eyes out. And she'd held him
through it all, rocking slightly, just hugging and holding him and letting him
know that he wasn't alone. They never spoke of it, but he seemed to be more at
peace with his loss the next morning, and she knew that his late night
breakdown would be a secret she would take to her grave.

Her husband
responded to his grandfather's death by throwing himself into work, and she
realized quickly that, if she wanted their still somewhat tentative idyll to
continue, that she would need to involve herself in the family business even
more so than she already had been.

It wasn't Nola's
forte - business - but she did find it interesting, so she began to ask him if
she could come with him occasionally. She didn't want to impose, so she only
did it sporadically at first, but then he began to actually ask her if she was
going to accompany him.

They made a
fantastic team. Granted, just as in their marriage, he was the one who made the
final decisions about things. But she felt free enough with him to speak her
mind, and he found that very refreshing. He was surrounded by enough yes men.
Granted, they were the cream of the crop of yes men, but he had no delusions
that that was exactly what they were.

Nola was a fresh
voice, one not guided or blinded by the fact of who he was or what his last
name was, and sometimes her observations were dead on, or she brought up things
that he hadn't thought of. She had a woman's intuition that everyone around him
- and he himself - lacked, and he found himself leaning on her comments,
especially after a board meeting where her presence was most definitely
resented. That seemed to be where she came into her own that much more. She
liked making the men uncomfortable, and she did nothing whatsoever to betray
that she was anything more than window decoration for a relatively new husband
who was apparently so besotted by his wife that he couldn't even bear to go to
work without her.

As she began to
make friends with the wives of the men who were in their social set, she was
able to garner information that was extremely helpful to their various causes,
merely by attending teas and luncheons.

Of course, she
also had an agenda of her own, and, as she involved herself in the more usual,
charitable causes, she also attempted to recruit for her own - although she
didn't find very many converts.

And Brandon
actually got called on the carpet by several members of the board, whose wives
she had proselytized to, who were none
to
happy for
that fact. Brandon found himself in the unique situation of having to defend
his wife's unusual opinions, most of which he didn't agree with, either.

But he did it.

And while he did
it, while he was arguing for her cockamamie ideas, he realized something.

He loved her.

There was no way
in hell that he would do what he was doing right now for any other reason. No
way in hell.

That discovery
didn't make him feel any better about what he was having to do at that moment,
but he and his wife would be having a discussion about her tendency to try to
recruit society ladies to her causes later on that evening and he was quite
sure he would end up feeling much better after he'd taken a bit of his time and
effort out of her hide.

Their usual
dinner table had been reduced by one, and it suffered considerably for the lack
of Alexander, with his tendency to tell somewhat ribald stories of his wilder
years and consume just a bit too much wine with the rich food.

"A baby, that's
what we need. A baby," Geoffrey pronounced, with a sharp eye at what he
obviously saw as his recalcitrant son.

"Don't look at
me, Father. I'm trying as hard as I can, believe me!" He waggled his eyebrows
at his wife.

Nola was going
to have absolutely no part of this conversation whatsoever. She was already red
enough just being forced to listen to it, much less participating in it. She
ignored the men and continued to delicately dissect the perfectly cooked
chicken in lemon sauce, until she realized that the conversation had stopped
and they were both looking at her expectantly.

Chapter
Eight

"Don't look at
me!" she crowed, sounding like an echo of her husband.

"Well, I have to
look at one or the other of you, and given a choice, I'd certainly rather it be
you than my son," Geoffrey neatly put down his son and complimented his
daughter in law in one fell swoop.

"Thanks,
Father," Brandon commented dryly.

"You're welcome,
son." Geoffrey reached over and patted Nola's hand with a sly smile that was
very reminiscent of his son.
"Even if she does have some
pretty absurd ideas about women and their role in society."

He had to go and
ruin it. Alexander would have known when to give a compliment and then shut the
heck up about it.
But not Geoffrey.
He was too brash
and sometimes downright pushy.

"Yes, well, she
and I are going to have a discussion about those very things this evening,"
Brandon pronounced, and Nola nearly choked on her au gratin potatoes.

"We are?" she
asked impolitely, her mouth still full of food.

He gave her that
awful look she'd become so familiar with. "Yes, we are. I don't want to get
into it here, in front of Father, but I know what you've been doing at your
teas and socials, and it's not to continue."

Nola honestly
had no idea what he was talking about.
Absolutely none at
all.
"What have I been doing, besides drinking tea and being sociable?"
She didn't give him a chance to respond before saying, "And getting information
that helps the family business, I might add."

Brandon fairly
glared at her, and he hadn't done that in quite a while. But it had lost some -
not all, but some - of its heat. She was innocent. She had to be. She couldn't
think of a think she'd done that might earn her a "discussion".

"You've been
trying to get your women friends - whose husbands are not at all happy with the
idea - to join in your crusade for female voting rights, among other things."

Nola was
unrepentant. "Well, they're there trying to get me - the family - to contribute
all sorts of money and time to their pet causes. Why can't I get them to work
on something that really means something to half of the population of this
country?"

She had to give
it to him. Brandon didn't roll his eyes. But Geoffrey did.
"Jesus,
Mary and Joseph, what tripe!
Women should be wives and mothers, and
that's it. That's their lot in life. They've got it easy. It's the men in the
world who have to go out and slay the dragons, and that's why they have the
vote. Women don't need it, and it would just be a waste and upset the rightful
balance of things." His daughter in law's baleful look did nothing to penetrate
his stubborn righteousness.

"Is that what
you believe?" Nola asked her husband pointedly, pushing her plate away long
before she was finished with dinner.

"No," Brandon
answered truthfully, "but I also don't believe that you should be making other
women uncomfortable-"

"Am I making
them uncomfortable, or their husbands?" she interrupted sagely.

Brandon hated it
when she was right. "Regardless, you shouldn't be making anyone uncomfortable,
since they're your greatest source of information."

Nola hated it
when he was right and she hadn't thought of that. She really liked contributing
to the family coffers in any way she could. It was almost as if she had a job,
too, although she knew that Brandon would never allow that.

Dinner was over
much more quickly than she would have preferred, and although she suggested a
friendly game of Whist, neither of the men took her up on it. Instead, she
found herself manhandled up the stairs by her husband, who wasn't looking like
he was in the mood to be particularly lenient.

Once they were
in their room, he loosened his grip, and Nola yanked her arm out of his tight
grip to go sit on the end of the bed, her arms folded across her chest and a
mutinous expression on her face. "There's no need to spank me just because
those women got upset at having their eyes opened to the reality of the plight
of women in America society. Just because they all live cushy lives of
privilege, doesn't mean everyone does."

Brandon was in
the act of getting undressed, but he gave her a questioning look, and she knew
exactly what he meant.

"Yes, I know,
I'm one of the privileged ones, so this is coming off as somewhat hypocritical,
but I haven't always been quite this privileged. And I've certainly worked with
enough women who need some sort of a voice in the government of their own
country. You men certainly aren't addressing their causes or concerns."

He wasn't at all
pleased with being lumped in with the "you men" she hated, but she was probably
right. Until he'd met her, he certainly hadn't paid much attention to what
happened to any women at all, much less the poor and underprivileged. But she'd
opened his eyes to a lot of things, and he was doing his best - which generally
meant going with her to rallies and making considerable contributions to her
various causes.

Brandon stood
directly in front of her and tipped her chin up so that she had to look at him.
"I'm not going to argue with you about this. You shouldn't be doing that."

"Well, I didn't
know that I shouldn't be doing that," she answered back bravely.

"Well, after you
get a spanking, you will, won't you? I spent an hour and a half fielding angry
phone calls from outraged husbands and even a few impromptu visitations."
Naked, he returned to stand in front of her. "I'm sure you must've gotten some
sort of feeling about how well you weren't being received, Nola. And, this is a
good lesson for you. Not every husband is as understanding and forward thinking
as yours."

Now that had her
smiling, despite her fate, especially as he set a knee on the bed and tugged
her back onto it with him, leaning down to kiss her lavishly.

"But perhaps,
before your punishment, you want ravishing."

"Oh, I
definitely want."

They made love,
slowly and languorously, taking time to enjoy each other enormously. Their
general softening towards each other had only served to heat up their marriage
bed. They could barely go a night without reaching for each other and
dissolving into this incredible heat they generated when they were in each
other's arms.

As the ogre in
him had been tamed, Nola found her inhibitions relaxing quite considerably, and
he had introduced her to many more things than she could ever have dreamt of
doing with a man. But he had become much more encouraging and much less growly
as their relationship had progressed, and he had her doing things that made her
blush in the light of day - especially when they did them in the light of day,
which he adored doing lately.

He'd even taken
her while they were at work. She was sitting calmly in a chair in front of his
desk, going over the minutes of some of the meetings they had attended
previously with the CEO of the next company they were looking at and he
suddenly picked up the phone and told his secretary that he didn't want to be
disturbed for the next two hours.

And then, in
front of God and everyone, in front of the nearly floor to ceiling windows of
his huge, imposing office, he proceeded to strip her, kissing each newly
exposed area, and managing to shock his bride to her kid shod toes.

"Brandon! We
can't do this here - now!"

He looked up
from nuzzling her neck. "Yes, we can, and we will."

She knew that
tone all too well. It meant there was absolutely no way she was going to get
out of it, and her body seemed to adore that prospect; it was already dampening
her drawers, which she knew without a doubt that he was going to gloat over
when he inevitably discovered it. Until she met him, she'd never been
consciously naked during the day - except for baths or while she was getting
dressed or undressed. But it was always just a transitional thing that
sometimes lasted only a few seconds.

Brandon,
however, reveled in keeping her naked, and displaying her with the sun on her
creamy skin. And this time was no exception. He didn't try to expose her at
all, he didn't command her to stand in front of the windows or anything, but he
did make her stand in the middle of the room without stitch on. Of course, he
had locked the door - both the one that led directly to the boardroom and the
one out to the elevators, but that didn't really settle her mind, and she
couldn't help but fidget from one foot to the other, lacing and unlacing her
fingers nervously, and trying to resist the urge to cross her hands over her
breasts, which she knew from previous experience would earn her a sharp smack
on her bottom.