Happy Wednesday, all! It’s time for a recap of your favorite hot mess of a book, all so you can get through the rest of your week with a good laugh…or serious cringing. It’s your choice. We’re on Chapter Sixteen, and the shit hits the fan here!
“Mrs. Grey, Leila Williams is on your proscribed list of visitors.”
“What?” I have a proscribed list?
“On our watch list, ma’am. Taylor and Welch have been quite specific about not letting her come into contact with you.”
Oh, so now it’s to the point he’s controlling who has access to her. Really healthy, right?
What the hell does Leila want? I don’t think she’s here to do me any harm. She didn’t in the past when she had the opportunity. Christian is going to go nuts. My subconscious purses her lips, primly crosses her legs, and nods. I need to tell him that I am doing this. I type a quick e-mail, then pause, checking the time. I feel a momentary pang of regret. We’ve been getting along so well since Aspen.
Hurriedly, I hide my BlackBerry in my desk drawer. I stand, smoothing my gray pencil skirt over my hips, pinch my cheeks to give them some color, and undo the next button on my gray silk blouse. Okay, I’m ready. After taking a deep breath, I head out of my office to meet the infamous Leila ignoring “Your Love is King” humming gently from inside my desk.
Susi speaks. “I know this is all kinds of weird, but I wanted to meet you, too. The woman who captured Chris—”
I hold up my hand, stopping her in mid-sentence. I do not want to hear this. “Um . . . I get the picture,” I mutter.
“We call ourselves the sub club.” She grins at me, her eyes shining with mirth.
Oh my God.
“I loved my husband . . . and one other,” she murmurs.
“My husband.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“Yes.” She mouths the word.
This is not news to me. When she lifts her brown eyes to mine, they are wide with conflicting emotions, and the overriding one seems to be apprehension . . . of my reaction, perhaps? But my overwhelming response to this poor young woman is compassion. Mentally I run through all the classical literature I can think of that deals with unrequited love. Swallowing hard, I clutch the moral high ground.
“I know. He’s very easy to love,” I whisper.
What is up with this guy that he has all of these women falling all over him? I’m not getting it.
His mouth drops open; he’s so surprised by my outburst, and his brow creases once more.
“You promised you wouldn’t do this.” Now his tone is accusatory.
“Do what?”
“Defy me.”
“No I didn’t. I said I’d be more considerate.”
And here is one of the reasons why the book is about an abusive relationship. He says she promised she wouldn’t defy him, but she only promised to be “more considerate” of him, whatever that means. He’s twisting her words around to fit his own purposes.
Suddenly, it’s my lifetime ambition to make him realize this. It’s painstakingly obvious that he cares. Why does he deny it? It’s like his feelings for his birth mother. Oh shit—of course. His feelings for Leila and his other submissives are tangled up with his feelings for his mother. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore. No wonder he’s so mad.
Hint: Maybe it’s because he’s a misogynist.
I just want him to admit to himself that he cares for her. A chill grips my heart. Oh no. This is why it’s important to me. Suppose I do something unforgivable. Suppose I don’t conform. Will I be history, too? If he can turn like this, when he was so concerned and upset when Leila was ill . . . could he turn against me? I gasp, recalling the fragments of a dream: gilt mirrors and the sound of his heels clicking on the marbled floor as he leaves me standing alone in opulent splendor.
Maybe that’s a good thing?
And that’s it for this week!