Chapter Five
Kayla
On Sundays, I call my mother. It had been a long week. It had only been four days since Oscar Connell had come into my life, but I felt like my world was disrupted. We were both working late. There were meetings to attend and I had worked for six straight hours on Saturday, while Oscar met up with some investors for lunch.
“Hi, mama,” I said into the phone when I heard her answer it. I could picture her pottering about the house, slowly walking towards the phone and answering it.
“Hi, baby,” she said, cooing into the phone, and my heart was instantly warmed. Nothing in the world could make me feel as good as listening to my mother’s voice.
“How are you, mama? How’s your knee?” I asked, snuggling under the throw on my couch. I hadn’t had a chance to relax all week.
“It’s fine baby. How’s work?” she asked
“It’s good. Just been busy,” I said, staring up at the ceiling.
“Will you be visiting me soon?” she asked. I could hear the loneliness in her voice and it broke my heart. But I had no other choice but to live away from her. There were no jobs for me in our forgotten southern town. And mama could never live anywhere else.
“I wish I could. You know that. It’s just that I’m swamped at work now, mama,” I explained to her, and even though she clucked her tongue and said she understood, I knew she missed me more than she was letting on.
It had always been mama and me, ever since I could remember. I didn’t even know I had a father. She told me the truth when I was fifteen years old. That he was still alive. Living his life somewhere on the East Coast with his family.
All my mother told me about him was that she was his secretary and that he was a rich businessman. No name, no address and nothing about what he was like. She’d lost her job when the scandal became public.
She didn’t need to tell me that he had broken her heart. That she loved him all her life and had forgiven him a long time ago for abandoning her when she got pregnant. I could see it in her eyes. She cherished me because I was her only child, and also because I had a part of him in me.
“I’ve sent the check to the hospital, so you don’t need to worry about missing a payment,” I added, and her voice changed.
“When will you ever save some money for yourself if you keep paying my hospital bills?”
“Mama, don’t worry about it,” I interrupted her, sitting up on the couch. I didn’t want to have this conversation again.
“I know you’re a fancy city girl now with a good job. But you need to save some money,” she continued, disregarding my words.
“Mama! I know what I’m doing. I have enough,” I said, looking around my apartment. It was small and cramped but at least it was summer now so I didn’t feel the lack of a heater. Secretly, I was glad that mama couldn’t visit me. She would be ashamed and angry if she saw how I was living. She thought I lived in a fancy apartment and went to expensive restaurants and bars with fashionable friends. She was happy for me that I had been able to escape the life she had lived. It would break her heart to know that I couldn’t afford any of those things. I ate oven dinners and noodles, never bought new clothes or shoes and was barely able to pay my rent in time. She didn’t know how high the costs of her medical treatments were. Physiotherapy, the medicines, the nurses… it all piled up.
But it was all worth it. She didn’t complain about the pain as much as she used to and it was great hearing how proud she was of me. She told all her neighbors and friends how successful her daughter was and how well she was being looked after.
We chatted a little more before she said she had to go because her nurse was arriving. “Alright, baby, give mama a kiss and get on with your day,” she said into the phone and I smacked my lips together. She giggled at the other end like a child and then we hung up.
I was alone in the apartment again. I got up from the couch and walked over to my computer to go through my work emails. I was waiting on one of the investors to get back to me with a confirmation of a meeting.
I received a message while I was online, blinking at the screen. It was on instant messenger and the username was OConnell.
You busy?
I found a smile spreading across my face when I read it and without thinking, I began to type.
Not particularly.
His reply was as quick as mine.
Come over.
The smile remained on my face as I stood up from the chair. I had to force myself to wipe it off. Why was I this delighted to hear from him? Oscar Connell was a means to an end.
I’d spent all my teenage years, ever since my mother told me about my father, wishing for the day I could avenge her unhappiness.
I knew I could never get my revenge with my biological father. But I wanted to get it with some other man. A man in a position of power, who believed he was using me. History wouldn't repeat itself. I’d make sure that he was the one who felt used, by me. I had hoped for so long that an opportunity would arise where I could use and discard a man, the way my father had done with mama.
When I met Oscar, even before he suggested the deal, I knew he was the man who I could get my revenge with. He was so convinced that he had me in the palm of his hand. It was hilarious how he believed that he could destroy me when he ended our sexual relationship. But I was going to be prepared for it. I would make sure that he understood he meant nothing to me.
So why was I so excited to receive a message from him?
I shook my head and went over to my closet to get ready. I figured it was just the excitement, the prospect of having another round of mind-blowing sex. That my plan was working.
I saw it in his eyes last week, how surprised he was that I simply left after the sex was over. I could tell that he expected me to linger around till he asked me to leave.
But this was a deal, which I was going to keep. Better than he expected me to.
I was there for the sex, just for myself, and for how hot he made me feel between my legs. Not only was he devastatingly good looking, he was also my boss, which made our little fling even more exciting. Plus, the fact that he was my boss made him the perfect target for my revenge.
The thoughts were racing through my mind as I tried to pick out clothes for the night. Nearly all of them were crumpled up or too old to wear.
I found a simple black jumpsuit with very little wrinkles and I slipped into it. The feeling reminded me of the way he had peeled my dress off my skin that night. It took me by surprise.
His hands had explored my body like he was discovering something new. He had pushed into me, his body shivering as I came, his blue eyes glaring at me, right into my soul when I wrapped my legs around him.
Kayla! I said it out loud, snapping myself out of those thoughts. This was crazy. I shouldn’t have been thinking about him, alone in my apartment.
I was always afraid of this. I remembered mama sometimes being lost in thought. She’d be baking some cookies while I studied at the table, and she’d suddenly be staring into space and smiling.
If I ever asked her what she was thinking of, she’d only wave it off. But I knew she was thinking of him because she’d then be sad for hours after that. Just the memory of him for that instant would break her heart all over again. She couldn’t be with anybody else, when he might have married somebody else, living a happy family life so far away from her.
Mama didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to be pushed away, to end up a single parent despite all the love she had to give.
I was scared to the bone of feeling the same, a one-sided love. All men were alike in my view. If my own father could abandon me, abandon my mother who loved him so much, men were capable of anything.
I couldn’t deny that Oscar Connell was too sexy to resist. I wanted him for his body, as he wanted me for mine. But anything else, these instances of thinking about him, had to stop. He had come into my life for only two purposes: to fulfill my sexual desires and then to get my revenge by dropping him like an old hat.
I fixed my hair, slipped into the same silver heels I’d worn the previous night and I was ready to go.
I couldn’t afford to take a cab all the way to his house, but also didn’t want him to see me arrive on foot. So I walked half the way, and then took a cab. It dropped me outside his building and I could feel my heart racing again, just like the first time when I took the elevator up to his penthouse.
This time, he opened the door to the apartment even before I rang the bell. He was expecting me. Had he been waiting for me?
Oscar Connell was in a dark blue checked shirt, and dark gray tailored pants. His blonde hair was smoothened and neatly brushed back, away from his face. His blue eyes sparkled as he held the door open for me.
He smelled fantastic. Like oak wood and musk, rich.
“I had Marie, my housekeeper, prepare us a meal. Are you hungry?” he asked, twirling a glass of whiskey in his hand. The ice cubes tinkled in the glass and I felt a shiver run down my spine. His body, his face, his eyes; they always took me by surprise.
“No, I’m not,” I said, following him into the living room.
He raised an eyebrow when he turned to look at me.
“Not a time waster, are you?” he asked with that same boyish smile on his face. I placed my hands on my hips so he could look at my bulging breasts. His eyes were drawn to them instantly.
“Where’s your bedroom?” I asked him and he gently placed his glass down on a table.
“Let me lead the way,” he said, slowly walking past me. His hand grazed my hips as he brushed against me. His smell filled my nostrils and I felt my knees quiver. I had to keep it together. He was just another man, just another guy who was fulfilling my needs. Why did he overwhelm me like this?
I followed him down the hallway, while he turned to look and smile at me. I noticed the luxury of his house. The four bedrooms we walked past, the beautiful big bathrooms and then the master bedroom.
I wasn’t prepared for how luxurious and beautiful all of this was, the house, him...
“Like it?” he asked as he pressed the door shut behind us. I only smiled at him, but I was certain he could see it in my eyes. How badly I was lying to myself, about everything.