My three-day weekend fling with Cressida turned into a week. And another week.

Every day my chopper had picked me up from Southhampton and brought me to Manhattan for work. I felt like I was having a withdrawal syndrome every time the chopper lifted from the ground. I couldn’t wait to get back to the Hamptons. I would count the hours, the minutes.

I was struggling to accept this new reality staring me in the face. Cressida had the power to mess up my system, at least with my business schedule, and that had to be taken care of fast before I became a slave of that pussy.

Me, a slave of a woman’s pussy? That was unheard of a few months ago. Until Cressida came along.

The eighteen years between us mocked me. My phone book was full of women who would come running, eager to please me even on short notice. I didn’t need to prove my prowess in the sack by screwing women young enough to be my daughter!

Yeah, that fact bothered me the most. I was a depraved bastard for giving in to my base desires. But even my shame couldn’t stop me from taking her again and again. Like Samson when he saw Delilah’s secret delight, I forgot about my code as a man. She came to me and offered herself like the prettiest gift, waiting to be unwrapped. What man could resist?

I could have, but I was a man who liked to play games my enemies were trying to lure me into so they could do me in. I was also intrigued of the little witch who bravely stepped into my lair to save her father, as if she truly believed she could still stop the inevitable. Her courageous display of loyalty fascinated me. So much that I bit her bait.

Her beauty was something else. But her virginity…I guess that did it. In the end I was just a typical man who reveled in shallow, macho victories. But I didn’t care. I’d never felt so alive as when I took her cherry.

What a fucking blast that was. I still liked to relive how she screamed as I took her innocence. My cock experienced virgin pussy for the fist time and I finally knew the difference. That was definitely unforgettable. I felt a perverse satisfaction in hearing her whimpers of pain as I took her. The tears in her eyes were like medals adorning me as the man who claimed her body for the first time.

I couldn’t believe I did it. I was not the type who got off on virgins. I usually went for the very experienced bed partners as I was a very busy man and I wanted a woman of the world who was confident in the sack, who liked to give pleasure as much as she liked to get it. I wanted her to know the dance moves as well as I did. Inexperienced women were a waste of precious time. Lingering during sex was not my thing. I avoided it like a bad investment. Sex was simply a means to relieve tension accumulated by pressure at work. It was like a gym routine. Once I’d sweated it out, I was done.

That was my mindset before I met this particular female. Now, I was trying hard not to fuck her too often, and waste too much time snuggled deep in her pussy instead of staying in my office taking care of business. I was trying harder not to think about her every damn minute as I went about increasing the digits in my billion-dollar net worth. I was trying so damn hard to resist going home early and pound her the moment I got my hands on her.

And now, I’d worked myself into a full-blown hard-on minutes before a fucking meeting.

This was the new story of my life.

No, I wasn’t feeling miserable, and that was bad for business.

Very bad.

It was one of the strangest things I’d seen in ages. I’d never pictured this happening.

Cressida was having tea with my grandmother at the deck, overlooking the ocean.

I didn’t know Karin was coming to visit today. If I did, I would have transferred Cressida to my penthouse in the city. I certainly didn’t want her to meet my dear grandmother.

As I walked toward them between rows of rare African violets in full bloom, their laugher wafted toward me. Karin’s infectious laugh was famous in New York high society. She could light up an entire ballroom in her day with a single unbridled laugh. It used to stop everyone within hearing distance in their tracks, and lure them to pay attention to her.

“Joshua! About time you joined us!” Her voice was crisp and strong despite her now 83-year-old fragile body. The truth was, Karin Whitney Landis was the real powerhouse behind the Landis empire for the past four decades, and I loved her to pieces. She was all I got to call family.

I smiled and went to her, kissing her cheek. “I didn’t know you were visiting, Karin.” She’d always preferred to be called by her name.

“Surprise! Sit down and have a cup.”

I glanced at Cressida. I was rushing home to be with her…in bed…but that had to wait now. I took the only vacant chair. “Hey,” I said to her.

“Hey,” she said back and gave me the sweetest smile. Just like that, the whole day’s wear and tear on my mind and body melted away. I’d been looking forward to this feeling all day.

So this was how “home” felt like in the real sense. Even a hardcore cynic like me recognized that.

Cressida poured me a cup of tea. It never failed to amaze me, the way she would just serve my needs without being asked.

“I didn’t know you had a lovely guest staying here for weeks now, Joshua.” My grandmother didn’t hide her disappointment.

“I didn’t know you wanted to know, Karin,” I deadpanned and reached for a cookie, popping it in my mouth.

“You know very well how boring this place could be. Good thing I dropped by or I wouldn’t have met Cressida.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I took a sip from my tea cup, thankful of the warm lemongrass flavor traveling to my stomach. It had been a long day.

“How was your day, Joshua?” my grandmother inquired.

“Same old.”

“You spend too much time in The Tower. You should hire a CEO already and take a break. Enjoy this.” She gestured to the breadth of Camelot.

“I don’t need to take a break, and I enjoy this every day, thank you.”

Karin scoffed and ignored me, addressing Cressida instead. “He works like a stock horse on steroids. Before he knows it, he’s old and grey like me, washed out, youth all gone, no wife, no kids to fill up these empty spaces.”

I cleared my throat. “Karin, please, don’t start on that.”

My grandmother sighed dramatically. “I would probably die without any great-grandchild and that is the most tragic of all, having lived a colorful life but experienced none of the most essential joys.”

I gave my grandmother a warning look.

She wasn’t talking to me. “Do you like children, Cress?”

“Yes, of course. Though I’m an only child, I do have nieces and nephews from my cousins on both my parents’ side. We get together once a year. Huge, chaotic party.”

“Great! I can see you’re going to be a great mother.”

“She’s too young to even think of kids, Karin. Leave her alone.”

“Your mother had you when she was 21. I had your father when I was 22.”

“Both of which turned out to be total disasters, have you forgotten?”

“Oh, but your mother was damaged goods from the start. Poor girl was a painkiller addict and a drunk at sixteen. Your father was always a poor judge of character, but then again, my poor son didn’t exactly have an epitome of good fatherhood to learn from to begin with. I’d lost count of your grandfather’s string of stupid bunnies. I used to name them in codes to be able to tell them apart.”

I shook my head. “Go ahead, spill all the horrors of the Landis family.”

“You know what I did to keep those strumpets from toppling the Landis empire, Cress?”

Cressida shook her head, rapt in bemused attention at Karin. I couldn’t believe this. I was smack in the middle of two women talking about reprobates, and I was one. I took after the Landis bastards, no denying that, but it was still strange to be gossiped about when you were there listening!

“I gathered them all in a conference room one day. Boy, was that a harem? I’d never seen so many bubbleheads!”

“Oh my God, you didn’t!”

“I sure did. I knew I couldn’t stop my husband from his womanizing ways, so you know this saying if you can’t beat them…?”

“Join them!” Cressida supplied eagerly.

“Right. I offered them real jobs in the company. I figured, if they were going to be living in the comforts of the Landis fortune, they might as well work their asses for it, like I did. I told them, you can warm my husband’s bed, ride him at a mad gallop from east west north south of the whole country until he keels over, I don’t give a rat’s ass, but you’re not milking him dry for fucking free. Oh, no-no-no. You gotta work for your money, bitches.”

“Karin, for God’s sake!” I interrupted. I really didn’t care about my grandfather’s sordid history of infidelities but I didn’t want Cressida to hear all of that. For the first time in my life, I cared about what others thought. No, I cared about what Cressida thought.

“Oh, hush, Joshua. If you can’t stand the heat, beat it. Shoo! This is girl-talk, you know? I’m going to teach Cressida here how to run her business.”

God, help me! I chewed on another cookie. I fucking needed a sugar rush for this. Better that than a fucking stroke. Cressida was giggling beside me.

Karin was on a roll. “So it was either work or get booted out of any Landis property, blacklisted from coast to coast. Boy, weren’t they all loathed to give up those Park Avenue apartments, the exclusive gym memberships, the unlimited credits in those stores on Fifth Ave, and those polo matches they’d sneaked into here at the Hamptons. They wanted THE life, and so work, they did. Boy, did I make them earn every dollar for their Chanels and Valentinos? Five of them survived and thrived. The rest looked for cheaper quarries.”

“Who?”

“Come closer and I’ll whisper their names, darling. Joshua here doesn’t know them. He never ever wanted to know.”

Cressida leaned forward. Karin whispered something and Cressida’s eyes widened, covering her mouth with her hand to trap her shocked gasp.

“You don’t say?! I never would have thought…! But they look so…like you. I mean so classy and elegant…and they are married to these powerful men! I’ve met them all!”

“Uh-huh. I taught them how to move within the circle discreetly. Their history is safe with me. Those bitches, strutting their shit now like they were born into it. I taught them all. When my husband dumped them, I found them suitable husbands to marry, and so here they are still, and my philandering husband is long gone, God rest his soul.”

“I’m sure they are forever grateful,” Cressida said.

“I’m sure they are. They’re still my bitches, though. My name is on their speed dial and when I call, they come running to their master.”

The two women laughed hysterically. It was enough to whittle a man’s balls. But I was too aroused. Then again, this had to wait.

“Jesus, you gossip girls.” I stood up and left them.

“I cooked your favorite! Help yourself in the kitchen, honey!” Cressida hollered behind me.

I could still hear them laughing as I entered the house.

I smiled. Strange, but I loved the sound of Cressida laughing with my grandmother.