Dominated Heir 2 Ch. 11

just an FYI, this is a just for fun first draft and has two parts. The part with Xavier's crumbling plan to humiliate her ends the first part and meeting Laura and family is the latter. So if it's been feeling like an odd shift, it has a different start and focus as we figure out this jerkface boytoy with mommy issues a bit more. This is fiction, btw.

Virginia and Annie came into the room, Annie in a plush pink robe and still a bit queasy. She may have acknowledged me, but Virginia behaved as though I was invisible. She'd always done that, so the rudeness wasn't new.

Instead of addressing me, Annie went to the closet and shut herself in. She wasn't even permitted to wear clothes tonight, but I had no doubt she went to put something on.

"Virginia, would you mind finding a decent room for my sister?" My fuse grew even shorter with every politeness required of me.

"Xavier, how about you go to your father's private working quarters." Her jubilant waltz past reminded me of why I detested women who used their bodies to get what they wanted. "I'll feed Annie something good for a baby and she and Laura can sleep in here."

Annie slipped from the closet in long black pajama pants and a purple camisole. The peaks of her breasts were like spotlights drawing me in. If she noticed my glower, she didn't acknowledge it. She seemed to be cowering to her mother's demands.

I began, "My--" My Annie. She belonged to me. This was my trip. And yet Virginia reaped all the rewards of her incessant scheming. My fists ached from how tightly balled they were. "Annie, Sweetheart. You're too sick to be moving about." The order for her to stay couldn't have been more clear.

"I'm better now," my Annie replied. "I'll see you in the morning."

Past her, Virginia twirled her hair around ugly pink fingernails that looked more akin to claws. She wanted to push my buttons.

In the morning? In the morning! I already found the need to protect my Annie and a future child from anything outside my control. And Virginia was very-much outside my control.

Chapter

I never considered, in all the long years I'd known of him, that this man would ever be in a situation where he didn't rule the room. I also never believed my mom could take more control than Xavier. She'd never once exhibited the desire to do anything more than answer to the whims of conceited, rich pricks. But now she'd had a man serving the dinner table with her and she had Xavier flustered.

He had no choice but to let me go. After all he'd done to me, he didn't deserve to be in my presence. But he'd also cleared my sickness from the carpet. Even without knowing how to clean, and humorously in the long-sleeved shirt and boxers he still wore, he took care of me and the cleaning.

"Annie, dear, we'll see him in the morning," my mom said, already in the hall.

I felt this need to stay as well as go. Staying meant punishment. It meant tossing out the control my mom granted me when she invited Laura who has acted as a moral compass for Xavier.

"Annie, please stay, so I can take care of you." Xavier held the self-certainty of a caring partner.

I looked backward to my mom and Laura, who waited outside the room. I could go with them for a short while, but for now, I couldn't leave him as upset as he was. And I could still come back to him to sleep.

I took the few steps to speak to him so my mom couldn't listen to our conversation. "I'm going down with my mom." I took his hand, which he permitted. Before today, I never thought such a simple act from him would hold sincerity. But a lot appeared different. Some of his new behaviors weren't an act to satisfy his sister.

"You get thirty minutes to eat something, then you come with me." Were he twenty-five years younger, the scowl he wore would most certainly accompany a tantrum.

Right now could be the moment of misery that Sadie suggested. Make him miserable to know I didn't want him. If he'd just left me to clean up vomit, I could have. But I didn't want him to be miserable. Self-inflicted sorrow for how mean he'd been, but not miserable due to my making.

"I don't want to sleep on the floor," I said.

My mom provided me an escape from cold nights on the floor for at least a few days. I wouldn't simply lay down on the carpet if I didn't have to. I still had control over how this night would go.

"You'll be in bed with me," he promised.

"At your feet?" I asked. It was all I'd hoped for the last time we had this conversation and he didn't even grant that luxury.

"Beside me." He wiggled his hand free from mine. "But only if you obey this order."

"Every night?" I continued to push for concessions from him. To have that normality again. Even if everything else remained the same, sleeping with someone made the night meaningful. Even when it had been my short-tempered, cheating ex.

"Yes," Xavier said, terse.

"I accept," I said, not ready to push too far--yet. If anything, his humanity might come to light and he could possibly be datable to a woman tolerant of his condescention.

He ran a hand through my wet hair to guide it back from my face. "You're being such a good girl for me, my little Annie."

The praising tone and happiness beaming from him made me want to melt. This was the man who would clean and care for someone else. This was a man unlike any other, whose presence I enjoyed. Not that I would ever stay with him, but he deserved to know it made him seem caring.

"Thank you." I wrapped my arms around him in an embrace, just as his compliment wrapped my heart. I needed a squeeze in return. To be pulled close and affectionately kissed on my cheek by someone who could show such affection when he desired to do so.

Instead, he spoke next to my ear, "What are you doing?" It wasn't quite a growl, but voiced his dissatisfaction.

"Hugging you." Amongst most people, hugs were a natural craving. A closeness he seemed to lack. But he had a mother he called by first name and a sister he feared revealing himself to.

"I'll find you after my shower," he muttered before twisting from my hold and a focused stalk to the bathroom, yanking off his collared shirt as he went.

***

We'd been downstairs in the kitchen, me quietly waiting with thoughts screaming in my head. My mother humming as she took her time making broth. And Richard questioning Laura about her trip and the wellbeing of her mom.

Once my mom had broth poured into a bowl, she returned and passed it across the kitchen island. "This should settle your expectant tummy."

She'd concocted this mess of my supposed pregnancy, and, while I would have loved to discover what she intended to gain, I had to wait until we were out of Laura and Richard's earshot.

They weren't too quick to stop talking about mushrooms and large scientific words. Occasionally my mom even delighted in the topic, as though she knew something about the subject. I felt like I didn't know her at all.

Laura's wide-mouthed, loud yawn that interrupted Richard resembled a cartoon lion.

"You look tired, Laura-love," My mom said

"Very much," Laura replied, stretching. "I'm never up past eight."

Now I knew why she was unattached. Not one person my age that I knew went to bed early. And she didn't seem the sort to know how to date if she did stay up late.

Mom patted Richard's leg. "Would you help her settle into Annie's room? I'll bring Annie up soon as she's done with her soup."

Laura pushed her large glasses up on her nose and got up to follow Richard. "Goodnight." Even the way she walked seemed so...strange. Like she had to think about crossing the room but became distracted. Or maybe those mushrooms they spoke so fondly of played their part.

There were no insincere courtesies to Laura, which made her somewhat charming--like a puppy. A puppy that Xavier wanted to prove to that he was a good human.

"Isn't she just lovely," my mom asked me as Laura and Richard were out of sight.

"Very," I replied.

"I always wanted another daughter," she said with a whimsical look into the void. "Alexander agreed to a son, but none of those were viable."

"You tried to have test-tube babies with him?" I couldn't hide my horror at the thought of her actually going to that sort of effort for the man who wouldn't marry her. But also at the risk at her age.

She shrugged. "It seemed like a wise move."

"It's a baby," I muttered. "Not strategy."

She lazily sauntered to the freezer and searched a shelf with several flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

I swirled the spoon, blowing on the broth she expected me to drink to keep up the lie of pregnancy. But not if she got to eat ice cream. I slid my bowl far to the side.

Usually she only took a small bite and put it away, but she brought over a pint that had chocolate and vanilla with brownie chunks. After grabbing a few dessert spoons, she set it between us.

During her search for the perfect treat, I had time to think about what she'd said about Alexander's refusal to accept daughters. He'd been somewhat tolerant of me, but I wasn't around him much. "Did Alexander refuse to claim Laura because she was a girl?"

"Claim," my mom looked appalled at the suggestion. She leaned forward and scooped a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. "She was supposed to be aborted. He only agreed to IVF to reduce the chance of me birthing a girl and possibly leaving."

What a disturbing old bastard she dated for several years. It nauseated me further about how he'd treated her mildly badly.

For the most part, Xavier seemed to place himself above men and women alike. He didn't seem like the type to demand a pregnancy be aborted based upon sex. But that didn't matter, for me, anyway.

I took a big scoop of mostly vanilla.

"Laura, bless her beautiful heart, wants to be a mycologist like Richard." Mom licked the rest of the ice cream from her spoon, seeming to enjoy every possible bit of cream. "Can you take her to campus and introduce her to important people?" She spoke of important people who held prestige with approachable nonchalance.

I couldn't have gotten into such an elite university without Alexander's connections. And Laura didn't look like she would know how to dress to be in such a setting to meet important people, anyway.

"I'll see what I can do." I ate a large clump of vanilla with a chunk of brownie.

"Wonderful, dear." She leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice. "And make sure she'll have a spot on the Spring roster?"

I didn't know what she thought I could do. "I can't--"

"Of course you can." Her lids were heavy, but more along the lines of agitation with my weak response. She pointed her spoon at me. "Just do for her what I did for you."

"I'm not following," I said, placing my spoon to the side.

"You're following more than you realize, missy."

That was either an insult or a compliment that I didn't want to receive. I wouldn't follow in her footsteps. I didn't want to be anything like her. She dragged me through the dirt in her love of rich men and shiny things.

"No offense..." I looked at the shiny marble counter as I spoke to her. "I'm not going to be guy-hopping like you."

"Oh, Annie-dear, of course not. You'll have Xavier." Her satisfaction with that truth startled me. I hadn't known her intentions upon arrival, but they weren't in my interest.

Now, to the truth of why she wanted to set this fake engagement in motion.

"Since you're talking, tell me what exactly this whole celebration is all about!" I spoke low, but didn't hold back my agitation

"Why, you and Xavier, of course." She reached forward to pull the pint of ice cream to her. "And Richard and I want to see to Laura's well-being."

"How long have you and Richard even dated?" I demanded, though too low to be heard. And since when was Laura so important?

"Oh, maybe four or five years. He's quite charming." She shrugged as though she hadn't just confessed to cheating at the same time she was undergoing IVF with Alexander.

"You..." I found myself baffled for words. "I'm graduating in a few weeks and moving on with my life. Xavier will be in the past and you and Richard will need to find somewhere else to live because Xavier is deliberately holding your wellbeing over my head."

"Annie-dear." She sat a little taller, not at all worried by what I said. "You are going to marry Xavier. There's no better man to serve your needs."

"Needs?" My pitch heightened, but I quickly controlled it. "Whatever happened to love?"

"Oh." she feigned surprise. "Like that little fraternity boy..." she tapped her spoon to her chin. "Dear-Annie, love is more than whatever you saw in him."

"You liked him!" I hissed, standing. She'd loved him and raved about him.

"He was what you needed at the time." Her sweet voice began to grate in my ears. "Now you have Xavier. And men like him are easier to manage."

"No." I couldn't handle her callous and strategic view on life. I preferred our conversations about clothes or her hair to this pro-Xavier chat. And since when would she consider anyone, aside from Richard, easy to manage?

"Good night, mom!" I yanked the ice cream up and lidded it, speedily going to the freezer to shove it in. I felt like my thoughts were about as overloaded as the shelf with too many flavors of ice cream.

"Annie-dear," my mom called. "Are you mad because I want you to help Laura?"

"I'm mad because you care more about yourself than anyone else!" I turned to see her standing with her hands on her hips--not angrily, though.

"I set my life aside and made certain that you had the best life possible." She still didn't express any emotion aside from contentment. Maybe Richard had her on shrooms as well. "You can spend a little quality time ensuring someone more appreciative gets similar opportunities to what you've had."

If she hinted at me on my knees earning Laura an education, the outcome wouldn't be pleasing. Laura could ask Xavier herself. She could tell him how unjust life had been and even demand part of the inheritance.

Now I rushed the stairs to my room, ready to throw myself down and yell into a pillow. But the voices brought an unpleasant reality of who I would find. Xavier, Richard, and Laura all chatted inside--Xavier wearing his clothes from earlier.

That controlling man was far from easy to manage as my mom claimed. He was hard to tolerate most of the time, though, irresistible the rest.

Why had I even bothered rushing to get to a room that I couldn't be alone in? At this point, I'd already been seen by him. I wasn't attracted to him, not in the least. I needed to graduate and discover what he feared the most.