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Still straddling her, he took her hand and guided it to his fly. “Undo it.”
“No, I—” She withdrew her hand and then held back a little scream as she saw his muscles flex beneath his shirt. He slid his leather belt out of the loops and for a second she saw the flash of a silver buckle—a running horse with sharp little hooves, made of metal that could cut and scar. Oh, God. Pain jolted through her body. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“Take the zipper down.”
“Witt, no—”
“Just do it, Eunice. You’re still my wife.”
“Please, Witt, don’t make me do this,” she whispered and watched as his nostrils flared and his eyes bulged. How had they ever come to this? How had she ever thought she loved him.
“Now!”
Her hands were shaking and she felt revulsion when she noticed the bulge beneath his fly. He was enjoying torturing her and had become hard, after months of impotence, months of silent fury. He’d blame the business, then her, and now he was wreaking his vengeance.
The zipper slid down with a sickening hiss.
“You know what to do. Do for me what you do for Polidori. Show me what it takes to make that filthy bastard come.”
“Witt, no, I don’t want—” He grabbed her by her hair and his eyes glowed with evil rancor. Thick fingers knotted in her French braid as it fell loose.
“We’re going to do what I want, Eunice. You’re going to make me feel good, Eunice, no matter what it takes, no matter how it hurts.” The fingers pulled hard on her hair. “And when I’m finished with you, you’ll never run back to that bastard again!”
Sick to her stomach, she had closed her eyes and given herself up to her husband and all his perversity.
“Mom?” Nelson’s voice broke into her painful reverie.
Startled, she cleared her throat and quickly reached for her napkin to dab at her eyes.
Nelson was staring at her. Her baby. The last of her children. The boy conceived during that night of hell. Never once had there been any question of Nelson’s paternity. Even now, staring at her, his carved features set with worry, he was the spitting image of his father as a young man, a man Eunice had thought she’d loved, a man she could barely remember. Witt Danvers with all his energy, his ambitions, his vision for Portland had seemed the perfect match. Though she wasn’t a dainty woman, he hadn’t minded, probably because she was from the “right” family, had a small fortune of her own, and he felt that she would help and support him.
“It will be ours one day,” he’d said, smiling from a penthouse apartment and looking down at the city. “Every block will have a building with the Danvers name!” She’d believed in him then, trusted him. Until the other women. And the fact that after two children his sex drive at home had dwindled.
Anthony had been the balm for her ego and she’d stupidly fallen in love with him.
“Are you all right?” Nelson asked, snapping her back to the present. His handsome face was etched in concern, his blond brows beetling to form one line. So like Witt. Poor child. Despite the rough, humiliating way Nelson had been conceived, Eunice had loved him, as she’d loved all her children.
“I’m fine,” she lied, forcing a smile. As she stared up at her son now, she thought all the agony and humiliation had been worth it. Clearing her throat, she took her boy’s hand. “Now, tell me what you know about this girl—the one who claims she’s London.”
“There’s not much to say. No one knows anything, except what we heard last night.”
Eunice stirred her coffee as Nelson unburdened himself and she heard the sketchy details of the woman pretending to be London Danvers. Nelson was worried, but that was nothing new; he’d been born worried. As a child he’d had a wild imagination, dreamed of fantasy worlds, and as an adult he was always trying to prove himself—as if he silently knew that he hadn’t been wanted, that he’d been created during an act of violence. His job with the public defender’s office was just to show the populace that although he had been born with a s
ilver spoon wedged firmly between his Danvers gums, he still cared about the little people.
She would help him, of course—as she would help all her children. To make up for the years when she hadn’t been there, when she’d been banished to the role of unfit mother and Jezebel. Witt’s power and money had seen that she had been forced to watch from the outside as he molded her children into little carbon copies of himself.
Of course, it hadn’t worked. Her offspring were too strong-willed on one hand, and too weak on the other. Jason was the most like Witt in personality and he, too, seemed to care little about anything other than the Danvers name, the Danvers money, and the Danvers corporation. Trisha would never really be her own woman. Witt had taken care of that a long time ago. Zach…She smiled as she thought of her second son. He was special. He’d been a thorn in Witt’s side from the minute he was born and Eunice had reveled in her son’s rebellious nature. Nelson was more of a conformist, but he’d only gone along with Witt for his own purposes.
The divorce had been ugly, most of it replayed in the newspapers. Eunice was portrayed as a bored, rich woman who had partaken of numerous affairs, including sleeping with her husband’s sworn enemy. She hadn’t had the energy or the resources to fight Witt’s power, so she’d agreed to a nice little settlement and left her children with their beast of a father. Even now, as she thought about how Witt had manipulated her into losing her darlings, her teeth clenched in silent rage. She should have known better than to have pushed him so far; she should have sacrificed herself and lived with his mood swings and impotence and rage, so that she would never be separated from the children, but she’d been cowardly and accepted his token alimony—blood money—and left.
Her life had never been complete. Even when she’d remarried, she’d been restless and there hadn’t been a night she hadn’t gone to bed feeling guilty as sin and lonely for the chubby little arms and adoring eyes of her babies.
As for her affair with Polidori, it had cooled and cracked as quickly as hot glass dipped in ice water once Witt got wind of the situation. She often wondered if Anthony had used her. If he’d seduced her for the express purpose of tormenting Witt. She blinked rapidly and once again fought the threat of hot tears.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Nelson said, touching her lightly on the shoulder.
“Right as rain,” she replied, refusing to break down. “Now, come on. Surely we can find out more about this imposter who’s posing as London.”
