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He peers down at me. “Since when did you ask?”
Don has a steady girlfriend—well, by steady, I mean one that he keeps for a few months rather than just hours. And then he has me. But so far, he never needs me to travel—not with a suitcase that big anyway.
“Those pencil-dick Chinese will love you.” Don clenches my jaw, his favorite move to show that I’m his. “To look at, of course. You’re the bitch I’ll never marry, but I surely enjoy fucking you exclusively.”
Don gestures for his bodyguard to open the suitcase.
Shiny gowns, lingerie, stilettos, jewelry boxes, and of course, Don’s favorite blonde wig for me.
“So we’re going to Chinatown with all these?” I deadpan.
Don laughs. “You are funny sometimes.”
Despite his takeover of Nando’s business, Don’s company, Fletcher Tech, has been struggling to balance its books. He’s vowed not to seek foreign investments, but I won’t be surprised if he yields this time.
“Chinatown via Nairobi,” he jokes.
“Kenya?”
“Bravo. You know your geography. It’s a fucked-up country, but it’s the gateway to Africa and a gold mine in its own right. With the right kind of partner and the right level of corruption, you can make great headway.”
“What happens to your girlfriend? You don’t take me overseas, Don. That’s the rule, right? I don’t even have a passport.”
Don pulls me into his embrace—a threatening embrace. “I make the rules. You don’t lecture me. You’re going.”
“For how long?”
“A week.”
I face Don, half begging. “I can’t. Raffi needs me.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna get a free holiday. Sort it out, and I don’t mean Thomas. That kid has been distracted lately—like he’d gone back to puberty or something.”
I know for a fact that Thomas has just broken up with his boyfriend. Nobody else knows about the relationship—we’re aware of the consequences if it ever leaked. The breakup devastated him, but in a way, I’m relieved so I won’t have to keep a secret anymore. And, as selfish as I am, I need him.
Thomas and I haven’t found a way to break free thanks to Don’s persistent surveillance on me and Raffi. The best resolution we could come up with was that I should find a rich man who’s more powerful than Don—and not a dick. I’m not counting on that scenario to come true, but my nightmare will have to end sooner rather than later, and I won’t be able to do it alone.
“Don, I have my medical exam to prepare for,” I say to him gently. Raffi might not be a good enough reason for him—another human being is never a good reason for him—but perhaps my study might, even though it’s trivial compared to my son.
Don considers it for a moment. “When you get your medical degree, I’ll be the first to congratulate you. But I’m your work, your leisure, your day, your night. That means you do as I say.”
“At least give me time to prepare for the trip. I’ve never been overseas. Well, I was born in Rio, but that doesn’t count, right? What do I know about Kenya!”
“Isabelle, I don’t need your intelligence. I just need you to be by my side, to be mine. You only open your mouth to smile, drink, and eat. And to blow me.”
Despite that remark, remarkably, Don never forces me to give him blow jobs. Rumor has it that he was once hurt that way by a woman. I never ask whether it was true, hell no, but I wonder. Does he not do it at all? Or does he only trust a few—those whom he’s confident will not harm him? If my assumption is right, that implies I’m not one of those few women.
He controls me, but he doesn’t trust me. A bad combination.
Regardless, the absence of his oral preference is a welcome reprieve, as I can’t help feeling my past sex life was all about blow jobs. Since I was pregnant with Raffi, Nando wasn’t fond of having intercourse. Men like him simply want to assert their dominance. Everything is one-way—to them, for them, and about them. I’m just hoping that this coming trip is no different, that Don doesn’t suddenly ‘trust me.’
“Come on, get rid of that stupid clothes,” he sneers at my nurse uniform. “We leave now.”
Don lets me go, and his bodyguard hands me a thin knit dress. Jesus, I’m slim, but that dress is impossibly tight!
Apparently hearing my steps upstairs, Raffi opens his door and pokes his head out. His eyes are fixed on the dress I’m holding. “You’re going away?”
“You’ll stay with Pippa, okay?”
