Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

THOMAS

A ltercation. That bitch just called what she did seven years ago an altercation.

As if her destroying my entire life was only a little spat.

I couldn’t help but think back to that day and how I got started on the path to her demise.

When I was eighteen, I did not give a rat’s ass about Mary Quinn Astrid.

She was only one of many women in my father’s sphere. He was on some sort of weird power trip where, although he didn’t particularly like them or find them attractive, my father liked to fuck the wives of the men he did business with right before meeting with them and fucking them over, too.

It was an odd power move that, at eighteen, I thought was amusing but ultimately pointless. Most of the men were so distraught over how he bent them over financially that they didn’t really notice or care that he did the same to their wives physically.

Other than that, I never thought about Mary Quinn.

That changed a few days after my birthday. I was stuck at yet another tedious polo match, watching my father and brother dominate on the field in a sport I simply had no interest in. My father didn’t really care if I played or not. He had his heir. I was just the spare and as long as I didn’t get into too much trouble, I was free to do as I pleased.

It was a perfect setup, if only I had any idea what it was I wanted to do. Still, there was a bit of a role I was expected to play, events where I needed to show my face and represent the Manwarring name.

I made the rounds at the party, said hello to the people I was expected to say hello to, even got the cell number of a beautiful young debutant before one of her friends gave me a blow job behind the barn housing the far stables.

The head was good enough, but I was still bored. Once I finished, I had sent the friend along her way, making sure not to give her any promises about what I would and wouldn’t be doing to return the favor. I made some vague comment about sneaking away after the polo match to fuck in the limo and that I’d get her number then.

All I had wanted at that point was a moment of peace to smoke a little weed, so that when I returned to the mind-numbing tedium that was socializing at these matches, I could pretend to be amused with something.

That was when someone screamed out in pain, followed by a loud smacking sound.

I followed it, thinking I was going to catch some lovers’ quarrel, or maybe a kinky BDSM scene. So imagine my surprise when I walked into one of the other stables to see none other than Mary Quinn hitting a child with a riding crop.

“How dare you touch my horse, that horse is a thoroughbred...,” she was screaming. I only caught maybe half the words because I was so incredibly high, but what I remembered clearly was the tearstained face of a poor boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve. He was dirty, covered with mud from where he laid on the ground, rolled in a ball, trying to protect himself from her continuous strikes.

She raised her hand again, and I stepped in between them, taking the strike on my arm and grabbing the riding crop from her hand. The kid scrambled up and ran out of the barn.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she seethed. “That boy needs to be taught a lesson.”

“He is just a kid, and you are beating him like he is the maid fucking your husband. Who even is he?”

“I don’t know, some groundskeeper’s son, but he should know better than to touch something that doesn’t belong to him, that is worth more than his entire life.” She tried to yank the crop from my hand. I hung on to it.

She pulled again and again, insisting I let go so she could finish what she started. That, or so she could beat me with it instead. Rolling my eyes, I tried to pull it out of her grip, thinking she would release it. Instead, her body fell into mine and since I was still so high, she knocked me off-balance, sending both of us tumbling to the ground.

She still fought me. Pulling on the crop and running her nails over my face and my body. It was like being attacked by a jungle cat.

I tried to push her off of me just so I could get up and get away from her, holding her hands at bay, never striking out because I knew better. Manwarring men were warriors, we could be violent, and we would lash out physically if called for, but never at a woman. If we wanted to destroy a woman, we would do it socially.

I rolled over to get her off of me, and was trying to get to my feet when her hand shot out and grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me down. She shoved her tongue between my lips and her clawlike hand went to my pants and grabbed my cock.

She went from jungle cat to city cougar real quick.

“So young and handsome, why don’t you let me teach you how to please a woman? I can show you all the things you don’t know yet. I can show you how a real woman fucks. All I need is this young hard cock filling me up. I can make a real man out of you,” she whispered in my ear while keeping one hand on my shoulder, her claws sinking into my back, and the other massaging my limp, uninterested dick.

I would have reacted faster to get away from her, but I was so high it took a few seconds for my brain to catch up to what was actually happening.

“Dear God, no,” I yelled as I scrambled back away from her. “Why would I fuck such an old decrepit crone? Everyone knows you are fucking half the men here. Hell, they joke about how loose and used you are. If I wanted to fuck an Astrid woman, you have two daughters that are gorgeous, well-bred, and young enough to still be attractive. No one wants you.”

Had I been sober, I may have been able to stop my mouth from running. My words may have been smoother and my actions more diplomatic, but there was not a single thing I had said that wasn’t true.

Then she did something I had never seen a society woman her age do. Her mouth twisted into a frown, wrinkles seemed to explode from her forehead and around her eyes as they scrunched down, and her once expressionless mask turned into a vile visage of hate and rage.

“How dare you,” she screeched.

“How dare I? You just assaulted me.”

She stopped and stared at me for a moment, her eyes tracking down my body and her mouth curling up at the corners, like she saw some victory in her head.

“I am going to make you a deal. If you want to keep your life the way it is, then you are going to become my little dog. You are going to come when called, and you are going to follow orders. I am going to have you housebroken and well-trained to service me whenever I see fit, and you are going to be fucking grateful for the opportunity to lick and fuck me when I demand.”

“You can’t make me do that.” I was so stupid, so disgusted by her proposition and just so damn high that I didn’t see the obvious.

“I can, and I am. You can start right now, or I will take away everything you love, dear. All I have to do is tell them how you attacked me.”

“You attacked me!” I shouted, the panic setting in.

“Who do you think people are going to believe? The eighteen-year-old boy full of hormones who reeks of drugs? Or a pillar of the community?”

“No one sees you as a pillar of any community,” I scoffed.

“The DA does, as does the police chief, and any jury in the world.”

“What?” I said, still regretting smoking so much weed before this.

Mary Quinn reached up and ran her fingers through her hair, tousling it a little bit. I then watched in horror as she picked up the riding crop, slapped her own face with it and then tore her blouse.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“You’ll see,” she said, turning on her heel and walking away.

I didn’t know how long I sat on that stable floor trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. But that was where my father found me.

It was not unusual for Lucian Manwarring to be filled with rage. In fact, I would even be comfortable in saying that it was a pretty constant state for him to be in. But I had never seen him as angry as I did that night.

My father was a tall, massive man, built with broad shoulders and thick with muscle. He towered over most football linebackers, and intimidated men half his age on the polo field.

He stomped into that stable, his hands clenched into tight fists and his face actually bright red. He didn’t say a word. I was waiting for him to yell, to lash out at something, but he grabbed me by the scruff of my collar, pulled me to my feet and dragged me out of there.

“What happened?” I asked, praying she hadn’t gone through with it.

“You know what the fuck happened,” he said, his teeth clenched as he escorted me not to the car that was waiting, but straight to our helicopter.

“Where are we going?”

“Mary Quinn just accused you of attempted rape. She is telling everyone who will listen that she was in her stable, seeing to her horses, when you came in smelling of weed and whisky and you assaulted her. She is saying she tried to laugh it off and push you away, saying how she is a happily married woman, and you were so high out of your mind all you could do was paw at her and grope her.”

“Father, I didn’t—” He lifted his hand.

“She said you hit her with a riding crop across the face and she barely got away. She is threatening to press charges.”

“You have to believe me. I?—”

Again, he cut me off by raising his hand to stop me from speaking.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. I will not have one of my son’s reputations ruined. I will not have the stain on our name of having you in prison. This will not happen. I will not tolerate it. You’re getting on a plane tonight.”

“Where?” I asked, knowing there was no point in explaining, not when he was like this, not until he calmed down and could be rational. The best thing for me to do was to get on that plane and wait for Mary Quinn to get distracted with something else before coming home and dealing with this.

“Rome.”

I nodded, having spent enough time in Italy to have learned the language and fall in love with all the decadence that the ancient city offered.

“I’ve already spoken to a few cardinals here in New York and in Rome. You’ll be going to seminary school. You will become a priest.”

“What?”

“This is not up for debate. This has to happen.”

“But I have college starting in?—”

“No, you don’t. You have seminary school, you will become a member of the Catholic Church as a priest, and you are going to stay in Rome, where you are safe from this following you.”

That was it.

In a single night, because I had no interest in fucking Mary Quinn Astrid and I was too high to realize I should feed her ego and find some excuse to get away from her, my entire life was gone.

Seven years ago, she had the upper hand and a sterling reputation. Her word in this city was law.

Now, she was no longer the pillar of the community she once was. Her reputation was far from impeccable, and it was time to start my revenge. All it would take was a few well-placed rumors and the destruction of her daughter to take her down.

I gripped my teacup hard enough it shook a little and took a careful sip before putting it back down.

With the things that I had planned, when it came down to finishing off her reputation, that would be easy. She had already done half the work for me.

Her money, assets, and livelihood were going to be a little bit more challenging.

But when I was done, it was going to come down to her word against mine, and I was a priest, a pillar of the community. She would be a ruined, friendless, penniless woman.

I looked at her with the same smile I gave the archbishop in Rome recently, after I swore to him I was a man of God and would never defile a woman on the altar, and Father Reyes was clearly seeing things and should seek medical attention. The same smile I had when I said I wouldn’t start trouble in New York, and the same smile I wore as I told Mary Quinn’s daughter that she was safe with me.

“It’s forgotten.”