Chapter 7
1307 Words
Ginnie Kramer sat down weakly, a hand going to her forehead.
“That useless boy could have been working for us right now. But you! You had to slap him in the face. He was a proud one. Heaven knows where he got his guts. Even with all his bowing and kneeling, his shoulders were always too high –” Lord Edward ranted, his voice rising by the second.
“You said we should cut him down to size,” Vincent interrupted his father cooly, his own voice low.
“I never said you should break him! He was your shadow for over a decade! He knew how to work and how to be silent! He would have made an excellent aide for you!” Edward continued, throwing a hand up in tightly controlled exasperation.
“Or you! Right?!” Vincent droned, one side of his mouth curled up, his blue eyes as hard as the gem dangling from his ear.
“You –”
“Why are we even talking about that mud-faced bastard?” Vincent sneered, cutting his father off again. “Because he gets out this year, right?” he continued in the same tone.
Vincent’s eyes slid to the side as his mind worked.
“Don’t even bother, I’m telling you – he gets out this year,” Edward Kramer all but spat, eyeing his son with heavy discontent.
Vincent closed his eyes, then turned a fiery gaze to his father.
“I’m…not…stupid,” he rumbled.
“Oh?” his father sneered.
“Edward!” Ginnie Kramer called out in frustration from her seat behind her men.
Vincent took a determined step forward, bringing him into his father’s space. The gem on his ear glowed lightly.
Edward Kramer’s eyes darted to it, then back to his son’s dark blue stare.
“He is out in three months,” Vincent rumbled, his chest pushing out, his chin rising. “Shall I go meet him with flowers in my hands? Maybe on my knees? Maybe –”
Edward stepped forward, bringing him and his son two feet from each other as both men shifted their weights, hands and shoulders twitching, roiling, quietly.
The tension in the room was palpable.
Father and son were of same height. While the son was lean, the father was burly. Both men were dashing, but the younger one fit well with his crowd of longer-haired, earring-wearing, bracelet-brandishing male youths of the wealthy Salvena crowd.
The older one was from a different time of more debonaire men with shorter, neater, coiffed hair, who wore rings on their fingers or watches on their wrists, or both.
“Maybe, you should learn to guard your tongue,” Edward rumbled.
Vincent turned away from his father and stalked to the breakfast tray. He dropped into the three-seater sofa and picked up a slice of toasted bread.
“What about old mud-face?” Vincent remarked nonchalantly, as if he had not almost gotten into a fist fight with his own father.
“It doesn’t matter,” Edward said quietly, also backing down, moving toward the window, away from his son, closer to where the papers of Vincent’s drawings lay. He gazed out of the large window.
“Someone with a vendetta is attacking our operations. At this crucial time, it’s more than a dare. You, and you,” he said far more gently, turning to gaze at his wife, she smiled shakily back at her husband, “need to be more careful in the coming days.”
“You as well, Father,” Vincent crooned.
Edward faced the window and closed his eyes.
“You need to be real, real, careful,” the son droned, biting viciously into the piece of toast between his delicate fingers.
Lord Kramer did not respond.
Lady Kramer’s eyes filled as she gazed down at the table.
Master Kramer stared daggers into his father’s back.
==========
That evening, on the other side of the city, Lord Kramer was taking care of other matters.
“You’re so tense, my love. Why is this so?” a silky voice called out gently.
“Family, my love,” Lord Kramer rumbled. “This day has been tiring.”
The woman smiled, her full lips curving upward sultrily.
“That is why you come to me, no?” the woman breathed.
“Yes,” Edward Kramer replied, a glint in his eyes.
She chuckled. A deep, rich sound. Lord Kramer loved it.
She lay on top of him, her soft, full breasts pressed against his broad, hard chest. She kissed him deeply, and he wrapped his arms around her.
She pulled back, stroking his chin with her index finger.
“I know you, my love,” she breathed huskily.
“Family tension here,” she crooned, her finger tracing his throat as she held his gaze, “is different from work tension here,” she whispered, her finger on his chest. “And is different from the secret business here,” she concluded, her finger on his tight mid-section, just beside his belly button.
He smiled up at her. “Is that so?” he retorted hoarsely. “Then, tell me, which is it?”
“Mmmm,” she murmured, shaking her head at him, her eyes bright as she adjusted against the man she had known for twenty years.
They were both naked, a thin sheet covering their lower halves as they lay in her bedroom, in her home, in one of the most luxurious areas in Salvena city, as far away from Lord Kramer’s own estate as possible – the penthouse of an apartment complex with its own private elevator.
“Not family, my love. You would not have been so great just now if it were that,” she cooed.
He laughed. Her body shook with his chest. Her soft smile remained.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, my love,” Edward droned, tapping her nose.
She nipped at his finger. “I’m not a little girl, Edward, don’t play with my nose,” she said sulkily, gazing at him from beneath her lashes.
He laughed again. “My apologies, ma’am,” he replied fawningly.
She slapped his chest gently.
They both held each other’s gaze comfortably, smiling.
“The contract is in the clear, no? Everything is settled?” she asked after a short while.
Edward Kramer nodded at his long-time mistress. “Yes. They just need to sign. And then, we can take that vacation.”
“Ah! The vacation where I hide in the belly of the boat or the one where I go first and hide on the island until your family leaves?” she asked coyly.
“No!” Edward declared boldly. “The one where we both get on a plane and go to Makrysha.”
“What?!” she called out, sitting up, her large breasts jiggling.
Edward stiffened but kept his focus on her face, throwing his arm casually behind his head. Her eyes flicked to his taut abs, her lower lip trembled, then her eyes snapped back to his.
Edward’s heart swelled with a pride only a man in bed with a beautiful woman could.
“What?” he asked innocently, replying to her surprised retort.
“I’ve been trying to get you to Makrysha for years! And suddenly you bring it up by yourself? Is this…that…mid-life crisis thing I’ve heard about?” she continued slyly.
Edward laughed again. Another reason this particular mistress had outlasted any other – she made him laugh. Genuinely, from his heart.
When he had been younger, he had thought that maybe he loved her. But after a few years, of her, of others, he had come to accept that ‘love’ was a stretch.
The only thing Edward Kramer knew he loved was power.
- Writer
