HIS CURVY OBSESSION

Banks Parallel

BANKS POV Parallel- Him in the kitchen while Eleanor read the fourteen pages contract

She read every page. I know because I’m watching her on the camera feed I pulled up while the coffee brew.

She turned each pages with the focus of someone who isn't going to sign anything she hadn’t understood completely, which is satisfying. Most women claim to trust me, know me, know what this means and don't fear anything.

Meanwhile, I watch her take her time, watch her body react actively to each pages. I want to see her physically go through the moment but I bide my time... Watching her have the realization without the piercing stab of my presence that'll certainly dull some of the pages from settling in.

I elicit that reaction from people a lot. She stands up, about to spiral so I close the feed and pick up both cups. She’s on page ten when I come back in.

I know what’s on page ten.

I drafted that clause myself. My lawyer, Patricia, who has handled four previous arrangements and has never once commented on their terms, looked at the termination clause on page ten and said

"This is unusually generous, Banks" and I said "include it" and we moved on. Unusually generous.

It’s accurate. Previous arrangements ended and the properties reverted. Clean and efficient. That’s how structures work. You remove your investment when the project closes.

Eleanor Ashworth is not a project. Her body makes me dizzy. Her compliance and the way she raged when I first saw her, there's something unbelievably gripping about her.

And it's also a test. I don't know for what, but I want her to prove me wrong she's here to ruin me.

Because I will. I'll ruin and devour her till all she can see, think and breath is me.

I want her wholly consumed by me.

I want her life revolved around me.

I've done same for other women and discarded them off when they became what I wanted.

When they thought they're special or could claim me

When they thought they're in disposable, I chuckled and discarded them. Leaving them with their wardrobe and a shell of who they were.

It satisfies me. Fills me with warmth that I can ruin as many women as possible more than she ruined me. More than Montana ruined me.

"Don't go there" I suck in a breath.

Take the bait Eleanor and make an attempt to cut off so you can claim my money. They belong to her but I need a stain on her. A reason to kill this fire buzzing under my skin.

I need her to have a semblance to Montana so I can have a reason to ruin and cut her off just as Montana did to me.

“Page ten.” She says when I sit down.

We move through her conditions.

All smart. Urgent personal requirement was deliberately vague and she caught it. The therapy provision- she looks at me when she says she’ll use it.

Like she’s expecting resistance. Like every person before me made her feel that the contents of her own head were subject to approval.

What you discuss in therapy is yours. I mean it. I mean it specifically because I can see, in the way she holds herself when she says it : slightly braced, chin level, prepared to argue that no one has said it to her before.

She turns to the last page.

“What does the O stand for.” She says.

I look at her. Nobody asks. The O has been in my legal name for forty-two years and appeared on every document I’ve ever signed and nobody has asked. They assume. They don’t ask.

Except Montana. And now Eleanor.

"Sign"

She looks at my signature on the page. Then at me. Then she picks up the pen. I wait for her to sign her name. She doesn't.

I suppress a groan of annoyance and look at her

She is sitting on my chair with her hair loose and ink from my pen on the side of her right hand , failing miserably to pretend she isn’t second thinking about what she is to sign.

She is warm, specific and entirely too much for the category I put her in when I walked into the perfume shop two days ago.

I told myself it was simple. f**k her pretty face and curves that call to me.

Mine. I think.

She drinks her coffee saying nothing and I realize late.... She was never going to stay where I put her.

I close my hands around my cup, staring at the woman I intend to use to supplement my future and rewrite my past.

She is my drug, my challenge, my penance. I want to see how much of my 'ruin' she can truly survive.