His to Claim (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

A
Y
ear
L
ater..

E
laine decorously exited Mrs. McBain’s home office after the conclusion of the quarterly report on her progress in the new high-school.

During the last one year, she had learned much about the people and the way of life in the upper crust society. As for her new school, it was good with decent grades and a small clump of friends to her laurel.

It was the home, or rather the house, every minute spent there was longer than the one before. Most days it was just she in the house left to her own machinations.

Mrs. McBain preferred staying with friends, or at hotels. Damian, whom Elaine had met only thrice–a very dour and intimidating man–over family dinners hosted quarterly at the residence, had his own pad in the city.

Tonight, it was one of those family nights.

Mid-stride, on her way to get ready for the dinner, a gurgle of giggling halted her progress up the stairs on the landing to the first floor. It came from one of the guest rooms.

As far as Elaine knew none of the family’s few close relations invited were planning to stay the night.

Etiquette dictated that she walk away. But when a whimper filtered through the air as though someone were in dismal misery, Elaine’s curiosity whetted.

What if someone required help?

The door was ajar. She would just give a little peek inside. If everything seemed okay, she would walk away leaving the occupants undisturbed.

Having decided, Elaine neared the room on light, unhurried footsteps. She was about to reach for the knob on the long oak when unexpectedly it flung open on her.

A young woman adjusting her ginormous breasts back into the front of her dress was happily scurrying ahead a beautifully, disconcertingly bare chested Trevor.

Elaine recognised the woman. Violet Marbury was Damian McBain’s current paramour. And the state in which she and his younger brother were spilling out of a vacant room spelled unquestionably what they had been doing in there.

Their easy playfulness came to a halt when their sights landed on her. Each exhibited a different reaction.

Trevor stunned, his green Henley shirt in hand, looked truly lost for words, while Violet deliberately slowed the process of covering her boobs the size of giant Truck headlights no man could ever miss.

Elaine would have thought Violet mortified to have been caught cheating on Damian with his young brother, flustered in the least. But contrary to what was expected, she took smug satisfaction in keeping her physical bounty on display for as long as possible, and enjoyed proving what the younger girl lacked.

Elaine, sixteen now, might not have had proportions directing every eye in their vicinity to them, but she was content with what she had. And for all she cared, the woman and her jiggling assets could have all the lurid leers they wanted.

“Lost, are you?”

Violet’s high pitched voice, if exposed to it long, could grate anyone’s nerve. How Damian could stand it was a mystery? But then again, Elaine didn’t think he did much of talking with her.

More of that noise spewed, but with a caustic jibe this time. “Or is it that you’re right where you want to be? Following Trevor with just your eyes isn’t enough anymore?”

“Violet!” Trevor snapped, piqued with the older woman’s uncalled for goading.

Elaine positively reddened with chagrin.

“Oh, c’mon Trev.” A manicured hand trailed over taut grid of his pectorals. “Her problem isn’t much different from what’s been ailing-”

“Do you ever think before you say?” His tone hardened in warning.

Trevor was in no mood to hear what Violet had to tell. And when she laughed at his quick fielding, he impatiently commanded, “Go and wait for me out front. I’ll be there in a minute.”

A cool shrug and a knowing snort later, Violet sashayed down the stairs. As Trevor watched her, seemingly unable to take his eyes off, Elaine, still scarlet with embarrassment, sought to take this opening to quietly slip away from there.

She was shaken that anyone, least of all Violet, whom she had only seen twice before, on both occasions with Damian and scarcely longer than an hour each time, had noticed how much she was attracted to Trevor.

Elaine had always been so careful that no one became privy of her growing fascination with him. If only he hadn’t changed his pattern of hardly coming home from college to becoming an unaccountably frequent visitor. And it hadn’t stopped at that either, the length of his stay had stretched longer and longer each time.

This turnabout was proving disastrous for Elaine’s peace of mind. She only had to hear he’s home and her eyes would start searching for a glimpse of him at the tiniest rap on the door, faintest scuff of a shoe on the floor.

At the moment, she had just crossed the corridor to the first step up the next floor when she heard him call, “Elaine,”

Her heart picked up speed. Each syllable rolled over her like glistening molasses.

There weren’t many occasions when Trevor McBain addressed her directly. And his taking her name so intimately, without an infliction of antagonism, nailed her feet to the ground.

The short rise to the second floor before her might as well have been a climb to the Alps in ball and chain at her feet.

“Can I have a moment of your time?”

She grappled to rein her galloping breaths, the chaotic thoughts.

“Would ye na look at me?” The depth in his voice turned sinfully deeper.

In the new high-school that Elaine went to, Trevor was a legend. They swore there hadn’t been a girl he couldn’t have had hanging onto his every word.

She could well understand the struggle those girls had had to go through when that brogue of his whirred down their breasts to raise havoc deep in the pit of their stomachs.

“We need tae talk.”

What was there left to say?
Remaining still on the stairs, refusing to face him, she said, “That’s okay, we don’t have anything to say to each other.”

When she would have preferred to leave things at that, he had to go and cross her. “I do, if you don’t.” Then on a softer touch added, “Please, Elaine.”

This had to be done. He was not letting it go. She closed her eyes, took a long, fortifying breath before spinning to look straight at him. “Go on then.”

Bare chested still, that magnificent masculine torso stared her in the eye. She wanted to meet his gaze but those corded pectorals refused to prove less than intriguing!

He had no right to stand there so calm and collected when she was having an awful time trying to concentrate anywhere else but in the general direction of his wickedly appealing, naked, upper frame.

So, her words came out sharper than intended. “Put your shirt back on first!”

“Oh,” Trevor grinned broadly with those perfect white teeth of his showing. “Sorry.”

That mischievous grin nearly destroyed her hard earned, yet fragile control over her booming heart. But once decently clothed, he was back again the old Trevor whose charisma didn’t stand a chance before the magnitude of her dislike for him. Or that’s what she had herself believing with enough repetition.

What was taking him so long to say what he wanted to say.
Was he fidgeting?

Trevor cleared his throat. Elaine couldn’t remember when she had ever seen him this uncomfortable.

“Elaine, I.. er.. Elaine-”
What was he playing at?

“Spit it out, Trevor.”

“I wanted to apologise-” He said in a rush.

Since when did he care about offending her?

“You just did, and then appropriately covered up.” Involuntarily, her eyes darted up and down the perfect fit of his Henley.

“No, it’s not that.” He appeared more uneasy. His unflappable confidence for once was missing. “I’ve been doing some thinking. How we started. I have said and behaved badly before, I know. But there have been times, lately, when it wasn’t..
that
bad.” His eyes probed hers.

She knew what he saw. Bafflement and confusion. He wasn’t making much sense to her. And it prodded him into flying to the gist of his talk.

“Can’t we start again?” Impatience and frustration evident in his question.

Too long Elaine had prayed and hoped for this. Did she even hear him right? “What? What was that you just said?”

“Start new.” His words however blunt, pleased him–confidence returning in heaps. “We could be friends. No more saying bad, hurtful things to-”

“Don’t keep me waiting long, Trey!” Violet crossing the hall below to the main door called up, snipping away at Trevor’s stream of seemingly innocent and eager offer for truce and friendship. “You don’t want me here when Damian arrives, do you?” She might have been talking to Trevor, but her derisive eyes were pinned on the younger girl.

Things started to get into perspective for Elaine.

Start new!
She would have to be a complete idiot not to comprehend what led this sudden attack of conscience in Trevor. This farce at friendship was just a ploy to keep her from divulging his and Violet’s dirty deed before Damian.

When Trevor had no qualm encroaching on his own brother’s love life, then how could
she
trust him to be suddenly so free with his coveted friendship, proffering it to a nobody like her.

No doubt he thought, give the poor girl a crumb of what she knew she could never have and then see the wheel spin whichever way he liked.

Elaine let her hopes plummet without a ripple to show on her face. “I would sooner befriend a rabid dog, than a manwhore like
you!
”

***

T
he morning shower washed away the trials of dining down with the McBain family and their few invitees last night.

It had been painfully staid. The subjects on the table hardly veered from business and charities. The guests were all politely patronising.

Elaine hadn’t uttered a peep to Damian of her misadventure that evening. Though, Trevor’s eyes fixed on her with unrelenting intensity gave her immense satisfaction.

He must have stewed all through the dinner, anxious and fearful, his filthy secret would out.

Swathed in towel, Elaine stepped into her room to see her maid changing the sheets on her bed.

“Good morning, Miss.”

“Morning Bessy.” Elaine wished back with a smile.

“Oh, Miss Elaine, here are the tickets Mr. Jamison asked me to hand you.” Bessy gestured over to the large yellow stubs placed on the bedside table. “Mrs. McBain’s secretary had asked me to tell you, Madam has reconsidered your request to be allowed to go to the Carnival this evening.”

“She has?” When Elaine had mentioned the Carnival at dinner, Mrs. McBain had scorned the idea coated with polite sweetness of her cool demeanour.

Baffled, Elaine padded to the small table and picked the tickets up.

“There’s more,” Bessy grinned, her youth shining through the dour uniform. “You and your friends can have one of the cars to yourselves for the whole day. Just instruct the driver when to take it out.”

This was all so unbelievable. “I should go thank her now.”

“You can’t Miss, Madam had already left for a three day long official trip to Boston. And Mr. Jamison has always impressed-”

“Not to bother Mrs. McBain unless there’s some dire emergency.” Elaine completed the dictum McBain house operated on. “So then, who all are still home?”

It was a harmless, obvious question, nothing too deep to look into.

“The guests and Damian sir, all followed Mrs. McBain out the house almost immediately. Master Trevor stayed back longer, leaving for the campus only half an hour before now.”

Good riddance!
Hearing that fiend still here would have ruined her mood too much.

Elaine looked down, drawn by the beautiful calligraphy of the word Carnival on the ticket stubs. She could count on the fingers of her one hand the number of times she had been to one. And each time, it had given her a slice of freedom, unadulterated joy of being a kid, away from the gloom and bleakness of the children’s home.

Just the thought of experiencing that flying joy again after so long excited Elaine.

She laughed and skipped around her maid as the teenager she was. Her happiness, uncontainable.

“Here Bessy, help me pick out the best dress, would you?”

*****

CHAPTER 8

P
resent

A
shrill ringing brought Elaine back from the scabrous memories of the past. Even the tiny bird sitting at her windowsill fluttered its wings and soared for the blue sky.

But it was the sight of her deserted bed that truly jolted her.

Sometime during her retrograde, Elaine had divested herself from the smell of sex, her shameful defeat, and
Trevor
, that still clung to the incriminating bed sheet.

The crumples and creases from her sleep and the one’s who had had taken up its other half were vulgarly preserved.

They mocked her vain hope that all which unfolded in this house yesterday were but a horrid nightmare she lived. Reality, however, was determined to give her bitter brunts in the light of day.

The twinges and aches in her most secret and intimate region, standing naked in the middle of her bedroom with only a comforter to cover her nudity, they screamed she had messed up, badly.

Tremulous, she remembered the desperation, the fever with which she had responded to his taking of her. And that’s what it had been, a ruthless taking. For making love required one to be in love, or at least have care for the person you share the exquisite pleasures of your body.

Trevor had never cared beyond what he wanted. She was but a means to assuage his lust–an intrigue that he wanted unravelled, slaked. Once done, he left her here like some used tissue!

And it was she, who had made it all so effortless for him, to unfurl her layer after layer.

Her naivety from the night before came to torment her again. On that very bed, like a nitwit, she had rested her head on his shoulder with dreams of her world back on its axis.

A blighter more vicious than any other suddenly struck up from those gnawing memories to choke a gasp out of her, and Elaine moaned in utter shame.

Trevor had been fully clothed!

Clothed, all the while she had shamelessly writhed in throes of passion against him, beneath him–on the floor.

Even later when he brought them to bed, he was dressed.

In her languor, Elaine had been too muddled to take note of that anomaly. She had in fact, she remembered with abject burning, even slipped her hand through the sheath of his shirt to reach closer to the lulling beats of his heart.

What a class rate of gullible fool she was! Trevor had once again used her, and then thrown her without a moment’s thought. She had no one but herself to blame.

Ring… Rrr..Ring…….

Starting at the incessant screech of the doorbell, Elaine’s reflection took a different route.

Who could that be?
Instantly, a dreadful possibility leaped forth.

No, she wouldn’t do this to herself.

But as her legs took her out from the bedroom, his name wouldn’t stay buried, away from her conscious thoughts. It jerked, it rocked, it drummed, until it was all that stormed her mind.

Her hands visibly shook as they opened the door.

It wasn’t him.

Sharp relief infected by tints of dying defiant hope that followed was so vicious a blow in her breast, that debilitated, she nearly staggered from it.

“Are you all right, Ms?”

Elaine leant against the door jab and nodded shakily.

The guy standing in a plain grey and red uniform was unconvinced. “You look a little pale, are you sure?”

Elaine gave a wan smile to assure him. “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks. How may I help you?”

He watched her a second longer, then decided to brush the matter off. “I’ve a small package here for a..,” reading from the paper in his hand, he said, “Miss, Elaine Pa-”

“Parker. That’s me.” She didn’t know how she got that name, but she had stuck with it till now.

However, what interested and truly surprised Elaine here, was the presence of a delivery guy standing at her doorstep. She had never in her life before received even a post card to her name.

Having signed for it, she closed the door and walked back to the living-room.

After taking the paper cover off the package, a small box lay full in the palm of her hand. She looked at it inquisitively.

Not knowing what to expect, Elaine gingerly opened the lid, and saw a pair of blazing diamond earrings resting inside atop a blue velvet bed. They had an amazing tear drop design with beautiful tassels of swinging moonbeams round their curved bottoms.

There had to be some mistake here.
Maybe it was meant for someone else, and the poor guy.. In the midst of her speculations, Elaine noticed a slip of folded paper sticking out from the side of its blue bed.

What she found penned in it at first stunned her incredulous, then even ‘livid’ seemed too mild a word to describe her next emotion.

She glowered at the little white rectangular note. The two words on it jumped at her again and again–Thank You.

The longer she gazed at it, the more furious she became. It was his scribble, she knew. How dared he?

Thank You!
As though she were his whore, whom he needed to pay for the night’s fun. An exorbitant payment for the services of an equally expensive whore. He had called her as much last night when he had sneaked into her apartment.

Well, she’ll show him. The next time he saw her, she wouldn’t be the Elaine whom he took this cheaply.

She would have erased every trace of the girl inside her who had put a break on her life, her heart, for a boy who had never loved her in return.

And that was a promise Elaine made to herself.

***

T
heodore Moore sped out of the Hawk’s office with tattered dignity, and his thick black rimmed glasses askew on the perch of his long nose.

He should have checked the papers for the tenth time before taking them in. Damian McBain never missed anything, and he had no patience for errors. On a typical day looking at the man you would think a face chiselled out of stone, untouched by mundane human emotions.

But if you were to ever see it perturbed, then that would be the day you rued knowing the Hawk.

“I take it this morning isn’t turning out to be a good one for you, Theodore.” Trevor gaily thumped the lanky man on the back. “My big bro giving you a tough time today? I mean, tougher than usual? Say, what do you think are my chances to slip out unscathed?”

“Mr. McBain’s been waiting for you, Sir.”

Theodore’s skirting his pointed question with a staid face plainly told Trevor the atmosphere within the office of the CEO of McBain Industries was most likely freezing.

He had had gathered as much from the curt call he received near dawn from Damian to come to his office without delay.
Did the man never sleep?

“That bad, huh?” Trevor shrugged his shoulders and walked in.

Nothing was fazing him today. What ire he had gotten being summoned away from the heat of Elaine’s soft, beautiful, graceful limbs, it had died swiftly in the anticipation of getting back there this evening.

As the door closed behind him, his eyes roamed the sombre room. With a louvre drawn on the sprawling view outside, the dark, ebony arrangement of the office was illuminated by an array of bright light fixtures adorning the length and breadth of the ceiling above.

At the helm sat his brother, Damian, with a commanding aura. His gaze fixed on a laptop screen, he was discussing something over the phone.

The man at thirty-four looked a handsome devil–upon the ladies’ words–least wise those who were strong minded enough to stand Damian’s hard edged personality.

A lass who loved flowers and read poetries by a loch would shrivel under his demanding and domineering nature.

Men, all who dealt with Damian believed him a heartless scoundrel. They either grudgingly respected him, or hated him. But feared him equally they all.

To Trevor, Damian had had been the resented authority that was imposed upon him after the death of their father. Damian was the son to their parents who could never do wrong, and Trevor was the one who hadn’t ever learnt to do right.

He had disliked the infallibility of his older brother till the day he had matured himself to realise what a damned lucky bastard he was to have got a brother like Damian.

Once Damian held himself accountable for you, there was no power in the world that would sway him from doing what he thought was best for you. He was a rock you could always count on to stand by you.

But along the way, this rock had forgotten he possessed a heart. A heart that, Trevor suspected, might have frozen, but wasn’t yet stone-dead.

“Poor Theodore looked harangued.” It was Trevor’s opening statement as Damian rang off. Starting on a neutral topic seemed like the best course.

Damian lifted his head up from the contemplative study of the phone. Whatever had been on his face was deftly swept off upon seeing his wee brother.

Reposing on the winged-back black leather chair, reflection of his thoughts gone, he said, “I am the CEO. Do I not
harangue
my employees when they muck up, they succumb to shirking, and soon the entire order of the company is crumbling. If keeping food on the table of those who work for us, and indulging the reckless antics of my wee brother require I harangue, then harangue I will.”

“Put like that, I doona ‘ave much of a case.” Trevor plopped into one of the two chairs on this side of the wide desk in-between, and splayed his long legs on the floor crossing them at the ankles. “Sae, what’s the calamity that ye wanted tae see me sae urgently?”

“My errant Chairman and Director of McBain Industries.” Damian cagily intimated.

“Me?” Trevor picked up a brow, innocently.

“Aye, ye. What was sae important that ye returned tae States from Scotland, jeopardising the project entrusted in yer hands by the board?” Blue eyes, much as Trevor’s, gave him a gimlet stare. “It wouldna be a lass, would it?”

When Trevor didn’t make a reply, but continued the unbroken intensity of their challenging stare, Damian said, “Women can be had fo’ as wee a trinket as in gold and diamond. Dangle it before their bonny faces an’ they would gladly claw anyone of their own tae reach ye first. Doona waste time an’ energy chasing after ‘em.”

“She isna one of those.” Irritation swarmed in Trevor.

“If she isna one of those who want a monied cock tae keep cuming in her bank vault, then she is the only other kind ye need tae watch out fo’.”

“What kind is that?”

Damian gave him a vulpine smile. “The ones who’ll keep playing ye intae trusting her as the woman of yer fantasies, then one day when the glamour has worn off, too late ye’ll realise, wedded, she had permanently snagged yer arse fo’ her own.”

“I doona believe ye.” Trevor said bitingly.

Sardonic gaze moved from Trevor to the opened laptop in front. “Mother was the latter kind.” This vulgar proclamation was made in a flat, clinically detached tone.

Trevor didn’t need to look in Damian’s eyes to know that his brother unquestioningly believed this of their mother.

The irony here was, even after having gotten to spend most time with their parents Damian detested them, while Trevor who had loved them, had had craved for their tiniest affection, their smallest praise for as long as they had lived.

And for this iniquity in their upbringing, Trevor, somewhat, still envied his brother.

“Ye swine, Damian. Yer talking aboot yer own mother.” Indignant, he leapt from his chair and turned to leave the rotting scum to his bogged mind.

“The truth doona change fo’ yer no’ wanting tae hear it.” Trevor heard Damian speak, but he was too disgusted with his brother to stop.

“I know aboot Elaine.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

“Aye, I ken it’s her ye came back fo’.”

Trevor slowly, insidiously spun back. “I want tae marry, Elaine.”

He was observing his brother closely. The new alertness that seeped into Damian was instantaneous.

“I ‘ave other plans fo’ her–as well fo’ ye.” Damian’s voice possessed a new hardness to its quality.

Trevor knew how much his brother would detest a bump in the shaping of his schemes. But it was time he realised Trevor was a man of his own right.

“Well then, ye’ll just ‘ave tae change ‘em. ‘Cause Elaine is one thing I doona intend tae back down on.” There was no incertitude. The conviction in Trevor’s heart showed on his determined face.

Damian would have pounced had even an inkling of doubt shuddered through Trevor, then used it to weaken him into capitulating to his wishes. But there had been no fissure for him to manipulate.

“Did ye consider the fact that the theory aboot women I just spouted may hold true fo’ Elaine too.”

“In yer own twisted mind.”

In an ambiguous manner Damian planted his elbows and forearms upon the desk, allowing heavy beats of quiet to thicken their surroundings.

Trevor knew that look. It meant his brother had knowledge of something he didn’t.

“Out with it.”