The Ceo's Contracted Mistress
The Ceo’s Contracted Mistress Chapter 28

Bobbie watched as Ollie sleepily pushed her hair off her tear-stained cheeks and waited for Olivier to answer the phone.

“Is she okay?”

“Daddy?”

“Oh baby, are you okay? What happened?”

“I had a bad dream,” Ollie whispered leaning against her mom. Bobbie rubbed her shoulder, listening as Ollie sniffed and whimpered for Olivier. Ollie had woken up from a bad dream crying she wanted her daddy and Bobbie had consoled her and offered to let her call him. She had washed her face and calmed her down before dialing out the number for her.

“What was your dream about?” Olivier’s voice was emotional, and Bobbie didn’t miss the tone was barely controlled.

“I dreamed you didn’t love me anymore because I punched your face and your p***s.” She sobbed into the quiet of Bobbie’s room.

Bobbie would have laughed at the comment if her little girl’s heart wasn’t breaking in front of her.

“Oh, my little love,” he spoke quietly into the phone, “don’t you remember what I said? No matter what you do I will always love you. You’re allowed to get mad at me. You’re allowed to feel the things you feel. What’s my only rule?”

“Don’t take it out on maman,” she said quietly, hiccupping a sob. “Are you going to take us away from our home?”

“Not in a million years,” he promised. “I will never take you away from your maman. This would hurt you and make you sad and I never want to do either of those things.”

“But your dad said –”

“What he said was wrong and it was not anything I agreed with. I did not talk to him about such things. He came to his own conclusions, and he was wrong, and I am very, very angry with him.”

“Did you punch him in the face?” Ollie kicked her foot out absently bouncing it off the mattress.

Bobbie stifled a chuckle at her daughter’s question.

“No. I did not. I made him leave our rooms and told him I did not want to see him for a long time. I am mad with him, Ollie. He hurt you. He hurt Max and he hurt maman. It makes me incredibly sad to know you are hurting.”

“Dad,” Ollie said quietly.

“What my love?”

“I miss you.” Her little sniff echoed in the quiet of the room.

Bobbie wiped a wayward tear off her cheek as she looked up at her ceiling, inspecting it for cobwebs or anything to keep her from breaking down looking at her child. She looked back to Ollie and stroked her slender shoulder.

“I miss you too, very much. Would it be okay for me to come visit and see you soon?”

Ollie nodded as if he could see her, and Bobbie had an idea. She wiggled her fingers for the phone and then made a video call.

Olivier’s face filled her phone screen and Ollie instantly started crying again. Bobbie chuckled as she noted Olivier’s eyes were as watery as Ollie’s. He really was a big softie.

“She’s really overtired but she’s been doing more nodding at you than speaking. At least this way you can see what she’s telling you.”

Ollie reached her fingers to touch the screen, “where are you?”

Bobbie settled on her bed as Ollie lay down on her tummy and video chatted with her father. She listened as he took her on a little tour of his condominium and explained he was in New York for work, but he would be home no later than Monday. He showed her how high up in the sky his place was in Manhattan and all the lights of the city below.

They talked for twenty minutes and then Ollie was yawning, her eyes getting heavier. Bobbie chuckled when her little head snapped down and then back up as she fought the sleep.

“Ollie, why don’t you say good night to Dad?”

“No,” she protested as she pulled the phone close to her chest.

“Then come sit up here with me and we can snuggle in mommy’s bed and talk to daddy together.”

Ollie slid up the bed and crawled under the sheets Bobbie held up for her. Bobbie crawled in with her and then smiled at Olivier who was waiting patiently.

“Are you getting dizzy with the camera moving everywhere?” she giggled.

“It’s worth it watching my two favorite girls,” he smiled back.

“Daddy, when are you coming home?”

Bobby saw the questioning and longing look in his eyes and she gave a single nod. For the kids she would do anything and admitted to herself, she missed him as much as Ollie was missing him.

“I will be home Monday. No later.”

“Why do you have to work on the weekend?” Ollie complained, “weekends are family time.”

“I work everyday,” he admitted and saw her frown, “but I am sorting through things in my work to allow me to have more free time. I have already appointed people to take over many of the things I normally am responsible for in order to be with you more. I cannot promise to have every weekend free, but I am doing my best to be available. I can tell you, most of my work, I can do from my computer or my phone, I can work from home just like maman.”

“Okay.” Ollie’s little voice was sleepy and quiet. “Two more sleeps then.”

“Yes, my little love, two more sleeps. Sleep now and I’ll see you soon.”

Bobbie held the phone as Ollie’s hands loosened its grip on the device. In seconds, her head fell forward and a little snore escaped her mouth.

Bobbie looked into the screen and smiled at him. “She’s out.”

“Has she had nightmares all this week?” he questioned quietly.

“Every night. She has an overactive imagination and bad dreams aren’t out of the norm for her but this many in a row are.” Bobbie adjusted Ollie until she was laying on the pillow. She considered Ollie was getting taller and her body was almost as long as Bobbie’s. She made a face. “She’s growing up too fast and things are confusing for them right now. I worry for her ability to deal with stress as she’s older.”

“Perhaps we should do family counselling.”

Bobbie was stunned by his comment. “You would go to counselling?”

“I do go to counselling,” he smirked at her. “It started when it was court appointed for me in high school.”

Bobbie’s eyes widened incredulously at his statement, “court-appointed? You got into trouble?”

“I got arrested after beating a couple of guys up at school.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Sophomore year, couple of bullies picking on one of the kids on the debate team. I beat the f**k out of them. They deserved it.”

“You got arrested for it?”

“I put one of them in a coma.”

She sat up in disbelief, “what?”

“He was only unconscious a couple of days,” he shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Olivier,” she opened and closed her mouth several times like a gaping fish. “I need more details.” She threw her flustered hands at him in the screen.

He sighed, “fine, the school had a no pet policy. Couldn’t even keep a goldfish in a bowl. One of the kids on the debate team had snuck a cat into the dorm. I went to the roof to get away from Riggs and Soren who were arguing over a girl. On the roof the two guys were teasing the kid by holding the kitten over the edge of the roof and threatening to drop it to see if it landed on its feet, saying it was a science experiment. The kid was crying and screaming. I spoke up.”

“You spoke up.”

“I might have spoke using my fists.”

“Olivier.”

“They threw the kitten against a wall.” He swallowed furiously, “they didn’t drop it, but they threw it. Hurt the tiny thing. I made the kid take the cat to get help and I dealt with the two assholes. The kid told a teacher I was on the roof probably getting my a*s handed to me because they were a bit bigger than me. He was scared I’d get thrown off the roof because it’s what they were threatening to do to him. Took six teachers and a school security guard to get me off the punk who threw the kitten.”

“Jesus Olivier,” she sighed. “And it put him in a coma?”

“Yeah.”

“And you got arrested. Why is this not anywhere on google?”

“I was fifteen, a juvenile. It was sealed. The two kids were also charged with assault and battery and cruelty to animals. Gael made most of it go away.” He grinned, “the kitten lived a long happy life. Lasted until it was sixteen. The kid from the debate team ended up working for me. I actually just appointed him to take over my London offices for me to have more time at home with my family.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled, “yes, I started attending counselling in high school to control my anger because I had been getting into fights every other week. It evolved into more when I realized my stress from work was impacting relationships with my family and friends. Now I go monthly just to keep myself in check.”

“That’s so weird.”

“Why is it weird?”

“I don’t mean it’s weird you go to therapy. I just mean, it’s not what I expected of you,” Bobbie made a face. “Did you really almost kill someone over a cat?”

“I like animals. Animals are far better than people. We should get the kids a dog.”

“I just got them a father, let’s start with seeing if he’s housebroken before I add anything else to it.” Bobbie deadpanned as he roared with laughter. She loved his smile and the way he threw himself into it.

“Oh chérie, you are too funny.” He wiped tears from the corner of his eyes.

Ollie flopped over in her sleep, her hand slapping Bobbie in the face as she rolled, and Bobbie g*****d and pushed the hand away. “I should put her in her own bed.”

“Will you?”

“No,” she fought the smile on her lips. “By morning, Max and Lark will be in here too. Its why I have a king-sized bed. They’re hogs.”

“When I slept with Max at one point I woke up and his feet were in my face. I swear he was doing circles in his sleep.”

She giggled at his comment and then saw the sadness there. “Olivier, he’ll come around. I promise, he’s upset and scared. The night you learned about him he went on about not wanting me to have a boyfriend because it’s his job to protect me. I don’t know where he learned it or who said such things to him, but he has always been very protective of me and Ollie. He has the need to help people feel secure. I think a lot of it stems from him having his own fears. He doesn’t like crowds too much and he feels overwhelmed in situations where he doesn’t think his needs will be heard.”

“He reminds me of me,” Olivier said quietly. “At his age, I didn’t trust anyone, and I was terribly introverted it was easier just to avoid people. I’ve been trying to respect his space and let him come to me.”

“It’s backfiring,” Bobbie told him gently, “he thinks you’re not interested in him the same way you are Ollie. He thinks you’re attracted to the flash and excitement of her.”

“Ollie attracts me because I’ve never met anyone like her. She is fire and excitement. She grabs life by the balls and just goes for it. She is everything I wanted to be as a child. Max, he is like looking into my own soul at his age. I think I need to have a very real conversation with him about what I was like as a kid. He needs to know I understand him far better than he realizes.”

“I think it is wise, otherwise he’s going to keep retreating.”

“I will make it a priority.”

“Thank you,” she watched as he made a face when his phone buzzed. “Are you getting messages this late at night?”

“My father.” He grimaced. “It seems my mother is very annoyed with him and has disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Are you worried?” Bobbie felt a smidgeon of guilt.

“My mother is a Moreno. She might look soft and sweet, but she had Gael as a father. My grandmother once told me my mother, when she was only six years old, refused to speak for six full months purely out of spite to my grandfather because he’d refused to buy her the horse she wanted. She has a stubborn streak a mile wide. I had hotel surveillance check to see if she left on her own and she did. She even flipped off the security camera at the lobby desk before leaving.”

Bobbie couldn’t help the giggle erupting from her chest, “she did not.”

“She did. She’s pissed off at us all. Told me she’s disappointed in me. Haven’t heard her say this since I was a kid.”

“I use that on the kids when they do something really bad. Like the time they stole from Prue.”

“They stole from Prue?” His eyes blinked several times. “What did they take?”

The smile on her face was wide now as she recalled the story, “it was last summer. They decided they wanted to go to the fair but we were working. Prue was babysitting and she was outside working in her flower garden in the back yard, and they were playing in the treehouses. She found it strange they hadn’t come asking for lunch and they weren’t in the house. She immediately panicked and called us while she was running down the street. She found them outside the gates of the neighborhood at a bus stop reading the map trying to figure out how to get to the fair.”

“Holy s**t,” he covered his mouth with his hands, his face pale. “What did you do?”

“She got them home. Put them in their room and grounded them until we got home, which didn’t take long because we were all panicked. I gave them the ‘we are very disappointed in you all speech’ and we barred them from the fair.” Her smile was devilish, “every trip into town purposefully involved driving by the fair, even if it was twenty minutes out of the way. They were in town a week. I did more runs to the supermarket and bookstore the whole week just to torture the little shits.”

“You didn’t take them?”

“Nope. It was even better when Grady took Everly on date night to the fair and brought back a stuffed animal he’d won for her. It sits on their bed and mocks the kids.”

Olivier was amazed, “ruthless!”

“They stole money from Prue’s purse to get to the fair. They snuck out of the house. They were going to take public transport, something they’d never even done once in their life. These kids are super sheltered. They have a small circle of friends outside our community and those friends are strictly supervised. They took a stupid risk and could have gotten really hurt.” She made a face, “my mom was tough like that with me and Rosamunde.”

“She was tough?”

“She loved us to pieces but man we were terrified to cross her,” she grinned at his surprised smile.

“You’ve never talked about her,” Olivier commented.

“My mom was a brutally honest woman, and she held no secrets from us. Rosamunde was the by-product of a one-night stand with a truck driver who had come through the diner she had been working an overnight shift on. She didn’t even know his last name. Said she had an itch and he scratched it for her. She realized six weeks later the condom must have broken because Rosie was on her way. Then when Rosamunde was just a few months old, she put her in daycare to work a day job as part of a government subsidy program. It paid for childcare, and she got to work a day shift in a factory making cardboard boxes. She had a torrid love affair with one of her coworkers and when she told him she was pregnant with me, he begged her to terminate because he had six kids at home and a wife. She told him he could k**s her a*s because he had lied to her and said he was divorced. Turned out the nights he was coming to see her were nights he told his wife he had to work overtime shifts. She moved to a two-bedroom across town, got a different job and raised two little girls barely eighteen months apart. She was tough as nails, let me tell you but man did we push her buttons.”

“Did you?”

“We did. We were still in primary school when mom started working two jobs. We were supposed to come straight home after school, let ourselves in and eat the sandwiches she prepared for us, do our homework, and get ready for bed. She worked at a convenience store on the corner, and she worked until midnight. There was an older lady in our building who would check on us before bedtime and mom would pay her to listen out for us. Well, the old lady was a bitchy old broad who would force us to bed at six, and we told her mom didn’t need her any more since our cousin was moving in with us. We thought we were so clever. We would take the envelope of money mom left for her on the table.”

“How did you get caught?” he was grinning at her story.

“Rosamunde went to the corner store before school with our stolen cash and bought a bunch of candy. Easily twenty dollars worth. We had a feast as we walked to the store. By the time we got to school we were both extremely sick. I don’t think I ever puked so hard in my life.” She made a face, “that was when we learned Rosamunde had diabetes. She ended up in hospital for a week.”

His eyes widened incredulously, “no way.”

“Yeah. Then money got even tighter because insulin wasn’t cheap and the old bag downstairs refused to come check on us, mom had to actually hire a sitter to walk us home from school and babysit until she was done her evening shifts.” She smiled at his frown, “by the time we were in middle school, we’d gone through at least ten sitters.”

“Your mom worked a lot.”

“She did but she made the best of her days off and we always did stuff together when she was home.” She grinned and brushed Ollie’s hair away from her cheek. “I can’t tell you how many times, even when we were teenagers, we would wake up and replace her sleeping with one of us in our bed. She always wanted more time with us.”

“What happened to her?”

“When Rosamunde was in senior year, I was in grade ten, Mom had been feeling really crappy and kept putting off going to the doctor. She kept saying it was years of working too much and maybe she needed a vacation. She collapsed at work and turned out she had ovarian cancer and she lasted three weeks after the day she was diagnosed.”

“I’m sorry, Bobbie,” Olivier offered sadly.

She shrugged, “she told us to take care of each other and to remember all the times we laughed and to forget all the times we cried, unless we cried from laughing too hard.” She took a breath, “I lost Rosamunde five years after. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was skipping insulin doses to cover rent. I couldn’t attend high school without a fixed address. She wanted me to attend school. We both worked but she was working more. She was put on a kidney transplant list three months after I graduated high school. She was on the list three years. We had no insurance and the non-profit organization who was covering the surgery had thousands of applicants ahead of her.” She wiped a tear off the corner of her eye, aware she was sharing a story with him she never had before. It made her feel vulnerable. “Your grandmother telling me Ollie was a gift from Rosamunde felt special. Tuesday was the day from hell but,” she met his watery gaze on the screen, “it was an affirmation of what I’ve believed since the day I knew I was pregnant.”

“The old witch comes up with plenty of pretty crazy stories but what she spoke to you and the twins, felt very special,” he wiped his own eyes. “Bobbie, thank you for sharing with me tonight. These are things we should have talked about years ago instead of focusing on s****l positions or playing strip poker. Not like those things weren’t important too,” he winked at her, “but I think we skipped over learning about each other, and I want to fix this.”

“I like your idea,” she whispered quietly at him.

For the next few hours, they spoke in whispers, sharing memories of their childhoods and laughing until they cried and crying until one of them laughed at how sensitive the other was. When Bobbie finally fell asleep, it was after a promise he’d call her again the next day and with a happy smile on her lips.