The Valentines

XIX

Esmé was not happy.

The takeover should not be taking this long, neither should it be this difficult. But of course Iona had to get involved. As it turned out, she was the hidden board member. Not that Esmé was surprised, she had a sneaking suspicion it was her. 

The company had nothing to do with Iona, having been starting by Atlas's mother, Elene, so truly she shouldn't even be on the board. Elene had a rule that spouses do not have shares or hold board positions in her company. Iona had bypassed that and was now making Esmé's life hard.

Iona was making demands Esmé would not adhere to, things that her father wouldn't let her agree to either. It was dragging out the process longer than it needed to be. All Esmé had to do was sign a document, make some changes, ensure everything was shifted to her name and then move on to the next thing.

The lunch she'd had with Theodora had been the break she'd needed that day. Without it, there was no way Esmé would've been able to continue. She'd been able to have some sort of control over something, and it made her feel a lot better.

Now, she was stepping off the boat onto her island, irritated to her max level and not even the thought of Theodora curled up in the bed was appealing to her in that moment.

The stress was rolling off her in waves, and she debated going for a late night swim or doing an impromptu workout to try and get rid of that energy.

It wouldn't work and she knew it. Being alone with her thoughts would just make her angrier. Pulling out her phone, Esmé also debated calling William.

At the very least she could offload onto him and that might make it easier. Placing the call, Esmé began the walk from the dock to the house.

She could have stopped off at the village and asked for a ride up, no doubt the driver would be awake. Esmé was convinced the man never slept. But she thought the walk up would do her some good, and it might work off something.

The call went to voicemail and Esmé rolled her eyes. Of course he wouldn't answer. A part of her tried to rationalise that he was probably exhausted and was asleep, but another part of her wanted to be selfish and be annoyed.

How dare her mother pull this stunt. Esmé had known it wouldn't be this simple. And now she didn't even have a decent let out. William was at home with Ada, when he should be there with her. A bitter taste filled Esmé's mouth.

William had weathered this storm with her before. He knew she could get snappy and vicious, her temper boiling and threatening to burn both of them with scalding words she didn't mean.

Hurting him verbally never made her feel better, not even in the moment because it wasn't him she wanted to hurt. But whether she meant it or not, it always happened, and it always ended in some form of sexual activity.

They'd learnt that was the best outlet for her negative energy.

It didn't matter how it would start, it always ended with Esmé riding William through orgasm after orgasm, until her body physically couldn't take anymore and collapsed. Perhaps it wasn't the healthiest way of coping, but Esmé could think of far worse, far less pleasurable ways that could end up with her dead.

The only way to stop her mind from thinking was to destroy it with sex, overload it with so much pleasure that she short circuited and went completely numb.

However, William was not there. Theodora was and the last thing Esmé wanted was to hurt her like that, even if it did end pleasurably. The best thing for her to do was to slip into the house and sleep in the master suite, avoiding Theodora entirely.