I had warned her I’d feed her an easy lead-in to the million-dollar scoop.
“How so, Mr. Wilson?”
I share a planned glance with Susa, who smiles as she nods at me. I refocus on Sheila. “Because we’d like to announce that Susa’s expecting our first child in March, a boy.”
The entire crew reacts, and whether it’s because they know how fucking big this scoop is, or because they’re genuinely happy for us after what happened, they start cheering. Sheila was Susa’s first sit-down after I finally relented and let Susa speak to the media after her ordeal, so this is two scoops we’ve handed them during our administration.
Hey, WFLA has a huge viewing audience, one of the biggest markets not just in Florida but in the Southeast, and not only in Tampa. They have viewers all up and down the entire west coast of Florida, and east into Lakeland.
I’m not stupid. I want them on our side.
By the time we get out of there to make it to our next interview, Dray’s grinning. “It’s breaking onWaPo,The New York Times,CNN, and #susaspregnant is already trending on Twitter.”
Susa and I high-five each other and Dray. I notice it takes Owen a second longer to reach in, too.
When he does, his expression looks a little…tight.
I reach around Susa, who’s sitting between Owen and I, and squeeze Owen’s shoulder, refusing to let go until he meets my gaze.
“Love you,” I whisper.
And like that, the storm has broken. Owen takes a deep breath andthissmile looks real. He accepts a nuzzle from Susa, and then she grabs his tie and pulls on it, makes him lean over even farther so I can kiss the top of his head.
“Love you, both,” he whispers before sitting back with a sweet smile on his face.
He’s happy, and that makesmehappy.
Both my pets are happy.
Susa holds his hand, and I squeeze his shoulder again, keeping my arm there, with Susa bracketed between us.
Chapter Seven
Then
Now that I’ve met the monster masquerading as Owen’s mother, have seen the enemy up close and personal, and witnessed her tactics first-hand, I know what I need to do with him. It also means I can step up my game with Susa, now that I’m sure I can win over Owen. I’d hesitated to take things farther with Susa before I knew that for sure. I didn’t want to crush her heart by discarding her if Owen would never be mine. The trick now is balancing Susa and Owen so I get the timing right to bring the three of us together.
Susa’s loyalty is nearly guaranteed at this point. That means it’s time for me to work on Owen.
I have a plan for celebrating Owen’s twenty-first birthday with him. It works out even better since Susa won’t be around for it.
Muchbetter.
Because my plan is to get him shit-faced, hopefully enough to loosen his tongue and start him talking, and then shamelessly explore his fantasies with him.
It will hopefully reveal if I am totally wasting my time, or if I can start turning up the heat on Owen.
The frog doesn’t jump out of the pot when you heat the water gradually like that.
I can’t tell you how many times I beat off in the shower thinking about Owen, especially in the morning after our PT sessions. I also won’t deny there are mornings I keep us at a slower pace and shamelessly claim I’m in pain just so I can more easily talk with him. I mean, I’m always in pain, but there’s tolerable pain and intolerable pain. So technically I wasn’t exactly lying to him on all those mornings.
Although I do lie to him at other times, to hide what Susa and I are doing.
I’m not proud of that, but it’s for the greater good and to prevent hurting him.
The first night he helped me out of a nightmare, it took everything in me not to lean over and kiss him then, and I’ve only fallen harder for him since that night.
He’s hot, and gorgeously subby, and sweet, and smart as fuck.
