Mitch turns thoughtful as I show her around: the reception, the gym and other facilities, the pool and spa area, the guest suites. “You own all this? And the house as well?”
“We own it, yes, between us.”
“You, Jenny and James?”
“And others. Your, um… cousin, Beth, and her husband Richard are shareholders in the hotel.”
“Beth?” Her face animates. “I’ve never met her. Does she… want to meet me?”
“Mitch, she’s dying to meet you. She’s one of the people who tried to get your brothers to tell us about you, where we might find you.”
Like a kid who’s hearing about Santa for the first time, “What’s she like?”
I scrape a hand over my scalp, chuckling. “She’s another of the women your family seems to produce in numbers. Red-headed, green eyes. A stunner.”
She eyes me askance. “You like her.”
“I like her very much. We’re good friends. And she’s important to Charlotte. Beth was her first real family. That by itself would favour her to me. But she’s a good person too. Not so tough as Charlotte but a fine human being.”
Mitch swings a searchlight gaze on me. “You think Jenny… Charlotte… Is tough?”
I blow air. “God, yes. What’s she’s been through would break many. In her case, it simply honed the edges.”
Something skips across Mitch’s face
Pride?
Should I say this?
“You might like to know that Klempner, for all his treatment of Charlotte when she was small, when he realized she’s his daughter, he was proud.” I watch her face carefully, looking for distress, but there’s only puzzlement.
“So much has happened. I’ve a lot to learn.”
“‘Fraid you have. And you’ll not like some of it, but you also have a lot to be proud of yourself.”
“Have I?” Mitch closes her eyes briefly, rubs fingers at her forehead. “I’m an ageing whore with not a penny to my name…” Her voice shudders. “… I’m living on the charity of strangers. I abandoned my daughter and my marriage was a sham.”
“Not charity. Get over it. We’re family. And that’s important.”
“I don’t like taking handouts.”
“Governments give handouts. Friends and family give a hand up.” Her eyes shift to mine, turning glossy. I touch her shoulder. “Mitch, today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
She swallows a sob.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You haven’t. It’s just…”
“C’mon, let’s join the others again.”
I lead her back through the hotel again and towards the house, dawdling to give her the chance to talk if she wants to.
“Your friend, James, where does he fit into all to this?”
“James and I were friends long before we met Charlotte.”
“How did you meet?”
Do I tell her?
Get the shocks out of the way?
She was a pro…
Probably unshockable…
“At sex clubs.”
She jolts to a stop, arching a curved eyebrow at me. “Brothels you mean?”
“No, I mean sex clubs. No money changed hands, except the door ticket.”
“And you and James… played there together? With women?”
“We did.”
“And the women didn’t want to be paid?”
“No, they didn’t. I like to think that I, and James, delivered what they did want. They were involved for the fun of it. Just as we were.”
Mitch lets out a long breath, staring away from me into some distance. “I left home very young. My… first time with a man wasn’t pleasant. Stephen had kept me so confined. I didn’t know…” Her face frosts over. “But I learned. I learned what men would pay for. What they enjoyed.”
“That’s how you met Frank and Klempner?”
“Yes. But Larry… He courted me. He wanted me… He taught me that… that sex was something women can enjoy too.”
My jaw hits the deck. “Larry? Klempner taught you how to enjoy sex?”
“Yes. Until then it was just something I did and got paid for. And I smiled and made the noises that men liked, but he…” Her voice trails away.
“And that’s… that’s how Charlotte was conceived?”
She nods.
Boggling over what I’ve just learned, “Mitch, I think Charlotte would like to know this. One of the things that upset her most when she learned Klempner is her father was that she wondered if he had forced you; if she was the child of rape.”
Mitch halts, looks me in the face. “No, He didn’t do that. He’s done some appalling things, I know, but not that. Quite the opposite. He wore pyjamas. He wouldn’t touch me until I asked him. Until I said I wanted him.”
I try to fit this into the jigsaw of what I already know, feeling as though I have the corners and the edges and a thousand pieces of blue sky.
“Mitch, listen. I know about Stephen and his urge to control anything that is controllable. I know about Klempner and his attitude to what he wants. And I’ve had a taste of Frank. On the whole, I’d say you’ve had enough men in your life telling you what to do. You can take your time while you’re with us. Get your head straight. I think it’s time for you to have control of your own life.”
Her eyes narrow. “Like Jenny you mean? With two of you?”
“Make no mistake. Charlotte is absolutely in charge of her own life. Everything she has, she chose. And she chose the two of us. And in our different ways, we both try hard to make her happy.”
Mitch is thoughtful as we return to the house. We walk in silence. James and Charlotte don’t hear us coming.
As we come to the door of the lounge, they’re there, standing together face to face, he with his hands on her waist, she with hers hooked up around his neck. “Thank you, Master.”
“My pleasure, Jade Eyes.”
Mitch falls still beside me. Her voice hushed, “The way they look at each other…”
“Oh, yes. There’s something special between those two.”
She backs away from the door and I with her. Pinning me with her gaze, “And you’re good with that?”
“I told you, James and I were friends, close friends, years before we met Charlotte. It was the three of us almost from the beginning.”
“But you and Jenny…”
“… have a different relationship. Mitch, understand, this isn’t the situation I… believe… you had, with Klempner and Frank. All jealousy and rivalry. We are a Triad, and it works.”
“How did it become the three of you?”
I slide eyes sidelong to her. “At the start, it was because James and I are kinky bastards and your daughter was agreeable. But what started as sex turned into love.”
She looks back into the room. They make a striking sight, James and Charlotte, lost in each other; his face soft, hers shining.
“Yes, I see that,” she whispers.
*****