One hour had passed and Conrad still wasn't lying in bed with her, so that Victoria decided to go downstairs to check on him.
She found him sitting in the study with a drink in his hand.
"Conrad, don't you think it's time to join me in the bedroom?" She asked approaching him while he kept staring into the brown liquid.
"Conrad?!" She folded her arms, angry at him for ignoring her.
"Don't you see that I have a drink to finish?" He returned grumpily.
"Not your first one for tonight I suppose." Victoria looked at him judging, while she was trying to figure out why he was in such a bad mood.
Conrad's head snapped around and he glared at her with weary eyes. "How is that of any importance?"
"Well, first of all I want my child to have a sober father." Victoria noticed his expression becoming softer as she mentioned her pregnancy. "And secondly I also prefer a sober husband." She seated herself on the edge of Conrad's desk while his eyes started wandering up and down her exposed legs. All of a sudden he jumped up from his chair, put the drink aside and positioned himself in front of his wife, before he began kissing her hungrily. Victoria was not even surprised anymore since she knew what effect she had on her husband, especially if he was drunk.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you in that dress you were wearing tonight." He moaned into her ear grabbing her hips to move her closer to the edge of the desk. "Let's stop fighting. We've got better things to do."
"Conrad, stop." Victoria suddenly turned her head away from him. "You have to explain to me what that talk with your mother was about because I assume that it is the reason for your current mood."
Talking however was very far form Conrad's mind, instead he leaned over Victoria to lower her down onto his desk while he pinned her hands above her head to keep her from protesting.
"Conrad, I said stop!" Victoria almost choked at her own words. She didn't like where this was going at all. Still Conrad didn't respond to her pleas and started placing kisses on her cleavage.
Victoria's eyes became watery as she started simply staring up at the ceiling. Why was he doing this to her? Instinctively she tensed at every of his touches as he slid her nightgown up her body and parted her thighs. He had already released her hands from his grip when he had noticed that his wife was not fighting him anymore. Nevertheless he had taken that as a sign of permission, but to Victoria this was still her worst nightmare come true.
"Conrad please, don't." She whispered in a hoarse voice. She felt reduced to her helpless 16-year-old self again and therefore her body remained motionless.
"I knew you'd like this." He grinned, obviously not receiving the real message behind his wife's words while he unbuckled his belt.
"I don't." Victoria managed to say, although she had a lump in her throat. "I don't like this, Conrad." She didn't even dare to look at him for she felt too embarrassed.
"Don't play that game with me, my dear." Conrad searched for his wife's face but all he found was her empty gaze staring up at the ceiling.
"Victoria?" He asked the alcoholic suddenly clearing his mind. "Victoria, what is it?" In that moment tears stared running down her cheeks, so that Conrad immediately stopped and pulled up his trousers again. As his wife didn't react to anything he said to try and get through to her, he decided to scoop her up into his arms and carry her into their bedroom, where she buried her face in a pillow.
"Hey, I thought we were being playful." Conrad sat next to her caressing her dark curls, but Victoria immediately jerked away from his hands.
"It's not playful if it's against my will." She said bitterly, raising her head to face her husband.
"Come on, you're exaggerating now. It's not like I've forced myself on you or something."
"That's exactly what you did!" Victoria jumped up furiously, gaining strength again. Her body had been paralyzed from the sudden flood of memories in her head, but now she was prepared to defend herself. "You're an asshole." Within seconds her hand hit his cheek with a forceful slap. "And all of this because of your stupid mother." Victoria shot her husband an angry look before she grabbed her pillow and stormed out of the bedroom.
"Victoria, you cannot treat me like that!" After he had processed what his wife had just said and done to him, Conrad went after her and found her in one of the guest rooms down the hall. He ducked his head as Victoria threw a vase still filled with water and flowers at him.
"I can treat you every way I want!" She armed herself with a heavy statute. "And if you try to touch me ever again, I will smash your skull with this."
Conrad sighed, confused with her irrational behavior. "What the hell is wrong with you?" He stepped closer to her.
"I'm serious, Conrad!" Victoria raised her hand threatening her husband.
"Okay." Conrad stopped. He didn't know how to handle his wife in that moment. They had often fought, but it had never been this serious and he had certainly never seen her cry. Even at their wedding ceremony he had been the one holding back the tears while she had stayed absolutely calm. "What now, Victoria?"
"Leave." She growled, her breathing heavy from the anger inside of her.
"No, I want to make this right."
"I said leave me alone!" Victoria screamed loud enough to be heard by every staff member which was still on their property.
Now Conrad began to grow impatient. He would not tolerate his wife's ungrounded aggression against him any longer.
"I won't Victoria. I want you to come back to our bedroom and stop putting on this ridiculous show." He quickly moved towards her getting a hold of her writs while she waved her hands frantically almost hitting his head with the statute in her hand. He managed to make her drop the piece of art and threw her on the bed. Nevertheless Victoria didn't think about giving up and kicked him into the guts with her foot. Conrad tumbled back a few steps but was quick enough to grab her arms again to keep her tied down on the bed.
"For god's sake, will you stop now Victoria?"
"No. I thought you liked this kind of game, my dear husband." She stared at him with what almost looked like hatred in her eyes. She had learned to protect herself and Conrad had just set off her natural defense mechanism. It didn't matter to her who he really was in that moment. He had cornered here and therefore become her enemy.
"Alright, what do you want me to do?" He asked.
"As I said, I want you to leave."
"But you know that I won't. You're my wife."
"Then I will leave." She tried freeing herself, but Conrad kept his firm grip on her.
"Victoria, come to you're senses. You're pregnant, I don't want to hurt you."
"But you would want to if I wasn't carrying you're precious child?" Victoria raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and let's not forget about this: You're mother's grandchild. I really felt her appreciation for me and the baby today." She continued sarcastically, so that Conrad sighed and reluctantly released her from his grip. Victoria didn't move until he sat down beside her.
She slowly rose into a sitting position staring at her husband when all of a sudden she raised her hand hitting his cheek for the second time that night.
"Victoria!" Conrad widened his eyes in shock while he saw a triumphant smile spread across his wife's face, so that he didn't hesitate to quickly pull her onto his lap. "I don't want to hurt you, Victoria. I would never want to hurt you." He whispered into her ear, closing his arms around her body so that any resistance from her side was senseless. "But why do you keep hurting me? Tell me what I've done wrong."
Victoria shook her head but began to relax in Conrad's arms. He immediately noticed that and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Come on, tell me."
Victoria knew that she could never tell her husband what scenario had really been replayed over and over again in her head the moment he had bent over her on the desk, so she decided to make this about her mother-in-law. After all she had also really bothered her tonight. "Your mother, Conrad. What did she say to you?"
Conrad shook his head but detected the pain in Victoria's brown eyes, which convinced him to be open about the talk with his mother to her. "Okay. My mother is afraid that something will happen to our child."
"Why? What's her problem with me?" Victoria became angry again as she thought about how depreciative Eleanor had treated her. She was just glad that she didn't talk about Victoria's secret concerning her first, admittedly fake, pregnancy. She was sure that Eleanor knew the truth about it for she had continually tried to stop the wedding preparations but fortunately she didn't have any evidence against Victoria, and Conrad and his father had been fully on Victoria's side.
That was when Victoria had sworn to herself to always be suspicious when her mother-in-law was involved.
"Well, she is very old fashioned, so she doesn't like you still wearing high heels or using hairspray, because that might harm our child."
"But actually you mean she doesn't like me running around in dresses like the one I wore tonight, because I don't look like a devoted housewife." She smirked now and could read in Conrad's face that she had hit the nail on the head. "Did she call me slut or prostitute again? I know that she likes to do that. Our conversations before the wedding mainly consisted of those words." Ha! Her original plan to provoke Eleanor seemed to have worked after all, so that Victoria felt some kind of satisfaction.
Conrad stroked her dark hair and felt the frustration rush through his body due to the ongoing battle between his mother and wife. "I told her she must never talk about you like that again and that she had to accept us together. I was about to walk away from her when she added that she was also afraid of not spending enough time with her grandchild because you wouldn't let her anywhere near him or her."
Victoria was smart and female enough to see right through Eleanor's attempt to keep her influence on the family by playing the loving grandmother in front of her son. "That's ridiculous. If she decides to stop offending me every time I meet her, I don't see why I would not let her spend time with our child."
"That's exactly what I replied and she promised to visit more often so that she wouldn't miss anything of her first grandchild's life." He smiled at Victoria, who already imagined her mother-in-law terrorizing her during the pregnancy, but she decided to keep that to herself and gave her husband a quick kiss instead.
"But promise me that she won't come between us. I really feel like she's trying to drive us apart."
"She could never do that, Victoria. "
"And there's something else I want you to promise." Victoria lifted herself up and then straddled her husband. "I want you to accompany me to the ultrasound I have next month. I don't want to go there alone."
"Sure, I will go with you." Conrad was absolutely sure that someday this woman would be the death of him. His body was aching for her closeness as well as his heart was aching for her love.
She was his personal drug. And he needed her. No matter what she did or said to him, he needed Victoria.
It drove him crazy to feel her hips colliding with his when at the same time her small belly touched his stomach with every move she made while she began kissing him.
"So you really promise?" Victoria whispered into his ear using the power she had over him now.
"Yes, I promise, yes." Conrad moaned and didn't know how long he could still resist her.
"What is it, love? You sound exhausted." She teased, a devious smile accentuating her lips as she enjoyed being in the superior decision. Victoria needed to prove to herself that she had learned to fight back.
"Victoria, please." It was too much for Conrad as his wife started playing with his belt letting her hand slide beneath the waistband more and more often. "I want you now, Victoria." He pulled her back on the bed with him, but she immediately stopped him as Conrad intended to free her of her thin nightgown.
"Conrad, don't be so eager." She said sincerely. "I'm tired, I just want to sleep now."
"But, you…" Victoria placed a finger on his mouth to hush him and almost had to laugh because of her husband's disappointed expression. She pushed the sheets to the side and laid her head on the plushy pillow.
"You want to stay here?" Conrad asked surprised that his wife didn't want to go back to the master bedroom.
"I don't see why I shouldn't . We've got so many beds in this house, so I feel like I have to try sleeping in all of them." Victoria yawned. "So you can either lay here with me or go back to our bedroom. I don't care as long as you let me get some sleep."
"Is that a rhetorical question, Victoria?" Conrad came to the conclusion that he had to accept his wife's wish, especially because this evening had apparently upset her more than he had believed, so that he was willing to do everything to make it up to her again. Therefore he lie down next to Victoria and much to his relief he saw her lips turn into a light smile while her eyelids were already closed. Still Conrad waited for a few moments before he began spooning her in order to see if she would lash out at him again.
Victoria sensed that Conrad was being more careful with her now which made her remember that he hadn't intended to hurt or scare her with his actions and that she had simply reacted so intensely because of her negative experiences with men who had never asked for her permission. She knew however, although her husband often tended to confuse his position as CEO in the company with his role in their marriage, that he cared too much for her to ever cause harm to her.
With that realization in mind, Victoria inched closer to Conrad as he closed his arms around her body and relaxed in his embrace.
"I'm warning you Conrad: If I feel your hands in an inappropriate place, I will not hesitate to throw you out." She smirked feeling her husband's hand resting on her baby bump.
"I love you, Victoria." He placed a kiss on top of her hair.
"You say that all the time. Prove it and go to the ultrasound with me next month." She pressed on that topic for she knew her husband's full calendar.
"I already promised you that. I'll have my secretary add the date to my schedule first thing next morning."
"But not before we have breakfast in bed together."
"Sounds very promising." Conrad laughed and inhaled the delicious scent of his wife's hair. How could she think that he would ever want not to spend a night lying right next to her? As his thoughts drifted off to the evening's events, he remembered that despite his mother's and Victoria's differences, it had been most important to him how proud he had felt the moment he had announced the pregnancy to his parents. And he had to thank Victoria for all of that. "Victoria, I just thought about how proud it makes me feel to become a father now. And I really want you to know that I'm grateful for the things you do for this family. I'm so happy that I found you and that you're going to be the mother of my children. I realize now that I could've never imagined anyone else in that role. It has always been you in my mind."
"Shut up and sleep, Conrad." Victoria tried to tease but had to swallow a lump in her throat. Her husband's word touched her deeply for he rarely spoke about his true feelings and she didn't know how to handle his confession in that moment. After all she was still angry at him and didn't intend to give into him any time soon.
"Good night, Victoria." Conrad kissed her hair again knowing that his wife had not expected to hear those words from him. Maybe he had never expected himself to say them out aloud.
"Good night." Victoria mumbled and already felt her husband's soothing caress of her belly send her into a restful sleep.
I really enjoy exploring the very beginning of ConVict's marriage and how the typical dynamic between them developped. Please tell me what you think and if you're still interested in how my version of their story will progress. :) xo