His eyebrows furrowed. “Why would I? I hope you’re not hiding things from me.” His tone crisper.
She shook her head vigorously and, before he could peer inside her mind with his all-seeing eyes, she ducked back down and captured his cock between her lips. He sighed and rested his hand on her head once more.
If she struggled with baby blues, Gemma was unaware of it, until Joshua reached four weeks old.
Clara noticed the change in her after one week. The nanny had to encourage her to leave the house, to take Joshua for a walk in his pram. Clara pushed the buggy, while the ubiquitous bodyguard trailed close behind. When Gemma spent longer and longer sitting in an armchair, gazing blankly at the television, Clara would suggest they go to the local café or park. Every so often, Clara would take Joshua off her and insist the she have a nap or a hot bath. Gemma didn’t notice her lacklustre approach to the routine of the day. She went about feeding, changing nappies, and bathing Joshua in a robotic fashion.
Her behaviour wasn’t because she hadn’t bonded with her small child—she couldn’t take her eyes off her adorable son, and she stroked the soles of his feet as he suckled. His profile had the same handsome features as his father, and she would envisage how he grow and develop. Unfortunately, the tedium of routine deflated her mood. She didn’t know what to think or do with herself. Making excuses, she protested she was too tired to read, draw, or paint. Her brain switched off, and even chatting with Clara didn’t inspire her into activity.
Clara Davies wasn’t a dull woman. The nanny’s sense of humour Gemma found witty and engaging. She talked about her sons and their antics, the girlfriends they’d brought home as teenagers, and having to endure their fanatical interest in football. She described their family’s summer holidays, the camping trips in France or by the English coast. To Gemma, Clara was as a confident, self-assured woman who had single-handedly brought up her sons for several years.
Hearing about Clara’s life served to distort her own self-perceptions. She couldn’t focus her thoughts in any cohesive fashion. Clara’s ideas for finding a network of mums to support her sounded fine, but she couldn’t face the strain of meeting new people. She wallowed in the mud of inability or self-inflicted inertia. Sitting in the bath, watching the milk trickle out of her nipple, she squeezed the drops out and concluded she was a milk-making machine. Nothing else. Unattractive, flabby-breasted cow with the sole purpose of feeding her helpless baby.
Gemma’s mental state of lassitude and general disinterest in the outside world impacted her friends and even her family. Her mother commented she always seemed to be ringing Gemma for updates and not the other way round. She had expressed surprise when Gemma told her Joshua hadn’t been weighed since the last midwife visit two weeks previously. Her mother barked down the telephone at her, making her recoil and tears spring to her eyes.
“I shall speak to Jason.” Gemma shrank in her seat at the idea of her mother intervening.
“No, don’t. I’ll get it sorted,” she blurted. However, she didn’t. It meant leaving the house.
Fortunately, for Gemma, her mother didn’t have to interfere because Jason swung into action.
Chapter 11. Stepping up
Gemma spent the afternoon on the sofa, curled up under a blanket, flicking through the TV channels with a remote control. She drifted in a haze of uneventfulness while Joshua lay on a fleecy blanket on the floor, having one of his wakeful moments of kicking. The sitting-room door swung open. Gemma jumped, clutching a hand to her chest. Dressed in his executive clothes and looking remarkably similar to the stern-faced boss she’d met over three years earlier, stood Jason. Behind him, hovered Clara.
“Clara, could you take Joshua to his room? I want to speak to my wife alone.”
Gemma heard the distinctive Dom voice—the unwavering I-expect-obedience tone. It had been absent for many weeks. Before Joshua’s birth, she would have welcomed it with open arms. Today, she sat stunned, unsure of his intentions and whether she could cope with him. Clara scooped up Joshua and left.
“Why are you here? It’s the middle of the day.” She glanced at her watch—two o’clock in the afternoon.
He leaned back on the door, shutting it. Since Joshua’s birth, there had been no hint of calling her into play. Nothing to indicate he wanted her to be submissive, until that afternoon. Gemma could tell from his narrow-slitted eyes that he wasn’t happy.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked, becoming alarmed he might have bad news to announce.
“No. Apart from Clara ringing me to tell me my wife is slipping into a black hole of despair she seems unable to drag her out of.”
Gemma closed her eyes briefly, assimilating a growing anger. “Me? She rang you about me?” Clara had gone behind her back—how could she trust the nanny?
“I told her, if she thought you were unhappy or struggling, she should ring me. So don’t get mad at her. She’s doing her job.” He came closer, looking down at her upturned face.
“Your hair needs washing. Chipped nails, too. I don’t recall you having a wax recently.” He listed her faults as if she were an unkempt dog in a show. “You’re not taking care of yourself, are you?”
“Wh…what?” she stuttered, running her hand through her hair, fingers catching in the tangles.
“When did you last step out the front door, other than to walk a few hundred yards down the road? Far as I know, you’ve not asked for a car in days. You should be expressing your milk and letting Clara look after Joshua while you go to the salon, gym, or somewhere to get you out of this house.”
Not a drop of consideration in his stern voice. They stunned her, his cruel words. Her eyes watered as she absorbed his criticisms.
“Please, Jason, I’m tired....”
Her watery eyes didn’t deter him. “You have a nanny. Not what most mums have to help them. Apart from the breastfeeding, you can do anything you want. Yet, you sit here on your arse doing fuck all. Where’s your artistic nature, your fun-loving side now? What happened to your friends? You should be showing Joshua off, a proud mum out there. If you want to visit anyone, you have the time and resources to do it. So, why are you sitting here?”
His nastiness overwhelmed her, and she let out a sob. “Why are you saying these things to me? I’m finding my feet, still. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want company. I’m happy just being with Josh,” she blustered, glaring at him, but her heart wasn’t behind the words.
“No, you’re not. You’re apathetic and scared. Your life is changing. Our life is changing. Hiding here isn’t going to make it any easier.” He continued to loom over her, his tall stature intimidating. It implied she had to submit. She didn’t feel submissive in the slightest.
Gemma leapt up and shouted, “You bloody try, then. Have your tits chewed all day, sitting in the middle of night burping him, worrying if he’s well fed, ill...or needs anything. You try!” Tears streamed down her face, and her heart beat at a rate of knots, flooding her body with hot angry blood. “I don’t know what to do. I didn’t imagine I wouldn’t know what to do....”