A dragonhead’s life was never boring, and he filled his days with work and deals much bigger than the ones from the year before. All signs pointed to this being a very, very good year. Maybe so good, he’d forget about Dawn altogether. After all, he had better things to do than constantly monitor her.
That anniversary dinner had changed everything. Now that she was fully subdued, he would no longer lack the discipline to resist her. If Dawn were an addiction, she was losing her grip on him. He was sure of it.
Seven months went by without incident. He even decided to take Han up on his invitation to travel with him to Shanghai for the Lunar New Year. And it was more fun than Victor had had in years.
“Remember how hard we partied that month before you left for Japan?” Han asked as they drank champagne at the New Year’s Eve rooftop soiree Han had arranged at the luxury hotel where they were staying. There were beautiful people all around them, models, actresses, and several C-pop stars from a record label they used to wash their money.
Yes, Victor did remember. And when one of the C-pop stars sidled up to him, claiming to be a gift from the head of the label, Victor wanted to be tempted.
He let her sit on his lap while the lights sparkled overhead, willing his cock to rise. To fill even a percentage point of the insatiable desire that had overtaken him on his last anniversary. But it never did.
“Do you want another kind of gift?” the C-Pop star asked. “I can tell the label head to send someone else over. Any of the girls or boys you want. Just write down whoever you want.”
Victor rarely wrote on his scratchpad with strangers. But he broke that rule to write down, “No, thank you. I’m tired. Please, do not take this as an insult.”
He was pleased when she went away without any hurt feelings. Sometimes he forgot that about himself. That he didn’t enjoy hurting women or treating them cruelly. Only one.
After the fireworks finished, he retired to his suite. Instead of bedding the pop star, he went to bed alone and tossed and turned to dreams of Dawn.
He woke up exhausted the next morning. And alone. It was too much. He finally gave in to the temptation he’d been resisting for seven months.
He took his phone off the nightstand’s charger and scrolled to the display app for the cameras Wayne had planted in the Rhode Island house.
Victor hesitated, wanting to be better than this, wanting to be over her. But in the end, what he wanted didn’t matter. He pressed down on the button, unable to stop himself.
He’d caught her just as she was getting home from work. It was still New Year’s Eve where she was, but America didn’t stop everything to celebrate the lunar new year, so to her, it was just any other night. She’d gained weight, he noted right away.
And that was when he discovered he did have an opinion in that regard. He preferred this version of Dawn to the thin version from their anniversary night. The soft curves he remembered were back, and his fingers unconsciously rubbed at the ball of his palm, wanting to touch.
He watched her pull a takeout container out of the refrigerator and heat it up in the microwave. No more elaborate homemade meals or hairstyles, it would seem. She wore her curls in a messy topknot and didn’t even bother to plate the food after taking it out of the microwave.
Maybe watching her wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. He had gone out of his way to break her, and it pleased him to see the results.
No trip outside to deliver a plate. He watched her sit down at the island counter with a can of LaCroix she hadn’t bothered to pour into a wine glass. Apparently, she was now a shell of the aggressively vivacious woman he’d found when he returned to Rhode Island for their anniversary.
Another thrill zipped through Victor. Watching Dawn was even better than the fireworks from the previous night.
However, his new thrill fizzled when he saw what she was doing with her other hand while she absentmindedly ate fried chicken with her left.
Was she…?
Yes, she was…she was drawing.
Victor brought out his laptop then and logged into her Amazon account. It was one of the delivery apps he still allowed her to use because he knew she wouldn’t be able to order alcohol through the Zon. Sure enough, it was filled with orders for art supplies: sketchbooks, art pencils, an electronic drawing tablet, and other miscellaneous items.
Victor went back to the kitchen camera footage, but there wasn’t anything new to see. She was still drawing. And she kept on drawing, long after her dinner was gone.
