Chapter 167: Patty XVII

Chapter 167: Patty XVII—She Made the Mistake

 

            “Women are terrible, are they not? We are so mean to frustrate you so. I almost feel sorry for you.”

            Patrick took a swallow of red wine and then glared over the glass at Jacqueline as she sat at the other end of the table. She looked almost girlish and gazelle dainty in an oversize t-shirt and bulky socks, her hair haphazardly twisted into a clip. She was smiling at him with sleepy eyes and her cheek was pillowed on her arm as she rested on the table’s surface.

            “I’m not looking for pity,” Patrick grumbled. Damn emerald eyes, like cold, frigid jewels. The girl was a marble statue. The girl was a nun. Already he was imagining her twenty years from now, cracking her ruler at the fingers of unruly children, wasted away to a bitter creature.

            Jacqueline closed her eyes and giggled, sounding like a little girl. “Of course you’re looking for pity, what man isn’t looking for that from a woman? The curious thing is that you’re here when your Mimi is at home, in bed.”

            Patrick sniffed and looked away from the girl, not in the mood to battle with another difficult woman, sleepy, angry. “I could leave,” he said.

            “No,” Jacqueline replied in a simple voice, “You just slunk in here I don’t see why you should go now. Not at this time of night, if Mimi has tossed you out, where else would you go?”

            She was resting her chin in the palms of her hand now, cupping the shape of her pretty little face. There was the grin there, the cattish grin that he saw every day with Michele. Dammit, he hadn’t hit her.

            “This is our table,” Jacqueline said softly and she giggled. “I still have a pain in my back from it.”

            Patrick smiled back and finished the rest of the wine. “I apologize,” he replied.

            “Don’t,” Jacqueline answered. “I don’t like the thought of you apologizing.”

            At that moment Patrick was surprised by a white flash of fur and then the dainty Siamese Cat that alighted on top of the table. He peered at it, as it stared at him with round, sapphire eyes.

            “I didn’t know you had a cat,” he said with a mirthless laugh.

            “Ooo Sasha,” Jacqueline cooed, “She hides when we have visitors, don’t you Sasha?”

            The cat mewed in that loud, nasal voice that was typical of Siamese cats and looked at Jacqueline. Patrick couldn’t help a half smile and he clucked at the cat, catching her attention. The cat mewed again and with silent steps, walked over the table to him, purring loudly and rubbing against his fingers.

            “Odd,” Jacqueline said, “Sasha can’t abide men, she really can’t. You’re the first one she has even approached. You should have seen the marks she’d leave on Pascal during the night. She would maul him.”

            “Really?” Patrick said thinking of Trepanier’s constantly scratched body and now knowing the real reason for it. “I used to have cats.”

            Jacqueline smiled. “You? Cats? I wouldn’t have thought it, when did you have cats?”

            “Almost ten years ago now,” Patrick said quietly as Sasha pressed her furry body into his hand. “Mimi made me get rid of them.”

            “Ooo how terrible,” Jacqueline tutted, “And I never thought I could dislike her anymore than I already do. Why would she do that to you? I would kill Pascal if he made me get rid of my precious.”

            Patrick smiled as Sasha, obviously fed up with the attention quickly nipped his fingers with her teeth and jumped off the table, stalking out of the room. “They kept sleeping in Jana’s cradle, she was afraid that they would smother her.”

            “Still not reason enough for me,” Jacqueline replied.

            “Is she a mouser?” Patrick asked, glancing at the cats eyes glowing from the doorway.

            “Of course,” Jacqueline replied. “She will kill anything smaller than herself. She can empty a bird’s nest like that, one by one she will eat them if the mother is not tending them.”

            Patrick frowned. “And if the mother bird is?”

            Jacqueline grinned. “Then she’ll eat her too.”

            Patrick yawned and pressed his fingers over his eyes. “To be honest I don’t know why I am here, I shouldn’t be waking you up like this, and I should have gone to Alex’s house or…”

            Jacqueline shushed him, standing up from the table; he could hear her soft feet over the tile floor and he felt her slim arm over his shoulders. She pressed her cheek against him, and he could feel his pulse race with a comfort. “You wouldn’t want Alex touching you like this yes? That is why you are here.”

            Patrick closed his eyes, just enjoying her touch. “Perhaps,” he said.

            And then she stepped away from him, he was cold and alone. He looked at her, wanting her back. She raised her eyebrows but there was no taunting in her voice. “They have you frustrated, poor thing, do they not?”

            “They?” Patrick said.

            Jacqueline nodded and smoothed her hands down her hips. “They, they, you repeat as if you do not know what I am speaking of. Silly thing. You even have charming eyes to match that voice, like a little boy.”

            Patrick smiled weakly as she ran her fingers through his hair, tugging a little at it. She sat on the edge of the table, resting her tiny hands in her lap. She yawned and blinked. “Want to tell me what happened? Mean old wife, mean little girl, yes? Or am I wrong.”

            Patrick narrowed his eyes, giving her a frown he was no longer feeling. Already he was calmer, more confident. “And how are you so sure of yourself?”

            Jacqueline shrugged. “Well I am certain of Mimi, but of which little girl, I could be wrong. For all I know it is your daughter tearing you into madness and not the nanny. I know I’ve been fed up with her enough times in my experience.”

            Patrick wrinkled his brow. “You’re fed up? With the nanny or my daughter?”

            “Both, come to think of it,” Jacqueline replied casually. “It depends on which day I encounter them I suppose.”

            “Oh,” Patrick said and he yawned, his eyes feeling heavy. “In my case, the nanny.” Nineteen? She was just nineteen, haughty little wench. What was she holding for? How dare she think she can just order him around, deny his will. How high a pedestal did she believe she stood upon?

            “Awww,” Jacqueline cooed and she pressed her hand against her cheek. “Did she show you a flash of claws, a kitten scaring you away. Did you spring upon her too soon?”

            “Yes dammit!” Patrick snapped. “I did, I may have ruined everything with the child and it’s all Michele’s fault.” Damn it I didn’t hit her! I shouldn’t have shoved her but I didn’t hit her.

            Jacqueline nodded. “Michele, eh? Not Mimi, then she must have angered you.”

            Patrick leaned back in the chair, glaring, feeling the anger again, swirling in his blood and invigorating his tired muscles. “She drives me insane sometimes, to tell you the truth. She insisted that I hit her and I didn’t. So she goes into the boy’s bed..”

            “The boy?” Jacqueline asked with a wide eyed blink.

            “Jonathan,” Patrick answered.

            “Oh,” Jacqueline said with a sigh and she grinned. “And you hit her?”

            “I didn’t hit her!” Patrick yelled and he stood up, barely able to control his anger. Jacqueline barely moved.

            “Of course you did, even if you didn’t you did,” Jacqueline answered, “and then what did you do?”

            “I’m leaving,” he grumbled, dammit he hated women at this point. All of them soft, conniving, clawing creatures. Scented like flowers to drive him insane.

            He felt Jacqueline’s palm press into his chest and he allowed her to push him into his seat. “And you were so angry and inflamed from your spat but your wife she is in Jonathan’s bed so you go for the green eyed little kitten,” she stated more than asked. “Such a mistake! I am almost ashamed of you.”

            “Almost,” Patrick said with an irritated bite, “I’m leaving.”

            Within the instant Jacqueline was in his lap, her soft thighs around his body, warming through him immediately. “Are you still angry and inflamed?” she asked. He couldn’t help the way his body answered her, and the way her eyes closed with the bliss of anticipation. “Oooo yes you are, you monster.”

            Patrick moaned at her touch, her hands finding him, pulling at him and he hated the helpless whine he could hear in it. He hated himself. “I ruined it,” was all he could think to say. “I can’t believe…” he groaned again, this woman was intoxicating, “I can’t believe I ruined it.”

            “We all make mistakes,” Jacqueline replied in a breathless voice and she moaned, and he pressed his hands into her back, amazed how quickly she had slipped him into her body. “Oh God I think I like you better this way.”

            Patrick held his breath for a moment, rocking her in his lap, pulling her body forward against him and drowning himself in her soft throat. He could hear her voice, feel it tickling against his face that way. She was trembling, he could feel her body quivering.

            “You’re such a pet,” he whispered.

            Jacqueline sighed. “It’s not ruined,” she whispered, and her arms draped over his shoulders, lifting herself higher off him, sinking herself deeper. Patrick could feel himself trembling now, his breathing coming to a stop.

            “How… how so,” he gasped.

            Jacqueline kissed him, her teeth clamping briefly onto his bottom lip and she whispered into his ear. “Did she scream when you touched her? Or… or… oh God yes…”

            “She didn’t,” Patrick gasped.

            Jacqueline giggled and kissed him again. “She didn’t scream, even when her honor was on the line?”

            Jacqueline’s eyes closed a satisfied grin on her face.

            “No,” Patrick repeated. “She did not even claw me, she… she only…” he groaned again, “she only protested.”

            Jacqueline kissed him, “Then you have her, my love. She was the one who made the mistake, when she didn’t scream.”