Cherished (The Manor Series Book 1) Read online

  “But you're angry. I could always tell.” Violet sheepishly admitted, shrugging her sore shoulders.

  Sylvia picked herself up and moved back to the chair. “Only you could.” Sylvia's voice was soft yet firm. A part of the Dominance coming out as a shield. “You got under my skin just like you did a few others at The Manor. I'm not angry, I'm furious, because he hurt you. He dishonored the Dominant title by ignoring the safe words not only established at The Manor but established between the two of you. A Dominant....”

  “Mistress. Sylvia.” Violet stopped her, covering her hand with her own. “Raymond was no Dominant. I knew that after a week. He's a sadistic monster and nothing more. He wanted a kinky girl to abuse.” Sylvia squeezed Violet's hand. Violet looked at where here laptop was sitting on the tray table. “I'm sorry to ask but could you hand me my laptop and phone, please?” Violet hated asking.

  “What do you want with it?”

  “I have two funerals to plan. I want to do it quickly so then I can go back to sleep and not have to worry about it.”

  Sylvia rolled the tray table over and made sure it was locked at a good height for her as Violet's hands flew over the keys as she worked. Sylvia sat in the chair doing her own work on her laptop as she stole glances constantly. “You know I can call someone to do that. You should rest. Nate will have both our heads if you overdue it.”

  “I appreciate it, but it is something that I have to do.” Several moments passed before Violet looked over to Sylvia. “Do you think it is ok if I'm not there?”

  Sylvia looked over to Violet, studying her, considering her question before answering. “You don't want to go?”

  “I don't know when I'm going to get out of here. I don't want to wait to bury them. I feel it's wrong.” Violet was having trouble with the thought of going and with the thought of not going. They were dead because of her. “What do you think?”

  “I think you should do what you feel is right and we'll try our best to make sure you are there.”

  Violet nodded as she clicked some more things and sent her stuff. After a few calls she laid back to watch Sylvia work for a little while. The woman was fiery yet so soft. While training, Violet had gotten to know a part of the woman, a part she didn't think many people saw. She trusted the woman fully. She had thought of going to her the whole time she was with Raymond, but she refused to put her family in danger. Her eyes drifted closed as she stopped fighting and submitted to the sleep that beckoned to her.

  Days passed as she healed from her latest surgery. Always waking to Nate or Sylvia keeping guard. She hated that they felt she needed guarded or someone who held her hand. She'd always been independent, a caregiver for years, but behind closed doors she hated to be in charge. She wanted to lose herself. She dreamed of hands on her claiming her, soon her bright dream turned black and those hands turned to a different set and tried to kill her.

  “Violet, Violet wake up.” Nate shook her the moment her heart rate elevated on the monitor.

  Her big brown eyes opened, fear screaming within them. She started fighting the hands that were on her. As her eyes cleared, and she saw Nate, not Raymond, an easy smile came over her face as she stopped fighting him. “What's with the suit?” She asked as her hand ran down his lapel of his jacket.

  “Sylvia is going to help you get cleaned up and dressed.”

  “My doctor is releasing me? I can go home?” The thought terrified her yet excited her as well. She'd always had a fear and hatred for hospitals. She'd watched too many people die in them growing up. The thought of being an orphan again and having no family to go home to brought on a chill deep within her bones. She was alone. Completely alone. She had no home to go to.

  “No. A field trip with your doctor is allowed though.”

  “Yes Sir.” She smiled as she slowly sat up with Nate's help. Her cocky 'yes sir' still ringing in his ears as he tried to control the rest of his body, so she didn't see how much she affected him. He picked her up gently and carried her into the bathroom as a half-dressed Sylvia looked them over and smirked. Violet gave a rich laugh. It was the first laugh he had heard since her small giggles she had tried to hide when she was prepared at The Manor for the submissive role.

  “A nice flashback with added goodies.” Violet smiled up at him sweetly as she wagged her eyebrows at Sylvia.

  “No flirting. Get her ready.” He set her down on the seat in the shower and left the room. The woman was going to kill him. His need for her was easily shown by the tent in his pants as he left the room quickly. He knew that Sylvia saw, the woman saw everything.

  She followed Sylvia's commands as she got her ready. Her mind kept going over the beginning dream and all the other dreams that she'd had since she first met him. Thinking of Nate had always been her escape. She took a deep breath as she stood up. “Sit.” Sylvia turned quickly when she saw her in the mirror behind her.

  “I'm ok. I won't break.” She gave a ghost of a smile, but her knuckles were white where she was gripping the chair.

  “I know. Now do as I say.” Sylvia added the Dominant order to the words that Violet completely respected as she slowly sat back down on the dry chair. She looked down at the black dress that Sylvia had helped pull over her head. She'd never seen the dress before, but she instantly fell in love with it when she saw it. She was never one to wear dresses but the way the material felt against her, she was quickly changing her mind about never wearing dresses.

  “Done.” Sylvia proclaimed with a smile and showed Violet what she had done with her hair and makeup.

  “Wow. It's like I'm a new person.” Violet resisted the urge to touch the simple curls and the makeup. She had never learned how to put on makeup except a few tutorials on YouTube. Her family had been extremely conservative, and make-up was never a part of her upbringing.

  “No, this is just you.” Sylvia pressed a kiss on Violet's forehead. “Now you may stand.”

  She walked out of the bathroom slowly, knowing Sylvia would catch her if she fell. The look on Nate's face made her bite her lip. He quickly blanked his face. “You look nice.” His voice going an octave lower. “You shouldn't be walking at all though.” His doctor voice and Dominant voice replacing the deep rumble from earlier.

  “I'm fine.” Violet said as she saw the change within him.

  He walked over picking her up. She stayed silent as she drunk in the feeling of being in his solid arms. He slid her effortlessly into one of the hospital wheel chairs as if she didn't weigh more than a feather. “Let's get going.”

  “Where are we going?” She asked as she turned and saw Sylvia in a nice black dress coming out of the bathroom. She saw the look they shared with one another. “The funerals are today.” Violet whispered, turning around, her hands folded in her lap with her head hung low in the submissive stance. How could she have forgotten? Sylvia said that they would try and make sure that she would be there.

  She saw Nate's polished shoes come into view as he knelt down and lifted her chin upwards. “You don't have to go, but I think you need to say your good-byes. You can only go for the service and then come back here. I do not want you too worn out. You are still recovering.”

  Violet just nodded. There was no way that she could trust her voice. Nate grasped her hands in his before he moved and wheeled her out of the hospital.

  The funeral was simple, and she noticed some of her grandmother's friends that filled a few church pews behind them. Her aunt's few friends were there but not a lot since she had pushed most of them away when she was diagnosed with her disease. Though the last several rows had people that she recognized from The Manor, sitting there. They were there for her. To provide support. She never knew that she had any friends or any support past her grandmother and aunt and they knew nothing about her life. She had kept her secret desires completely hidden from her family. She knew that they would have disowned her if they had known the truth.

  She sat there quietly as she looked at the pictures she'd chosen for the se
rvice. The memorial cards clutched tightly in her grip. The moment the service started the first tear fell down her face and didn't let up. She felt Kleenex being pushed into her palm and an arm go around her shoulder’s, but she could not think about that. Memories of her time with her family flooded through her, the good and the bad. The service was over, but she could not begin to comprehend moving. Her heart had broken completely in the middle of the service as the whole thing crashed down on her. Their deaths were finally real to her. She had lost them, and they were the last things that she had. There was nothing left to fight for, nothing left for her. She was abandoned and completely alone for the second time since birth. The numbness started to settle over her as the tears slowly stopped and quietness overtook her.

  Nate could feel the change within Violet and something inside him broke for her. He wanted to protect her. To assure her that she would survive and be even stronger, but right now she needed strength and she could take all of his. The service was over, and Nate pulled her onto his lap and held her close. Standing up she had shut her eyes as they left the church. She didn't say anything, did not respond to anything he asked her. She had completely shut down. When he laid her back on the hospital bed, she curled her side and closed her eyes as he put on all her monitors back on. She listened to the monitors beep as he kissed her temple and she heard him slip from the room. She didn't care that she was alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nate quietly shut Violet's hospital room door, so he could speak to Sylvia privately. Though slamming the door was something he really wanted to do. “She's completely shut down. Maybe the funeral was a bad idea.” He started to pace past the windows, glancing back to Violet's several times. How could he protect her if she shut down? How could he bring her back to him? Him. She didn't belong to him, but he wanted her to be his.

  Sylvia grabbed his arm, hard, stopping him from his pacing. “Nathaniel, you know it was the right thing. We knew this crash was going to happen. She was avoiding all the emotions and the loss of her family since that night. She blames herself for their death. She cannot move on, she cannot have a life, if she bottles all that stuff up.”

  Nate sighed as he leaned against the windows of Violet's room. “I know. I just hate that she's hurting and there is nothing that I can do.”

  “You know there is.”

  “No, I can't do that. She's not in the right head space.”

  “She isn’t, or you aren't?” Sylvia asked. “Don't blame her for something that is totally you. That woman in there has been in love with you since day one.”

  “You don't know that.”

  “I do. She may have been my trainee, but she got under my skin. We met outside of scenes and became friends. She wanted you to offer your collar, but you turned your back on her, so she took Raymond's offer.”

  He flinched at the reminder that he did not lay down his collar in front of her. It was a moment that he had been regretting since the moment she walked out the front doors of The Manor. He had lost so much that he could not lose another person in his life. He had promised himself that he would never consume himself in love again. It's one reason that he kept everyone away from him, even friends. “What should I do? I've watched my girl and my son die. I can't watch another woman I love die.”

  “That's up to you. It is your fear you have to work through but honestly, get over yourself. Everyone knows that you were intrigued with the woman. It didn't help that you had asked me to take her on in front of other Dominates. It was either favoritism or you did not want another man to touch her.” Nate flinched. It was true that he did not want another man to touch her. “Everyone was shocked when your collar did not fall on the table when she was done. I trained her to please you... she knew it too.”

  “And I walked away.”

  “Didn't help her abandonment issues that’s for sure, but she understood.”

  “Understood what?”

  “I covered for you. Always will. You are my best friend, and my brother from another mother.” Sylvia smiled. “Now go in there and stay by her side while she fights her demons internally. You know that she bottles everything up until she breaks.” Sylvia turned to leave as Nate stayed where he was. A few feet away she turned around. “When she comes out of this, when she finally breaks. Don't leave her. Be there. Protect her. My advice... let her move into a cabin, maybe give her a job. She's lost Raymond which means no money or being protected. Plus being alone in her grandmother's house won't help.”

  Nate smiled. He had a mission now. “Thanks S.”

  “Anytime Nate. You know I'm only a text or call away.”

  He nodded his thanks. He was seeing just how much he cared about his friends. When did people start getting under his shield? Maybe he was finally healing himself. He took a deep breath and walked back into the room. Covering Violet with another blanket he sat down and pulled his laptop out of his bag and got to work.

  Violet had woken up as the pain medications faded from her system, seeing Nate passed out in the chair had her turning on her side, watching him.

  The man was beyond beautiful. His shoulder-length dark brown hair was not brushed into place with gel or hairspray any longer. It looked like his hand had passed through his hair several times while he wasted time sitting beside her. She had always dreamed late at night what it would feel like to run her own fingers through his hair. Of lightly running her finger over the dimple in his cleft chin. At times she joked with Sylvia about him being like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. She bit her lip at the mere thought of touching him tenderly. His ice blue eyes boring into hers as her hand traveled over his slim muscular frame. She smiled at her thoughts, allowing herself to get lost in the fantasy as he laid there asleep. Soon the fantasy changed as reality set in. She had funerals to pay for, a job to find, a house to close, and the list expanded in her mind as she forced herself to stay awake and start “adulting” again. She could not let the pain get to her, she unhooked the morphine drip from her arm. She knew that the pain would be fierce, but she had a high tolerance for pain and she knew that she could handle the pain. It would make her feel alive again. She turned off the machines and slipped them from her body. She knew that when she started working that the heart machines would show her worry and anxiety. She pulled her laptop over to her as she got to work putting in resume's and applications as well as checked the money that she had in her account. The dollar amount on the screen made her stomach fall. It was lower than she thought. At least she'd gotten aid for all of her medical bills and she wouldn't have to worry about those as well.

  The silence slowly pulled Nate from the exhausted sleep that had over-taken him. Where was the beeping of the heart monitor? The drip of the morphine? Nurses moving around? The questions went a million miles an hour as he pulled himself from sleep and jumped from the chair. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her dirty blonde hair falling over her hunched shoulders, typing quietly on her laptop. She was concentrating so hard that when he checked her forehead for fever she jumped. “Morning Sir.” Violet smiled sweetly towards him. Violet knew that she was overstepping as a submissive and laid a hand on his arm. “You should go home and get some good sleep. There's a guard at the door and I'm safe.”

  The moment her hand touched his arm, his cock jumped into a salute in his pant. “You know I'm not going to do that. Plus, I was waiting for you to wake up.”

  “Sorry I clocked out after the service.” She bit her lip as it quivered a bit. “I really appreciate what you and Sylvia have been doing for me.”

  “We're both here if you need to talk. You know that right?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Nate's eyes seemed to darken at the simple phrase. She took pleasure in seeing it. She saw him blank his face as he turned on the face she'd seen in their first-time meeting. Business. Pure business was clearly written on his face.

  “I have an offer for you. You're under no obligation.”

  Violet's heart soared. She had just come from a
bad relationship, could she handle being collared again? With Nate, yes. She would do anything to feel loved and wanted by the man who plagued her thoughts and her heart. Not that she would willingly admit it.

  “I would like for you to be the Secretary, well Personal Assistant really, at The Manor.” He saw that she was about to say something, but he put a finger over her mouth. “Hear me out. I came across your resume while searching and you are the best candidate. I know you won't baulk at what goes on at The Manor and you understand the other side 'business' that go down there. I won't have to guard myself the whole time. There is a free cabin besides mine where you can live since this won't be a normal nine to five kind of job. Here's the other perks and benefits.” He slid over a piece of paper with her weekly salary, free housing, room service for any needs, wardrobe allowance, and much more. The list was beyond generous and just the weekly salary alone was a crazy amount. There was no way she could except this charity from the man she already cared for.

  “Thank you for the offer but it's too much.”

  Nate sighed, “It's the same that my last assistant had.”

  “Then why leave?” Violet looked from the paper to Nate and back again. Her first thought that you would have to be stupid to leave a job with this kind of money coming in.

  “She married and is expecting twins. She wants to be a stay at home mom and her Dominant agrees. Can't fault her for that.” Nate shrugged. Violet watched him and knew he cared for the women. “Of course, she did mention multiple times she didn't get paid enough to deal with me.”

  The confused look on his face was so new to her that she couldn't help but giggle. “She couldn't handle you?”

  “Oh, she managed me just fine. I swear her Dom must have given her an order to not beat me. I tend to get a little crazy during projects and would wake her in the middle of the night to check something.”