Mother Hostile Makeover Ch 09

"I regret that we're all leaving for America tomorrow without having come to an agreement," Aleksandra told Lauren. "Nevertheless, I hope you'll enjoy the feast in your honor this evening. It's our custom to celebrate the arrival of visitors. We didn't expect you, and we didn't welcome you properly. I hope this will make up somewhat for that."

They sat in her office having tea with Janet and Stefan. Jan looked restless, as usual, her mind probably occupied with what she'd be doing later in the afternoon and with which partners.

"Thank you, that's gracious of you. I'll look forward to it." Lauren looked to Stefan. "You didn't tell me. Does this celebration have any special traditions that I should know about?"

"It's generally an informal and, ah, affectionate welcoming," he volunteered. "You don't want to overdress."

"Oh," Lauren suppressed a smile as understanding dawned. "It's like that."

"It's like that," Janet chimed in. Sex was the one topic that could still reliably capture her attention. "I'm looking forward to it. They didn't do it for Frank and me, either. I think they didn't want to scare us." She giggled.

Being around Jan unnerved Lauren these days. She used Libidramine to the point that she was too horny to think much at all, and Aleksandra was quick to extend the courtesy of providing studs like Jakob to satisfy her guest.

Lauren had found herself sliding into that same groove. Despite Kai'ulau's many pleasures she was relieved to be getting away from the island while she still wanted to.

The morning at the tide pool had convinced her that Aleksandra was having her watched, and she assumed that her communications were monitored as well. She'd kept her email contacts with Jon and Ethan brief and superficial, but she kept a file on her phone with notes and images that she would send off to them at her first safe opportunity.

Aleksandra's foot-dragging at improving the island's communication networks wasn't happenstance. The woman might not have much use for clothes, but she dealt with others from behind veils.

"There's really no point in your coming out to Blue Oasis," Lauren said. "I have concerns about Lib, but I'm happy to discuss distributing it. I'm just not going to sell you an interest in the company. Your making a personal pitch to my other partners isn't going to change anything." With Frank nowhere to be found, even if Jon and Janet were both amenable to the sale of shares Lauren and Ethan could prevent it. She was confident that her son would support her position.

"I'm not immediately concerned with purchasing additional shares in Blue Oasis," Aleksandra declared. "Mrs. Palmieri and I have completed a separate negotiation."

"Additional shares?"

Lauren set her cup down hard enough to rattle and slosh into its saucer. She spun her chair to face Janet. "What in the hell is she talking about?

Janet wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Jan, what did you do?"

"I-I've sold my stake in the company to the Novaks."

"No. You can't do that. We must have a buy-sell agreement. The rest of us would have the option to buy you out first."

"You'd think. Laur, our bylaws are such a patchwork that probably none of it's enforceable. We've talked about it so many times, how we were so young and everything was friendly and we were so do-it-yourself about everything. Download legal documents, fill in the blanks. And who did we finally hire, to straighten all that out?"

"Lew Bradley. Fuck." Lauren's stomach was cold and rock hard. She wanted to grab hold of Janet and shake her until whatever was left of her brain fell out. What stopped her was the sight of Aleksandra sitting behind her desk, sipping her tea, completely failing to hide her satisfaction at outmaneuvering Lauren.

"We did not discuss this," Stefan said in a flat voice. "Mother, you did such a thing without telling me?"

"Is that for my benefit?" Lauren snapped. "You know your cues, don't you?"

Stefan's face was ashen. "Lauren, believe me, I knew nothing about this."

"Save it." She turned her back on him.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, my name is Lauren Chase.

"Lauren, listen to me." Janet's voice shook. "You need this deal more than you realize. You're too close to see it. So was I.

"The five of us are way too enmeshed. We built Oasis badly, tap dancing to keep on top of our growth because we'd never let go of anything. Our governance is a house of cards. Look at how easily Lew got in and sabotaged us."

"And you're all too eager now to help them succeed."

"Because Lib's not going to go away. But NGT can take it somewhere else, and the competition will bury us. I hoped that you'd come to see it that way, too. When you couldn't, I made my own decision."

"Are you finished?"

Janet opened her mouth as if to add something but apparently thought better of it.

"Okay, then. Since you're out, whatever Aleksandra and I discuss is none of your business. So, why don't you go back up to your room, find that lovely big vibrator of yours, and shove it so far up your ass that you choke on it."

The look in Janet's eyes would haunt Lauren for the rest of her life.

Aleksandra cleared her throat. "Dear, it might be best if you go. Stefan, would you see Mrs. Palmieri back to her rooms?"

"Mother--"

"Please. You and I will discuss this later."

"Did you enjoy that?" Aleksandra asked when she and Lauren were alone.

"No. I'm ashamed of myself." Lauren squared her shoulders and sat up straight. "So, I suppose you're done with her. You got what you wanted."

"You continue to misjudge me. Janet's insight into the intricacies of your--our company's operations makes her a valuable advisor as we all negotiate the terms of our new partnership. You're the one who appears willing to throw your relationship on the scrap heap."

"She sold me--us-- out!"

"Has she? I've learned some things about you, Lauren. One is that you resent your husband's underestimation of others. From where I sit, you and Jon are very much alike in that way."

"Excuse me?"

"You're quick to dismiss Janet's judgment. You don't listen to her. You'd rather believe that we've coerced or seduced her."

"Because that's exactly what you've done."

"You've consumed quite a lot of Libidramine yourself at this point, haven't you? How would you assess your own soundness of mind at this point?"

"I feel fine." Lauren hoped that she sounded confident.

"So, then, do you attribute that to your own remarkable strength of character? Poor Janet, so weak-willed and so easily led astray. You have to believe that, don't you? Otherwise, you'd have to consider the possibility that she knows what she's doing, just as you do, and that she might be right. She's trying to prevent you from making a grave mistake.

"NGT wants partners, not adversaries. But if you choose to fight us, you court catastrophe. Now, I don't doubt that you have the resources to litigate and block or interfere with this transfer of shares for a very long time."

"Aleksandra, I think we'll do exactly that. I'm sure it will be Jon's first choice."

"Don't be. In that case, I'll take my product, along with the extensive capital investment that I'm prepared to make in Blue Oasis, to one of your competitors. We have excellent lawyers of our own, and there's a very good chance that we'll win. In the meantime, when the lawsuits start you'll find other potential investors turning shy of involving themselves in your mess.

"If you think our offer is too low now, wait until we pick up the cash-starved remnants of your company at bargain prices a year from now."

Lauren wished that the bleak picture Aleksandra painted didn't sound so plausible. "Lady, if threatening us is supposed to discourage us from fighting--"

"What are you fighting, exactly, Lauren? We offer the world a priceless gift: youth, health, sexual fulfillment. It's

real.

And therefore, irresistible.

"Men have come to Kai'ulau throughout our history to exploit us. To corrupt us. Again and again, they have failed. Do you know why? Because the power of the Tiare changes them, instead. I saw it in the way my father's associates abandoned his cause, to live among us and adopt our ways. Imagine how we could use Libidramine to undermine the structures of violence and repression and hatred in the world at large."

"'Make love, not war,'" Lauren recited. Aleksandra looked puzzled. "That is almost idealistic. Also breathtakingly nutty."

"Do you approve or disapprove, then?"

Lauren shrugged. "Let's just say that, as megalomaniacal schemes go, I guess that a sex pill is preferable to a hijacked nuke. And I might almost believe in your benevolence, except that I'm pretty sure that you had Frank Palmieri killed."

She lobbed the accusation without warning, hoping that Aleksandra might freeze or flinch or otherwise betray her guilt by some reflex. The woman didn't bat an eyelash.

"Good. I've been waiting for you to bring this into the open. I assure you that I'm absolutely willing to kill, to protect my family and this island. But I've done no harm to Frank Palmieri and I don't know of anyone who might have. Yes, we must be prepared to discover the worst about Frank's fate. But his disappearance has only complicated our dealings with one another. It was never in my interest to harm him. Surely you see that."

"Have you ever? Killed someone?"

After a long pause, Aleksandra said, "You are a wonderfully peculiar woman, Lauren. Getting to know you has not been a disappointment.

"One more thing. I've been led to believe your husband will be amenable to our partnership."

"Not when he finds out what's happened to Frank and Janet. I guarantee you that."

"In which case, it would be wise for you to consider a change in leadership. A new CEO."

"Uh-huh. Like who? Not me."

"Stefan. I intend to appoint him our representative to sit on your executive board."

"I take it back, Aleksandra. You're not just deluded. You're stark, raving, full-on bugfuck crazy."

"Do you think so?" Aleksandra leaned back in her chair, staring into the middle distance with fingers steepled, almost as if weighing the charge. "Consider your options. I hope I'll see you this evening."

Lauren just managed to make it back to her own room before throwing up.

†††

"May I come in?" Stefan stood in the open doorway of Lauren's room, clad in short trunks and an open linen shirt. By Kai'ulauan standards he might as well be wearing a cassock. He was too tall and too tan and too

Stefan

for her comfort. Something still sparked inside her when he was near, and she hated herself for that.

"It's your castle. Oh, and welcome to the board of Blue Oasis. Maybe." She turned back to the bed and continued packing for the flight back to Los Angeles. She'd come here with little and acquired only a few items on her trips into Atunai, and she doubted that she could keep busy long enough for him to take the hint and leave.

Looking over her shoulder, he said, "That's beautiful."

She held a delicate top shell larger than her fist, striped and spotted red and pink on mother-of-pearl. "Jan found it when we were out walking on the beach last--a few days ago." The short time she'd spent on the island felt like months, and the longer she stayed the more the days and nights blurred together.

She tossed the shell into her bag. "Guess I'm keeping it."

"Let's not be late for our own party."

"Yeah, I'm gonna pass. Fuck Chelsea good, for me. Janet too."

Stefan stepped in front of her. "Lauren, I swear to you that I didn't know what Mother and Janet were planning. Can you believe me that I would have warned you if I had known?"

"No, Stefan, I don't think I can. I keep letting myself forget that there are sides here, and you're on Aleksandra's team. You're partners in every way...aren't you?"

Stefan sighed and said, "Mother keeps secrets from everyone, myself included. I took over many of Father's responsibilities, yes. Which has meant that I've spent most of the last two years abroad. Strengthening business relationships he'd nurtured, building new ones.

"I was the one who recommended that we reach out to Blue Oasis, to begin with. Seeing what it's costing you, I'm dreadfully sorry for that now."

"Wait--wait a minute. This takeover was your idea?"

"No! No, not all of this. I only thought you'd be a good fit as our American distributors. I confess my motives were personal and less than pure. You see, the truth is that I only wanted to meet Lauren Chase."

"To meet...I don't get it."

"It was the pictures that you modeled for. The ads that Claire brought up, the afternoon that we met? I was smitten. And I am."

"You are..." she was going to say "joking," but he was all too clearly sincere. He was like a kid confiding a long-held crush to the object of his desire, fearful that she might laugh at him, or strike the mortal blow of rejection.

As if she could. "You are preying on my vanity, sir," she said, managing a weak smile.

"Never." He became again the disarming young man of first meeting, open where she'd expected guarded, candid when he should have been shrewd.

"Man, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about you." She sat wearily on the edge of the bed, fresh awareness of the gulf of years between them bearing in on her. He could still believe that love was enough. If that was what this was.

He sat down and touched her lightly on the shoulder.

"How

do

you feel?"

Her answer was a kiss, all the while cursing herself for a fool. Not an hour ago her best friend, the woman she'd loved all her life, had betrayed her trust a second time. And here she was embracing the man who, reason told her, was her adversary. Her heart told her to trust Stefan Novak, while every other instinct warned her to beware.

"You should have

Lucky I'm Alive

tattooed on your forehead," Jan had once teased Lauren. She'd always lacked a healthy wariness of danger. She rushed in. But admitting that about herself was not enough to defeat the bond that she'd forged with Stefan. Especially not here on the island, where sexual desire was reinforced and magnified by the all-pervading effect of the Tiare.

"I don't want to run your company," he declared. "I won't have any part of this. I'll make clear to Mother that I won't take part in her scheme."

"Don't do that." Her intuitive objection surprised both of them."Stefan, if I'm going to trust you, then I have to believe that your influence in Global Traders is the best leverage I have. God, okay, that sounds awfully cold-blooded."

"No. No, it doesn't. It makes sense." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "That being the case, it would be a good idea for us to go down to the celebration. It would please Mother. Give her a sense of security."

"You just want me to get into your little Aloha orgy. Horny bastard."

"Always. But the show of goodwill might put her mind at ease."

Lauren stood and checked herself in the dressing table mirror. She smoothed her hair back with her fingers. "These fit fine when I left California," she said of the jeans that hung loosely off of her hips. "Now it looks I'm dressing up in Mommy's things. She couldn't cinch the belt tight enough to keep them from slipping halfway down her ass.

She trembled when Stefan reached around her from behind, the smooth muscles of his chest pressing into her shoulder blades. He unbuckled her belt and let the jeans fall to the floor. "There's no point in overdressing."

The celebration was in the garden courtyard where Lauren and Janet had met on her first day here, a broad sward enclosed by the tumbled-down remnants of stone walls overgrown by purple flowering vines. The evening sun cast long shadows down the green hills and red cultivation terraces of the main island, shimmering gold across the surface of a distant reservoir.

Some guests ate from low tables set out under the awnings of a pavilion. The aromas of meat cooking in baskets over fire pits wafted on the cool ocean breeze, making Lauren's mouth water. Drummers beat out rhythms accompanied by musicians playing flutes and a kind of bamboo string instrument that she'd never seen. There were several Novak kin here that she'd met during her stay, most of them cousins of one kind or another according to the loose clan structure of the island. There were some Global Traders professional staff that she knew and a great many more who were strangers to her.

All around the yard, people were fucking. On the grass, on couches and cushions scattered around the yard and in the pavilion itself, couples and threesomes and larger groups fondled and kissed and thrust and strove together, tangled bodies and limbs glowing in the fast fading amber light. What would have been a scene of decadence and debauchery in Lauren's world was gleefully normal here. She couldn't help openly gawking.

There was Janet, crouched on her hands and knees on a mattress at the near end of the pavilion, humping back against Dominic's prick as he fucked her from behind. Her eyes were closed, her eyes fluttering under the lids as in an erotic dream.

Aleksandra Novak reclined on a rattan sofa out in the manicured lawn, legs draped over Chelsea West's slim shoulders. The young actress's sculpted profile nested in the shadowed crook of the older woman's thighs, that movie star mouth working over the Novak matriarch's plump vulva. Aleksandra's eyes rolled back in her head and her chest heaved spasmodically as she climaxed.

Chelsea was a first-rate pussy eater, maybe even better than Janet. Lauren's heat rose as she remembered having that tongue inside her. She leaned into Stefan's side, an arm around his hips.

"Where would you like to start?" he asked.

"If you please, sir, I'm gonna dance with the guy what brung me." She dipped her hand inside his trunks, wrapping her fingers around his stiff cock. Crouching before him, she dragged his trunks to his ankles.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a naked young stranger approach Chelsea from behind. With a casual glance over her shoulder, Chelsea tipped her ass upward and spread her knees wider apart in wordless invitation. The man knelt on the grass and easily plunged his long, thin penis all the way into her wet pussy. She let out a short squeal. Her shoulders arched and her back hollowed like a cat stretching contentedly in the sun as she swayed in rhythm with his thrusts.

Heart racing, Lauren turned her attention back to Stefan. The day's hurt and anger receded, submerged in a tsunami of lust that shredded her remaining inhibitions. She swiped her wet tongue up along the underside of his shaft up to his glans. His cock jumped and swelled even bigger. A drop of clear liquid dripped from his cock-slit; she sucked it up. Then she slipped her pouting lips over the crown and took him as far as she could with a single swift bob of her head. His knees shook and he gasped for breath as her tongue circled the base of his prick.

He made a low, grinding growl deep in his throat. She'd learned his sounds, his moves, the rhythms of his pulse. All the involuntary responses that told her when it was good for him or when he was close to coming. She pulled back, releasing him, watching the curl of his lip and the focus of those radiant blue eyes. She took him again, all the way to the bottom of her throat. He reached down, running his fingers through her hair, guiding her with his hands, encouraging her to take more of his cock. He drew back and thrust his hips forward. He fucked her mouth, balls bumping her chin with every stroke.

"I've got to come," he said between gasps, letting go of her head to let her choose whether or not to suck him to completion. No way was she stopping now. She wanted to taste him again and to feel his hot cum running down her throat. She bobbed her head back and forth, increasing her speed and pressure, and soon got what she was after as he shot his load into her sucking mouth.