Page 22 of Take Her

“Really?” I said, without thinking about my personal wellbeing.

“Of course,” he snapped. “I want some grandkids before I get too old to enjoy them. Alonzo shouldn’t get to have all the fun.”

I didn’t point out that the only reason Alonzo was the man of his household was because Nero had sent his kid off to die eight thousand miles away. It had been a hazard for most of us, for a decade or more, until it became more lucrative to fuck people over inside a boardroom than underneath the table.

But I knew all about Nero’s obsession for having a male heir to pass off his company to. He was almost as bad as Henry the Eighth—Lia’s mother had been his fourth wife.

And I could actually remember being worried about what would happen to me, if she were a boy, before she’d been born.

“Get your ass home and be at your desk on Monday, bestiola,” he said, turning on his heel in the dirt. “And we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” I watched him walk across the field, and it occurred to me that Nero Ferreo would’ve never considered breaking up a twenty-thousand dollar suit to help a girl protect her honor—he’d have just shoved a wad of hundreds in her pussy to help cover up the gap.

“Stupid, prideful, fucker,” I heard him mutter, shaking his head gravely, as he made it through the pasture gate.

Well.

I was two of those things, at least.

There didn’t seem any point in racing back to town during Friday rush hour, especially seeing as I’d already practically made myself nocturnal. It was just as easy to log onto my accounts from here and start sending out somewhat apologetic emails declaring a health emergency of a personal nature—just enough to give me some retroactive grace for falling off the planet.

And while I tried to make myself sleep that night, so I could go back to being whatever schedule passed for normal, I couldn’t help it—around 3 a.m. I woke up all on my own, thinking about Lia, in my moonlit, breeze-caressed bedroom.

Because by now it was a habit.

Same for the hard on that came with the thought of her.

And what they didn’t teach you in grief counseling—not like I actually went, more like when I was googling “how to move on” late at night, in somewhat drunken desperation—was how awkward it was to have boners for strange women you don’t actually know in front of professionally painted portraits of your dead wife.

The only thing that made it tolerable was knowing that it would make Isabelle laugh her head off if her ghost could see.

I lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling for longer than I cared to admit, then got up, kissing my fingers before tapping them on Isabelle’s oil-painted cheek, before heading downstairs.

I don’t know why I bothered. If Nero had found out about me torturing Lia, then there was no way she’d be showing up for her final shift. He would’ve yelled at her for ever playing my game and for not coming straight to him.

And I didn’t know what to do with the fact that she hadn’t.

She had had the upper hand now—twice.

And apparently was too . . . what? Too ignorant to realize it?

Nah, I didn’t believe that for a second.

My dick only jumped for smart women.

Too . . . nice?

Possibly, but . . . doubtful.

She was Nero’s daughter, after all. And some of her upbringing with him must’ve rubbed off. I couldn’t remember hardly anything of her childhood—she’d been one of those shy kids that liked to read. The only real time we’d interacted was one time I helped her bandage up a scuffed knee at the end of a party.

So she had to be playing a longer game. Some kind of con.

With me.

But why?

I flipped the switches to turn all of my screens on and sat down, ignoring my semi, and started going through Corvo Enterprises’s camera galley systematically, not wanting to admit to myself what it was I was looking for until I found it.

One slender brunette girl, sashaying behind a trash can in the eleventh-floor hallway, singing her heart out.