Page 9 of Take Her

“Bestiola!” Nero bellowed, because he only had one volume, using the only nickname I’d ever had on this earth—little beast—despite the fact that I was now forty-five—and I would’ve complained about it like I always did, only I noticed someone else walking in right behind him.

And this time she wasn’t in a catsuit—no, she was in a caramel brown pencil skirt, and a shiny, loose, off-white, long-sleeved blouse, and her hair was in a bun.

“You remember my daughter Lia?” he went on, as she walked in, surveying the room coolly, before she looked at me.

“Rhaim Selvaggio,” she said pleasantly, holding out one hand, like the hand she’d be shaking wasn’t the same one that’d spanked her on Friday night before making her come. “Of course I remember you.”

“I remember you, too,” I told her with a completely flat inflection, as Nero went on, oblivious, grabbing her shoulder and shaking it roughly, like she was one of the boys.

“Lia just got her MBA. I want you to teach her everything you know, Rhaim—because someday soon this place is going to be hers.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, with a sweetness that didn’t reach her eyes—I knew because she was staring fire right at me.

Daddy’s little girl hated me.

I.

Was.

Fucked.

4

LIA

As I watched Caleb’s strong hands turn a piece of delicately decorated paper into a crane, crease by crease, I realized I wanted that for me. For someone to take the sad, flat creature I was now, and rebuild me utterly—to slowly give me wings.

—Sarah, from One of a Thousand Wishes by A. R. McGeorge

Rhaim’s eyes looked over my shoulder at my father. “Everything I know?” he asked, one eyebrow high.

He was everything I’d hoped he’d be in real life again, and the lighting in his office was much better than the lighting in the club. He had dramatic features: a heavy brow, a square jaw, full lips very used to frowning, and a strong nose that might’ve been broken more than once before. His eyes were a deep, dark brown, and his hair was still thick and brown as well, with only the lightest smattering of gray at his temples.

And while his tone and expression with my father was perfectly calm and formal, I imagined I could see the rage at meeting me, seething underneath.

It was his own fool fault for being an asshole to me the other night.

I’d bribed my way into that sex club to warn him this was happening, kind-of-sort-of-mostly, then I’d gotten wrapped up in the moment, and frankly, in all the possibilities.

I’d started off scared that if I didn’t occupy him, someone else would.

And then when he wanted to ignore me, I kept doubling down because part of me couldn’t believe that he didn’t remember me.

Which was stupid, right?

Because the last time I’d seen him, I’d been thirteen and—the less said about that night, the better.

But when he didn’t and when the opportunity to live out my wildest dreams presented itself—how was I supposed to resist?

It was like getting up early to sneakily open presents on Christmas morning and meeting goddamned Santa Claus.

You wouldn’t just go back to bed after that—no, any self-respecting girl would shake him down for a pony.

It wasn’t until after I’d come that I realized the predicament I’d gotten myself into, and I was still going to try to talk to him, but then he’d been a complete asshat.

So whatever Rhaim was feeling now and thinking about me?

He deserved it.