by Megan Hart
There wasn't anything wrong with Austin's question, but it
made my stomach twist and turn. "I don't want anything
from you. That's the point. Isn't it?"
"Jesus, Paige!" The doors opened and a mother holding
two kids by the hand pushed her way through. Austin
stepped aside to let her pass and we waited until she'd
halfway crossed the parking lot before he spoke again.
"Why not? Why the fuck not?"
"I don't know!" Again, not what I thought I meant to say
but once the words came out I had no others.
but once the words came out I had no others.
He stepped closer to me. Taler. Broader. I couldn't
decide if I was intimidated or turned on.
"What wil it take to convince you I'm different?"
"What wil it take to convince you I'm not?"
We weren't shouting, but my throat hurt as much as if I'd
screamed. Austin's face worked. He stepped closer stil.
"What do you want? Do you want me to jump through
hoops? Is that it? Is that what you want?" He studied my
face and must have seen something in it, because al at
once his shoulders slumped. "What kind of man does
that?"
Helplessly, I thought of Eric and the mingled heat of
shame, fury and desire mingled with despair. "Some men
would."
Austin tossed his hands in the air and made a noise that
had a depth of meaning, even without words. This time,
when he walked away, I watched him go and I didn't cal
him back.
him back.
The car ride back to my dad's was quieter, thank God, as
Tyler wound down. We made it home to a message on the
answering machine teling us they'd be home later than
expected. I sent Tyler upstairs to brush his teeth and get
into bed, but I held Jeremy back. It was proof of how
much Tyler was worn out that he barely argued.
"Sit." I pointed at one of the bar stools pushed up against the kitchen island. "Want a soda?"
"I'm not supposed to."
I'd already puled out two from the fridge and pushed one
toward him. "Yeah, yeah, save the innocent act for your
mother."
We both cracked the tops of our cans. From upstairs
came the rush of water and some thudding footsteps, then
some singing. I laughed. Jeremy roled his eyes.
"So," I said after I took a long swig. "What crawled up your ass and died?"
"Nothing."
I understood sulen. "Dad says you've been giving him and
Stela a hard time. And that you even got into trouble at
school. What's up, dude?"
"Did Dad tel you to interrogate me?" Jeremy sneered and
didn't even open his soda.
"Ooh. Mr. Vocabulary."
He scowled and hunched over the island. "Why can't he
just leave me alone?"
"Because he's your dad."
Jeremy had the same color eyes as my dad. As me. Blue
edged with gray. Now they'd gone dark with his anger.
"He's your dad, too!"
Of al the things he could have said, I wasn't expecting
something like that. "Yeah. So?"
He shrugged violently and hunched forward again. I leaned
on the island across from him and waited. Jeremy had
used to be a lot like Tyler, mouth going a mile a minute. I
could wait him out.
"Don't you ever…hate him?"
He'd voiced his question so low I almost missed it, but I
didn't lean closer to hear better. I pushed back, instead,
stunned at the vehemence in his tone. "Hate Dad?"
Jeremy lifted watery eyes to me. "Yeah. Don't you?"
I had absolutely no idea what any of this was about, but I
kept my voice gentle. "Why, Jeremy? Do you?"
He ducked his head again. Twelve was tough. Not a kid
anymore, not a teen. I'd given my mom her first gray hairs
when I was twelve.
"He always tels us family is so important." He spat the last word and I heard the snurfle of snot.
I grabbed a couple tissues from the box on the counter
behind me and passed them over. Jeremy grabbed them
and tucked them against his face, stil bent into the circle of
his arms. I drank some soda while I thought of what to
say.
"Family is important," was al I could come up with.
Jeremy looked at me again, though his tears had to be
embarrassing. "He was married before my mom."
"Yeah. I know. To Gretchen and Steven's mom. But that
was before you were born, guy."
"But not," Jeremy said in a voice laced thick with disgust,
"before you were born."
He'd only just now figured it al out. Wel, I'd known it
younger than twelve and it hadn't made it any easier for me
to know my father had been married to another woman
when he had me. I was three before my dad realy started
making an effort to see me, his first marriage already over.
He was dating Stela by then. I never realy knew him with
anyone else.
"My mom…" Jeremy shuddered and swiped at angry
tears. "She's the reason he got divorced from Gretchen
and Steve's mom. Isn't she?"
"I don't know, Jeremy. I never asked. It's not my business.
And, realy, not yours." I didn't want to come off hard on
him. I understood. But I also knew it wouldn't change
anything for him to be angry over it.
"If family is so important, why did he do that?"
I sighed, at a loss. "I don't know."
Jeremy scrubbed at his face, the tears gone. His bright
eyes were shaped like Stela's though they were my dad's
color, and he looked like her when he frowned that way.
"He cheated on his first wife and had another baby, and
then he did it again!
That's not putting family first. That's not treating them like
they're important!"
Of al my dad's kids I'd thought Gretchen or Steven might
have had the most to bitch about. After al, their lives had
been turned upside down and torn apart by their dad's
infidelity. Mine hadn't been al strawberries and cream, but
it had been al I'd ever known. Jeremy and Tyler had lived
the lives of princes from birth.
"What are you worried about?" I asked him quietly. "That he'l do it again?"
He didn't have to answer with words. I reached across the
island and took my half brother's hand. In my pocket, my
island and took my half brother's hand. In my pocket, my
phone buzzed, but I didn't reach for it.
"Your dad loves you. And he loves your mom. Crazy
like."
Jeremy let me hold his hand but didn't squeeze my fingers
in return. "Did he love your mom, Paige?"
I let go of his hand. "I don't know. That's between them."
"And it doesn't make you mad?"
I shrugged. "It used to, I guess. But what can I do about
it? I'm a grown-up now, kiddo. I have to do my own thing.
At least I know my dad, you know? Some kids never do."
He nodded finaly and wiped at his face again with the
grimy, shredded tissue. "It makes me so mad, though."
"It's okay to be mad. Maybe you should talk to him about
it, though, instead of being bad in school."
Jeremy looked stricken. "He'd
tel Mom that I know!"
I didn't point out that it wasn't just our dad who'd done
wrong. Stela had known what she was doing, or at least
I'd always assumed so since she wasn't a woman who
ever did anything by accident. I just patted his hands and
washed my own before I finished my soda.
The sound of the garage door opening had us both on our
feet. Jeremy hopped up the stairs without a word from me,
while I dumped his can in the sink and stashed the can in
the recycling bin. By the time my dad and Stela got in the
house, silence reigned from upstairs and I was flipping
through a back issue of some home-and-garden magazine.
"How did it go?" Stela bustled into the kitchen and stuck
an aluminum swan in the fridge. "You got our message?
The fund-raiser had only the tiniest hors d'oeuvres and we
were starving, and since you were here, wel, we just
decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner out."
"No problem. I took them to Jungle Java."
Stela raised a brow. "That junky place?"
My dad had come in behind her and let out a long, loud
belch. "What junky place?"
Stela roled her eyes. "Paige took the boys to Jungle
Java."
Java."
"Yeah?" He looked at the clock and yawned. "That place is stil around?"
I got the not-so-subtle hint. "Yeah. They're upstairs, but
I'm not sure if they're asleep."
Stela sighed. "Did they bring home a bunch of junk?"
I grinned unapologeticaly. "Absolutely."
She gave me a second glance, then a smal smile. "I'm
going up to say good-night. Are you leaving, Paige?"
"Yeah." I glanced at my dad, who was rooting around in
the fridge for something.
"Vince! We just ate!"
"I need a drink," he said and came out holding a bottle of designer water.
"Fine. Good night, Paige. Thanks for watching the boys."
"No problem."
My dad and I turned to watch her head up the steps. I
My dad and I turned to watch her head up the steps. I
thought he'd ask me about Jeremy since that was the
whole reason I'd come over in the first place, but he didn't.
He drank his water with a sigh and tossed the empty bottle
in the trash. Then he puled out his walet and handed me a
fifty-dolar bil.
"For watching the kids," he said.
The paper, crisp and sharp edged, rubbed my fingers.
"Dad, I don't need this."
"Jungle Java isn't cheap."
"I wanted to take them."
"Take the money, Paige," my dad said amiably enough.
"I'm sure you can use it."
I straightened my shoulders and folded the bil in half, then
shoved it in my pocket. "You don't have to pay me for
watching the boys. I'm doing al right."
My dad laughed. "I'm sure you are. I'm not paying you for
anything, I'm just being your dad, okay?"
"Wel, then. Thanks." Gratitude stuck in my throat but I
forced it out.
My dad had periodicaly tossed me some money over the
years. Never enough. Never when I needed it. It would
have been better if he'd done right by my mom and given
her child support so I could've had the stylish jeans in
middle school or the warmer winter coat. I'd have
appreciated that more than the occasional twenty or even
fifty dolars, or the sudden flurry of birthday gifts three
weeks late and al in the wrong sizes.
"Do you want to go to lunch with me next week?" He
yawned again, and I started toward the front door.
"Sure, Dad. Cal me."
"I wil," he told me at the door and gave me a hug and a
kiss on the cheek. "Drive safe."
It was so fatherly it felt foreign. Driving home, my phone
vibrated against my leg again, but I didn't pul it out until I
got to the parking garage. Two messages waited for me.
In bed. Not tired. What should I cal you?
And the second, Stil not sleeping.
I hadn't forgotten how I'd looked forward to every note.
I'd imagined the sender, my secret commander, crafting
each word with the intent of forcing me one more step
along a path so curved I couldn't see the end. I'd never
thought about how difficult it would be to come up with
detailed lists every time, or how it felt to hold someone so
firmly in my command.
There were limits. There had to be. I'm sure I'd have found
them had the notes kept coming, pushing me harder, or if
they'd ordered me to do something so foreign to me I
couldn't manage it. I didn't think I'd have committed a
crime or done something against my personal code, like
have bareback sex with a stranger, or taken drugs.
I didn't know Eric's limits, or how far I wanted to push
him, but the thought sifted heat al through me. I thought for
another few moments, then got out of my car. It wasn't
terribly late, not for a Saturday, but the parking garage
was quiet. Across the street I could see a few lights on in
apartments, though many windows were dark. Most of the
Manor residents would be out and about until much later.
By the time I got to the front doors, I was already tapping
out a message. Grinning, I tucked my phone, set to silent,
back in my pocket. It was a risk that might not play out the
way I'd planned, but it was a good risk.
If you're not sleeping, you should put your time to good
use. Go to the lobby. Greet the first person you see. If it's
a man, you wil engage him in whatever conversation you
want. But if it's a woman, you wil find a way to serve her.
Not to please her, and not to please yourself. To please
me.
It was a lot of typing, but the fact it took longer meant he
had to wait longer for it. I was already in the lobby, which
was stil empty. Al I had to do was wait.
I caught sight of my face in the mirror above the fireplace
nobody ever lit. Blond hair slicked back in a high ponytail,
blue eyes smudged with gray liner. The sun had brought
out some freckles and my lips stil could've used some
gloss, but overal, it wasn't a bad picture.
I turned my face from side to side, envisioning heavier
makeup and a leather suit replacing my workout clothes. A
whip in my hand. Spike-heeled boots. None of that
appealed to me any more than being on my knees with my
appealed to me any more than being on my knees with my
hands tied had ever turned me on. I swiped a hand over
my hair to take care of the wisps faling over my face. I
didn't look like a dominatrix. Was that what I was?
It was too soon to be insulted Eric hadn't even asked for
my phone number. We'd had two pseudodates but no
indication he had any sort of sexual attraction to me. So
far, al I knew was that he got off on being ordered around
by someone he didn't know, and that I liked him very
much.
And that I could make him like me.
Chapter 25
"Paige. Hey."
I'd tried to time my "entrance" just right, grateful nobody else was coming in or out of the building so they coul
dn't
see me lurking by the front door trying to catch a glimpse
of the elevators. I'd managed to linger long enough I was
the only person in the lobby just as Eric came out of the
elevator. He looked around and lit up when he saw me.
Relief, maybe. Gratitude.
I wanted it to be desire.
"Eric. Hi." I'm no actress, so I didn't bother pretending I wasn't happy to see him. "What's up?"
"Oh, just…" He didn't quite stammer, but he did trail off
with a shrug and a smile. "I have the night off. Couldn't
sleep."
I looked at the big clock on the wal opposite the fireplace.
"It's only eleven-thirty. It's stil early."
"Yeah. Wel, I have to work early, so I was trying to be
good."
I'd never been afraid to go after what I wanted, and I'd
decided I wanted him. "Were you?"
I watched his throat convulse as he swalowed, and I
drank in the sudden gleam from his gaze. I knew what he'd
been told to do, but now I was watching it happen and my
body reacted. My nipples went tight and I sighed silently at
the friction of my panties against me.
"I was trying," he said.
Flirting is a dance, even when you're standing stil.
"But not succeeding?"
His smal smile caled my attention to his perfectly ful
lower lip. "I guess not."
"Bad boy." I didn't coo or purr the words. I didn't have to.
Eric's dark eyes flashed. "I guess I am."
The difference in how he looked at me was subtle, but I'd
been watching for it. I knew what he was supposed to do
and wondered how he meant to do it. But just then I also
and wondered how he meant to do it. But just then I also
wished I hadn't pushed him toward it. Me.
"Wel, it's late," I said to tease. "I'd better go upstairs. I'm starving."
Eric dogged my steps toward the elevator. "What are you
hungry for?"
I let his question turn me. "Ice-cream sundaes."
"I have ice cream. And hot fudge. And I even have those
disgusting cherries."
I smiled at the good luck. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Eric nodded slowly, his glance going over my
shoulder when the elevator doors opened. "Want to come
up to my place? I'l make you one."
I back-stepped toward the elevator and he folowed as
though I puled him on a string. Or a leash. "Now, why
would I do that?"
"Because ice cream's more fun when eaten in pairs?"
I laughed at his answer. "Al right. Al I have is diet fudge
I laughed at his answer. "Al right. Al I have is diet fudge
