Chapter 4
ETHAN
Ishould have gone into the office. Not only is there a shit-ton of work demanding my attention there, being at home with my wife and my ex-babygirl is more distracting than I’d expected it to be.
Every few minutes, I find myself looking up from my computer, staring at my closed office door and wondering what they’re doing.
If I know Sloane, she’s locked in her studio, bringing some author’s vision to life in that way she has that always manages to take my breath away. Regardless of the distance between us, she’s an incredibly talented artist, and I’m so fucking proud of her some days I could burst with it.
Mia is the real wildcard in all this. My gut tells me she’s in “her” room, sulking about the spanking I never should have given her. As much as being punished used to turn her on, she’d always pout about it afterward, especially if her punishment included being denied an orgasm.
Which it usually did. I don’t reward naughty Little girls with pleasure.
Groaning at the thought of my sulky ex-Little, I let my head fall back against my office chair. I love Sloane. I do. She’s an incredible partner, smart and shrewd in business, but with a softer side that she hardly lets anyone but me see.
But fuck, I miss being a Daddy. I miss bending my Little girl to my will, punishing her when she’s naughty, rewarding her when she’s a good girl.
I miss having someone who relies on me for everything, even the most intimate parts of her life.
Not being able to have that with Sloane has been like missing a limb.
And having Mia back under my roof is just shining a light on what I’ve given up to be with Sloane.
I’m still wallowing in my self-inflicted misery when my phone rings. Annoyed, more with myself than with the call, I reach for the phone and hit the button to answer without opening my eyes. “Hale.”
“Ethan.” It’s Johnny, one of my foremen, and the slight panic in his voice forces my eyes open, all my attention now where it should have been all along—on my business.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Ellery house. It’s all fucked, boss. We’ve got the wrong tile for the bathrooms, someone dropped a marble countertop and shattered the fucking thing, and the front door is the wrong goddamn color. It’s a fucking disaster up here and we need some major damage control.”
“Fuck.” The Ellery house is one of our largest undertakings.
An old Victorian up in Pennsylvania that the owners wanted restored to its original glory.
I’ve been involved in every step of the planning, and I was on site for the first week, but things went so smoothly I came back home and left the project in Johnny’s more than capable hands.
If he’s calling me now, then I’m going to have to do more than some damage control to salvage not just the project but our reputation.
But doing so means leaving home, and being on the road for at least a week. Possibly longer. Which means leaving Mia here, alone, with Sloane.
Fuck.
“Give me a couple hours to get some stuff figured out here at home and then I’ll be on my way. Tell the Ellery’s everything is being handled and assure them they won’t be charged anything extra for our fuck-ups.”
“Got it, boss.”
Jabbing my thumb at the phone to end the call, I push up from my chair and shove the device into my pocket.
Fixing problems on job sites is what I do.
It’s part of what’s made the Hale name one of the most trusted in the business.
It’s going to suck and it’s going to take a bit of groveling on my part, but I’ve done it before and I’m confident I can do it again.
Telling my wife she’s going to be living alone with my ex, on the other hand… that’s brand-new territory.
But there’s no way around it, so I force myself out of my office and up the stairs to Sloane’s studio.
She’s exactly where I expected to find her, perched in front of an easel, her legs folded under her and her head bobbing up and down to whatever song she has playing on repeat through her headphones.
Taylor Swift, probably, as that’s her favorite when she’s working.
And for a moment, I see her the way I did when we first married. Young, vibrant, so full of promise and hope it makes my chest ache to see it.
It makes me ache even more to have to kill that happiness.
Reaching for the light switch, I flick the lights on and off three times. We learned early on that when she’s deep into a project, she’s easily startled and the lights are the easiest way to get her attention with sending her into a panic.
As always, she immediately takes her headphones off and turns to face me. Not for the first time, I wonder about her assertions that she isn’t submissive, with how obedient she can often be. Maybe if I wasn’t a Daddy, if I hadn’t tried to force her to be something she was never meant to be…
There’s no point in drowning myself in the “What Ifs” of it all, so I meet her gaze across the room. And for the first time in years, I swear she smiles when she sees me. Just a hint, and only for a moment, but I could swear…
Wishful thinking, Hale. You’re feeling sentimental because of Mia. Knock it off.
With that in mind, I cross the room to stand in front of my wife, though I keep a respectful two feet of distance between us. Sloane hates to be crowded, especially when she’s working. “We need to talk.”
Something flickers across her face, in her dark eyes before her expression closes off again. “About?”
“I just got a call from Johnny. The Ellery job is fucked all to hell and he needs me on site. Immediately.”
“Oh.” A frown tugs at her full lips. “Are you taking Mia with you?”
“What?” Even as hope beats at my chest, I smother it. “No. Of course not. That would be…”
Perfect. Amazing.
Disastrous.
“Inappropriate,” I settle on. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you. Do you have a problem with her staying here while I’m gone? You can tell me if it’s too much and I’ll put her up in a hotel for a few days instead.”
Sloane rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Ethan. There’s no point in you spending all that extra money when we have plenty of space here. It’s a big house, it’s not like she and I will be up each other's asses the whole time.”
Surprised, I stare down at her. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so…”
“Amenable?” she offers up with a cheeky grin.
That’s exactly what she’s being. Amenable.
Too amenable.
“Sloane.” I put a hint of steel in my tone, but she doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Ethan,” she shoots back breezily.
“Are you going to behave while I’m gone?”
Another cheeky grin. “Define ‘behave’.”
Leaning down now, I close the distance between us, crowding her in the way I know she hates. But to my continued shock, she doesn’t snarl or pull away. She simply meets my gaze head-on, mischief and excitement dancing in her dark eyes.
“Are you going to be nice to Mia and treat her with the same respect you would any other guest in our home? Or do I need to bring her with me after all?”
“Ethan.” Her expression turns somber as she places her palms on either side of my face. “You have my word I will be perfectly lovely to Mia. She has nothing to worry about where I’m concerned. I promise.”
Sloane may be a complete and utter brat at times, but I’ve never known her to be a liar. If she gives me her word, I trust her to keep it.
“All right.” Straightening again, I give her a single, sharp nod. “I’m going to let Mia know what’s going on, and then I need to go pack.”
“Sounds good. Come kiss me goodbye before you go.”
Yet another surprise, in a day full of them. And as I turn to leave my wife’s office, I can’t help but wonder what kind of surprises I might be returning home to.
Sloane
It's all I can do not to cheer as my husband kisses me goodbye and heads for our front door. As soon as he told me he needed to go, my brain went into overdrive.
Really, it’s the perfect solution. All I have to do is get Mia to agree to be my babygirl, and then when Daddy returns, he’ll see this is the perfect solution. Possibly the only solution to saving our marriage.
Stopping at the front door, Ethan turns, pinning us both with a stern look.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can. Mia, I expect you to be on your best behavior for Sloane.
I may not be your Daddy, but you are living under my roof and you will behave or you will have me to answer to when I return. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” Mia responds, her sweet voice taking on an adorably sulky tone.
“Good girl. Sloane… I’m trusting you to keep your word.”
“I will. Promise.” And that’s an easy promise to keep since I didn’t actually agree I would treat her with the “same respect” as any other guest in our home. I only promise to be perfectly lovely.
And I can think of nothing more lovely than having her come all over my tongue after I spank her ass red.
Ethan’s eyes narrow, as if he can see right through my ruse. But he doesn’t comment. He only nods sharply before he turns and pulls the door open to leave.
The second it closes behind him, I turn to my guest. “All right, babygirl. Bath, dinner, and then we can cuddle up on the couch and binge some of those princess movies I heard you like so much.”
Mia’s nose wrinkles. “I don’t need a bath.”
My heart trips in my chest at her defiance. Is she really going to give me an opportunity to spank her perfect ass so soon? “Well I say you need one and I’m in charge.”
Huffing out a breath, she crosses her arms beneath her pert breasts. “You are not in charge! I’m a Big girl, I don’t have to listen to you.”
God, could she possibly be any more perfect?
Putting on my best “I’m the boss of you” face, I step forward, closing the distance between us to grip her chin between my fingers. When I force her head back, her eyes go wide, her pupils blowing out to eat up the golden-green of her irises.
“You are not a Big girl,” I say, my voice dropping to a deadly purr. “You are a very Little girl, in desperate need of a Mommy to take you in hand. And that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”