Chapter 2 #2
With a sigh, I forcibly shoved my sordid thoughts from my head and pushed myself up from my desk chair.
I would confront her about her tall tale.
I would take care of her father because no one threatened me and got away with it, but other than that, I didn’t know what I was going to do about her yet.
I returned to my study to see her sitting on my couch, twiddling her fingers as she waited for me to return.
Her rather obvious nerves were borderline cute, and I found myself just watching her before she realized that I’d come back.
Finally, I cleared my throat rather noisily and she jumped anxiously at the same time that she jerked her head toward mine.
“I made a few calls and found out some rather intriguing information regarding your father and your fiancé, Keri,” I began.
“Will you help me?” she asked.
“Your father is not a kind man, is he?” I said softly.
“No. He isn’t,” she replied sadly. She chewed her lip anxiously and I found it endearing.
“Tell me more about him,” I pressed. I wanted her to open up a bit more to me and I also wanted to understand the differences in her behavior when she was telling me the truth versus when she was telling me a lie.
“Growing up, he sent me away to expensive private academies so that he didn’t have to deal with me. He’s always had a tendency toward violence, but it’s never been directed at me before today. My mother has always taken the brunt of it,” she explained.
“He abused her?”
“Yes. She covered it up well with makeup tricks she learned on the internet,” she said.
Her mother must have really done a good job after all, because nothing in my background report indicated even a hint of domestic violence within the Esposito family.
If anything, he’d painted himself as a man who put family above all the rest.
“He was never particularly nice to me and recently he’s been downright mean whenever I’ve wavered about making a decision with the wedding planning,” she added.
“I see. Tell me about Anthony now. I want to understand more about your husband-to-be,” I requested. I didn’t tell her that I already knew the answer. I wanted to observe her as she dug herself even deeper into her mistruths.
“I haven’t spent as much time with him admittedly,” she started, and I smirked at the tendril of honesty in her words.
The flow of her words slowed, and her body language grew a bit more tense.
It soon became obvious that she was avoiding my gaze by looking every which way except straight at me.
Finally, she settled on keeping her eyes on the floor.
“From what I’ve been able to gather, he’s demanding, and he takes after his father.
He’s a bully and he’s dangerous. I hear he’s not afraid to use his fists to send a message,” she explained.
She didn’t use specifics and if I pressed harder for them, I knew she would falter.
I didn’t want to expose her that way. I wanted her to figure out that I knew she was lying about her fiancé first.
“I called your father myself,” I segued.
She finally met my eyes in silence.
“I told him you were here,” I began, and the color drained from her face. There was nothing fake about her fear of him. She was truly scared that he would hurt her.
“What would you have me do with your father?” I asked softly.
“Take care of him. I don’t know. Throw him in the Hudson for all that I care. Make him disappear without a trace,” she said, and I couldn’t help myself as I chuckled at her request.
“Who do you think I am? The Godfather? Do you truly understand what you’re asking me to do?” I questioned, my voice rising just a bit with every syllable.
She furrowed her brow a little in confusion.
“That isn’t what you do?” she asked.
“No. This isn’t a movie. I don’t take care of people like you think.
I don’t kill them, and I don’t make them disappear.
I have people who solve problems for me and if it’s possible, it all takes place under the pretense of the legal system taking its normal course,” I answered bluntly, and her face fell just the slightest bit more.
“Oh,” she replied. There was the smallest hint of defeat and hopelessness in her tone and I decided that for that moment, I would alleviate that worry for her.
“Your father will be taken care of,” I said purposefully, and her face lit up once more.
“You’re going to help me?” she asked, her optimism returning almost instantly.
“I’m not doing it for you. When I refused to tell him of your location, he threatened me, and I cannot let that stand. I don’t take kindly to threats and I will take care of him, but it will be done my way,” I replied.
“What are you going to do?” she pressed.
“That is none of your business,” I answered boldly, and her eyes studied mine a bit more intensely. She was trying to figure me out.
“I’m going to handle him because no one threatens me without repercussions and that is the last I will discuss of the matter, but now I want to talk about something else. I made another phone call while I was gone,” I continued.
“Who did you call?” she asked cautiously.
“I called your husband-to-be,” I replied rather matter-of-factly. She sucked in an anxious breath. I could see her mind working. She was beginning to figure it out.
“I see,” she answered.
“When someone comes to ask me for my help, I expect honesty,” I scolded her firmly and her smile of relief wilted. “You’ve never met your fiancé, have you? He didn’t call you today and he didn’t threaten you, did he?” I continued.
Her eyes glanced down at my hands and then her gaze returned to me. There was a certain innocent quality to the fact that I’d caught her in a lie. She chewed her lip anxiously, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from glancing down at my palms, again and again.
Slowly, I rolled up my cuffs. One sleeve after the next and she watched every second of it. She squirmed a little in her seat and pressed her fingers nervously against her thighs, waiting for what would happen next.
Like a naughty little girl waiting for Daddy to teach her a lesson. Like a naughty girl about to get a spanking.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a part of her that wanted me to handle her. I needed to watch her more closely. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and handed it to her.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen.
You’re going to call Anthony and you will tell him you don’t want to go through with the wedding.
You will apologize for letting him know the night before the wedding and you will politely wish him the best. Do you understand me?
” I instructed and she nodded obediently.
I pressed the call button and allowed my fingers to brush against hers. A breathy sigh of surprise escaped her mouth as I tapped the screen so that Tony would be on speaker phone with her.
She was giving me one sign after another. I’m not sure she was even aware she was doing it, but I was quickly becoming more certain that she wanted me to take control. She licked her lips and her eyes flashed to mine once more. She wanted to know what I would do.
“This is Tony,” her fiancé answered, just as he had done before.
“Hi, Tony. It’s Keri Esposito.”
“Oh. Hi there,” he replied, his words unsure.
“I wanted to call to talk to you about a few things,” she said, her voice wavering just a hair as she fidgeted before me like a naughty little girl who knew she was in trouble.
Perhaps she would be. Maybe she even wanted to be.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked nervously.
“I can’t marry you,” she ventured softly. “I’m really sorry to do this the night before the wedding, but it’s not what I want. I don’t even know you.”
“I see. I understand. I would have preferred to get to know you first as well,” he answered. I was glad to hear that he didn’t sound particularly bothered by the rejection. Overall, he seemed like a pretty chill sort of guy and that was something I could work with.
“I wanted to wish you the best though. I appreciate you being so understanding about the whole thing,” she continued.
Good girl. She would do as she was told.
“You too, Keri. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you,” she answered, and I took back the phone.
I ended the call and sat back, trying to figure out what to do with this curious little package that had arrived on my doorstep.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that she had come here not only looking for my help in getting her out of a sticky situation, but that she wanted something more than that.
I decided to push the envelope.
“You lied to me, Keri. That ought to be dealt with too, shouldn’t it?”
The blush that crept over her pretty face told me everything I needed to know.
In that instant, I knew she’d heard of my tastes. She knew I liked it rough, that I liked taking a naughty little girl over my knee for a spanking, and she wanted to know what it was like.
She stared back at me, teetering back and forth on the edge of wanting to find out and the sort of nervous anxiety telling her that she needed to run and never come back.
She’d never done this before and to a certain extent, I hadn’t either. Every woman who had come to me before had been willing and had been rather upfront that they liked a man to take control both in and out of the bedroom. This one was different.
I had to be more careful with her, but I was a man with a certain set of needs, and right now she was giving me every single sign that she was a naughty and very wet little girl in need of a spanking over Daddy’s knee.
I’d give her one last chance.
Either she took the bait, or she didn’t. This wasn’t something I would force.
At least not initially.