2. Sev
2
SEV
“Don’t move,” I tell my potential wife. Yes. That feels right. My wife-to-be, she just doesn’t know it yet.
“Wes,” I answer with what I hope is a clip that implies “Make this quick, I have a beautiful and completely inappropriate woman to claim”.
“Have you got my daughter?”
I stare at the girl as all the blood drains from me. “Your daughter?”
The girl’s eyes go wide.
“She’s run away. Disappeared.” Wes sounds stressed. “And there’s something in her search history suggesting she applied for a job with you.”
“I don’t make hiring decisions for the legal stuff,” I reply truthfully.
She shakes her head quickly, and mouths, “Please.” Her big brown eyes look into mine, and beg.
This is not the sort of begging I was thinking of.
“I don’t know anything about it.” Denial. Totally healthy, right?
Wes makes a frustrated noise. “Could you not be an arsehole, for once in your life, and check?”
Bouncing my gaze between my best friend’s daughter and my computer screen, my brows knitted with irritation, I pull up employment records.
“Miss Maisie Matthews,” I say after a moment. “Twenty-one years old.”
I have tattoos older than this girl. I was doing terrible things when she was innocently learning to toddle around on baby legs.
She presses her pink lips together. Black hair, brown eyes. I can see the shadow of my best friend’s features in her face now. Except Wes is a six-foot-seven chiselled piece of granite, and his daughter is delicate and sweet as a doll. She looks like I could lift her with one hand.
“Good.” He lets out a huff. “Keep her safe until my men can pick her up, will you?”
“You don’t want her working?” I ask neutrally, watching Maisie.
“You’re kidding me? No,” Wes snaps. “No, she’s a mafia princess. She’s a child. She doesn’t work in an office. Especially not in Morden Company.”
Maisie’s eyes fill with panic, and she presses her palms together in prayer, to me. Her god in this situation. Her dad’s best friend, and she’s hoping I’ll save her.
There’s a knife edge of decision.
For a second I teeter, wondering if my loyalty to my old friend comes first.
“There is a problem with that, though,” I say carefully. “She’s already my employee.”
Maisie has re-oriented everything around her, like she’s the sun and I’ve been living underground. She is my only priority now.
“Sack her.”
“I can’t dismiss her over nothing, Wes. That’s not how we do things.” We will do anything, Wes and I, but it needs a justification.
“She’s my daughter!” he explodes.
I hold her gaze. “If she fancies playing at being an office bunny for a while, it would be fine, wouldn’t it?”
Hurt and hope flow over Maisie’s expression in equal measure.
Wes swears colourfully, and I wait for his anger to burn out. He’ll realise I’m right before long.
“No, no. Absolutely not,” he concludes. “I’ll send over a car, and pay you for the inconvenience of losing your new staff member.”
“Or you can let her work for me.” My heart hammers in my chest. “I promise to look after her. What else is she good for?”
Definitely hurt this time, but she rallies, keeping her chin up, and fighting back her emotions with an expression that combines ingratiating cheerfulness with begging.
“She’s my daughter , Sev, you’ll understand when you have one.”
“I doubt that.” I mean the daughter as much as the attitude. I’ve just met the only woman I’ll ever want children with, and that door has slammed shut in my face. She’s forbidden.
“You’re not going to keep her locked up all day making cupcakes when she has…” I reel off her qualifications from the file. I don’t know if they’re good or not, but she was smart enough to get employed at Morden Company, so they’re not shabby. “They’re great cupcakes, by the way.”
“Are they?” Wes asks, momentarily distracted.
“Yes. Delicious.” Right, that was the word I was looking for earlier. A normal, appropriate word of appreciation for a cake, and you can tell, because Maisie gives a shy, proud smile.
“Damn it, Sev.” He sighs.
I grunt an agreement, and take my opportunity. “I need her at Morden. I know you don’t like the legal stuff, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll launder fifteen per cent of your dirt for free, and you give me your daughter.”
“As your employee ,” he checks, and I have him.
“She’s part of Morden now.” And part of me.
There’s a pause. “I knew she was unhappy, and wanted to do something, but…” He growls in frustration. “Could she not have waited until I sorted it out?”
“Gen Z has higher expectations due to technological changes and economic uncertainty,” I say with a straight face, but Maisie has to cover her mouth with her hand as she giggles.
My frozen heart cracks. What a fucking disaster this is.
“She can stay for now,” Wes grumbles. “Guess she might as well be useful, and you’ll do a quarter of my cleaning.”
“Steep price. She’ll live in Morden accommodation so you can’t use her as a spy.”
Her hands fall away from her mouth and there’s an expression of awe on her face.
She wants independence, and I can give it to her. Mafia bosses aren’t the most compromising, and while I only found out that Wes had a daughter when he brought it up five years ago, and has barely mentioned her since, I can’t imagine it’s been fun.
“Temporary,” Wes says and slams the phone down.
And just like that, I’ve won, and lost, all at the same time.
“You saved me,” she breathes, her face shining with happiness and she stumbles forward. “Thank?—”
“Do not make me out to be a white knight, Miss Matthews,” I cut her off. “You will pay for this favour.”
For a moment it seems like she might throw herself over the desk to hug me, but she stops short.
My heart clenches. That’s good. Better.
She mustn’t come near me. She’s utterly forbidden, and I don’t think I can hold back if I have her within reach.
I imagine her brushing my arm with that small hand, and setting off a trigger of need that ends with her pinned against the wall, or over my desk, my hands pressing into her hips as I force her to take my cock.
“Of course. I’ll do anything.”
Oh god, I wish she hadn’t said that.
“I really need this job. It’s my only way of escaping my father’s stifling household. I’ll be a model worker. No,” she casts around, “silliness or cupcakes. You can pay me less.” She picks the cupcake tub from the floor with a sheepish look. “I’ll work for nothing, in fact.”
“No, you’ll be paid as appropriate. You’re under my protection now.” She’s my employee, and off-limits.
Her cheeks pinken. “That’s really kind of you, Mr Blackwood.”
“No, it’s not.” I don’t allow myself to return her smile. That smile isn’t for me, just as she isn’t for me. I’ve done some dark things in my life, but this might be the worst. I can’t have her, but I must see her. But not face to face.
She’ll pay with her privacy.