CHAPTER ELEVEN

Reva

I’m ready to do battle. If Lydia needs me, I need to be here for her all the time. I have other options—the Academy for one—but my heart is here with this little girl. Her father’s rigid and cold attitude isn’t going to keep me from her. Maybe he can intimidate other people, but not me. I don’t work in his office, and I have other places to go if I need to. So I can stand my ground.

I didn’t seduce him. I reached for him to comfort him when he told me about his childhood. I succumbed to the attraction between us as much as he did, but I’m not some vixen who took advantage of him. So there’s no way I’m being cast as the villain here. He wanted this meeting, and I assume he has his own agenda for it. But I won’t be silenced. We should be on the same team, wanting what’s best for Lydia.

She eats part of her waffle and some berries. I make sure her backpack’s ready and quiz her on her three spelling words. She says goodbye to Ridge, and then we’re alone.

I hear the slam of the door like an echo. I turn to face him, smooth my green dress. I chose it intentionally—the most polished thing the shopper sent me—to go with leggings and knee-high leather boots. The heels on the boots make me even taller, and I have to stand up straight in them. I feel like an Amazon, strong and beautiful, powerful. I wish for a moment that I was one, that I had the Lasso of Truth to use on him, to make him tell me what he really feels. It’s a nice thought, but I have to focus.

“Please have a seat,” he says, indicating the beautiful wing chairs near Lydia’s portrait.

I sit, perched on the edge of the chair and sitting up straight, shoulders squared for confrontation.

“I find I should apologize for changing the terms of your employment drastically in what I can only term my overreaction to a lapse in judgment. I regret having caused distress to both yourself and my daughter as a result.”

“Are you saying you shouldn’t have kicked me out?” I say, flabbergasted. I expected to have to fight my way back in.

“Exactly. What happened that night was a serious mistake, but one I am determined not to repeat. If you find that you can return to the original terms as a residential caregiver, it would benefit Lydia. She prefers to have you here at night, and there are several meetings in the next week, which will require my absence in the evenings. I will retain Mrs. Farnsworth for weekends to provide you with time off, though you may…continue to reside here over the weekends if you wish.”

I gape at him. He wants me to come back and live here. I’ll still have weekends off. I can go out, I can take an online course in administration and use the downtime to learn more about nonprofit startups. Or I could take on some tutoring work to make extra money toward my Danny debt. I get to come home. This is home. I only lived here maybe six weeks, but it’s the only place I’ve felt at home since I left my parents’ house. I feel overjoyed to come back. The only thing restraining me is the fact that Ridge is doing his oppressive and frigid tone.

“I would like to return. It is better for Lydia this way, to have me close. She has a very narrow life right now—”

“By necessity, due to threats related to my work,” he says in his warning tone.

“Yes,” I concede, “and I’ll do all I can to make her childhood as normal as possible under the restrictions you’ve put in place.”

“Going forward, I intend for this to be a completely professional arrangement. There will be not so much as a personal conversation between the two of us. I am your employer. And I’m a father. I will do anything necessary for my daughter’s well-being, including behaving as an adult around her nanny. I should never have allowed the lines to blur to begin with. I did not seek you out to fill the position of wife and mother, but of full-time caregiver to my child.”
I grip the arms of the chair when he says that, reeling a little from the fact that he put into words what I’d thought all along. It seemed like a Hollywood-perfect set-up in a sense. Lonely, overprotective single father with strong-willed but adorable daughter—they just need the love of a good woman, right? That’s how the story would go, if it were a story, and not real life. In real life, he wants me to do my damn job and stay out of his way. Not overstep my bounds and never flirt with him or look at him too long.

“Very well,” I manage coolly, “But there are things I need to know in order to take care of Lydia to the best of my ability. That is, after all, my only reason for being here.”

“If you have questions, now is the time to ask them,” he says reluctantly.

“Is Lydia’s mother dead?”

“Not to the best of my information. At last report she was living in Nevada with her dealer.”

“Like an art dealer? Was she a sculptor?”

“No, she was and is an addict, Reva,” he says with a heavy sigh, “After the C-section, she became dependent on the painkillers. For a while I figured it was just that the pain continued—she had a bad time with the pregnancy and delivery, it was an emergency caesarean. The recovery was lengthy. But I thought she bounced back eventually. Lydia was thriving and noisy, and Catherine was always dressed and up and around when I got home. I didn’t find out until I sent Mrs. Whitman to be with her dying mother. I came home to check on my girls at lunch, and Lydia was alone. Catherine had left her alone during her nap to go meet with her dealer. Lydia was a baby, barely a year old. The worst part—I called the police. I thought she’d been taken, kidnapped. I didn’t believe that she’d leave the baby alone.”

“Did you get her help?”

“Of course I got her help,” he says indignantly, “I sent her to rehab—three of them, in fact, and each time she got out she swore things would be different. By the time Lydia turned two, I had the report in hand from the guard I had on Catherine. She was meeting with her dealer—who happened to be her old college boyfriend—three times a week. She was either having sex with him to get pills or because she wanted to. But that was enough for me. I had never left Lydia completely alone with Catherine again after the first incident, but she didn’t—she never connected with Lydia, never had the closeness or playfulness that I shared with my daughter. So I confronted her with the photos and the video footage. She actually offered to sign Lydia over to me in the divorce. I would have agreed to supervised visitation, and I offered that. She walked away from Lydia and never looked back.”

“Oh,” I say. I look at his eyes, haunted and dark, and I wish I didn’t know. Because it’s a lot harder to hate him now. It’s no wonder he doesn’t trust anyone, between his parents and his ex-wife. It’s no wonder he is so desperate to protect Lydia.

“Lydia has photos of her mother. She knows that Catherine exists and that she can meet her when she’s older if she wants to. That Catherine is not a bad person, but that she has a disease that makes it impossible for her to be a mother. That she loved her enough to let me take care of her,” he shakes his head, “I don’t know. I don’t think Catherine ever loved her. But I think Lydia should believe her mother wanted her and gave her up out of love. It’s better than the alternative—knowing that your mom chose a baggie of pills and sex with a drug dealer over her infant daughter.”

He gives a harsh laugh that makes tears start in my eyes. I hurt for him, for Lydia. Even for Catherine, who is still in the grip of an addiction that wouldn’t let her live her life. I feel actual grief for the mother who won’t know her child, who wasn’t able to love and value her baby. It’s heartbreaking. And for every advantage this wealthy family has, it seems they’ve paid for in suffering. I struggle for a moment before I get control of myself.

“Okay, thank you for telling me. Now I know what the parameters are with respect to any questions she asks. She’s also told me about wanting a baby sister.”

“Not happening. I think I’ve told her that at least a hundred times.”

“I told her that was something to talk to you about.”

“Good work referring it to me. I respect the warm relationship you’ve build with Lydia in a comparatively short time. I intend to interact with you only at breakfast and dinner. In the evenings when I’m home, I will take care of Lydia, and you’ll be free to do as you wish provided you stay on property. Weekends you can leave or stay as you prefer, but Mrs. Farnsworth will have charge of her. Also, no overnight guests. If you want to sleep elsewhere on the weekends—”

“I think it’s obvious that I don’t have a boyfriend. I wouldn’t have had sex with you if I were involved,” I say quickly.

“That is never to be mentioned again. It was my mistake. I regret it. I will not be subject to regular recriminations about it.”

“I wasn’t blaming you. We both wanted—or I thought we both wanted to—do that. But it made everything worse. I’ve been miserable about it and—”

“Enough,” he stands, hands in his pockets, and strides across the room, “You may return your belongings to your room. I apologize for causing the awkward circumstance of your departure. You will abide by the security standards in place previously and limit our interactions as much as possible. If you have a specific question, you may send it by text message. Call if there is an emergency. Otherwise, I intend for us to conduct ourselves professionally in my daughter’s best interest. Good day.”

I’m tempted to curtsey because he’s being so infuriatingly formal. I want to shout at him, I’ve had your cock inside me. You don’t get to act like the damn Queen of England dismissing a peasant. But I know he’s right. I hate it that he’s right, but he is. It’s better for Lydia if I do my job and stay out of the way.

I go to my room. I didn’t really sleep last night because I was too anxious and excited about meeting with Ridge. So after I hear him leave, I lie down for a nap.

The dream begins almost instantly. I’m lying on my bed, half-asleep, when I hear the door open. I murmur, but there’s no answer. There’s only a strong male hand pulling the blankets down. I feel his hands on my sides, running up under my dress. I’m lying on my stomach, hugging the pillow, but I move a little so he can reach my breasts. Oh, the sharp bite of sensation as he pinches my nipples makes me moan in response. His big hands, rough and powerful, cover my sensitive breasts. I feel him behind me, above me, his size and strength. His fingers slide down my belly and into my leggings. Two fingers press and rub the spot between my thighs that sends sparks and a flood of breathless ecstasy through my body. I come almost instantly at his touch but want more. So much more.

He peels my leggings down. I hear his zipper, and my inner muscles clench in eagerness. Yes. More. All of him. It’s what I want. All I want. I’m hot and breathless. His mouth finds my ear, my throat, the most pleasurable spots that give me shivers of desire as my arousal builds. His hands on my bare bottom, my thighs. He licks my ear, then knees my bare legs apart. The springy hair on his legs tickles my bare flesh as I open for him. Never turning over. Never opening my eyes. Knowing the feel of him, the fire in my blood that is only him. Long and wet and thick, his cock moves in to me as I raise my hips to receive him from behind. I feel his chest against my back, know he is holding himself up above me on those muscular arms I want to lick and bite. But I lie there and let him move inside me, that luscious, rich thickness filling me as he penetrates me again and again. I want more. I’m whimpering for it, pleading. He presses one hand down in the small of my back so my hips aren’t lifted anymore. So his every thrust grinds my clit into the bed. I’m facedown, and the friction is incredible. Ridge kisses my shoulder right at the neckline of my dress. There’s something forbidden, clandestine about having my green dress still on as Ridge fucks me from behind, plunging his huge, rigid cock into my soft, wet pussy, grinding my clit against the bed until I’m screaming. His hand covers my mouth. The raw eroticism of that dominance, of his silencing me, makes me come harder until I’m begging and tears course down my face with my release. He pounds into me harder until I feel him come. I’ve never felt a man plunge so deep and then spill a hot rush into me like that before. The raw wetness I feel, the power of having consumed his climax, gives me another shudder of pleasure.

I feel weak as he withdraws from me, every inch of that wonderful cock pulling out. I whimper slightly, knowing I’ll be sore tomorrow from the roughness of his final thrusts, and yet reluctant to let him go. I want him to do that again and again. I want him to put his hands where his cock was, fill me with his fingers until I’m coming again and again. It would never be enough. That rigid, harsh exterior hides a well of eroticism, both tender and rough, and I want all of it. I’m captivated by him. Fuck me more, I want to beg him. I realize neither of us has said a single word the whole time. It’s deeper than anything I could put into words, and I don’t want to speak anyway. I want to touch and feel, lick and suck and bite. I want all of him until he’s weak from all the ways we’ve had each other. Until he drags me onto his chest to sleep until we wake and make love again.

I lie still, hoping he won’t leave right away. I wonder if I keep silent, if we can keep doing this. Wordless trysts, a silent fling—silent except for the screams. Could we, every day, by mutual unspoken consent, meet like this and find release together? The thought nearly knocks me over with the power of it, with how much I want it. Can I put it into words? Or if so, would he laugh or be disgusted with me? If we didn’t have any emotional involvement, any interactions as he termed it, could he come to me every morning? Could we keep fucking without a word?

I start to turn over, determined to ask him. But he flips me onto my back, his eyes dark and dangerous. He shoves my dress up, baring my pussy. Yes, I think, this is why I shaved yesterday. Because I’m wanton, wicked. Because I was hoping my boss would lick me between my legs, and I wanted nothing between his mouth and my tender, quivering flesh. I admit it: all my life I thought I was a good girl. I’m not. I’m bad and filthy because I want the most forbidden man in the most forbidden way. It’s unethical, immoral, irresistible.

He drapes my knees over his shoulders. He still has his shirt on. And his tie. That makes this even hotter. Seeing his heavily muscled shoulders moving under the designer shirt, seeing his dark hair against the pale skin of my parted thighs. He laps at me, his hands lifting my hips to hold me against his face, his ravenous mouth. I bite my lips, hold my breath, grip fistfuls of the sheets in my hands to try to hold out against the onslaught of his wicked mouth. But in the end, I succumb. He unleashes such pleasure for me, such a riptide of bliss that I cry out high and long. His hand reaches for my mouth to cover it and stifle my cries even as his tongue plunges deeper. I suck his fingers and buck my hips. I’m coming so hard that I may black out.

I wake in twist of sheets, my hand between my legs working and rubbing that needy spot. I bring myself to climax easily in the remnants of hottest dream I’ve ever had. About the hottest man I’ll never have again. I bury my face in the pillow, my cheeks burning hot with shame.

Later I go for a run. Then I call Angela and assure her that I know I only still want Ridge because he’s forbidden. She laughs at me. I tell her I’m going to spit on her pity pizza next time if she keeps this crap up when I want sympathy.