Carter told me he wouldn’t be home much the next few days. He was dealing with some important stuff at work, and even though I didn’t like it, I had to accept it.

It was getting harder and harder to stick to my plan as the days went by. I wanted to commit desperately, but there was something going on between us that I could no longer deny, and sometimes it was impossible to fight it.

I knew I was in too deep, and I knew I was getting too attached. Even though he’d admitted he cared for me, I knew he would never love me, not like a man should ever love a woman. He was only interested in hurting me, making me into his pretty little toy and making me follow his every command.

But it did mean I’d gotten closer to Carolina.

Spending days upon days alone, I needed a friend so very desperately. She seemed reluctant at first, refusing to so much as speak a word with me. But during the past few weeks, we’d managed to get a little bit closer and I was starting to discover a little bit more about her. We weren’t on friendly terms yet, but we had chatted once or twice before that day.

I couldn’t get the memory of her watching us fuck out of my mind. I never liked girls, but her watching us like that made me want to do it again so very badly. Even though I felt deeply submissive to Carter, the thought of her watching, being unable to get fucked by him herself, filled me with a sense of power I’d never really had before.

Carter had allowed me to go into his library, despite my disaster with the bookcase in my own room. And that’s where I was that day, stuck with my nose in a book, when Carolina came and knocked on the door.

“Miss, lunch is going to be ready soon,” she reminded me gently.

I looked up from my book, still completely lost in a different world.

“Oh, Carolina,” I said softly. “Can I have it later, please? I really want to finish this book first.”

“No, miss.” There was a small smile playing on her lips as she shook her head. “Mr. Knight said you have to eat. You’re getting too skinny again.”

“Please?” I tried one last time. “Maybe I could just have a quick bite up here?”

She looked at me for a long time and finally gave me a short nod and a smile. “I’ll bring something up in a little while, Miss Evangeline.”

“Thank you.” I gave her a big, sincere smile, and went back to my book.

She was true to her word and came back ten minutes or so later with a platter. She brought me some soup and a sandwich, with the crust cut off. She set it down on the table next to me and lingered in the room when I dug in.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her with my mouth full, giving her a worried look. “Did something happen?”

My heart pounded at the thought of Carter getting hurt or something. It made me so anxious I stopped chewing and just stared at her, desperate for her answer.

“No, not at all, miss,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just wondering…”

“Yes?” I was getting curious now.

“Well,” she cleared her throat. “I don’t know if Mr. Knight told you, but I’ve started going to school. Just a local college.”

“Yes… Go on,” I prompted her. My heart beat with excitement. It had been so very long since I’d had a friend, and it felt so good to talk to someone that wasn’t Carter. Not that I didn’t like him, but sometimes I longed for a friend. The house could feel so lonely without him here.

“I have some required reading to do,” she went on. “One of the books is The Great Gatsby. I couldn’t help but notice you’re reading it.”

I looked down at the book in my lap. “It’s my first time reading it,” I said. “I like it a lot.”

She beamed, and it made me smile back at her.

“I liked it as well,” she said. “I should have checked with Mr. Knight before asking you, but… I was hoping you could help me with my essay on the book.”

She twisted her arms nervously, and my heart swelled. I wanted to do this so badly. I hadn’t even realized just how badly I needed a friend before she came to talk to me.

“I would like that,” I admitted, and she gave me a nervous smile. “Do you have time now? We can talk about it a little, I’m just about done with the book.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I think I could take a couple minutes off.”

The couple of minutes turned into an hour, and then two. We chatted for what seemed like no time at all and ages at the same time, about the book and everything else. She was very careful about revealing personal information, but she did admit she had a crush on a classmate she went to the local community college with.

“What does he look like?” I grinned at her, and she stifled a giggle. When we were sitting down like this, it was hard to remember what we both were. She felt more like a friend than a maid, and she was barely a few years older than me. She could have been my older sister.

“He’s blonde, tanned,” she smiled. “He looks like a surfer, I think he must go to the beach pretty often.”

“Oh,” I said, and she laughed at my perplexed face.

“Not your type?” she teased me. “I’m sorry, I forgot you prefer inked, tall, dark and handsome.”

I smiled back weakly and an awkward silence sat between us for a few minutes before she finally sighed.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said softly. “He’s never going to notice me, is he?”

“What do you mean?” I gave her a puzzled look.

“Oh come on, miss.” She still hadn’t stopped calling me that, and I wasn’t sure she would have if I asked her to. “It’s not like I can hide the ugliest part of me like some other people.”

She touched her scar self-consciously, her fingers outlining the ridges on her face.

“Carolina,” I said gently. “You’re so beautiful, scar or not. I’m sure he’s noticed that as well. And if he is a good man, he shouldn’t care about the scar at all.”

“I know,” she replied softly, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears. I wanted to reach forward and hold her hand so very badly, but I had a feeling it might not be a good idea. She seemed so vulnerable, sitting across from me like that.

“He won’t care,” I told her. “No one should, Carolina. If they do, they’re not worthy of you. And you’re so beautiful. You must know that.”

I blushed before I went on, but I knew I had to. She sniffled, and I could tell how upset she really was. I wanted to make her feel better just like any friend would.

“I was so intimidated by you at first,” I admitted. “When I first came to the house… I was so scared, because you were so special to him. So beautiful.”

She raised her eyes to me.

“Special?” she asked in her heavy accent. Even her voice sounded beautiful. I would be eternally jealous, especially because of the connection there. “I don’t think I’m special.”

“Carter does,” I whispered, not sure if it was loud enough for her to hear. She didn’t react to my words.

“Carolina,” I asked her gently. “Who put that scar on your face?”

She looked up at me, but she didn’t say a word. Her expression was one of hurt, of sadness so deep I couldn’t even understand it.

I reached for her hand, feeling panic rise within me.

“Please,” I begged her. “I have to know, Carolina.”

“It was…” She swallowed thickly, her eyes flitting from one end of the room to the other. “It was just a very bad man, miss. You don’t want to know about it.”

Oh, but I did. I wanted to know so very badly.

She got up quickly after that, smoothing down her apron and giving me a nervous, sad little smile.

“I better get back to work,” she said. “Mr. Knight will be home any minute.”

“Yes,” I replied, feeling low. “I’ll be here, if you need me… Or maybe want to talk again…”

She nodded nervously, and then she was gone, just like that, leaving me lonelier than I’d been in weeks.

I tried to get back into my book, reading a paragraph here and there, but I wasn’t feeling it. And just as well, because Carter walked into the room a few minutes later.

“Hello, toy,” he said. Was his voice affectionate or was I just imagining it? It was impossible to tell anymore, and it was driving me crazy. “Had a nice day?”

“Yes,” I replied in a small voice. “Did you have a busy workday?”

“Fucking insane,” he grunted, shrugging off his suit jacket. He came to stand next to me, his hand wrapping in my hair possessively. “You’ll make it better though, won’t you, Angel?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I replied, and it made him grin. He really was painfully fucking handsome.

Of course, I’d known this all along when I was doing my reading and checking up on him, but the more time I spent with him, the more obvious it got. And the harder it was for my body to resist him… I wanted him so very badly, my thighs ached as I clenched them together, trying desperately not to show him the effect he had on my body.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said, stroking my hair. “I have a final meeting about Van Der Meer tomorrow to settle some numbers. I’d like to take you with me.”

“What?” My eyes widened in surprise. He actually wanted to take me out again… And not just that, he wanted to take me to an important business meeting with him. My heart pounded. This could be my chance… I could set my whole plan into motion.

The plan I’d be working on for years and years.

To see Carter Knight behind bars. To see him convicted of the crimes he’d committed.

But now I wasn’t sure I could go through with it.

He hadn’t ever raped me… And I wanted to tell the world he did. I wanted him to go down in flames, and I wanted everyone to know what a fucking monster he was, and how he treated me. I wanted him to burn.

But now, without any solid proof, I’d just be a little girl crying wolf. And it would do me no good.

“Okay,” I said softly. “I’ll come with you. But why do you want me there?”

I assumed it was something to do with fucking me in public.

“I just do,” he replied. “Plus, you’ve had some good ideas about the whole deal. I want you to look at the numbers yourself and see what you notice.”

I blushed. I’d never gotten a compliment like that from him before, and it made me nervous.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I want to come.”

He grinned at me and tugged on my hair a little too hard.

“You never had a choice, pretty toy,” he reminded me.