Big Daddy

Chapter 4

chapter four

quincey

“What’s your point?”

Pen fans his fingers over his shirt, dusting away sourdough crumbs. “Well,” he says, dragging the crumpled napkin over his lips, “the point is, you need a new assistant. Kennedy’s the office manager. She can’t keep running across the office to fax and file things for you.” He smirks. “I got myself a new assistant.”

“I know, Ken had her helping me in the file room this morning.”

His face falls. “Get your own assistant.”

My brows sail to my hairline, a smirk curving my lips. “Worried she’s gonna like me more and leave you for me? Hmm?” I fold the wax papers with traces of banana peppers and breadcrumbs, and toss it into the garbage. We have sandwiches on Wednesdays. It’s been our thing since we opened the firm. I don’t even like sandwiches, I’m so fucking sick of them after eating them once a week for eighteen years that I could scream.

But the man who owns the sandwich shop brags about being the guy who feeds the best lawyers in the city. I keep up with the tradition for him, though I’d take that sentimental truth to my grave with me before I’d share it.

Pen erupts in laughter, each chuckle booming and uproarious, coming from deep in his belly. “No one likes you, so no, I’m not worried about that at all.” He wipes a tear borne of hilarity from his beady eye. “I’m more worried she’ll quit because you’re an asshole, and then we’ll both be shit out of luck.”

I ignore his commentary about my personality. I’ve been told by my daughter most of my life that I’m a jerk, a prick, an asshole, an assjacket (that was creative), and every other concoction under the sun. Maybe I am. But I don’t care. I’m effective and successful, and that’s what matters.

“She’s a secretary,” I grit, annoyed, my neck flushing.

“Executive assistant,” he corrects, inciting me to mime jacking off.

“Big fucking deal. No matter what title you give her, it’s semantics. She’s a secretary. And those are replaceable.”

Pen gets up, plucking the last crumb from his navy-blue pullover. God, add pullovers to the list of things I’ve had enough of.

Davis Pen has worn a plaid dress shirt and solid pullover every single fucking day, hot or cold, rain or shine. And on court days I’m blessed that the pullover stays in the drawer.

But the fucking bolo tie comes out.

Hideous.

Thank God fashion has very little to do with practicing law efficiently and powerfully.

“Ken’s been here for eight years. The new assistant one week. I don’t want to lose either of them.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and smiles, because Davis Pen is a smiler.

The two of us are polar opposites. We understand each other, but most of the time, I don’t think we share much beyond knowledge of the law and our business. But it works, and you don’t fix things that aren’t broken, no matter how strange they may seem.

“Hire yourself an assistant,” he says. “I’ll have Ken set up some interviews for next week.”

“Secretary,” I correct as he pulls the door closed behind him.

Taking the courthouse steps by two, I manage to dodge the barrage of reporters as they try to close in around me, shoving recording devices and notepads in my face. Today’s case was nothing special, nor was it even memorable, not for me, and not for Parker she bore his kids and took care of them; she played his games and posed for photos. And when news broke that he got his secretary pregnant, she decided enough was enough.

I respect her for that, and I won her case for her because of that respect.

I don’t say that to her because I’ve built an air of rigid confidence, and spilling my feelings about her strength and worth to get her what she’s owed isn’t my style. Instead, I roll my lips together and peer out the window as the world tugs by, a blur of color and voices.

“You’re welcome.” I lower the partition and speak to the driver. “Parker & Pen.”

She shoots me a questioning glance.

“Sign the last of the paperwork, then you’re free,” I explain. Nodding to the driver, I add, “he’ll take you wherever you need to go once it's done.”

A peaceful seventeen minutes later and we’re out front of the building, the doorman letting Corinne out of the car. She follows me up in a crowded elevator full of suits and heels, and once inside the firm, I make sure she’s led to the conference room where Kennedy is already waiting with the appropriate paperwork.

After a win, I ritualistically have a drink at my desk. Alone. Reflect on my success and what it’s taken to get here. I wasn’t always unlikeable. I wasn’t always the man that doesn’t give compliments so he doesn’t seem soft and susceptible to emotional manipulation.

I used to be like everyone else. But then I realized I had to harden to win, harden to thrive, harden to grow. Harden, period. That one scotch alone in the dark, looking over the San Francisco skyline—it reminds me that I made the right choices. That everything I’ve done, how hard I’ve pushed and how tightly I’ve run my highly organized life—it’s been worth it.

Pushing open the office door, I quickly close it with my foot, drop my bag to the floor and shrug out of my tailored suit jacket. I hang it near the door, and run my fingers over the sleeve for a moment, the Italian wool soft and supple to my touch. I used to buy suits on clearance when I was just starting out. Department store red tag clearance suits. I remember wiping Brielle’s spit up off one that cost sixty dollars, thinking my good suit was ruined.

Nostalgia hits after every win, and the drink helps numb the emotional cramp of memories. Sinking into my high-back chair, I slide open the bottom drawer, which only holds a glass and a bottle.

With a long, relieved sigh, I fill the glass, and bring it to my lips, my cheeks tingling in delighted anticipation.

The amber liquid jumps as I suddenly tip forward in my chair, my eyes set on a barrage of loud voices erupting behind my door.

I’m about to lower my glass to the desk and get shit sorted out when the door is flung open, a worried Ken standing behind…

“ Winnie? ”

“See?” she goads, dragging out the word as she points at me while eyeing Ken. “I told you he knows me. I told you it’s fine for me to come in. Jesus, chill. He isn’t POTUS, Christ already!”

She stomps in, using her foot to kick the door closed behind her, the same way I do. Yet when she does it, my hackles rise. I stare at her over-the-knee boots a moment before lifting my eyes to find hers.

Glittering emerald with specks of hazelnut floating near her iris, her eyes are… fucking beautiful.

“Why are you staring at me?” She gripes, putting her hands on her hips as if I’m the one who barged into her life.

“You shoved your way into my office. I don’t think you have the right to play indignant.” I lean into my chair, finding the soft leather with my back, stacking one leg over the other. Smoothing my fingers down my tie, I keep my eyes locked on her.

Continual eye contact typically intimidates and often alienates. That’s the goal.

But Winnie meets my gaze, widening her eyes in a way that makes me think she’s entered a staring match and that I challenged her. “Ever think I’m not playing?”

I reach for my glass, wrapping my hand around it slowly. I watch her, and something in my groin tightens. Something in my gut thrums.

After a sip of scotch, I try a different approach. I glance at my phone. No missed calls or texts from my daughter, so that can’t be why her best friend is here. “What do you want?”

She digs into her coat pocket, letting loose a string of vulgarities as she searches for something. I’d been so focused on her eyes a moment ago that I’m seeing her for the first time as I peruse her outfit. A peacoat, black, a knee-length maroon corduroy skirt, and some naughty black boots that cover the swell of her knees and leave just a few inches of visible skin. Her curly hair is in a bun again, a style she clearly favors. Her eyes are winged, black and seductive, her lashes painted in darkness, thick and alluring. Her lips are a deep mauve, and there’s another painful tug in my groin just staring at her.

She slaps a wad of bills onto my desk. “Here’s the money I owe you.”

“How much of my daughter’s food and electricity did you consume?” I ask, staring at the wad of filthy cash on my desk.

She glares at me, her nostrils flaring. Such a fucking brat.

“This is for the therapy appointment,” she says, returning her hands to her coat pockets. She blinks at me as if waiting for a response, and as much as I want to go into a standoff over who will speak first, I take the high road.

“Based on the fact you’re always at my daughter’s apartment and were recently looking through classifieds, I’m going to make the leap that you cannot afford to pay me back.” I adjust my already perfect tie as I force my eyes to stay on hers, despite the fact that she sinks into a chair across from me and crosses her legs.

Her bare knee is tempting me, like the witch coaxing Hansel and Gretel into her home with sweets. That knee is my sweet, and her home is?—

“If you stare at all of your clients with dead, cold fish eyes, you probably creep them out.” She plucks lint from her coat. “You’re creeping me out, Big Daddy.” Reaching out, she pushes the pile of wadded up bills toward me. “And I can afford to pay you back because look, I clearly have.”

She chews the inside of her mouth as I study her, saying nothing. We wait each other out as bits and pieces of what Brielle has told me flutter through my mind.

Her parents are dead, Dad, that’s why she gets loans . Brielle had said that when I asked why, out of everyone at an Ivy League school, her best friend had to be poor .

She gets hit on everywhere we go, but she rarely dates . Brielle had told me that after I questioned why she and her friend go out so often, insinuating that they were potentially being promiscuous.

The silence and my penetrative glare make her nervous, as she breaks, saying, “I went to the appointment because I needed it. Not because you caught me crying and thought I was crazy.” Adjusting herself in the seat to draw nearer to my desk, she begins talking with her hands, the volume in her voice rising. “That was such typical man bullshit,” she grouses, shaking her head, a delicate curl springing free from the mass of chestnut locks. “Let me guess, you also think because I was crying alone that I’m on my period.”

I shrug because yes, that thought had occurred to me. Only for a fleeting moment, though, because shamefully, that thought led me down a twisted and dark path I wasn’t prepared to visit.

Maybe she’s on her period.

Would she feel better if she had someone to fuck her good? To slip inside her warmth, to stroke her little clit and fuck her deep, fuck her so hard that her emotional tears turn to tears of need and desire as she begs me to let her come.

I envision pulling my cock out of her, seeing her streaked on my shaft, reminding me she’s young, she bleeds, she’s fertile.

That’s where I stopped. With a hard-on, no less.

She rolls her eyes at my shrug, and my cock stiffens along my thigh. I’m grateful to be at my desk, but I take a sip of my scotch to drown one burn with another. Unsurprisingly, Winnie rolls her eyes again.

“I’m not on my period, for what it’s worth,” she finally says, slamming herself back against the chair, folding her arms over her chest.

“Are you through with your tantrum?” I ask, bringing my glass to my lips to mask my smirk. I said it to get under her skin, because I apparently enjoy a good brat.

If her glare materialized into something tangible, it would be a knife, and my throat would be slit.

“Thank you for the appointment,” she says through clenched teeth.

I look back to the stack of bills, and see some hundreds along with some twenties, and other small bills. “How did you know what the appointment cost?”

“I asked,” she says simply.

As much as I love getting on her nerves, which I somehow do without words, I set my glass down and clasp my hands together over my stomach. “Winnie, I know you’re tight,” I say, my mind flashing to a conjured-up image of Winnie on my bed, her legs spread, tiny white panties covering her apex, her curls strewn about . I’m tight, beware , she murmurs as my eyes snap to my desk shamefully. I clear my throat. “You don’t have to pay me back. I don’t want my daughter’s best friend pawning things to pay for a therapy appointment.”

Daughter's best friend . I threw that in there as a reminder to myself that this is Brielle’s best goddamn friend. In the entire world. Her safe person. The one she runs to when I’m a fucking asshole.

Not to mention, she’s Brielle’s age.

I do not need to be envisioning her telling me how tight she is.

Winnie leans forward, the swell of her cupid’s bow making my balls ache as she runs her tongue over it, wetting her lips. “I didn’t have to pawn anything, Big Daddy. I earned that money.”

She leans back again, and the way she said earned has my heart fucking racing, my blood spiking through my veins, leaving me uneasy and… jealous? I’m not fucking jealous.

I’m… “Earned it?”

Her grin makes my chest clench with anger, rage floods my head and my temples pound. “Wanna see how?” she asks, nodding toward my computer.

I say nothing, but she gets to her feet and rounds my desk, standing behind me. Reaching over, her breasts graze a stack of legal briefs as her long fingers splay out against the keyboard. She smells like vanilla and incense, and a drop of arousal slips from my cock onto my thigh, likely leaving a wet spot. I fight the urge to tip my head back and drag the tip of my nose along the curve of her velvety throat.

Instead, I sip my scotch, internally panicked and confused at why my body is acting a fool. Getting hard and leaking under my desk at one in the afternoon from over the knee boots and some lip licking? Who the fuck am I?

At forty-eight, there aren’t many surprise erections anymore. Not often at least. And I don’t fuck twenty-somethings. Ever.

A moment passes and a page loads. I slam my empty glass onto the desk, making the entire office rattle. “What the fuck?” I question as I stare at a profile on FeetFans .

She points her blue fingernail at the screen, specifically at a photo of feet in lucite heels, the kind worn by strippers all over. “They're my feet.”

I’m not into feet, but my pulse skips and my dick argues, and so apparently, I’m into her feet. Add this discovery to the list of things that anger me.

“What is this?” I breathe, drawing the question out slowly to maintain my composure. If this is what I think it is…

“I sell videos and pictures of my feet for money. The really good, livable money comes from live feet shows. I had a client for over a year that paid me so well, I quit my job at the coffee shop. But recently, he got into a relationship and doesn’t need me anymore.” She nudges me, smirking. “His partner has her own feet.”

I don’t smile and hers fades quickly when she sees I’m not impressed.

“Anyway, I get some interesting requests for pictures from time to time but it usually isn’t worth it because they don’t stick around. I opt for long term video clients, like my last guy. But I needed quick cash to repay you.” She glances at the stack of money, then back to me, a flush in her cheeks. “For the appointment you made me, I mean. So I took some photos with my toes in mashed potatoes for an old customer and voila!”

“No.” It’s all I can get out, considering my jaw is clenched so tightly I’m about to chip my goddamn teeth.

“No?” she asks, blinking, leaning back, taking me in. “What do you mean no?”

“No,” I say again, somehow louder than before, more infused with anger than before.

“You can’t tell me no,” she says, clicking the X on the tab, the entire FeetFans account disappearing. On screen is my email with a thousand and six unread messages. Still, I see her feet in those heels a moment longer.

“I don’t want men jerking off to your feet,” I tell her, reaching for my drawer, grabbing for the bottle. I never have more than one at work, but today I need the second. Thankfully she returns to the chair across from me.

Those fucking boots.

“Why do you even care what I do?” she asks.

I don’t answer, because I don’t have one. I shouldn’t care. I have no reason. All I should care about is her going to class and not doing drugs. That equates to a stable influence around my daughter.

But the image of a mouth-breathing, basement dwelling thirty-something with his cock in his hand and her muddy feet on his screen is an affront to my rationale. Fury consumes me.

It also keeps my jaw held tight, my absurd and irrational reasons locked tightly inside, along with all of my other feelings.

Winnie rolls her eyes and gets to her feet, the bow of her hips and swell of her swaying ass walking to my door, furthering my erroneous anger. She casts one look over her shoulder before she leaves, but I watch her ass all the way to the bank of elevators.

She turns, and our eyes lock as the doors slide closed.

I open a new tab in my browser, navigate through my history to her FeetFans page, and reach into my back pocket for my wallet.