Big Daddy

Chapter 17

chapter seventeen

winnie

I’ve had way too much time in my head today.

Way. Too. Much.

I woke up hungover, got fucked by the hottest man ever, and now I’m working on a business card layout while listening to the original “Dream On” by Aerosmith. I could focus on the memories of hot sex from this morning, or the design I’m creating since it’s critical to my graduation. I could listen to the law office chatter, or sing along to my favorite rock album.

I could, but I’m not.

Because I’m trapped in the prison of my thoughts, Brielle’s face flashes behind my eyes each time I tell myself not to focus on it.

She’s been the one to loan money when I had no one else, the one to let me eat her leftovers and sleep at her place, the one who loans me clothes and gives me advice, holds my hand when I’m sad, holds my hair when I puke, holds me up when I’m too weak.

She’s the one.

Not Big Daddy.

Big Daddy has helped me financially. He has made me orgasm to the point I’m not sure I’ll ever come like that with anyone else. He has White Knighted me.

Unfortunately, what he’s done is usurped by who he is.

He’s Brielle’s father. A father whom she has a complicated relationship, and has for years. How will she feel if she learned that her best friend and her father are fucking, and that he treats her bestie with more softness than his own daughter? She’ll hate me, and she’ll have every right.

I mean, Quincey and I may be physically attracted to one another and that’s one Flowers in the Attic difference between our relationship and theirs, but all things considered, he doesn’t truly treat me that much differently. The big difference in how we engage with each other is me.

I fight back.

I’m a brat.

The brattiness helps break the asshole spell.

I don’t make the spells, that’s just a fact.

Still, it’s all semantics. At the end of the day, I am a backstabber. I am Brutus. I am Jaime Lannister. I am the kid that sells out his siblings for candy in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe .

Swap candy for a little emotional fulfillment and some dick and I’m that kid.

The smartest thing I can do now is shove away all hopeful musings of becoming Quincey’s serious partner, sharing holidays with my best friend as both her best friend and her father’s partner, envisioning Brielle and I having a stronger relationship because I helped Quincey make amends for his mistakes with his daughter, having a whole family of people who I love and adore, and everything else I’ve secretly been rolling around in my mind for the last few weeks.

Now is the time to be strong. The way I should have been before. I refuse to believe it’s too late to end this and keep my best friend. Refuse.

I know what has to be done.

The song changes, and Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again comes on just in time to freeze, allowing my phone to ring. I answer without looking at the caller ID, my eyes still lingering over the business card design I’ve been half-assing all day.

“Hey, I called you twice last night, what’s up? How was whatever you did instead of having a drink with me?” Brielle asks.

She called me on the drive to work, but I couldn’t answer because I was too busy licking the inside of Big Daddy’s wrist to get him hard just to torture him.

I had every intention of calling her back once I got to work, but I slipped into a wormhole of guilt. That shit happens when you’re banging your bestie's hot dad while working at his office and wearing clothes he bought you.

I glance over my shoulder, attempting to see through the blinds to get an eyeful of Quincey, but I can’t spot him. “Lame. I went to trivia night as Luke’s wingman and drank too much.”

“Ahh,” she teases, “you shouldn’t have blown me off then.”

For whatever reason, her teasing angers me. Maybe it’s all the anger I have directed at myself getting pointed her way, which is so fucked up, I realize. Still. “You blew me off twice last week.”

She sighs. “For work. And I know, I know. I was just teasing.” A knowing pause drifts between us. “You okay, Win?”

I swallow, peering back into his office one more time. Still, my view is blocked by the wall of men in suits surrounding him. “Yeah, I’m good. Just tired.”

“Ahh,” she says softly. “I was hoping we could catch up soon. This week I’m booked, and next I’m slammed. But in two weeks, on Thursday. I have dinner at 9 but before that? A glass of wine and girl talk?” she asks, her tone weighted with guilt. Guilt I already felt ten-fold, but now? I bring my hand to my collarbone and check my rapid pulse, taking a deep breath.

“Okay, Thursday in two weeks,” I say, just as a door clicks closed quietly behind me. His scent hits me before I turn and see Quincey standing there, eyeing me with his usual intensity.

“Perfect. But I’ll call you tomorrow because I have big news. Thursday is just so we have something on the books,” Brielle says. “I miss you.”

“Miss you too. Call you later, I gotta go.”

My black patent heels swing out from under me as Quincey grabs my chair, spinning me to face him. In a crouch, he peers around my chair to see if anyone has noticed the aggressive coach stance he’s taking with me. A moment later, his focus is on me. “Thursday in two weeks?” He glances at his wristwatch, gold and fancy, but with a complicated face. “You see Dr. Wilder this week.”

I spin back to face my computer, even though I’d rather look at Big Daddy. Still, he needs push back. All alpha males do or they get out of control.

“Take it easy, stalker.”

“I pay the bill,” he deadpans. “That’s how I know when the appointments are. I would be a stalker if I showed up.”

I type on my keyboard, inputting a client’s name on a blank form pulled up on my screen. I do my best to ignore him.

His hand comes down on my shoulder. The hangover was gone after a coffee the size of my body and a bagel from the cart. Still, I play it up, bringing my hands to my temples. “Don’t jostle me, Mr. Parker,” I say, using his professional name as my insides clench. All day I’ve been hearing him call himself Big Daddy.

God, it was wild.

Holy hell was it hot.

“Who are you meeting with next Thursday?” he questions.

I spin to face him, hands on hips even though I’m sitting. It looks ridiculous, but he gets the meaning. “Your daughter.”

He rises and walks into his office, eyeing me, sending me the sign he wants me to follow.

With an eye roll, I follow him in, my nerves bunching at the sound of his door being locked. I plop down in the chair across from his desk as he sits on the edge, his junk angled toward my face. Normally I’d like that.

But the guilt is starting to get to me.

“Come home with me so we can talk about things,” Quincey says quietly, but not shamefully quiet. Moreso, tender quiet. My pussy weeps, and I wish, for once, she could be on the same page as my brain.

“We should talk, you’re right,” I agree, because while I found sobriety and shook my massive hangover today, I also crashed headfirst into reality. “I overheard Pen telling Kennedy that he was going to bring his wife and daughters to the company party in a month.”

Quincey looks annoyed as he shrugs. “What does this have to do with you coming home with me?”

“What’s the point? We can talk here. Why drag it out?” A rush of fear surges to my mouth but I bite my lip, holding back. I don’t want to end things, but the longer it goes on, the more I stand to lose. “Let’s just agree it was fun but a mistake, make a pact to never mention it again, and as soon as I have my degree and a job, I’ll start making payments back to you for the car lease, this outfit,” I say, plucking at the satin ivory blouse Big Daddy had delivered last night. “I will repay every penny; we don’t speak a word of this to Brielle and we both just… let the secret die with us.”

His face is unreadably still and impassive, tossing around the nerves in my stomach. Trying to lighten the mood, I slip into brat mode, which serves as an emotional shield as much as anything. “I mean, the secret will die with you first, of course,” I smile, not feeling it, not meaning it. “You know, because I’m young and you’re… not.”

He ignores my ageist jokes.

Hell, I don’t even view him as an old guy. I just love teasing him.

Or, I did.

No more teasing after this moment, because there is no more anything after this moment.

“No,” he says simply, working on his cufflinks. Once they’re free, he tosses them onto his desk and gets to work on his tie.

“No?” I question. “I’m saying it’s over. You can’t say no.”

The tie joins the cufflinks. “It’s not over.”

A sigh escapes me, and I pinch the bridge of my nose in exasperation. “If you make this a thing, I can’t even work here anymore.” I lean forward, placing my hands on his knees. He looks down at the touch as I continue trying to reason with him. “You wanted to help me, and that’s a good thing. Let me keep working here. We’ll tell Brielle that I bumped into you somewhere or something and you got me the job. When I graduate, I’ll be done, she won’t have to know, and I’ll start paying you back. We can still get out of this unscathed but… it’s gotta end now.”

His eyes rake over every inch of me until they meet my gaze. “Brielle can understand that we are two consenting adults.”

I scoff. “Two consenting adults who lied to her and snuck around behind her back. Whether we consent to each other or not has no bearing.” I shake my head, bringing my hands to my neck, pulling at the stress, but it doesn’t budge. “She’s got enough going on right now, she’s?—”

“Aside from the apprenticeship?” Quincey’s brows pull together.

Fuck. He doesn’t know because Brielle hasn’t shared that much yet. I lick my lips, choosing my words as carefully as possible. I don’t want to do more damage than I already have. “The apprenticeship and stuff with her bosses,” I say, telling the truth in the most masked way I can.

His eyes narrow on me and he edges closer, sliding his ass nearer to the edge of the desk. “Is she seeing one of them?”

I shake my head, controlling my tone. “What? No. No, she’s not dating one of her bosses. Why would you even—what would make you ask that?”

“Don’t lie to me,” he warns, and the hairs on my neck stick up. My nipples get hard, too. Am I a bratty authority slut? I think maybe I am.

“Hey,” I say, my voice husky, matching his alpha energy. “I said no.”

“You’re lying.”

Technically I’m not, because no one is officially dating yet. And it’s not one of her bosses, it’s both. I fold my arms over my chest and lean back, trying a different approach. “Yeah? Am I?”

He leans back too, files lifting under the weight of his ass. I bet his ass looks so good naked. I bet it’s all shapely and sexy. I mean, if it’s anything like his cock and balls…

“Last week I called Brielle to plan dinner. I called her at nine in the evening. She said she was at her apartment, but I could hear a man in the background.” Big Daddy cocks one eyebrow. “Unless you’re fucking your boss, you don’t have him at your house and you don’t go to his house. Would you agree?”

My throat goes Sahara dry and yet sweat glides down my back. “You could have heard the TV. Music. Or anyone else from work.”

He levels his glare at me. “Is she dating her boss?”

The egg on the skillet in my brain fries. I can’t out my best friend to her dad. No fucking way. “Quincey, I?—”

“She is,” he states, staring off into the distance, processing what seems to be one of his greatest fears. “I’ve given up my life to be this man,” he starts, getting to his feet, speaking at the room around him more than me. “To work so hard that she has every goddamn advantage, every privilege, everything. And what does she do? She ends up working in porn, sleeping with her boss.”

I get to my feet and catch him by the arm. “She didn’t choose Crave, and you know that. And you also know that if she was dating her boss—which she isn’t—that they are consenting adults .” I don’t mean to use his words against him, but it just happens. “You can relate to not expecting or even wanting something to happen, can’t you?” My heart races as I edge around the subtextual definition of us. “But sometimes things happen, and as much as you hate it, you can’t fight it.”

His nostrils flare. “You and I are not the same as that.”

Now it’s my turn to cock an eyebrow. “Aren’t we?”

I glance at my watch. “I’m taking an Uber to my apartment. I appreciate you loaning me the car but I think it’s a bad idea.” I look down at the patent heels glittering on my feet. “I will be here tomorrow, as your secretary, and only your secretary.”

I don’t give Big Daddy another glance.

I can’t.

I’ll break.

Instead, I gather my things from my desk and walk toward the elevator, bewildered by how sad I am ending it.

We aren’t in love. We just love arguing and fucking.

It wasn’t that serious.

So why the fuck am I crying?