“Would you like my driver to drop you off?” he asked cheerily.
I licked my lips, blinking at him in surprise. For several moments, I just stared at him and took a sip of my juice. I started to feel angry, but mostly hurt.
Did he not care after all?
“I’m surprised you would let your driver put a drunk girl at risk that way,” I blurted out. I didn’t really think about what I was saying. To be honest, I was too upset.
“Have you had much to drink tonight, Cami?” he asked calmly. Why wasn’t he angrier? How could he be so calm when I was standing there deliberately drinking when he’d told me not to?
“Yes,” I blurted out. I brought the glass of orange juice to my lips and gulped down the rest of it. He watched me in silence as I finished it and slammed it down on the table beside the door.
“Which industrial building?” he asked.
“The one on Main Street,” I answered quickly. It was the only one that I knew that was truly abandoned because I had spent several nights sleeping in it when I’d first come here.
“You aren’t really drunk, Cami,” he observed.
“Fuck off, Mason. How would you know?” I scoffed. He ignored my outburst and continued speaking. He was so calm it was almost terrifying.
“You aren’t really going to a rave, Cami. Do you know how I know? I know because I just bought that industrial building to restore it in order to move the headquarters for my tech company and I have my people over there right now at this very minute. There is no rave there and there will be no rave there later either,” he continued. His voice was sure and firm as my whole story crumbled and fell apart right before my eyes.
I stammered in disbelief. He saw right through me.
I watched as he stood up and I blinked back tears as I turned to rush out of the room. His massive hand caught my arm before I could go any further.
His grip was gentle, but strong enough to give me pause.
“Look at me, Cami,” he said softly, and I stood there for a moment as I decided what I should do. I felt like a mess. Maybe I was chasing after a man who never had any interest in me in the first place. Maybe I was reading into things that had never been there. Maybe he just didn’t care at all.
Even though everything inside me was screaming at me to run, I turned back and looked at him.
“Why did you really come to my office, Cami?”
I blushed hard, trying to come up with some sort of smart-assed answer just to save face, but my mind had short-circuited, and I couldn’t come up with a single damn thing.
“I thought you cared about me,” I finally whispered without thinking. Once the words left my mouth, I stood there horrified and embarrassed.
“Cared enough to do what?” he asked. His face was awash with concern, his gray-blue eyes sparkling with it. I opened my mouth to answer, but I simply stammered and blushed all the harder.
I didn’t want to tell him what I wanted. I didn’t want to admit that I’d fantasized about him giving me a spanking for being a bad girl and getting too drunk. I couldn’t admit that I’d thought about what it would feel like to be fucked by a man like him either. I fidgeted and looked away, unwilling to give voice to the sordid thoughts in my head. He would think I was crazy. Maybe he would have me committed. Maybe he would even kick me out.
“Enough to send you to bed? Enough to scold you for getting so drunk the other night?”
He paused. The air around me felt so heavy.
“Or is it something else, Cami?”
I turned away. I couldn’t do this. There was no way I could explain why I wanted all of those things and why I thought I needed more than that. I stammered something that sounded like I needed to go to bed, but he hadn’t let go of my arm and that was enough to make me stay.
For a long moment he was silent. His grip tightened just a hair on my arm, and I looked back at him. He sighed, his eyes studying mine.
“Enough to take you over my knee and spank you like a naughty little girl?”
My mouth opened in shock, and I stared back at him in surprise. I swallowed hard, searching his gaze to see if he’d actually said the words because there was no way they could have possibly been real, but his face was deadly serious. It held the same firm glint I’d seen when he’d scolded me over not finishing my plate or whenever I did something to bait his attention.
I blinked. He’d threatened to give me a spanking. I’d fantasized about that moment for so long that it didn’t seem real now that it had materialized right in front me.
I licked my lips and lost my nerve entirely.