“Oh? What do you think of me as?”
A brat.Who needs to have her ass whipped raw.
“As the boss’s daughter,” I reply instead, walking over to the oven and I take my food out. It’s still warm and I glance at the round table wondering whether to take my seat there, before deciding to sit opposite from Meadow.
Watching me with suspicious eyes, she chews carefully and I say, “Why aren’t you having a proper dinner instead?”
“Cook didn’t make me one,” she says sweetly, her eyes shining with irony and bile rises in my throat. The cook didn’t make anything for her, no doubt on the orders of Mrs. Michaels but she mademedinner and knowing that I’ll be full while Meadow won’t be, disturbs me.
What I want to do is offer her my food, but I can already tell by the way she’s looking at me that she will decline and I pick up my utensils, digging in. She looks at me with slight envy but she doesn’t say anything about it and we eat in silence, listening to the water drip from the tap.
“Does my dad ever talk to you about Melody?” she asks after a while.
I don’t meet her gaze. “No.” It’s the truth but I know it hurts.
Her shoulders tense and she murmurs under her breath, “He’s such an asshole.”
Can’t argue with that.
Straightening she adds, “But I probably shouldn’t talk to you that way. You’re his lapdog after all.”
Wrong. I’m a lone wolf. Always have been and always will be.
“I have no master, Miss. Michaels,” I say and she scoffs.
“Then why did you throw my boyfriend out the balcony? If not because you don’t want my antics to affect my father’s precious career?”
“My reasons are my own.” I bore my eyes into hers. “And you have no boyfriend.”
Her cheeks color. “Yes I do, several of them. I have a whole harem.”
At that I chuckle. “Then how come you walk and smell like a little virgin?”
She gasps, her eyes darting and she grazes her neat, little lips and on the inside, I grin. She’s all bark and no bite. Give her a little discipline and her whole world turns upside down.
“Y...you’re not allowed to talk to me that way,” she stutters, sounding so confused and innocent that she could be mistaken for a little, teenager.
Just like that, I go serious. “Then stop spouting stupid lies and I won’t have to.”
Meadow looks like she has a sharp answer on her tongue but to my surprise she holds it. Knocking her spoon against her empty plate, she glances at the cereal box and the jug of milk beside it and remorse flashes her face.
I know she wants more. But she’s too ashamed to have seconds, the guilt ingrained in her probably since childhood.
Without a single word or a single glance, I push the cereals and milk over to her and she carefully grabs them, filling up her bowl one more time. Holding her breath before grabbing a mouthful, she gives me a fake, sweet smile and I know she’s looking to give me a hard time.
“It must be so overwhelming for you,” she muses and I raise my head.
“What must be overwhelming?”
“Being thrown into our glitzy world. It’s so blatantly obvious you don’t belong in it,” she says with played afterthought and when I don’t respond, she adds, “You’re not a gentleman that’s for sure, judging by the way you treat me.”
“And how do I treat you?”
She pinches her mouth. “Like you don’t realize who I am.” In a highborn voice, she goes, “Do you know that I’m a classically schooled opera singer? That I have dined with royals? That a Parisian designer named one of his bags after me?”
Slowly looking up, I drawl, “And you’re telling me this why? Because you want to impress the staff?”
Her face turns fuchsia and she fidgets in her chair, brushing off dust that isn’t there on the sterilely clean table. “Wow, is that what you think? You think I care about what opinion you have of me? I don’t. I couldn’t care less.”