His voice was lower than usual and the tone sent a thrill down her spine. She’d been on edge, ready to hear that voice all day, and she slipped effortlessly into her headspace. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Good girl. Go home and go to your room. Change into your PJs and get your hairbrush from the bathroom. When I get home, I expect to find you in the corner, with your bottom bare, holding that hairbrush.”
The whimper escaped before she could stop it. “Anything else?”
“You might want to use your time in the corner to think about the consequences of disobeying your daddy, and how differently this day could have gone if you’d followed the rules I gave you last night.”
Tears blurred her vision. “Yes, Daddy,” she whispered.
“That’s my good girl. I’ll see you in a bit.”
The call clicked off, and she took a couple of deep breaths to try to tame her wild emotions. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d fucked up this bad. It was going to be a long night.
The drive home was mostly a blur. All too soon, she found herself in the driveway of their home. Bracing herself for what was to come, she parked the car, gathered her bags, and headed inside. After dropping her laptop bag off in her office, she trudged up the stairs.
Her first step was the master suite, where she grabbed her brush from the counter in their bathroom before she headed to her room. There, she put the brush down long enough to strip and pull on a pair of bright red pajamas adorned with jumping frogs. After she’d dressed and put her clothes in the hamper, she picked up the brush and used it to pull her hair into a high ponytail.
Now she was ready for the corner. At least, she was dressed for the corner. She was never reallyreadyto just stand there for what felt like hours with her bare bottom on display.
But she was in far too much trouble to even consider disobeying. So she walked to the corner where she then pulled her pants and panties to her knees. And she stood there, nose to the wall, waiting for Daddy to come punish her.
Sometimes, she couldn’t focus while she waited. Her mind would bounce from their grocery list to work to movies she wanted to see, anything but the reason she was about to get her bottom roasted once again.
This time was different. The night before played over and over in her mind, starting from the moment Shannon had ordered the stupid drinks that had started it all. A lot of it was fuzzy, but she’d been able to piece some of it together. Between what she could remember, and what Shannon had filled in for her, it was easy to see she’d made a huge mess of things.
And that wasn’t even counting this morning. Not only had she been a whiny brat from the time she’d opened her eyes, she’d risked the business they’d worked so hard to build. How could he ever forgive her?
The wood of the brush grew heavier with each passing minute. She imagined it was the weight of her husband’s disappointment, the weight of every mistake she’d made over the past twenty-four hours. Her arm began to ache well before the sound of the front door slamming shut reached her ears.
The second it did, every nerve she possessed was at attention, waiting for the inevitable moment when her daddy would enter the room and take her over his knee. She heard his footsteps on the wooden planks in the hall, closer and closer until they stopped. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and she knew without turning around that he was watching her. She wanted to run to him, to fall at his feet and beg forgiveness, but she knew it wouldn’t be welcome. Not until he called for her.
The footsteps started again, this time away from the room, down the hall. And a few minutes later, back toward her room. She grew restless while she listened to him moving around the room behind her. Why wouldn’t he just call for her already?
“Stop fidgeting, Olivia.”
She nearly lifted her foot to stomp it, but managed to curb the urge before she dug her grave any deeper. It felt like hours before he spoke again.
“Come here.”
As slowly as she dared, Olivia turned and shuffled across the room to stand in front of him. James sat in the straight-backed chair from her desk, his back tall and stiff, tapping his fingers on one knee.
“Tell me about last night.”
Finally. “We went to this Mexican restaurant and we each had a margarita with dinner and then we came home.”
“One margarita?”
Her head bobbed up and down so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. “Uh huh.”
“What kind of margarita?”
“Sir?”
“What kind of margarita, exactly, gets two women so wasted they can barely stand up straight? Was it a special kind of tequila? Or,” he leaned forward, sending her pulse racing, “is my little one leaving out some key details about this margarita?”
Shit. If he hadn’t asked, she might have been able to dance around it. But she wasn’t about to tell an outright lie. She didn’t make a habit of lying anyway, and she wasn’t stupid enough to start when she was already in so much trouble. “Well. Um. It was a jumbo margarita.”
“Define ‘jumbo’ for me, Olivia.”