“I’ll call my driver,” she mumbled, more to herself than to me.
“Mr. Drischoll is on an overdue paid leave,” I announced flatly. “He’s spending some time across the country with his family.”
“Dennis!” She gasped, slapping a hand over her chest. “He never had a vacation before.”
“My point exactly.”
“Well, I’ll get an Uber,” she shot back.
“Would they let you pay in pearls of wisdom?” I inquired dryly.
“What?”
I stopped typing. “Your credit cards have been canceled. Couldn’t risk you running into trouble while I wasn’t looking.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Oh, I should warn you in advance—I have no sense of humor. No joking in this household for the next six months.” I double-clicked one of the résumés waiting in my email.
“I’m going to get revenge.”
I yawned, wondering if all one-dimensional creatures of excess in L.A. talked in poorly scriptedRiverdaledialogue.
“Revenge’s an admission of pain. Tuck your feelings back in. Everyone can see them, and what they can see—they can exploit.”
“I’m going to find a way out of this.” She was pacing back and forth now, peering at the walls like they were closing in on her. She was coming to terms with her new reality.Good.
I opened another Chrome tab of résumés. A bachelor’s degree in information security, UC Berkeley cybersecurity boot camp graduate, five years’ experience in NESSUS, SPLUNK, and APP Detective, blah, blah, blah.
Not good enough.Next.
“I am!” She stomped her foot. “Just watch me.”
My eyes snapped up to meet hers.
“I’ll watch you, all right, because Daddy Dearest pays me a hefty sum to do so. Your ass is under my supervision for the next six months, Miss Thorne, whether you like it or not. Forget about everything you knew to be your former life. Gone are your days of stumbling out of bars and clubs naked and drunk. From now on, you will have to prove to me that you are responsible enough to operate your social media accounts, to have a credit card, and to socialize with other adults. You will be abstinent, sober—those are your parents’ demands, and on your best behavior—the latter is mine. And by the end of my stay,” this was where I got to the cherry on the shitcake, “you will be gainfully employed, too.”
“Abstinent!” she shouted to the sky, outraged. I could kind of understand where she was coming from. Being sexually active had nothing to do with good behavior. But I didn’t make the rules—I simply enforced them. “Willyoube abstinent?”
Wouldn’t put money on it.
I could go without for weeks, sometimes months. Finding the right partner for my flavor of kink was not easy—fortunately my self-control was second only to my stamina. But the Brat and I weren’t playing the same game.
“What I do with my personal time is my business,” I clipped out.
“Yeah, thought so.” She laughed mirthlessly. “And sober? I don’t even drink that much.”
“Then giving it up shouldn’t pose an issue.”
She glanced around, looking for creative ways to get out of the situation. Clearly, the Thornes had allowed her to grow as wild and free as a weed until she was not in the habit of answering to anyone.
“I’ll make your life a living hell,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Kiddo.” I flashed her an impatient smile. “I was forged in hell. I’ll feel right at home. You, however, are in for a challenging few months.”
“This is not over,” she warned, wiggling a finger in my face, an explosion of colors and attitude. “In fact, I’m going to walk out of here right now and sell this story about how you walked in on a naked, sleeping woman to—”
Not interested in hearing the rest of this sentence, or anything else to come out of that smart mouth, I stood up, picked her up, and locked her upstairs, in her room.