Page 109 of The Pucking Wrong Man

“You don’t actually mean that,” she whispered.

I was still learning everything about Anastasia, but it was obvious that this was one of those landmines I needed to cautiously step over and avoid at all costs.

“I do mean that. Absolutely. Anything I do is because I want to help. I’m in awe of you and everything you’ve managed to do by yourself.”

I’m obsessed with you. I...love you.

The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but of course, I couldn’t say them yet.

“I just think,” I continued, “that it’s perfectly acceptable for you to let someone else take over for a minute. For me to let you take a breath after working so hard all these years.”

Before I could say anything, a woman at the table in front of us knocked her drink over, and it spilled all over the table and floor. She stared at it disgusted before she motioned at Anastasia. “Can you clean this up?” she asked in a clipped voice. “Now, please.”

Anastasia threw me a longing glance before she hurried over to the table and began wiping up the mess. Once the table was dry, she kneeled down and worked on the puddle of soda on the floor.

I hated the sight of her on her knees. The only time I wanted her there was if she was kneeling in front of me and my dick was going down her throat.

Inappropriate, Camden.

It had also been inappropriate what I’d done in her sheets earlier, though, and I wasn’t apologizing for that.

Anastasia couldn’t work here anymore.

That was a fucking fact. She was killing herself dancing all day, cleaning the studio...and then coming here to scrub tables. And she was making almost nothing for all that work.

Unacceptable.

My baby girl didn’t need to be working like this.

She tried to get up, and I watched as her leg gave out, her knee hitting the tile floor with a thump. A flash of nausea hit me as I imagined the amount of pain she was in. I quickly slid out of my bench seat to help her, but she held up a hand, like she knew I was coming even though her back was to me. She stubbornly pushed up from the floor and limped to the back room with the sodden rag, not looking at me once.

Anastasia was never going to agree to quit on her own.

I unfortunately was going to have to do it for her.

If I was going to take care of her how she deserved—make everything better in her life, sacrifices were going to have to be made.

Batman was just as much a superhero as Superman, right?

Even if sometimes he was the bad guy…

Fuck.

I was thinking in terms of DC Comics characters. Ari Lancaster was an asshole. He’d called me “Hero” so much, apparently it was becoming my personality.

Anastasia was still in the back, so I pulled out my phone to pass the time. I wasn’t leaving here without her.

Me: Lancaster, I hate you.

Ari: The drama with this one. Is it because of that spin move I did today that you were so jealous of?

Ari: Or my dick.

Ari: It is my dick, isn’t it?

Ari: It’s alright, Hero. Not everyone can be me.

Me: That’s it! From now on, no one is allowed to call me “Hero.”

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