Page 44 of Take Her

It was idyllic, beautiful, peaceful—and what was more, it worked. She knew she was pregnant by the time we got back on the plane, and that calm, serene feeling of “this was what we were meant to do” perfection lasted for three months, up until the day she crashed her car on the way home from the farm. She’d been going to a check-up appointment in the city, and the actual God that I spited, and who I would never fucking believe in, took them both away from me. Now all I could do was visit them at the cemetery every Sunday.

It’d been five years, and some nights it felt like it had only happened yesterday.

So yes.

I was an adult, and I knew nothing good could come of letting Lia into my life. She was too tempting, and I was too toxic.

Even if every time I saw her it made my palms itch for action, and lit up parts of my brain I wanted to deny.

I just hoped that whoever had hurt her was closer to her own age—and that I never figured out who they were, for their sake.

I was surprised hours later by a soft knock on the door. “Mr. Selvaggio?” she asked from the far side.

“Come in,” I said, glancing at the time. Just six—I would probably be here till at least eight or nine. Without looking over, I went on. “You can go home now.”

“I was actually going to ask if you wanted something to eat—and if you cared about any of these people that’ve called you?” She looked timid in the doorway, still damaged by whatever’d hurt her earlier this morning—my poor little moth, with a slightly nocked wing.

I rocked back in my chair, stretching out my neck. “If they don’t have my personal line, probably not.”

“One of them was trying to sell you aluminum siding,” she said, giving me a tentative smile.

“For a whole building?” I teased, then shook my head. “You can still go home. I’m perfectly capable of ordering my own dinner.”

She shrugged a little. “That’s what I’d be doing too—only the city’s changed a lot since I was here last. What’s good?” she asked, then added a very belated, “Sir.”

I snorted. “I’ll tell you, only if you promise not to tell your father,” I said, then realized how many different ways I could take that statement before finishing. “My favorite restaurant is Burmese.”

Her smile became more genuine. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I wrote down a short order and the name of a restaurant on a notepad on my desk as she walked over. “Let me know when it gets here,” I said, handing it over with a black credit card. “Get yourself whatever you want to take home, of course.”

She twirled the credit card around, and pretended to be impressed. “Could I order other things with this?”

“Only if you want to get audited,” I said dourly. She was in tight leggings and a large cardigan that flowed down to her mid-thigh, with tight sleeves down to her fingers, very different from the rest of the professional women in the building. “Although that begs the question—what’s your father paying you for your servitude to me?”

Her full lips pouted. “Nothing.”

“But when you were janitorial—” I was certain Ruiz would’ve put her on the books. In fact, I’d wanted him to; I wanted her to know what other people in the building were making.

“Yeah, they cut me a check for that week and hand delivered it. But this is just for free. Which I guess makes me your intern,” she said, her nose lightly wrinkling with disdain.

I groaned and rolled my eyes—and she outright laughed.

I looked at her strangely as she put a hand over her mouth to apologize.

“Sorry—my dad said that if you laughed when I told you that, to tell him, because he’d make you sing at his birthday party as punishment.”

That level of pettiness sounded like Nero. In fact I was certain he’d come up with more than one way to fuck with me—but only me, not Corvo—for having abandoned ship last week. “A fate worse than death, truly, for anyone who has to hear—but for the record, I didn’t.”

“I know,” she said with a grin, slowly growing in her bravery. “And besides, he pays for everything else, so it’s not like I really need money.”

I cut her off. “You look like you’re going to art school. Buy yourself some clothes for work. Keep it under ten grand.”

She blinked, clearly unsure as to whether or not she should be pleased or affronted. “You’re not trying to buy me off, are you?” she wound up asking with a slight huff.

“If I am, is it working?” I deadpanned before I could stop myself. Her eyes widened in a way that incited me, right before my sanity reared its depressing head. I shooed her out of the room with one hand before she could answer. “Go order—I’m hungry.”

I was not shitting where I ate.

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