Page 5 of Her Royal Daddy
It was the same pathetic line he always used, and it usually got me. Tonight, by some miracle, I was able to see the desperately spewed words for the lies they were.
“I matter to me.” The operator had answered and was speaking on the other end of the line. My eyes met his, and he turned and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. I followed him and quickly locked it before giving my attention back to the 911 operator.
“Sorry, ma’am. I thought there was an intruder in my home. False alarm.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. If he stayed another second, he would have been intruding.
My hands started shaking, then. So did my legs. Clutching my phone in my hand just in case he decided to come back, I retreated back into the bedroom and grabbed Ms. Beatrix off the bed. Ms. Beatrix was my bunny, handmade by my grandmother back before I was born; she was made of white cloth, with button eyes, smiling stitched mouth, floppy ears, and a blue Alice-in-Wonderland dress and apron, the likes of which I used to wish I could wear all the time, back before I fell in love with schoolgirl uniforms. Sinking down onto the edge of the bed, I hugged her to my chest until the worst of the shaking had stopped. Quiet, accepting, Ms. Beatrix soothed me, giving me the strength I needed to go back out into the living room and pick up off the floor that slip of paper that had started our fight in the first place.
It was a job offer. Not just any offer, but the offer of a lifetime. A chance for a fresh start, a new Norah, and the kind of adventure I’d be stupid not to take it.
But more than all of that, it was proof. Proof that I mattered. Proof that I was worth something and that someone did, in fact, want me in any capacity. Brian couldn’t handle that, but Ms. Beatrix could.
I hugged my bunny tighter, the words on the paper blurring before my eyes. Dammit. Well, he’d got me a good one, but at least I was making sure the first time he’d hit me would also be the last. If I took this job, I would be putting thousands of miles between us and Brian, and at the moment, neither Ms. Beatrix nor I could think of anything sweeter.
The skin around my eye throbbing, I walked into the kitchen and snagged a bag of peas from the freezer. “Fuck you, Brian,” I said as I put it on my face.
Normally not one to approve of bad language, Ms. Beatrix quietly cheered me on as I, while I could still see out of that eye, used the letter and my phone to make the call that would change my life.
Chapter Three
Mazi
I stepped onto the plane with Jax, my father’s personal assistant right on my heel, and stopped so fast the poor man knocked into me. Tall, reed-thin, the white of his short curly hair in sharp contrast with his dark skin and impeccable blue business suit, Jax struck me as the sort who didn’t often knock into anyone. He immediately fell all over himself with apologies, none of which I heard. Never mind the fact that my so-called ‘father’s’ private jet was actually more like a luxury hotel room on wings. What startled me more was finding that woman from the club last week—her violet hair done up in a business bun, her schoolgirl outfit today hot pink instead of blue, and still paying more attention to her phone than to me—was already here, seated in one of two white leather recline-able flight chairs near the bar.
Looking up from her phone at last, a spark of recognition flashed through her beautiful eyes when she saw me. We both looked to Jax, waiting for some sort of explanation or introduction.
“My apologies,” he said, adjusting the glasses on his nose. “If you are amenable, Miss Norah Baxter would like to join us on our flight. There was a minor problem with her security clearance and, although the problem was eventually cleared, it made her unable to get on her flight last night.”
So, her name was Norah, I mused, taking a good long look. She was still a schoolgirl, in a white blouse and pink jumper dress, with white tights and shiny pink shoes with butterflies on the shoelaces. A white sweater lay folded in her lap, and a duffel bag the same shade of pink as her skirt lay tucked up under her seat behind her feet. In the bright lights of the plane, I put her age somewhere around twenty-five. She dressed like she was twelve and it was an alluring combination—all those grownup curves packaged in an outfit that should have made her taboo.
“I don’t mind at all,” I said, smiling as I locked my gaze on her eyes and this time kept them there. I had the entire rest of our flight to commit her curves to memory, and it would be a long one. So while her overall look definitely put me in the mood to play ‘big, bad Daddy’ to a not-so-little ‘little girl,’ the last thing I wanted was to come across as a perv straight out of the gate. I went to her, hand extended. “Mazi,” I introduced myself. “And the more the merrier, I always say. Besides, nothing eases a long flight faster than lovely company.”
All right, maybe that was a little bit corny, especially coming from me, but Norah seemed to like it. Her hesitant smile as she shook my hand was totally worth my half-second fall into pretentious douchebaggery.
Her smile had been the one thing I hadn’t gotten a chance to see at the club. That was probably for the best, since I have a feeling it would have knocked me right off the stage. And her mouth... She had the most kissable heart-shaped lips that I’d ever fought myself not to stare at. Once her eyes reflected it, I was willing to bet that smile could have lit up a room, but she wasn’t ready to give me that view just yet. She took her hand back long before I was ready to let her go and her violet eyes, although lovely, remained hooded and unsure.
Challenge accepted, I thought, and although there were plenty of places to sit—two sets of double flight chairs with a table between them, a long white couch that took up the entire length of the jet from the door that a flight attendant had just exited the cockpit to close, all the way to the bathroom and the stateroom in the very back, and the bar right behind Norah with another short couch directly behind that—I planted myself in the empty seat directly beside her. Ours really would be a long flight, but I was confident that by the time we got to Osei, she’ll have lowered at least some of that guard to let me in. I wasn’t at all hard on the eyes. Plus, I could be charming when I wanted to be.
