Page 13 of Power Play

I didn’t. But he thought I did. He thought I flirted with him, seduced him…fucked him. Just so my dad could steal his money.

He thought that entire night had been a lie. An orchestrated plot by both me and my father to fleece him.

I could have told him a thousand times he was wrong, but of course all I had was my word and the word of Bill Barrington’s daughter was worthless.

“Liam…” I began, but there really was nothing for me to say.

He walked out of the living room with its low leather sofa and giant screen television towards the kitchen. I had no choice but to follow him.

“I want it noted that the grand, plus the seven hundred, puts me at seventeen hundred for the week.”

“Noted,” he said. In the kitchen, he opened a cupboard and started putting together some kind of healthy protein drink. It was green and looked disgusting.

“Are you writing it down?”

He tapped his skull. “Up here.”

“You’re not keeping track?” I asked, slightly outraged. But of course he wasn’t. This wasn’t about the money. It was about punishing me. It was about me showing up here every Sunday, like I’d been doing for months, so he could remind me I was a lying dirtbag.

“You know there are easier ways to pay back your father’s debt.”

He made this insulting offer with the biggest smile on his face.

There were about a million things I could say about his smile. About how it was an assault on women. How it was profane and kind of sweet at the same time. He had X-rated lips. Absolutely filthy. You couldn’t look at them without wanting to lick them. Suck them. Feel them on the ticklish skin of your neck.

But his grin was crooked, in a boyish way, and he had a dimple on his left cheek that was criminal.

The combination of all those things, the trouble-making little boy and the deeply sexual grown man, was potent.

“I’m not sleeping with you for money,” I said, lifting one of my cat paws.

“Not what I was suggesting.” He stirred his green drink and then sucked it down with a grimace and full body shudder. “Besides, I already did that, and frankly, I’m not interested in a repeat performance.”

His eyes raked me, reminding me that my hair was sweaty and clumpy and any makeup I put on thinking of this moment was long since gone. Also, he hated me.

It shouldn’t have made me so sad.

“All you need to do is admit what you did that night.”

I stiffened.

“Just look me in the face and tell me that you seduced me just so I would hand over a pile of cash to your criminal father.”

This wasn’t the first time Liam had made this demand. It was the only thing he’d said he wanted when I first approached him to pay off my father’s debt. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.

Because as incredulous as it seemed, I wasn’t a liar.

And I had some pride.

In the absence of my confession, he barked out a sharp laugh.

“Okay then, it’s more kids’ birthday parties for you. You might want to get that cat costume washed. It smells like public transit.”

With that, he left the kitchen, and this time I had no reason to follow him.

So, I took my cat head and wounded soul and made my way out of his mansion, knowing I would be back the following Sunday to do it all over again.

Because Liam Locke was both my fate and my punishment.

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