Page 88 of Hired Help

I don’t ask the next obvious question, but he answers it anyway. “You told me about your experience on our first meeting. I’d remember if you had a note about shagging a random staff member on camera.”

“How could it look so much like me?”

“Photos. Other video footage. It takes less and less to make a deepfake these days.” He waggles his eyebrows. “So they tell me.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Harrison demands, his lips white. “I don’t…” He chokes to a stop.

“Why didn’t you know it wasn’t me?”

He frowns at the armrest, picking at the leather. “Warren confirmed it was real and…” His frown grows into a scowl. “Alicia showed it to me. I don’t understand why she’d show me something that wasn’t true. I still don’t.”

It’s an answer, but not to my question, so I wait.

His face burns hotter, and I cover his hand with mine, but I don’t relent. I don’t give him a pass just because that would be easier.

After a few minutes, he shudders, bending double before he straightens. “Because I was scared for months that we weren’t working and that most of it was my fault.” His voice drops even lower. “That’s part of why I wanted to marry you. To make it harder for you to leave.”

He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, the other clutching onto mine. “I’ve fucked everything, haven’t I?” His face twists, and it looks like he’s about to cry. “I was awful to you, I’m so sorry.” He finally meets my gaze again. “I don’t know how to put this right.”

There’s hope in his expression, like I might tell him some secret path to get us back to where we were. Except ‘where we were’ isn’t the place I want to be, and I don’t know how to fix things, either. I’m just working on instinct, hoping it will all shake out okay in the end.

“Well, I hope you work it out, otherwise, I’ve got your initials carved into my butt for absolutely no reason.”

His face creases with laughter. “You’re still mine. Even if you run off with some decrepit old man—”

“Hey,” Daegan rumbles in warning.

“—you’ll always be mine.”

“You talk a good game,” Daegan says, leaning forward to catch his son’s eye. “But I doubt you’ve ever gone to bat against a real man.”

“A real man who sucks cock.”

I twist to face Daegan with renewed interest. “You do?”

He shifts uneasily in his seat, glancing around the room though there’s nobody nearby. “Sometimes, when I’m working.” He raises his finger, looking past me to Harrison. “And I confessed that in confidence.”

“Do you let people watch?”

His face takes on a rosier tinge than normal and I’m delighted to have found something to upset his usual composure. “Not even if they buy me a house.”

I blow a raspberry at him. “Lame. What about special requests?”

“Why do you want to see men pleasuring each other?”

“I don’t know. Why do men want to see woman going down on each other? The world’s a strange place.” I poke him in the thigh. “What about on—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!”

“Because I’m a mind reader and I know exactly what you’re going to say.”

“What about you?” I glance back to Harrison. “Got anything you want to confess?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Not to this crowd.”

“What about…?” I get onto my knees, whispering directly into Daegan’s ear. “In a threesome with your son.”

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