Page 10 of Revenge On Her Dad's Best Friends

“I’m back. Now where was I? Oh, yes. It’s me. It’s Calista Ann Saunders, my dudes.”My dudes? Okay, that came out of nowhere and certainly did not apply to the men before her. They were the epitome of sophistication and suaveness, with prowess that came with age and experience. She hadn’t realized, but for every guy her age that asked her out, she’d subconsciously compared them to Bradford, Reece, and Zachariah and then said no.

Which only made her more annoyed at them. It wasn’t because she wanted every guy to be as confident, as lazily arrogant with a glint of danger and a truckload of power. No, not at all. She wanted to date guys her age. She wanted to get married and have lots of babies. But the reason she compared every other male on the planet to them was simple. She had unfinished business. And she was here to end it all with them, so she could move on.

“Calista Ann Saunders,” she repeated. “Remember me? Hank Saunders’ daughter.”

“We don’t know what you’re up to, but we will give you one chance to unlock these cuffs.” The sound of Bradford’s voice, deep, dark, dangerous, husky but rough, seemed to melt her brain cells and startle her clit. What the freaking hell was happening to her?

"Shh,” she said, placing her finger on Bradford’s lips, still quivering at hearing him speak. She had to get a grip. Now was not the time to come undone. With her finger still on his lips while he looked at her with such intense darkness in his gaze, she used her other hand and retrieved one of the black silk bands in the pocket of the shirt.

“You don’t get to talk,” she still, a little more recovered. “Not right now. Not until I say everything I want to say with zero interruptions.” Thank goodness she was back. She then proceeded to gag Bradford with the ribbon, forcing it between his parted lips and tying it at the back of his head.

“Fuck,” Zachariah said as she did the same to Reece, and then it was his turn. “You sure you want to do this?”

Oh god. No. No. No. She couldn’t allow herself to become unglued again.

“Five years worth of absolutely sure, yes,” she said cheekily and very quickly gagged Zachariah before he could say anything else and mess with nerves again. And her nipples. It meant nothing, she assured herself.

“Now,” she said, standing in front of them once more. “Need me to jog your memory even more. Hank was your best friend. He loved you three. He adored you. He thought of you as his brothers. He never stopped talking about you. He admired you. He was in awe of you. And what did you do? You forgot about him—”

Reece muttered something, shaking his head in denial.

“But you did,” Calista said, cutting him off, her tone reaching an emotional breaking point. “He asked you to look out for me. He begged you. I was there in the hospital room with you. I heard him. But you know what? I was nineteen years old. I didn’t need to be taken care of. I didn’t need babysitting.

“I just needed to be close to my dad’s best friends. That’s all. I know you’re busy making your billions of dollars and things, but I would have settled for a lunch a year even. One lunch date.” She held up her index finger. “Just one hour a year,” she added, waving her finger around now.

“Would it have killed you to sit with me over a burger and tell me stories about my dad when he was young? Would it have killed you to do that?” Not waiting for an answer, because well, they couldn’t answer her intelligibly and she wasn’t interested in flimsy excuses, so she dove right back in.

“But oh, you didn’t just discard me. Oh no. You tried to pay me off, or shut me up, I guess, by putting ten million dollars into my bank account. I suppose you thought that exonerated you? That I would be so thrilled with the money and just go away." She paused for effect, running her fingers through her hair. “Newsflash, I’m still here.”

Chapter Ten

Calista gave herself a mental high five. She was doing so well. Now she just had to keep at it.

“But then,” she continued, “stupid me wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, because surely that ten million dollars was not ‘shut up and go away’ money, right? You wouldn’t do that to Hank’s daughter, would you? So I tested you. I bought a fridge.”

She did. She bought a whole ass fridge when hers stopped working and purposefully used their money to make the purchase. That had been the first time she ever used a single cent from the ten million dollars. Since all her other attempts to see them had failed, she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to open the lines of communication between them, since everything else failed.

“I sent you a thank-you card for the fridge, along with a basket of cookies that I made from scratch and an invitation to dinner so I could thank you in person. Instead of accepting my invitation, you replaced the exact amount of money I used on the fridge, so I was back to ten million dollars again.”

At the time, she thought, okay, fine. But it wasn’t fine. She bought a car next and did the same thing. A thank-you card, a basket of muffins, and an invitation to dinner for an in-person thank you was sent. They silently declined her invitation andreplaced the money to take it back up to ten million dollars again.

That had annoyed her to no end, and then she started to play dirty.

“So the fridge didn’t work to open communication with you, nor the car, either. Or the pig farm, or the strip club—I bought a strip club because I thought that would certainly pique your attention—but nothing. And certainly nothing when I commissioned three bronze statues of you three, which now stand in the wind on some land in Montana that I also bought with your money. And still nothing but crickets.”

Yes, that was true as well. She’d gone all out for ways to draw them out and got zilch in return. Every penny she used from that ten million dollars, they replaced, no question asked. Oh yeah. They probably thought Calista would disappear after giving her a cool ten million dollars in the first place—that had to have been their reason. Unfortunately for them, there was no amount of money in the world enough to replace being close to the men her father loved like true brothers. How could they not see that?

“So I’m here now. This is my final goodbye, my in-person middle finger to you for being such dickwad friends. For cutting all ties with your best friend’s daughter because you three just didn’t care enough to take the time to check up on me once in a while. You won. I’m out.” She stopped, a frown settling on her face as she glanced at the three incredibly gorgeous men before her.

How was it possible that with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, their powerful biceps straining, their pecs taut, against the shocking crisp whiteness of their luxury-made shirts, and with that thick silk ribbon gagging them, they still looked like gods?

If she walked out, she was never going to see them again. Never try to make contact. She was going to move on with her life. With no thought of them at all. That was the whole reason for doing this.

Gotcha. Goodbye. Closure. Gotcha. Goodbye. Closure.

“That had been my original plan, but you know what? I think that’s a little too easy for you—”

Wait, what was she doing? This was off-script. She was meant to say goodbye. Say goodbye forever. So she could move on. See normal people her age. Start dating. To have a nice standard life where every thought she had wasn’t somehow entwined with them. Even when she wasn’t thinking about them, she was thinking about them. They lived rent-free in her head, and she desperately wanted to evict them. For good.

---