Page 21 of Taken By Him

“Okay, I’ll talk with her.”

“Dinner is ready.”

“Just put it on the stove,” I say and take off toward my office. Someone needs a lesson in being nosey. She may or may not be going to bed without dinner. It depends on her answers to my questions.

When I come to the door, I stare at it for a moment, listening. Something drops, then a curse. I pull the key from my pocket and slowly slip it into the lock. I want the element of surprise here. I want to see what she’s up to without giving her enough time to hide her actions.

With a quick turn of the lock and flip of the handle, I step inside. She has her nose buried in my laptop. But her hands freeze over the keyboard.

“Kasia,” I say her name tentatively. I’m not sure if I should be angry with her yet.

“Dominik,” she mimics my tone. Strike one, little girl.

“What are you doing in here?” I ask, walking around the furniture and behind where she sits. I grab the computer before she can close it.

“Nothing.” She sits back in my chair and folds her arms over her chest. “Am I not allowed an internet connection?”

I pick up the laptop. She’s checking email. The inbox is empty, mostly newsletters and advertisements. This is a decoy email. I wonder what’s in her actual account. The one she uses for real correspondence.

Closing the laptop, I set it aside on my desk. I’ll have someone go through it to find out exactly what she was doing in here.

“You have internet up in your room,” I remind her, pushing the chair around until she has to look up at me.

“I thought I’d just sit in here. I mean if this is to be my home, I didn’t think any room would be off limits.” She tilts her head. “Or is it?”

There’s a challenge in her eyes. She’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t be, but she’s daring me to call her out on it.

“You locked the door. Margaret was worried.” I put one hand on the arm of the chair and another on the desk. She’s sweetly caged before me.

“Why? I’m in the house. Locked away just like you wanted.” She lifts a shoulder. A lot of sass for a girl who’s been caught snooping.

“What were you looking for?” I ask, knowing full well I can’t trust her answer.

“I told you, I was checking email.”

“You want to stick to that?” I ask, giving her a chance to come clean.

Her bottom lip tucks back. She’s trying so hard to stand her ground, to keep her secrets. With my thumb, I pull it free and run my thumb along her lip.

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she says finally. She believes the statement, that much is clear. So, either she was doing something she thinks is right, but I would disagree, or she was doing nothing. The pink hue on her cheeks suggests it’s the first. She’s guilty, but she’s trying to convince herself otherwise.

“Rule number three, Kasia. No lying to me. Ever.”

Her jaw tightens. She hates my rules, hates that I give them to her and expect her to be obedient to them. It’s fine, she can hate them, despise them, but she will follow them.

“I’m not lying,” she says with hesitation, like she’s testing out the words, unsure if they’ll stick.

“I heard something drop before I came in. What was it?” I ask, keeping my eyes trained on hers.

She gives herself away too easily, flicking her gaze for a fleeting second to the ledger on the bookcase next to us. It’s a worthless book, filled with made up numbers and contacts. Fiction for the feds if they should ever find reason to go through my things. There’s nothing in this house for them to find, or her for that matter. Whatever she was looking for, she won’t find it in here.

I push off the chair and pick up the ledger.

“This?”

“It fell. I picked it up and put it away,” she explains quickly. For having such a corrupt father, she never learned the art of deception.

Her innocence combined with the building fear in her eyes makes my cock stir in my slacks. She’s dressed in a summer dress today, a light purple cotton dress. Her long thick hair is braided down her back, but a few strands won’t be tamed and frame her face. She’s to be my wife in a matter of days, being attracted to her is only a bonus.

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