Page 36 of Victorious Vice

She bats her eyes. “My father asked me to…take care of you this evening since he’s not here to see to your entertainment.”

I blink a few times. “I don’t require any entertainment.”

“What about a night out on the town?”

I bite my lip. “I’m afraid I’m exhausted.”

“Then a night in,” she says demurely, leaning in.

“I’m afraid I have too much work to do this evening.”

“You do understand what I’m offering you,” she says, her tone flirtatious.

Yes, I’d be an idiot not to pick up on her innuendo. I find it all disgusting. She is beautiful, but I’m not even slightly interested in someone underage. Hell, I’m not interested in anyone overage either. I’m interested only in one woman—a woman who I can’t have.

“I do,” I say. “And I’m not interested in an evening with a child.”

She widens her eyes. “Do I look like a child to you?”

I can’t answer that truthfully because indeed I mistook her for a twenty-something when I first saw her.

“What you look like is irrelevant,” I say. “You are a child in my eyes. I’m afraid I must decline.”

She wrinkles her forehead. “No one declines, Señor Gallo.”

“Then let me be the first, Señorita Agudelo.”

“Please, Daniela. Or Dani, if you prefer.” She lays her hand over mine. “And it may interest you, Señor Gallo, that here in Colombia the age of consent is fourteen years. It is not a crime to take a woman of my age for the evening.”

Sheisbeautiful. Just by the way she speaks I can tell how intelligent she is. And that’s in what I assume is her second language. Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether she’s legal or not. A man my age has no business sleeping with a woman under eighteen. Hell, I don’t have any business sleeping with a woman under twenty-five.

Daniela should be following her interests, her passions. Studying cooking if that’s what she desires. Or something else. She can make a life for herself, I can tell that much just from a short conversation with her.

Damn. She has a lot in common with Belinda.

I hate when my mind goes to her. And what her father’s undoubtedly doing to her this evening. I wipe the thought from my head. But still… That child should be preparing for life as a virtuoso pianist. She has a gift. She’s a prodigy.

Perhaps Daniela is too. Perhaps she has the capacity to become a master chef.

“Daniela,” I begin, “I’m not interested in anyentertainmentthis evening.”

She twists a strand of hair around her finger. “I know what I look like, Mr. Gallo. I know how beautiful I am. People have been telling me I’m beautiful since I was twelve.” She sticks her chest out, nearly knocking me out of my seat. “I was an early bloomer, you see. And don’t feel like you have to be some kind of hero. You don’t. I’ve been entertaining my father’s colleagues for the last two years.”

Two years? She’s been doing this since she was fifteen?

Apparently, this particular family doesn’t require their females to remain virgins until they’re married.

Of course, my own family is a crock on that front anyway. My mother was no virgin when she married my father. She had been raped by her own father and left pregnant with me.

“Don’t you have anything to say to that?” Daniela asks.

I put my wine glass down and look deep into her eyes. “To be honest, Daniela, I find that very sad. You should never have to do that. You should never have to give yourself to men as entertainment. Certainly not at your father’s orders.” I feel another pang of nausea in my gut. “You’re seventeen years old. I’m thirty-four. I’m twice as old as you are.”

She scoffs. “Thirty-four is young. Most of the men I entertain here are in their forties or fifties.”

“Then I feel even worse for you.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I’m not asking for your pity, Señor. I’m asking you to let me entertain you this evening.”

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