Page 91 of The Passion

“Seven days and this will all be over. I called the meeting to expose and remove him. You should have seen his eyes when I told him I knew it was him who took the video. He couldn’t hide the panic from me, and I fucking loved backing him into a corner!”

Her words are forceful, and I know she needs to harness this energy to get through this, but it’s also not her. She may be a cutthroat businesswoman, but when it comes to her father, as much as she tries to stop it, there will always be a part of her that still longs for his love.

I’m not sure we were ready to play the card that we knew about his videos, but as I have said from the start, this is her life to make the choices on.

Seeing her take a deeper breath, I can tell she is trying to slow her brain down.

“What do you need from me?”

I’m not sure what I’m really asking her. Do I mean with her father, or for her right now? Honestly, it’s both.

“Love and support, something he never gave me.” It’s sad that she is now looking back at her childhood too and questioning if he ever loved her. Surely, he did. No man could look at the adorable little girl I’ve seen in photos and not love her. Shows the kind of man he truly is.

Taking the glass from her hand, I place it on the bar along with mine.

“You have both in spades from me and should never doubt that.” I pull her into my arms and wrap her up tightly, which she reciprocates.

There are no tears as she lays her head on my chest, but I can hear her breathing. And sometimes that is all you need, the moment to take stock of what is happening around you.

“Have you eaten?” There was no way I could eat, worrying about her, so she probably hasn’t either.

“Not since breakfast.” She looks up at me with her sheepish eyes, knowing I won’t be happy with her answer.

“Normally I would want to put you over my knee and spank you for that, but I will let you off today because I’ll confess, I couldn’t eat tonight either. But I’m fixing that right now.” Taking her hand, I start to drag her toward the kitchen when I hear a little giggle I wasn’t expecting from her.

“I didn’t know spanking was an option. Maybe I’ll have to misbehave more often.”

I try to conjure up every bit of restraint I have, not to stop and throw her over my shoulder and head for the bedroom.

“Be careful what you wish for, beautiful,” I get out with my gritted teeth locked tight together.

“Maybe I’m not hungry.” She is trying my patience now.

“Maybe I’ll tie you down and force-feed you. You want love and support, but you didn’t say how I had to deliver it. There is no way I’m taking you to bed and making you forget about your shit day without fuel for your body. Because let me assure you, you’re going to need every bit of energy you can find.” I lift her up and sit her on my kitchen counter, and the vision of her naked here the other night flashes in my mind, when I fucked her senseless after I ate the strawberries and chocolate sauce off her body. The dip of her head and flush on her cheeks tells me she is replaying it in her head too.

“Okay, feed me,” she whispers, and I step away, turning my back and adjusting my cock that is now hard in my trousers, and proceed to see what I have in the fridge that I can make quickly.

I pull out the ingredients for a beef stir fry and start to prep.

“Okay, let’s get it all out. Tell me everything that happened, and then we can forget it for the rest of the night.” I start chopping the onion and see her flinch a little at the thought of talking about it, but she pushes herself anyway.

Before long we had hashed it all out and talked about what we need to do the next few days to make sure that Ewan is watched. It’s the shitty thing about corporate rules. Having to wait seven days for the meeting gives him time to sabotage things, but we just have to hope the fear of being exposed as the lowlife he is will be enough that he might walk away gracefully.

My gut tells me that will never happen, but one can hope.

Wiping the slate clean of talk about Ewan, we are sitting down to eat when my phone rings. Normally I would ignore it, but it’s Rem, and he wouldn’t be calling on a Friday night if it wasn’t something important.

I pick up the call. “Rem.”

“Cherie is at the club, and it’s on.” I can feel the tension that I just tried so hard to get rid of crawl through my body. I can’t sayI feel comfortable putting Cherie in danger, but Felisha took that decision out of my hands when she agreed to it and made the call for her to go ahead.

“Hang on.” Putting my phone on the table, I push the speaker button. Felisha is already sitting up straighter in her chair because she knows by me doing this, it’s something that involves her.

“You are on speaker now, and Felisha is here too.” Taking her hand, I wrap it in mine and squeeze tight to show we are in this together.

“Okay, Cherie has messaged me that Ewan just turned up at the club and she is going to take him on tonight. I haven’t heard anything further from her and won’t until she is finished. Using a phone in a room like that would be so fucking dangerous.”

“God, why did I do this? I don’t care about him, but I am sending a stranger into a place she could be hurt. I’m using her. Does that make me as bad as my father, using people as pawns in his game?”

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