Page 9 of Sinful Attraction

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, young lady?”

“I’m getting away from you. All of you. And thinking whether I want to do that for good.”

My mother gasps like I’ve just slapped her. “Arya! You screwed up here. You’re only getting what you deserve. You can’t just sulk off and run away from your family—”

“You treat me like garbage, you push me away, and then you’re surprised when I go away. It’s not my fault I was spied on and sabotaged. For all I know, you’re the ones who warned the man you know is my rival just so he could sabotage me and give you an excuse to do all this.”

My father is so shocked he actually stops yelling and bitching at me and just stares. “Why the hell would we do that?”

“To try and force me to be a fucking housewife and pump out grandkids for you and have that be my whole life. Well, you know what? You can go the hell ahead and pull my equipment and my ability to use the home network. You can yell, and bitch, and scream, and sic your friends and relatives on me, but it’s not ever going to get you any grandbabies, ever. Not from me. Because I’d rather get my tubes tied in my twenties than let you two dinosaurs decide my future!”

My mother has gone pale. “Arya... you can’t mean that!”

“I absolutely do mean that. You can force me to stop working for this family, but you can’t force me to give up my whole life because your mindset never left the 1950s. And if you keep trying, you will no longer have a daughter to push around at all.”

My father breaks in. “Honey, look, I know I said some harsh words, but I’m angry—”

“Don’t give me your damn excuses,” I snap. “I may be a pariah in this family, but it’s not because I’m incompetent. It’s because I’m a woman, and I won’t toe the line for you.”

“Well, maybe if you actually did something to prove your competence with computers—” he starts.

Now, I really start crying. “I have been trying! But either you don’t notice, or you make excuses for why it isn’t good enough. Now, I manage to do something pretty damn spectacular, and I got sabotaged by your rivals!”

My father’s face twists with exasperation. He hates it when women cry. “Calm down,” he grumbles. “I don’t care how much it hurts your pride. You need to own up to your failings.”

“You first,” I snap and walk away. This time, I don’t let their shouting after me stop me.

It takes a while for me to pull myself back together. Knowing my parents, they’re going to pretend this blowup didn’t happen and expect me to do the same. However, they absolutely will pull all my admin privileges and equipment. They’ve been looking for an excuse to do it for years.

I feel broken inside. I was almost there. I almost managed to prove myself to my parents despite all their prejudices. I did all the work. I executed my plan perfectly.

I lost anyway.

And all because of one insufferable prick who had managed to dart in and take advantage while I was struggling to maintain security with second-rate equipment and not enough of the right software.

I hate you, Michael.

I’m so furious and disgusted that I drag his days-old email out of my filter folder and answer it. He’d asked me out again. Of course, he had. That audacious, overconfident jackass!

I answer, feeling my rage boiling inside of me as I write:

Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself.

This heist had nothing to do with you or your family. It was all about me and doing something for myself. But you just had to waltz in, fuck everything up, and humiliate me in front of my family. Did you even have a reason outside of fucking with me?

Well, congratulations. You managed to completely screw me over. This doesn’t even affect my family. In fact, it gives them an excuse to do some shit to me they’ve wanted to do for years. But my life’s never going to be the same after this.

I hope someone does to you what you’ve gone and done to me, you sonovabitch.

I send it and then block him. I don’t want to read any more of his bullshit. If I catch him at church again, and he tries to bother me, he’s getting a glass of punch in his face. And a real punch in his balls if I catch him on the street and it’s not Sunday.

In the meantime, though, I have to figure out how he got into my system and what inside person he has helping him. I swear to God, if I find out it’s my parents or one of my brothers, I am disowning all of them. But if it isn’t... then we have a spy in our house.

And since nobody will fucking listen to me, I’ll have to find them on my own.

Once I’ve cleared my name, I don’t know what I’ll do. Right now, I hate even the thought of my family. I feel trapped here. I’m sure they’ll cut me off if I run, but I don’t care.

But I do know one thing: Once I’ve sorted my life out, I’m looking up Michael Rossi again. And I’m going to make him pay.

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