Page 1 of Flog Me, Sir

Chapter One

Lissa

Ididn’t usually work much past three, but with the Laurents hosting a huge dinner party and Mrs. Hummel, their housekeeper, needing extra hands, I offered to help. Add in our employers paid double overtime, and I had jumped at the chance to slip between the rich and famous like a wraith, unseen and unimportant, silently gathering fodder for my muse while handing out hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

The scent of champagne and booze wafting off the glasses I offered to the guests, however, turned my stomach. I kept my pasted smile in place, focusing on the extra dollars I could hoard away rather than the memories fighting to cower me in my new black shoes. I’d fought PTSD for years from a childhood fraught with alcohol, abuse, and an absolute lack of love, and not a day went by that something triggered the control I held a tight rein on.

Thanks to my mom and whoever the addict was who donated his sperm to create me, I had issues I’d fought to erase from my mind for years. I had grown—moved on physically—but still dealt with the bullshit, especially since meeting Mrs. Hummel three months earlier and finally realizing fully what I had missed out on as a child. The elderly housekeeper had hugged me the moment we’d met, loving me and taking me under her wing two weeks later when I’d begun my job at the Laurents’ estate. As though she’d seen through my murky hazel eyes, deep into my soul, and recognized I needed a momma hen.

And the Laurents themselves...

I’d never met such nice, real people, who seemed to accept me as an equal. Rich, blessed with the Midas touch to the point even the weather cooperated with their dinner plans—and not for the first time, I’d been told.

Stars twinkled overhead, most of their hundred plus guests meandering in a sea of low voices in the open air rather than watching the live band beneath one of the three tents set up beyond their sprawling mansion’s formal gardens.

Warm air licked at my sweat-dampened skin as I made my way back toward the house, but I smiled while breathing in the scents of summer’s sweet flowers, fresh mulch, and soil. The sliver of moon couldn’t compete with the stars, same as me in my black and white uniform among the sequins and glittering jewels of the Laurents’ affluent guests, but I appreciated the white orb’s desire to be seen.

I preferred the opposite, however.

Imagining a fairy tale ending could take place on such a night, I set my mind on the scene I had been writing for my newest manuscript and set aside a tray with its emptied glasses.

“Slowing a bit?” Mrs. Hummel asked from the spot she’d taken up in the middle of the vast kitchen.

“A bit, yes,” I replied, while retrieving another tray full of bubbling liquid, trying not to breathe in too deeply the scent of alcohol.

“How are you, child?” she asked, her chocolate-brown eyes peering into mine, no hint of her usual white smile flashing from her cocoa-like skin.

“Good.” I smiled—but it lacked the same sincerity I’d shown to no one but myself while being beneath the stars moments earlier.

“If’n this is too much, you let me know.” Mrs. Hummel pointed at the champagne in my hands, and I nodded, knowing exactly what she’d meant.

Knowing there was no safe place for me in the world, I tended to keep to myself, but in the short time I’d known her, Mrs. Hummel had pulled my secrets from me easy as vinegar wiped up streaked window panes. There wasn’t anything she didn’t know about me—and I’d found that speaking to her had helped far beyond what the counselors at school had done. A free therapist, she offered what many hadn’t, and I clung to her motherly arms and listening ears.

“I appreciate you,” I murmured to her in passing as I often did.

“Same, child,” she whispered back.

Feeling a bit lighter, I stepped once more beneath the star-filled sky, glancing first right then left for guests who might wish for a fresh glass.

Mr. and Mrs. Laurent—Adam and Lily, they’d insisted I call them—stood on the patio’s far end. She leaned against his taller form, gazing up at him with a soft smile, the type of emotion I didn’t understand shining on her face. A part of me longed for such feelings, such acceptance, but the smarter side of my brain pushed such sentiment away.

Hand on her neck in a possessive hold, Adam gently kissed her forehead and glanced my way. He smiled, but his grin widened as he glanced over my shoulder.

“It’s about time!” He called to someone beyond me as one of his guests picked a filled flute off my tray. “What the hell, man?”

I dipped my head at a party-goer’s quiet word of thanks, and someone brushed against my arm, sending a shiver through me at the rich, deep voice returning Adam’s greeting.

A tall man approached my employer, his dark hair a touch long, kissing the collar of the tux hugging his shoulders. His trim waist and a jacket short enough to reveal his fine backside sent another shiver over me. From the back, he appeared the perfect Disney prince come to life, perfect in every way—

“Excuse me?”

I jerked my focus off the newcomer, forcing a smile at a narrowed-gazed woman. I lifted my tray. “More champagne, ma’am?” I repeated what I’d done a dozen times that night.

She picked up a glass with bejeweled fingers, glancing at the man who had snagged my attention. A sniff pursed her lips as though she wondered why the hell I even wasted my time looking at such a man.

As if I didn’t know my station in life.

I ignored the stinging thought, keeping my fake smile in place and moved on as though invisible, more than happy to do so.

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