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Her first step was the master suite, where she grabbed her brush from the counter in their bathroom before she headed to her room. After a quick change into a fresh pair of pajamas, she used the brush to pull her hair up into the high ponytail her Daddy favored.
Now she was ready for the corner. Well, she was dressed for the corner. She was never reallyreadyto just stand there for what felt like hours with her bare bottom on display, waiting to have said bare bottom spanked and paddled until she was certain she’d never ever sit comfortably again.
But she was in far too much trouble to even consider disobeying a direct order, so she walked to the corner where she pulled her pants and panties to her knees. And she stood there, nose to the wall, waiting for Daddy to come punish her.
Sometimes, she couldn’t focus while she waited. Her mind would bounce from their grocery list to work to movies she wanted to see, anything but the reason she was about to get her bottom roasted once again.
This time was different. What she could remember of the night before played over and over in her mind, starting from the moment Shannon had ordered the stupid drinks that had started it all. Between her own fuzzy memory and what Shannon and MaryAnn had filled in for her, it was easy to see she’d made a huge mess of things.
And that wasn’t even counting this morning. Not only had she been a whiny brat from the time she’d opened her eyes, she’d risked the business they’d worked so hard to build by letting her emotions get in the way of her sense. How could he ever forgive her?
The wood of the brush grew heavier with each passing minute. She imagined it was the weight of her husband’s disappointment, the weight of every mistake she’d made over the past twenty-four hours. Her arm began to ache well before the sound of the front door slamming shut reached her ears.
But the second it did, every nerve she possessed was at attention, waiting for the inevitable moment when her Daddy would enter the room and take her over his knee. She heard his footsteps on the wooden planks in the hall, closer and closer until they stopped. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and she knew without turning around that he was watching her. She wanted to run to him, to fall at his feet and beg forgiveness, but she knew it wouldn’t be welcome. Not until he called for her.
His footsteps started again, this time away from the doorway and down the hall. And a few minutes later, back toward her room. She grew restless while she listened to him moving around the room behind her. Why wouldn’t he just call for her already?
“Stop fidgeting, Olivia.”
She nearly lifted her foot to stomp it, but managed to curb the urge before she dug her grave any deeper. If the waiting was part of her punishment, she would do her best to accept it with grace. Still, her impatience grew and grew until he finally called her name.
Time to face the music.
“Come here, Olivia.”
As slowly as she dared, Olivia turned and shuffled across the room to stand in front of him. James sat in the straight-backed chair from her desk, his back tall and stiff, tapping his fingers on one knee. Serious eyes watched her progress across the room, until she was standing in front of him, clutching her hairbrush, her heart pounding at the thought of the punishment to come.
“Tell me about last night.”
Finally. “We went to this Mexican restaurant and we each had a margarita with dinner and then we came home. That’s the truth, I swear.”
“One margarita?”
Her head bobbed up and down so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. “Uh huh.”
Eyes narrowing dangerously, he studied her, and she hoped he could see the truth of her words in her face. “What kind of margarita?”
“Sir?”
“What kind of margarita, exactly, gets two women so wasted they can barely stand up straight? Was it a special kind of tequila? Or,” he leaned forward, sending her pulse racing even faster, “is my little girl leaving out some key details about this margarita?”
Shit. If he hadn’t asked, she might have been able to dance around it. But she wasn’t about to tell an outright lie. She didn’t make a habit of lying anyway, and she wasn’t stupid enough to start when she was already in so much trouble. “Well. Um. It was a jumbo margarita.”
“Define ‘jumbo’ for me, Olivia.”
Shrugging, she nervously began tapping the brush against her leg. “I dunno.”
“Olivia Jane Monroe, unless you want me to blister your bottom with that brush every day for the next week, you’d better start talking.”
“It was big, okay?” she blurted out, tears again filling her eyes. “It was at least three, maybe four normal margaritas, just in one gigantic container.”
“So, when you received said margarita, did you honestly believe you were obeying my rule to only have one drink?”
“No, Daddy,” she whispered.
“But you drank it anyway, even though you knew it was naughty and disobedient.” The disappointment in his voice nearly brought her to her knees.
“Yes, Daddy.”
