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Furrowing my brows deeply, I pursed my lips together as a twinge of irritation swept through me. Everything I had so carefully planned had fallen apart mid-way through. Hailey’s desire to be immobilized had just intensified my need to fuck her brains out; the exact same thing that happened at that club had happened again. The only difference now was I could see what happened afterwards, and the guilt that I’d always felt about that night didn’t burrow into my chest.
She hadn’t been fudging the truth even a little bit when she said that she wasn’t hurt. Seeing her, now, was almost like closure.
“So…” Breaking me from my thoughts, Hailey’s roughened voice slithered in my ears above the sound of the weatherwoman, and I tilted my head. From this angle, I had a clear view up her nose, and my throat tightened with affection. “What do you want to do about that guy?”
“I’m gonna make a call. If my father did hire him, I’ll find out. I find it hard to believe that it was a coincidence.” Even though there was a chance it wasn’t, I was fairly certain that Hailey’s run-in with that guy was a hint tactic that my father knew where I was. That alone wasn’t so worrying, but I still clenched my teeth absently as I thought about the situation. If my father found out about Antonya and Hailey, he’d make the biggest fucking issue of it.
These past few weeks, I’d really began to understand that there were options; just because my father had a heart attack didn’t mean I was trapped in his clutches. He was perfectly capable of handling himself if he was careful, and I’d spent innumerable hours in therapy trying to figure out why he wouldn’t let me go.
It was no secret that my father wasn’t an easy man; he was so demanding and controlling that my mother had killed herself to get away from him. She’d tried to leave him several times before, but he always got her back somehow.
The first time, I’d been 12, then 15, then 17, and then she’d overdosed when I was 20. It’d only cemented my hatred for my dad, and after 12 years of going through what she had, I understood her decision.
“You know, Hailey… I wouldn’t mind doing this for the rest of my life.” Speaking up slowly, I leaned my head back against the couch to suck in a sharp breath, and Hailey hummed softly in acknowledgment. “I’ve worked so much the past 15 years… I don’t think it’d be too bad not to pick up where I left off in real estate.”
“You’d be a house husband and let me be the breadwinner? It’s not shameful to you ‘cause you’re a dominant manly-man?” Throwing her probing into the light atmosphere, Hailey didn’t so much as twitch a muscle to lift her head. Shaking my head even though she couldn’t see, I continued my ministrations on her leg absently as my mind worked.
“I have money—it’s not like I’m a deadbeat p-o-s. You work because you love it. There’s no shame in letting you do something you love and have worked so hard for.” Pursing my lips together, I stared at the ceiling to exhale a heavy breath. “Being a dom isn’t about oppressing you… you remember what I said about not having a fragile masculinity?”
“Yeah... you have a point. You wouldn’t be a deadbeat.” Drawling a response, Hailey carefully slid her legs off my lap, and I lifted my head as she sat up with a harsh grunt. Pulling her bra up over her breast, she carefully switched arms to nestle Antonya. Watching her adjust herself in the growing silence, I arched a brow at the thoughtful expression playing on her face. “I don’t want you for your money, Anthony. I like working, yeah, but…”
“Babe—it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it in depth right now. I just thought you should know.” Speaking up as Hailey trailed off, I took a deep breath as she glanced at me wearily from under heavy lids. “We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing, yeah.”
“No,
I think we need to talk about it.” Propping her legs back on my lap as she leaned back against the armrest, Hailey held my gaze with a faint glint of determination. “I mean, you’ve got millions of freakin’ dollars. I’ll probably never make a tiny fraction of that in my entire life. If you really don’t want to work anymore, that’s fine, but I need a contingency plan… just in case. That’s the person I am—I’ve always been. It’s not because I don’t trust you, Anthony.”
Hailey was quick to defend herself, and I narrowed my eyes on her as her face tinged pink.
“I know you trust me, Hailey.” Licking my lips heavily, I couldn’t help but frown at the ugly, black blotch that spread across my chest. “It’s an assholeish thing to say, but it’s not about you. It’s not about your trust or whether or not you think you’re taking advantage of me. I just… don’t want to work. I don’t want to work when I can do this instead. If I never see the inside of an office building again, it’ll be too soon. If my dad is trying to track me down, he’ll try to do some extreme stuff, and I need you to know that what I want is to be right here.”
“Oh, that’s not assholeish…” Understanding flashed in Hailey’s eyes, and the redness in her face paled back to her natural complexion. My lungs deflated at the slight smile she shot me, and I kneaded her calf absently as invisible weights lifted from my chest. “I thought you meant because you wanted me to stop working if I got stressed or something—that you could just take over. You can do whatever you want, Anthony. Your dad can’t intimidate me. I did nothing wrong. If you don’t want to work, you don’t have to.”
For a brief moment, I wondered how Hailey could’ve possibly missed the point of what I’d said, but I only shook my head. She’d just repeated back my original declaration after telling me she needed a contingency plan and that she trusted me not to dump her. It’s the breastfeeding… it makes her loopy.
“Yeah—I don’t want to.” Making sure I spoke clearly and didn’t catch her off guard, I squeezed Hailey’s leg as her smile widened. The knots in my chest dissolved instantly, and I leaned back against the sofa only for her to rub the pad of her foot and toes against my abdomen over my shirt.
“Okay.”
Chapter 23
Hailey
“I’m not saying I don’t want to go, babe, I just don’t know Marissa or her husband all that well. It’s kind of awkward to go to their anniversary party.” Licking my lips heavily at Anthony’s rationalization, I frowned as I watched the suburbs of Marissa’s neighborhood flow by beyond the windshield.
“The only reason you have to go is because she explicitly asked me to ask you, Anthony.” His palm resting on my thigh flexed, fingers squeezing my flesh and sending goosebumps down my leg, and I sighed heavily. “Trust me—there’s a reason you haven’t met my brothers-in-law yet.”
Nibbling on my bottom lip, I tilted my head to catch Anthony’s curious stare, and my frown deepened. The honest to God truth was that I didn’t want anyone to recognize him and beg for money. Just the idea of it was mortifying, and I flushed even as I opened my mouth.
“They… they can be a lot to handle. Especially when there are no kids around. It’s not often they get to be boys and get tipsy. They’re all pretty young, with lots of responsibility.” If Anthony could tell I was only telling half the truth, he didn’t show any indication of it, and he nodded firmly. The car rolled as he took his foot off the gas, and I twisted to glance at Antonya’s soft, wispy hair peeking up over the back of her car seat. “Marissa’s had this babysitter for four years, and Tracy’s babysitter will be there, too. That’s the only reason I’m comfortable going. I don’t drink, and I don’t want Antonya around drinkers—even social ones.”
“…You never told me what happened to your dad—you only talk about your mom.” My breath caught, and my heart stuttered in its cage at Anthony’s none-too-subtle shift of conversation. Stiffening as the vehicle glided towards my sister’s house, I opened my mouth only to close it as he watched me from the corner of his eye. His hand dragged up and down under my sundress, and I felt the blood rush from my face.
“I’m not talking about it.” My voice cracked harshly, and I inhaled a shaky breath as we came upon Marissa’s already packed driveway. “Ask one of my sisters.”
The subject of alcohol and my distaste for it must’ve given Anthony the impression that my father was a drunk, but he couldn’t have been more wrong; I wasn’t going to correct him, though. Reaching to rub my chest as it tightened to the point of suffocation, I held my breath in fiery lungs while he pulled up on the curb. Music pulsed up from the wheels and through the windows, and I closed my eyes to focus on it.
“I’m sorry, babe, I won’t ask again.” Regret roughened Anthony’s voice, and he twisted the key in the ignition to halt the rumbling of the engine. Unbuckling myself, I popped open the door even as the sense that he had more to say settled on my shoulders. Pausing with one heeled foot on the sidewalk, I turned back to him to lean across the center console and plant my lips on his.
