Page 62 of Merciless Daddy

“What happened?”

“I failed her.”

That answer removed some of the fight.

Not enough.

“You don’t get to wake something up in me and then stand there explaining regulations,” she said.

There it was.

Not merely lust.

Something had awakened in her too. Praise had reached beneath the princess, beneath the strategist, beneath the woman who managed every room because nobody else could be trusted with it. A Little might live there. Not weak. Not helpless. A private self that wanted structure because structure meant she could stop watching every door.

And perhaps I had not killed the part of myself capable of meeting her there.

Perhaps Daddy had not died.

Perhaps I had only locked him away.

“Yelena,” I said softly.

“No.” She pointed at me. “Do not use that voice now.”

“What voice?”

“You know exactly which voice.”

I did.

She turned and reached the door.

“Yelena.”

She stopped but did not look back.

“When Kiryl is safe, we have the conversation.”

Her shoulders rose with one controlled breath.

“If I still want it.”

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then nothing happens.”

Now she looked over her shoulder.

Her eyes were furious. Her mouth was soft from wanting a kiss she had not received. She was the sexiest thing I had ever seen, and she knew it.

“I hope you suffer,” she said.

“I’m suffering.”

“Good.”