Owned by My Sinful Guardian novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Five Thousand a Month

Over dinner Darby learns her guardian paid for the culinary school she was told he refused and sends twelve times the allowance she sees, and Magnus catches her uncle's hand on her knee.

He sat down across from me and didn't look at my mouth.

He looked at the bread basket.

He looked at the candle, the tablecloth, the wine list.

Ten minutes ago I had been on my knees in front of him.

Now he laid his napkin across his lap.

"Mr. Thorley." Randall half stood and pumped his hand. "Randall Fisk. Finally. This is my wife, Joanne."

"Mrs. Fisk."

Joanne touched the chain on her glasses and smiled her church smile.

"And this is our girl," Randall said. "All grown up."

Magnus's jaw moved once.

"Darby," he said again, very quietly.

My name sounded different in his mouth now.

I could still taste him.

I reached for my water and drank half of it.

A waiter appeared at his elbow and bent low.

"Chef, the kitchen wants to know if you'd like the tasting menu for the table."

"Chef?" I said.

"It's my restaurant," Magnus said to the bread basket.

So the marble washroom was his.

I had walked straight into his private washroom and asked for nothing and taken everything.

My face went hot all the way down my neck.

Randall slapped the table, delighted.

"Well, look at that. Thirteen years, Joanne, and I always pictured him in a bank somewhere."

"Bring the tasting menu," Magnus told the waiter.

Randall's knee nudged mine under the table.

"Go on, kid."

I knew the speech.

I had been practicing it since I was nine.

"Thank you, Mr. Thorley," I said. "For everything."

"Everything," Randall repeated. "The roof. The food. The braces. Tell him about the braces."

"The braces," I said.

Magnus's knuckles had gone white around his glass.

"You don't owe me a thank-you."

"Sure she does." Randall laughed. "We raised her right. Didn't we, Jo?"

"We did our best," Joanne said to her plate.

The first course came, three tiny spoons of something with a foam on top.

Randall ate his in one bite and asked if there was bread.

Magnus finally lifted his eyes.

They stopped on my forehead and stayed there, carefully.

"How did culinary school go?"

The table went quiet.

"I didn't go," I said.

"You got in. You were accepted at eighteen."

"And you said no."

He set his spoon down.

"I said what?"

"Your benefactor says cooking isn't a career." I heard Randall's voice coming out of my mouth. "That's what I was told. So I did two years of accounting at the community college."

Magnus turned his head and looked at my uncle.

It was the first time all night he'd looked straight at anyone.

"I wired forty-eight thousand dollars for that tuition," he said. "In July. To you."

Randall chewed his bread.

"There were complications. Fees, deposits, you know how schools are. And honestly, she chose accounting. Sensible girl."

"I didn't choose anything," I said.

"Darby," Joanne whispered.

Magnus was very still.

He was a big man, and stillness on a big man looked like a held breath.

"What did you spend your allowance on?" he asked me. "I always hoped it was something stupid."

"Bus passes," I said. "And knives. Four hundred a month doesn't go far."

His eyebrows drew down.

"Four hundred."

"Since I was sixteen. Before that, Aunt Joanne bought my clothes." I glanced at her. "At the church sale, mostly."

The waiter set down the second course and backed away fast.

Magnus didn't touch his plate.

"The check is five thousand," he said. "Every month. Since the month you moved into their house."

Nobody spoke.

I did the math the way the community college had taught me.

Five thousand dollars.

Twelve months.

Thirteen years.

Seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

I thought about the coat I'd worn for four winters with the lining safety-pinned.

I thought about Randall's new glass showroom out on Route 22, and the ribbon cutting, and the cake.

Joanne's fork slid off her plate and rang against the floor.

"Well, now," Randall said, smiling. "Some of that was for her future, Mr. Thorley. Investments. You'd be surprised what a growing girl costs."

"Tell me," Magnus said. "I'd like to hear it."

Randall's hand dropped under the tablecloth and closed on my knee.

He squeezed until the bone ground.

It was the grip he used in church when I fidgeted.

It was the grip he used in the car when I talked back.

It meant shut up, smile, or you'll pay for it later.

My breath caught, and I smiled.

Magnus couldn't have seen it under the tablecloth.

He saw my face.

His chair scraped back an inch.

"Take your hand off her."

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