Please Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not in the Building, Sir

Livia burns her hand on his coffee, he holds her wrist under cold water and nearly kisses her, she shuts it down with his own rule, and that night a text gives her an address and a midnight deadline.

I carried his coffee down the hall with my glasses still on.

It was a small act of war, and I felt every step of it.

Quentin looked up from his screen when I came in.

"Glasses," he said.

I set the cup on his blotter and took them off.

He looked at my face for a long moment, and I made myself look back at his left eyebrow.

A thin scar cut through it, pale against his skin.

I hadn't seen it in the dark on Saturday, and I had wondered about it all morning.

"You changed the color of your hair," he said. "You changed your clothes and your name."

"Mr. Stroud, I've never met you before today."

"The eyes you couldn't change."

He picked up the cup.

It was too hot, and the lid had not been pressed down.

The coffee slopped over the rim and across the back of my hand.

I hissed through my teeth and he was on his feet before I could pull away.

He took my wrist and walked me into the private washroom behind his office.

He turned the cold tap on and held my hand under it.

"Stay there," he said.

"It's fine. It's only coffee."

"It's your hand. Be quiet."

The water ran over my knuckles.

His thumb lay across the inside of my wrist, right on the pulse.

I could feel my heartbeat knocking against it, loud and stupid and fast.

He had to feel it too.

He didn't say a word about it.

I looked at the mirror above the sink and saw the side of his face.

His jaw was tight.

His breathing had gone slow and careful.

He shut off the tap and kept my hand where it was, wrapped in his towel, longer than a burn needed.

"It isn't blistered," he said.

"Then you can let go."

"I can."

He didn't.

He leaned down, slowly, until his mouth was an inch from mine and I could smell the coffee and the soap on his hands.

My eyes went to his mouth.

I couldn't stop them.

"Not in the building, sir," I said.

He stopped.

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he let go of my wrist.

"You're quoting my rules back at me on your first day."

"You said it, Mr. Stroud. I'm only a very good listener."

"So you are."

He walked out of the washroom and sat down behind his desk.

"Go to lunch, Ms. Doyle," he said. "Take Ms. Burke. She'll tell you everything about this floor, and about half of it will be true."

Robin was waiting by the elevator with her purse already on her shoulder.

She walked me to the cafeteria on the fourth floor and told me about the six assistants.

"The first one cried in the stairwell. The second one told the board he was cold. The third one lasted a month."

"And what happened to the sixth?"

"The sixth? She took the severance and a glowing letter and moved to Phoenix. Nobody knows why."

Merrick Elliston appeared at our table with a tray and a smile.

"Don't let her scare you," he said, sitting down. "Quentin is brilliant. He's also a machine. If he ever gets to be too much, my door is open."

"Thank you, Mr. Elliston."

"Merrick. Please."

He pulled the cap off his water.

"I wish the old man were still around to see how all this turned out," he said. "He built this place with his hands. He'd have hated what the numbers are doing to it."

I kept my face still.

I turned my grandfather's watch on my wrist and said nothing.

"Do you know what the old man used to tell me?" Merrick asked. "Never trust anyone who tells you they're fair."

He winked at Robin.

"Quentin told you he's fair, I'll bet."

"No," I said. "Robin did."

Merrick laughed and patted my hand.

I noticed that he knew exactly which property the board was fighting about before anyone had mentioned it.

I didn't know what to do with that, so I put it away.

At six the floor emptied.

Quentin left without a word and took the elevator down alone.

I stayed to finish the minutes, with my hand still tingling where his thumb had been.

My phone buzzed on the desk.

An unknown number.

An address on Lake Shore Drive, and one line under it.

Midnight, Gia. Or Ms. Doyle at nine, and I never ask again.

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