Daddy's First Lesson novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: What I Didn't Do

Abram's POV

She came on Thursday, after midnight, with the invitation in her hand.

The club was empty, the chairs up, one lamp burning over the old press.

I'd been sitting at the bar for an hour with a glass I hadn't touched.

"I'm going," Joss said. "To the gala. And you're coming with me."

"No."

"He wrote bring him. He wants to see you."

"That's why not."

She put the card on the bar between us.

"Abram. He'll stand in front of two hundred people and say what he likes about me. I want you in the room."

"He wants you humiliated while I watch. He's built the whole evening for that."

"Then we'll spoil it."

"You don't understand what he's like when he's cornered."

"I lived with him for three years."

I heard myself say it before I could stop it.

"Three years, and you never asked him why."

She went still.

"Why what?"

"Why he never touched you the way you've drawn hands for a year." My own voice sounded low and ugly in the quiet. "You wanted it, Joss. You wanted it and you stayed anyway, and you never once asked him for it. Some part of me thinks you liked being small for him."

I would have given anything to take it back.

She didn't flinch.

She looked at me for a long moment, and the color came up slowly in her face.

"Some of me did," she said.

I hadn't expected her to say it.

"It was safe," Joss said. "Nothing was ever asked of me. I got to be the careful one, the tidy one, the one nobody could blame. I told myself that was a kind of love."

"Joss."

"No. You're right about that, and it hurts, and I'm glad you said it." Her chin came up. "But you think I'll go back to it. You think that when this is over, I'll go back to being small, because it's what I know."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend