Discovered

by Quigg, CA

  “I’m not in the habit of stalking my students,” Kent pauses. “She’s not your type. Too mousey. Her friend Ella McAlister is more your style. Ballsy, blonde, brash, and beautiful.”

  “Aubree’s anything but mousey,” I reply and hang up. Now I have her name, finding out who she is won’t be hard. A few taps of my keyboard will tell me everything I need to know.

  My time is limited, and I should be in my office finalizing a cruise line take over but finding out about Aubree takes precedence over everything. Where does her vehement dislike of me stem from? I slide into my new Lexus LFA, grab my laptop from beneath the passenger seat and power it on.

  Google shows me a few social media profile photos, but it seems as if all of her information is set to private, but that won’t stop me.

  After a few minutes, I have a list of her social media accounts, social security number, school transcripts, even her tax returns. I run a software plugin on the browser, one that’ll log me into every account she owns. Sure, what I’m doing is underhanded and illegal but finding out more about her overrides my moral compass.

  Instagram shows hundreds of filtered photos of Aubree laughing and fooling around with friends. I scroll through them, and the more I scroll, the more my dick likes what I see.

  Her beauty and innocence outshines everyone else’s. But I don’t find out any personal tidbits other than she likes to pout in photos and works at a greasy-spoon diner. Facebook is next, but I doubt I’ll find out anything about her there. College students aren’t interested in their parents’ social media platforms.

  The last time she updated her profile picture was six months ago. The same time she posted—happy Father’s Day to the greatest daddy ever. No photo accompanies the update and no one’s tagged.

  My mind goes back to her questions. She was interested in how we treat current and ex-employees. I scroll through her friend’s list looking for someone that connects us, and then I see him—William Michaels. The man who attempted to blackmail me and several of my associates, who were, and still are, members of my club Yield for five million dollars. She mustn’t know the truth about daddy dearest or else she wouldn’t have been so hostile.

  I didn’t have him arrested because he begged me not to. He pleaded with me not to do that to his family. That they would fall apart without his support. I agreed but fired him on the spot with zero severance. My associates weren’t as understanding and have made it near impossible for him to find employment ever since. Trying to extort money from the police commissioner, a federal judge, and a state senator is never a good idea.

  Irritation at having him back in my life corrodes a hole in my gut. I click on his profile page. There are only a few ramblings. His photos haven’t been added to in years, but the photos he has posted turn my blood cold. They show Aubree as a kid with her arms slung around the greatest daddy ever.

  There’s a slight resemblance between Aubree and William, but, from what few photos I see, she favors her mother more. She uses her mother’s surname. Why?

  Would Aubree still think she had the greatest daddy ever if she knew what kind of man he really is? A man who made deals with the devil to pay off gambling debts? Maybe she does know but somehow blames me for his actions.

  I should walk away now. Not get involved, but the thought of not having her in my life is something I don’t want to contemplate.

  Chapter Three

  Aubree

  After the dinner time rush, the diner is dead which means no more tips which also means no new phone anytime soon.

  Before my shift began, I did my best to fix the shattered screen with tape, but that didn’t work, and the cellphone repair place said it’d be easier to buy a new phone. I wish. I’ll buy a no-frills prepaid phone at Walmart later. It’ll have to do until I save enough for a better one.

  Johnny sits in a booth playing cards. Natalie, the line cook, is outside smoking, and I pass the time filling up the salt and pepper shakers. If it stays this quiet, I’ll work on my economics paper.

  The bell above the door chimes and I glance up from my important salt-shaker filling job and smile, but my smile quickly turns to a scowl.

  Callum Talbot slides onto one of the stools in front of the counter and grabs a menu. What the fuck is he doing here? Johnny glances towards me as if to say, move your ass, you have a customer.

  I roll back my shoulders and make my way over to Callum. “Can I get you anything?”

  He gives me that devastating panty-soaking smile again. He’s still wearing the same suit as earlier, minus the tie. The top two buttons are open and show a hint of downy hair.

  What would he do if I leaned over the counter and trailed the tip of my tongue up the column of his neck and didn’t stop until I reached his lips? I tilt my head to the side and contemplate doing just that.

  He says something, but I don’t catch it.

  I meet his eyes. “Sorry. Can you repeat that?”

  “Coffee, please.” He nods toward the chipped, white cup in front of him. “But only if you’re done staring at my mouth.”

  “I wasn’t staring.” I grab the steaming pot behind me, and I’m half-tempted to pour it over his lap, but that will get me fired and in jail for assault. “What brings you to the slums?” I ask as I fill his cup and will my hand not to shake. “You don’t strike me as the inner-city diner kind of guy.”

  “You.” He picks up his cup and takes a sip.

  I resist the urge to snort. “Is that so?”

  “I wanted to give you a better answer to your questions.”

  Pretending not to be interested, I busy myself by wiping down the menus I’d wiped down ten minutes ago. “What makes you think I care?”

  “You care because your father is William Michaels, and you blame me for his poor choices, don’t you?”

  It takes a few seconds, or maybe minutes, for his words to make sense. My legs and hands shake. He knows who I am. What if he comes after me next? Has me thrown out of college and ruins my career before it even begins? But that doesn't matter right now because the only thing that does matter is making him admit what he did.

  “His choices?” I point an accusing finger towards Callum. “You fired him for no reason.” Rage zigzags up my spine, and I do my best to keep my voice down. Getting fired for yelling at a customer would place a shitty cherry on top of this crappy day. “My dad was struggling under your workload, and you didn’t offer him any help. His life is a mess because of you.” Tears prick the corner of my eyes but blink them back. This isn’t how I imagined confronting Callum Talbot. I imagined standing tall and strong and forcing him to admit his wrongdoing and buckling beneath my accusations.

  “His life is a mess because of him.” He reaches out and wraps a strong hand around my wrist. His touch sears my skin, and I want to shake him off, but I also want his hand to stay there forever because he touch is oddly possessive but comforting at the same time.

  I stare into sympathetic blue eyes. Eyes that shouldn’t belong to the man I’ve grown to hate—the man who’s a monster in my mind. Callum is a ruthless business man who tramples over people, and I need to remember that.

  He releases my wrist, and I instantly wish he hadn’t. My body screams to feel his touch again.

  “Why use your mother’s surname? Too ashamed to use your father’s?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but before I was born, they broke up and didn’t get back together until I was one. We never got around to changing my birth certificate. There’s no hidden agenda and no shame.” I pick up my dish rag and clean the menus again. “He can’t get a job because of what happened. Don’t you think it’s time to let go of whatever grudge you have against him?”

  “Grudge? You need to ask your father for the truth, and when you have that, call me. And tell him if he doesn’t tell you, I will.”

  “I’ll never call you because I already know everything I need to.” I tilt up my chin in defiance, but for the first time in ten years, I ques
tion my dad’s story. Anytime I encouraged him to sue Talbot Technologies for unfair dismissal, he would say it wasn’t worth it, that Talbot had the law in his back pocket. For so many years, I believed my dad's version of events, but the picture of the cruel and calculated man he painted, and still paints, is nothing like the man sitting across from me.

  “You don’t know a thing, little girl.” He steps off the stool, and as he does, he reaches into his coat pocket and sets a pink phone in front of me. “It’s your old number, and I’ve already put my details into the contacts. Call me.”

  Although hard, I ignore the phone and say, “Our coffee isn’t free.”

  He produces a hundred-dollar bill and sets it on the counter. Before I can protest, he’s already gone.

  I throw down my dish rag and grab the money. I don’t want it but that doesn’t mean I won’t use it for some good. I put the money into our meals for the homeless donation jar.

  The phone sits on the counter where he left it, taunting me. I stare at it wishing I didn’t want or need it as much as I do. Taking such an expensive gift would be like crossing enemy lines and betraying everything I hold dear, but looking won’t hurt, will it? I pick it up and turn it around in my hands. The body is metallic baby pink and gold surrounds the screen. A phone like this would set me back more than a thousand dollars. I make a deal with myself. I’ll only use it until I can afford to get one of my own and then I’ll give it back.

  It’s almost eleven when I make it home, and the second I open the door, my nose twitches. Acrid cigarette smoke infuses the air, and The Eagles’ Hotel California drifts from the sitting room. My dad is drunk. If I talk to him about Callum now, he’ll lose his shit, and that’s something I can’t deal with. I’m already exhausted by the day’s events, and the only thing I want to do is sleep and not wake up for a hundred years.

  I walk into the sitting room. A half-smoked cigarette smolders in the overflowing ashtray and crushed Keystone beer cans litter the floor.

  He looks up. “You’re home, love. Didn’t hear you come in.” His words are slurred, and his eyes are glassy and unfocused.

  I sigh and begin picking up the beer cans. “Did you eat today?” I already know the answer, but I still ask hoping he’s at least made himself some toast or a grilled cheese.

  “Wasn’t hungry.” He clamps the cigarette between his nicotine stained fingers and takes a deep drag. Worry lines crease his thin face, and his sagging skin clings to his prominent bones. I wish I had money to get him into rehab. To help make him the man he was before Callum.

  The phone in my back pocket feels like it’s branding my skin. Taking it was traitorous and disloyal, but I need a phone. It’s the only way people can contact me. I ignore the voice in my head telling me I could have gone to Walmart like I’d planned.

  “I’ll heat up some soup,” I say while throwing beer cans into the already overflowing trash.

  “Good girl.” He stubs out his cigarette and immediately lights another one. “Tell me about your day.”

  I swallow hard and empty a tin of chicken noddle soup into a pot. “The usual.” I try to appear bright and breezy, even going as far as humming along to Take It Easy “What about you? Did you do anything?” I pour water into the pot to thin the soup and set it on the burner.

  “Cashed my welfare check. Bought some beers and smokes.”

  I don’t even have the energy to nag him. “Come, sit at the table.”

  He shuffles over to the chipped Formica table in our excuse for a kitchen and sits, picks up his spoon, but then he pauses. “Why aren’t you nagging me about wasting my money?”

  “It’s been a long day. I’ll nag you tomorrow.”

  He shrugs and slurps his soup. When he finishes he pushes the bowl away. “Thanks, love. Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  I give a half-hearted smile and study him. Has he been lying about what happened at Talbot Technologies? Since I was a little girl, the story has been drilled into me. One day my dad was told his services were no longer required because his work wasn’t up to standard and then he was marched out of the building. The day he came home and told mom he’d been fired was the day his drinking began.

  “Dad.” I sit down opposite him, but I can’t look him in the eye. “I need to ask you something, and I need for you to tell me the truth. It’s important, okay?” The time to talk to him about this will never be right, and I need to find out about him and his past. To find out if everything I’ve believed for so long has been a lie.

  “I’ve always been truthful with you.”

  I don’t want to look at him when I tell him about Talbot, so I stand and take his bowl to the sink. “I saw Callum Talbot today.”

  The legs of his chair squeak across the linoleum. I turn to face him and he barrels towards me. Bitterness twists his face into an ugly mask and panic strangles me. I’ve never seen him like this, and I step back until I bump against the sink

  “Did you talk to him?” Spit flies out of his mouth, and his eyes bulge. “What did he say? Did he say anything about me?”

  The base of my back bumps against the edge of the sink. “He said I should ask you to tell me the truth about what happened,” I whisper.

  He clenches his fist and pounds it against his thigh. “You already know what happened. That bastard fired me and ruined my life. Ruined your life. Because of him, you’re waiting tables to get through college, and I can’t get a job.”

  “But I don’t understand. He seems nice and—”

  “Nice? He seems nice? He’s sick and perverted, and you’re to stay away from him.”

  “But, Dad, I—”

  “Enough.” The back of his cracks across my cheek and his college ring, the one thing he won’t sell, catches my lip and rips the skin. My brain ricochets around my skull, and I’m too shocked to cry out or move to defend myself. Not once in the nineteen years I’ve been alive has my dad ever raised his hand. He’s barely ever raised his voice. My bottom lip quivers and I lick the pooling blood away. A waterfall of tears cascade down my cheeks.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Aubree. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—” he backs away from me with his hands up, grabs his coat and runs out the apartment and I don’t try to stop him.

  My wobbling legs somehow take me into the bathroom. As well as tear-stained cheeks and congealing blood on my lip, my reflection shows an enormous red welt on my cheek. It’s going to bruise. Damn Callum Talbot to hell. I should have left it alone. Should never have asked my dad anything. Was cajoling me to ask for the truth another attempt by Callum to hurt my dad? To have me abandon him too, leaving him with nothing?

  There’s only one person who can give me answers and that’s Callum. No matter what it takes, I’ll find out what happened all those years ago.

  Chapter Four

  Callum

  Aubree won’t leave my thoughts. My semi-hard cock is proof of that. Maybe I’ll have one of the subs to suck me off after my shift is done.

  I tie a black band around my bicep to signify I’m monitoring the club floor for the rest of the night. That means no drinking and no participating in any scenes. I need to be on full alert and prepared to act if I see anyone going against the rules like Doms not listening to their subs or ignoring their non-verbal clues.

  Yield is an exclusive club in the middle of the warehouse district. Members don’t need to be billionaires, millionaires, or celebrities to join, but they do need to be open-minded. There’s a rigorous and in-depth membership interview process, and discretion is a must. If anyone dares break the NDA clause in their contract, their lives aren’t worth living thanks to our roster of lawyers, judges, and politicians. These people aren’t to be messed with, something William Michaels found out the hard way.

  I stroll around the club and inspect the scenes, appreciating the hedonism surrounding me. The un-owned subs eye my bare chest with want as I pass them by. They’re all wondering which one of them will be on the end of my cock tonight. I’m not sure
if one will be enough. It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in a threesome.

  As I walk around, my thoughts drift back to William. I’d hoped he was out of my life for good. I’d trusted him. Deeply trusted him. Big mistake. I swallow a ball of anger lodged in my throat, but I don’t know who my anger is directed at—him or me.

  He stuck his nose into my personal finances and my affairs and somehow hacked Yield’s computer system. He gained access to everyone’s kinks, personal preferences, and incriminating photos. He threatened to go public, but was stopped before that happened.

  The people he pissed off wanted to give him life in a maximum-security prison. He would never have seen the light of day again, but I intervened on his behalf and asked for clemency. Perhaps Aubree would have had a better life if her father was behind prison bars.

  I pause by one of the scenes taking place in a roped off area. James Kent, my lifelong friend, raises a flogger and hits it off the shackled sub’s raised ass. Tears drip from her eyes, but the gag between her lips stops her from crying out. He knows Alana well enough to sense when she’s reached her limit even if she doesn’t use her safe word.

  I cross my arms and imagine Aubree in the same position, her ass presented for my pleasure. My dick hardens, and I adjust my stance. If one of the club’s subs doesn’t take care of me tonight, I will—several times.

  James stills and offers me a second flogger. “This one is insolent and needs a double lesson in obedience.”

  “What was her offense?” I ask and chuckle.

  “Joann, one of the new subs made a pass at me, this little slut didn’t like it. She was rude and refused to apologize even when I ordered her to.”

  I tut and shake my head. “Alana, you know better.” I shrug and point to my arm band. “I’ll take a rain check for now. Next time.”

  James nods and resumes the scene.

  I do one more circuit of the club, and when I’m happy everything is as it should be, I stand by on the podium by the bar and study the room—my very own piece of heaven.