Seducing My Ex's Father In Law

7

EVEN THOUGH I didn’t live for my work the way my father did, I loved my office. One thousand square feet on the third floor of a building in Chelsea, it was one of the few things I’d acquired with my own means, and by my own means, I didn’t mean with money.

I’d found the place when I’d been hunting for a location to open my business almost seven years ago. The real estate agent had shown me another space, an awkward unit with an extra thousand feet that I had no need for, that backed up to the spot I eventually acquired. My office hadn’t been for sale at the time, but we’d been fortunate enough to run into the owner while looking, and he’d been kind enough to show us around.

Kind enough wasn’t really the correct term. Interested enough, was more like it. Scott Matthews had been a forty-something-year-old accountant who enjoyed flirting with the twenty-five-year-old darling he’d seen poking around on his floor. He’d explained how his own business had grown too big for the small space, but he wasn’t yet ready to part with it, in case he needed to downsize one day.

He was married; his ring was firmly lodged on his finger, his skin puffing out around it like he’d gained a few pounds since he’d last taken it off. He gave no indication of wanting to engage in anything that would break his marriage vows. He was simply talking to a pretty lady. No harm in that.

Except I was more than a pretty lady—I was a dangerous lady, even at that young age.

It had been easy enough to dismiss my realtor and then it hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Scott to take me out to dinner. I’d been playing The

Game by then for a couple of years, and while most of the schemes I’d pulled at the time were with Hudson, I’d decided to conquer Scott all on my own.

The thing was, I’d really loved his unit. It was the perfect size, the perfect location. It had the perfect vibe and wouldn’t require much construction to make it what I envisioned. But even more, I’d loved the idea of convincing him that the space should be mine.

It really hadn’t been as hard to seduce him as it should have been. After dinner, he’d taken me back to the very unit, and I’d let him f**k me against the front door and again on the counter of the office kitchenette. It was the second time that I’d gotten him to let me take the pictures. Filthy, naughty pictures. Pictures that showed everything and left nothing to the imagination.

If I was to believe him, and in this case, I actually did, this was the first time he’d ever cheated on his wife. That should have been considered a victory in itself, and in another situation, I would have let it go there.

But I’d been ambitious, and I’d wanted that space.

All it took was threatening to show his wife the proof of our infidelity and the place was mine. Oh, he’d cried first, and begged. Even offered large sums of money, which I didn’t give a s**t about. In the end, when I’d told him I just wanted the office, he’d almost seemed relieved. Especially when he assumed that meant we could keep screwing around. Which, it didn’t. Once I was done with a mark, I was done, but he didn’t learn that until long after the deal was made.

The surprising part of the whole thing was how long I’d been able to keep the lease. I’d figured I had a year or two before he’d get tired of the looming threat, but he’d been desperate to keep his dirty little secret, and I’d been happy to benefit from the indiscretion.

I couldn’t say for sure if I would have actually told his wife or not if Scott hadn’t agreed to my terms. The best threats are the ones that will be followed through, but I hadn’t planned on really telling her, in the beginning. I’d only set out to see if I could do it, if I could get what I wanted with just my body and a few hours of my time. Since I’d only wanted the space, there would have been no use in actually ruining his life, but if it came down to it, I might have. Just for fun. Just to see what would happen next.

I should have felt bad about that. If I still felt things, maybe I would have.

In the meantime, I didn’t have to worry about what I would or wouldn’t do because the space belonged to me.

It was a simple layout with a reception area, an office for me, the kitchenette, and a consultation room. While the consultation room was intended for clients, I also used it when meeting with Renee. I’d designed it to feel casual with cushy couches and an oversized coffee table that could hold models for presentation.

Then, at the window, I’d installed a seat with plump pillows. I liked to sit here while Renee ran down production schedules and product information for our current projects. I’d lean my back against the curve of the alcove, my body lengthwise along the glass, my knees bent, my feet flat on the seat cushion. Three floors up was high enough to not be particularly noticeable to pedestrians and still be the perfect height for people-watching. I could lose long hours to surveying the passersby below, studying how they moved, how they interacted. Wondering what they thought, what their motives were. Wondering if they saw all the nuances of human behavior that I did.

That man there, does he realize his companion is irritated by him?

Does that young girl notice the businessman leering at her from across the street?

Is the smile on that woman’s face genuine? Or is she empty and hollow inside?

Today, though, while Renee gave me a detailed rundown of the quality inspection procedure for a client residence—our only client, at the moment

—I wasn’t watching the people below the window. Instead, as I had so often in the week and a half since I’d met with him, I was thinking about Edward Fasbender. Thinking about the things he’d said to me.

Your flat is owned in your father’s name. You have one degree, in an art field. Your business barely runs in the black... The lack of customers knocking at your door confirms that. You’re almost thirty-two years old, unmarried, childless, living off your trust fund... Your good looks might have gotten you through most of your life so far, but how much longer is that going to last?

They were words that carried bite, but the more time that passed, the easier it was to repeat them in my head. I’d said them to myself enough

now that it felt like recovering from a sunburn. After the initial sting, the dead skin peeled away, exposing new skin underneath.

It was startling to discover that beneath this particular sting was arousal. It took awhile to figure out what it was, the feeling was so foreign. That wasn’t exactly true—my body got aroused all the time. I actually found s*x enjoyable on a very base level. My skin reacted to human touch. My pulse

quickened. My p***y got wet. I had orgasms.

But arousal was always confined to physical reactions. My mind and heart remained separate and unaffected. Disinterested. Nonconcordant.

This time, though, after I got past the harshness of Edward’s words, I was turned on. Completely. With every part of me, and I couldn’t help but want to examine that more closely. Maybe I had some humiliation fetish I hadn’t discovered before, a very real possibility that I should possibly explore more thoroughly, but there was more to it than that.

I reacted to him, I realized, because he’d seen me.

I couldn’t remember the last time someone had truly seen me, the last time anyone had even tried to look behind the pretty face, the well-cared-for physique, the expensive clothes, the prominent name. Those superficial aspects were more than enough for most. That was why it was so easy to play people the way I did.

Edward, though, had looked past all the bullshit, and while it was embarrassing that he’d seen me for the failure that I was, it was also a relief to be acknowledged.

Relieving and arousing.

What would it be like to go to bed with a man like that? To relinquish control, be stripped down bare...

I sat up suddenly. What about s*x?

Renee broke off her instructions mid-sentence. “Uh, what did you say?” s**t. I’d said it aloud.

“Nothing. My mind wandered. Go on.”

She gave me an inquisitive stare and then went on. We weren’t close enough for her to probe further. I wasn’t close to anyone.

Later, when I was alone in my office, I rung her desk. “Can you get me Edward Fasbender’s contact information?”

“Certainly. Are you following up with him? Would you like me to get him on the line?”

I considered. “No. Just get me his number.”

I wrote down the number she provided and hung up. Then I retrieved my cell phone from my purse and dialed from there. I didn’t want the company name to show up on the caller ID, and while I knew my cell didn’t show my name when I called out, I wanted him to have my number, for some reason I couldn’t quite identify.

“Celia,” he said when he answered.

My breath caught. He’d saved my number in his phone. I hadn’t expected that and it almost threw my train of thought.

But I recovered. “What about s*x?” I asked.

“Hmm.” The simple sound reverberated low in his chest. I could sense an air of amusement. “Are you asking about s*x in our marriage?”

It was hard not to be distracted by his voice. How had I not noticed how bewitching his timbre was? His accent was absolutely panty melting.

I shifted in my seat, crossing one leg over the other to press against the ache that had crept up unexpectedly. “Yes. I wondered. That.”

God, I sounded like a complete imbecile.

“A perfectly natural question. I’d planned on discussing it the other day, but you ran out so suddenly.”

The reminder of our previous meeting’s events was all I needed to snap out of it. “You’ve got me on the phone. Get to the discussing now, will you?”

“Awfully eager, aren’t you?”

Jesus, I didn’t need this. “I’m going to hang up…”

“No obligation.” It took me a second to register that it was the answer to my question.

No obligation. Oddly, it made me disappointed.

“No obligation, but it might occur?” Please let that not have sounded as desperate as it felt saying.

“No obligation because it won’t occur.” A beat passed.

“Interesting.”

“Sounds like you’re thinking about it?”

“I’m not,” I said quickly. Too quickly, and I wasn’t even sure if I meant I wasn’t thinking about the silly marriage proposal or wasn’t thinking about s*x with him. One of those, at least, was a lie.

“I’m not,” I said again, more certain.

“That makes one of us.” Then we were talking about the marriage, because why would he be thinking about s*x with me when he’d just said it wouldn’t occur?

I hated this, hated how unbalanced he made me. It was a simple phone call and he still had the ability to shift my world off-kilter.

And that was stupid. I’d been in situations more uncertain than this and managed just fine. I stuck my chin up and channeled that confident persona. “I hope you’re used to disappointment, then.”

“Quite frankly, Celia, I’m not, and I don’t see any reason to plan for it now. You should understand something fundamental about me—I don’t accept no as an answer.”

I was still stammering for a comeback when he went on. “Good day, Celia. We’ll talk soon.”

Then the line was dead. And I was, once again, reeling. Once again, rejected.

Once again, aroused.