Daddy's Little Temptress

Restored Order

Cyril

The air in the foyer was stagnant, thick with the cloying, artificial scent of lilies that seemed to emanate from the woman standing before me.

I stood paralyzed, my gaze raking over her from the mess of her blonde hair down to the way her feet seemed to stain the Persian rug.

I waited. I waited for the punchline. I waited for Alan to burst into that rare, deep-chested roar of laughter, to tell me this was a grotesque prank designed to punish me for the office, for the way I had unmade him.

I waited for the world to stop spinning on this new, jagged axis.

The silence stretched, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator in the distant kitchen.

I took his hand, hoping to go aside and have a word, but he refused to move.

"Won't you at least say hello to your new mom?" Dad asked.

His voice was terrifyingly calm, smooth as silk and just as cold.

He didn’t look like a man who had been caught in a web of sin three weeks ago.

He looked like a man who had successfully performed a lobotomy on his own conscience.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the woman’s shoulder with a casual intimacy that felt like a hot iron pressed against my skin.

I scoffed, the sound sharp and ugly in the quiet room.

My eyes darted between them, searching for a crack, a tremor, anything that signaled a lie.

"Her?" I finally managed, the word dripping with venom. "My mom? Are you joking, Dad? What were you thinking?"

I saw a flash of something in his eyes, not guilt, but a flicker of disappointment.

What was he expecting?

Had he truly believed I would simply curtsy and welcome this interloper into the space I had finally claimed for myself?

Had he forgotten the heat of the office so quickly?

"I want a word with you. Alone," I insisted, my voice rising. I reached for his arm, intending to drag him into the study, to force him to look at me and explain this madness.

But Alan didn't budge. He was a statue of salt, unmoving and immovable.

He tapped my hand away with a polite, dismissive click of his fingers and smiled at the woman.

The rage that had been simmering in my gut since I walked through the door boiled over, turning my blood into acid.

I stepped toward her, my lips curling into a mockery of a smile.

"Hello, 'New Mom,'" I said, my voice dropping into a sugary, lethal register. I dipped into a fake, theatrical bow. "Did my father tell you everything we shared? All the... deep, personal history?"

The woman…Susan, I realized he’d called her nodded.

Her smile was vacant, the smile of a doll. "Yes, he told me all about you and him. He told me how incredibly close you two are.He says you're the light of his life."

I felt a hysterical laugh bubbling in my throat.

Close? Well that was one way to put it.

"Wow," I breathed, widening my eyes in mock wonder. "Then he must have told you that we both…"

"Oh, Cyril," Alan cut in, his voice sharpening like a blade. He stepped between us, his presence a physical wall. "You don't have to tell her everything today, do you? There's plenty of time for Susan to learn the family... nuances."

He turned to Susan, his expression softening into a mask of husbandly concern.

"Why don't you head upstairs, darling? The master suite is at the end of the hall. Rest. I’ll be up shortly once I’ve finished welcoming my daughter home."

I watched Susan retreat, her hips swaying under the hem of his shirt.,, by my father’s shirt.

I waited until the sound of her footsteps faded on the upper landing, until the heavy silence of the house settled over us once more.

As soon as she was out of sight, I closed the gap between us.

I was so close I could smell the sweat and the musk of their recent encounter, a scent that made me want to vomit and scream all at once.

"I suppose you didn't tell her about us, did you?" I whispered. "Did you tell your 'bride' that you were buried inside your daughter three weeks ago?"

He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, refusing to meet my eyes. "You don't expect me to say something like that to her, Cyril. That... that was a mistake. A moment of weakness that I have rectified."

"Rectified?" I repeated, the word tasting like ash. "By buying a replacement? By bringing a stranger into this house to play a role she can't fulfill?"

"It’s done, Cyril," he said, his voice regaining its boardroom steel. "I have a wife. You have a mother. The order of things has been restored. What happened in that office was a lapse in judgment, a fever dream. It’s over."

"Is it?" I challenged.

I didn't move away. Instead, I went even closer, standing on my tiptoes until my breath hitched against his jaw.

I could see the pulse jumping in his neck. He was lying to himself, trying to bury the animal under a mountain of marriage certificates and a diamond ring.

Without warning, I reached down.

I slid my hand past his belt, my palm flattening against the fabric of his trousers. I felt the immediate, violent jolt of his body.

Underneath my touch, despite his words, despite the woman upstairs, he was hardening.

The "mistake" was stirring, proving him a liar in the most visceral way possible.

"Well," I purred, looking up into his

widening eyes, "this part of you doesn't seem to think it was a mistake. It remembers.

Alan gasped, his hands coming up to grip my wrists, intending to pry me off, but his grip was weak.

leaned in, my lips brushing his, biting down on his lower lip just hard enough to draw a drop of copper-tasting blood. I wanted to leave a mark. I wanted to remind him that I am the original sin he could never wash away.

He started to scold me, his mouth opening to deliver a lecture on propriety, on the new "rules" of the house…when we heard

"What are you two doing?"