Page 13 of His Precious Secret

Rick

When I wake up, Taylor is in my arms.

Oh, no. Fuck, no.

How did I let this happen? I remember taking her last night, twice actually, but then what happened after that? We fell asleep in each other’s arms. I fucked up, and as I hear Brandi moving around downstairs, I realize just how badly I fucked up.

My house is big, but there’s no back way out of my part of the house—no secret stairs or outdoor steps. With a hand over her mouth, I wake Taylor. “Shh, baby. We fell asleep together, and your mom’s up. I’m going to go downstairs and distract her. I’ll try to get her outside, and you can run back to your room, okay?”

Taylor just nods, and I quickly throw on some sweatpants and head downstairs to find Brandi sitting on a stool in the kitchen, a sour look on her face.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I say sarcastically as I fill a glass with water. “How are you today?”

“I want fifty million dollars.”

I almost want to laugh as I turn around and face her. “Fifty million dollars, Brandi? That’s a laugh. You’re lucky I’m even letting you live here. Why on earth would I give you fifty million?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She smiles like a snake. “So I don’t tell the world about you fucking my daughter?”

My heart sinks. No, scratch that. I almost have a fucking heart attack. She has to be bluffing. There’s no way she could know.

“I came upstairs to see you last night,” she says, rising from her stool. “Thought I’d try to make things up to you. And what do I find? My precious little daughter, completely naked, asleep in my husband’s bed.”

This is bad. Beyond bad. I’m a man who’s never short on words, but even I can’t come up with anything to say right now.

“This is a new low for you, Rick.”

“New low for me? I have to have hit a low to have a new low, Brandi. You would know all about that.”

“What, so I cheated on you?” she laughs. “Sure, that’s bad. But not as bad as this.”

“She’s not blood related, Brandi.”

“Is that what you’ll tell the tabloids?” she asks, advancing on me like an assassin. “Think your business partners will like that? When the public finds out that their favorite brand of auto-parts is run by a sick man, do you think they’ll keep buying from you?”

All valid points, but that’s not what scares me; what scares me is what happens to Taylor if this gets out.

“You drag me through the mud, you drag her through the mud, Brandi.”

She shrugs. I should have known better. She’s never been the model mom, and it’s never been more obvious than right now.

“She’ll get over it. Besides, maybe this will teach her a lesson about being a little slut.”

“Don’t talk that way about her!” I bellow. “She’s never even been with a man until…”

My voice trails off when I realize my admission. Brandi just shakes her head. “Until now? Until you? How’d you do it, Rick? Convince my daughter to have sex with you? Promise her all the money in the world? Vacations to the South of France? Gucci flip-flops?”

“None of that,” I snap back. “It—it’s not like that, Brandi.”

“Oh, so you’re gonna tell me that you really love her?” she laughs. “I’m not a teenager, Rick. That lie won’t work on me.”

“It’s not a lie, Brandi. I know love might seem like a foreign concept to someone like you, but for the rest of us—”

“Fifty million dollars, Rick,” she replies. “Or I call TMZ right now.”

“Fine,” I reply immediately. Fifty million might be a lot for her, but it’s nothing to me. “And as soon as you have the money, you move out.”

“Once I find a place.”

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