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Confused, but intrigued, I slide the ring off the paper and unroll it. The first thing I see is the golden UCLA college seal, the book withLet There Be Lightwritten across the base on a fancy ribbon. The moment hits me as biblically as the quote. This is my degree. The degree they withheld.

“How did you get this?”

“That is a good question,” he says. “You see, this is where paying off certain fines becomes useful.”

I try to keep breathing. Okay, he knows there were fines. This doesn’t have to be all over yet. They probably didn’t itemize what the fines were for. I know how rich people operate. They throwmoney at little things like this. They don’t check the details. They don’t care about them. They’re not relevant. I tell myself that he sent an assistant in, and they threw down a credit card and he just tidied all this up the way Tempest’s dad would have.

I watch as Ornix takes something from the inside of his jacket. He unfurls a roll of paper, but his is not a degree. It is an old-fashioned receipt.

“You had thousands of dollars in fines for your behavior on campus.”

I want to shriek and giggle, and run around to discharge the sudden bolt of energy rising through me.

“Yes, but I’ve matured since then.”

His eyes run down the form. “According to this, your last fine was issued a week ago.”

“Yes, sir, I’ve matured a lot in the last week.” I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

He looks stern, almost thunderous. I don’t want to lose my chance at this internship, because it pays crazy well and I really need the money, but keeping it together is going to be almost impossible. If Tempest were here, she’d be straight up screaming with me, I know it.

He looks at me, dour.

“I don’t find these things amusing, Melissa.”

“Neither do I, sir. I appreciate you paying those fines, but obviously I will work them off. I don’t want to take anything for free.”

“These fines indicate a lack of discipline,” he says, those golden eyes boring into me. “If you work for me, you will be disciplined.”

“You mean come to work on time, do my duties, that sort of thing?”

His lips twitch slightly. I find my eyes drawn to his mouth, unable to leave it.

“Yes, that sort of thing, but also real and actual discipline.”

“Oh, what is that?”

“I am not surprised you ask that question. It is clear you’ve never felt it in your life.”

I find myself blushing, though I barely know why. He’s threatening me with a consequence that makes me sweat with something like fear, but way sexier.

“Spanking, Melissa. You are going to be spanked for each and every one of these fines. You are going to pay the price of one spank per dollar, and you are going to thank me for your discipline, and the chance to learn a better way.”

“What the fuck…” I mean to whisper the words under my breath, but it is really hard to exclaim quietly.

“It will begin now. Before we eat. I do not want to reward you with the degree and let you feel as though you have not been disciplined.”

“I don’t know if…”

He has already stood up and is moving toward me. He’s removed his jacket and is now in a waistcoat. Oh, fucking kill me now, he looks so good in it, the way it emphasizes the breadth of hisshoulders and the narrowness of his waist. I can barely take it. I’m trying not to seem like a thirsty girl trying to seduce her new boss by showing up to dinner in a bikini. At least I have my little poolside wrap skirt on. We can sort of pretend I’m half-dressed.

He’s a very tall, very handsome man, and I feel held in place by his magnetic presence as much as his hand as it wraps around my wrist and guides me up.

I think about resisting as he guides me up from the chair, bending me over a portion of the long, polished table that has no place setting.

“Your transcript shows you to be academically able. Your fines show you to be a badly behaved, disrespectful risk taker. We will address that here and now. Fines mean nothing to someone who never had the ability to pay them. But this will mean something. You will feel this.”

He presses me down against the table, his hand splayed against my lower back, long fingers wide, the weight and strength of him keeping me easily in place.