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M elissa

I am in trouble.

Real trouble this time. Not the kind where they issue a fine and send you a snotty letter all dressed up in fancy language that hides their ire. I am in the kind of trouble that has immediate physical consequences, the kind that makes my heart beat faster, my pupils dilate, my breath come shorter.

It’s exciting.

And it’s wrong.

So damn wrong.

I’m not dressed for this. I’m dressed for a day by the pool, a skimpy little bikini that dares tan lines to exist.

I could have gotten changed before I came. I should have, but I wasn’t thinking about it. I assumed there’d be time when I got here. The sun was still warm then, and the sky was bright and it felt like the day would go on forever.

But night has come, and my new boss is flicking cufflinks onto the smooth polished table and rolling up his sleeves, one, then the other. Fuck. Me. Does he know what he’s doing? He’s got to know what he’s doing. This is a real-life thirst trap, and I cannot look away.

Tall. Dark. Handsome. The kind of thick, dark hair that men half his age would die for, hanging below his shoulders.

In this moment he seems like a man, not a creature out of time.

Flickering light from a dancing candle makes his eyes glow golden and for a brief moment I almost think I see a slitted pupil.

My imagination always did have a habit of running away with me. I’m just freaking out because I am in the house of a man twice my age and many, many times my power, and he is looking at me like I am a particularly juicy cut of meat.

My new boss prowls toward me, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his forearms flexing in ways and with muscles defined so intensely that I didn’t know they could look like that.

How is he that well defined? What the hell does he lift?

I have to get my brain working again, but right now it feels like trying to think through mush.

He places his hands on the table in front of me, and I feel excitement rush through me again as those forearms of his ripple. He moves one hand, extends an elegant forefinger, and slides it under my chin, directing my attention to his eyes.

Heat flushes across the bridge of my nose and cheeks as he makes me look at him.

“You are trouble, but I intend to tame you. Break you of the bad habits you’ve gained in your short lifetime. With me, you will be punished. Taken. Claimed. You will know what your place is.”

I tremble. This is my first job, but I am certain this is not usually how these things go.

The kind of trouble I am in is the deeper, hotter kind.

I am trembling in my very core as the most handsome, unearthly man I have ever been in the presence of wraps his hand around the back of my neck and I feel the roughness of his…

scales? No. His hand doesn’t have scales.

He must do hard labor. That’s it. And the sharp points that dig but don’t sink into my soft skin, they’re not claws. Because he is a man.

Isn’t he?

“Are you listening, Melissa?” He purrs my name and I feel it rumble through me. The floor itself seems to shake, though I know that has to be a function of my perception. I am shaking, that’s what it is. Not from fear, but from an intense reaction to his presence.

“I am,” I say.

A wisp of hair is brushed back from my face.

“Are you ready to become more than a spoiled little girl getting into trouble for the sheer enjoyment of it?”

I want to say I’m not spoiled, that he’s mistaking me for the rich kids I got to hang out with, but never really belonged among, but this does not feel like the moment for making clarifying statements.

“Yes,” I practically whisper.

I’m getting wet. I look up at him under my lashes and feel a shameful jolt of recognition. Oh, god. He knows.

Everything was so different just a few hours ago…

In the back of a car neither one of us is driving, my best friend and I are plotting the rest of our lives together. She slides her phone under my nose, where a guy with washboard abs is emerging from surf with the caption: You’ve just got to seize the day .

“Him?”

“No. Too old,” I say.

“He’s like twenty-two, Melissa.”

“He looks thirty.”

She rolls her eyes. “Age doesn’t matter. You’ve got to ask the questions that I do. Like, is he rich? Does he have rich friends? Does he have a yacht? Does he know where his yacht is? You want a guy who doesn’t know where his yacht is.”

I swipe on her phone. “He says he’s just a laid-back guy trying to figure out his relationship style.”

“Gross.”

“Agreed.”

Tempest and I are looking for our future husbands. This is very serious business.

“We have to pick two who will get along so they can be friends and we can hang out together,” she says.

“Definitely,” I agree.

Tempest and I have agreed to be inseparable.

We are going to get married six months apart and get pregnant together.

We’re going to have houses in the same neighborhood at least, ideally next door.

Our kids are going to grow up together. We have our whole lives planned out.

We just need a couple of guys who don’t know it yet.

“There’s nobody here,” she says, pouting while her app shows five hundred likes.

Tempest doesn’t need an app to meet anyone, and thanks to her, neither do I, really.

She’s one of the most eligible bachelorettes in the city.

Still, it’s fun to look through the menu sometimes.

I like to help my super rich friend experience some of what it means to be a normal girl, and she likes to help me survive sometimes.

It’s a great fucking deal for a girl who came from modest means.

The car sweeps up into the hills, navigating tight winding roads until we come to a big driveway guarded by a massive gate and a security guard who takes one look at the license plate and waves us through.

We are going to one of the biggest, fanciest houses I have ever seen, but I know Tempest considers it no more than a comfortable city bungalow.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you! You have to meet my dad’s best friend.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s looking for an intern, and you need money to pay off those fines.”

“Oh, my god, the fines,” I giggle. “There’s so many of them.”

I have five thousand dollars in parking and…

other … fines from school, and they’re holding my degree in forfeit until I pay them.

Seems unfair to me. I pay all my tuition with loans that I’m going to be paying for the rest of my life if the plan to land a rich husband doesn’t pan out, and then I have a few arguably not-even-my-fault damages from skirmishes with the Greek societies. So here we are.

Tempest is very rich, which is why she’s named Tempest. They have old money. The kind of money that stays no matter what you do. I once watched her spend the daily GDP of a small nation on handbags, hair, and hostilities with her ex-boyfriend.

I’m still not sure why she picked me to be her friend first day of college, at orientation. She’s a bombshell, an absolute whirlwind. I suppose the two of us make quite a team.

She got the same fines I did, and worse, but she paid them off with her spare change. She offered to pay mine too, but I’ve always refused to take money directly from her. I think that’s why we’ve stayed friends.

I will, however, come and stay at her home in the hills, which overlooks the entire city and has a massive pool and every other luxury you could possibly imagine being in a house, including an actual butler who will bring you whatever food you want.

“I think he’s here today,” she says. “Mr. Ornix. He’s hardly ever in town, but Daddy gets so excited when he is. It’s like Christmas for old rich guys.”

Tempest’s fourth stepmom, who is a sophomore in college, waves at us on her way out.

She’s driving a hot pink convertible that matches her outfit.

I wish I could say she matched the outfit to the car, but I know there are several cars she can pick from to match whatever she wants. Her hair. Her shoes. Her mood.

We go into the house, Tempest chatting away about her younger stepmom’s exploits while I mentally plan the quickest smooth way to see what they have in the refrigerator.

The food that passes for leftovers here would grace a five-star restaurant table.

They have a private chef, of course. Every bit of labor that can be outsourced has been.

“He’ll be in the business wing, I bet,” she says, shifting conversational gear without skipping a beat. “Mr. Ornix! Are you here?”

“Here.”

The word emanates from somewhere deep in the house, more like a deep bell tolling than a voice. I put it down to the echoes of the massive house that probably makes everyone sound like a monk performing in an old monastery.

Tempest leads me into the man’s presence before I’ve had a chance to make myself look presentable professionally.

Our plan was to hang out by the pool, so I’m wearing a blue bikini top and a wraparound skirt with kitten heels.

My hair is down and straightened, which means I won’t be getting in the water today.

“I would have brought a blazer if I was going to have some kind of business introduction,” I whisper to her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she giggles. “This will be so much more effective anyway, and you know it.”

Tempest’s dad is hot. I’d never mention it, because that would be rude and make her uncomfortable.

Tempest hates it when her friends thirst for her dad.

She’s cut people off for trying to sleep with him.

She doesn’t want a stepmom who is her age.

I have spent several years pretending her dad is gross.

I’ve actually pretended so hard I’ve started to believe it on some level.