Dirty Little Secrets(5)

Vince, in addition to being my paralegal, was studying for the bar exam himself. He was a good guy who’d come up the hard way through the legal system, taking night classes while working a full-time job as a short-haul truck driver. I finally hired him as a paralegal six months ago while he finished off law school. He was a good investigator and had connections that often came in handy when dealing with some of the people my clients worked with or grew up with. “No problem, Kade. So, Dufrense and Carter.”

“Thanks. Okay guys, I’ll have my phone on me, but I’d prefer if you don’t call. It’s my Dad’s anniversary.”

After Vince and Monica left, I sat back and pondered the situation. Finally, unable to clear my head, I left the office, taking a walk along the river. The Willamette River cuts Portland in half, and along a lot of it there are walkways and other pedestrian-friendly areas. As I walked, my mind kept swirling around the idea that I’d be seeing Alix again.

My stepsister is four-and-a-half years younger than me, and at twenty-one was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Tall, with long, blonde hair that framed her face, crystal blue eyes, thick, bow-shaped lips and a pert little nose, she’d been sought after as a fashion model from her early teens, doing her first professional big shoot when she was only sixteen. I’d read somewhere that Alix was her generation’s first “sublime English Rose,” which I had no clue what it meant until I looked it up. Regardless of the name of her look, Alix had a face that was so beautiful it could stop a riot or start a war. Helen of Troy had nothing on her.

The rest of her was just as amazing. At five ten, she had curves in all the places a man dreams of, especially up top where, for a fashion model at least, she was quite gifted. A stomach you could see yourself licking wine off of led to a waist that flared out into hips that you wanted to hold in your hands and squeeze, and legs that wrapped around you in your dreams. Or at least, that was what they did in mine.

But there was my problem. You see, besides those dreams, I also had darker, more forceful ones. They started when I was at Stanford Law and, as part of the student experience, was sharing an apartment with a couple of other guys. Nothing abnormal about that, and they were pretty decent guys overall.

Alix had just turned eighteen at the time, and she’d gotten featured in one of those bikini spreads. Being college guys, of course my roommates had a copy, and they constantly teased me about it—partly because they knew it annoyed me, but mostly because she truly was hot.

That was around the time that I began to see Alix as a sexual creature and not just a stepsister, and it tore me apart. Because in addition to her beauty, there was a dark side to Alix that I didn’t like. Raised a total Daddy’s girl, Alix thought that her father, Paris Nova, was the epitome of perfection. From all accounts, and from her own words, I learned soon after meeting her that Alix practically worshiped the ground Paris walked on.

What Alix didn’t know, or perhaps had suppressed in her head, was that Paris Nova was a bastard of the highest order. A sadistic abuser, he’d broken Layla’s arm once and orbital bone twice before she worked up the courage to leave, according to court documents, when he threatened to go after their six-year-old daughter. In an attempt to save her daughter from mental trauma, Layla never told Alix about any of the injuries she suffered at the hands of her father.

Unfortunately, this meant that Alix bore Layla and my father an ill will. Thinking her mother a gold digger who left her father when she was little and kept her from seeing her Daddy, she cast Layla as the villain in her life and Paris as the hero. The reality was a lot grittier, as Paris Nova was arrested in Singapore when Alix was seven for beating a call-girl while being high on cocaine, crippling and blinding her for life. The resultant room search discovered nearly half a pound of uncut coke in his bags, and he was sentenced to death under the country’s draconian drug laws. While I’m normally one who favors a libertarian view in terms of the War on Drugs, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.

Alix didn’t know, and ever since Layla had started dating Dad, she had acted like a total bitch to both of them. More than once, I’d been tempted to shatter her little fantasy world, but each time a look from Dad stayed my tongue. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep my words in check.

So I had a stepsister who was tall, beautiful, a perfect physical specimen, and who, other than that one area, was a wonderful person . . . but one who deserved a spanking. A naughty girl who so deliciously deserved a spanking. The thought circled around and around in my head as I walked along the Willamette River, and I could feel the blood rushing down below. Groaning in frustration, I adjusted myself and carried on.