He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Because it’s true. A man needs a bit of loving. It was one of the reasons I couldn’t stay with your momma all the time.”
Violet’s heart broke a little bit more. “I guess you needed more loving than she was willing to offer, eh?”
He shrugged. “You’re a woman of the world now. You know how these things work.”
She considered him for a long moment. “Do I, George?”
“Course you do, honey. You know how a man needs to feel like a man.”
She shook her head. “No George. How does a man do that? Does he need…a spine? A moral compass, perhaps?”
George was slow, but he was catching on to the fact that something wasn’t quite right.
“You wouldn’t be sassin’ me, now would you, honey?”
Violet pulled herself up to her full height, disgusted with the man. “Sassin’ you? Would that be anything like disrespecting you, perhaps?”
George didn’t like the tone of her voice. “Yes. It would. And I don’t think I like it.”
“Huh!” She walked away from him for a moment. “Perhaps I might respect you a bit more if you stopped stealing from me.”
George’s bluster came up, full throttle. “Stealing? I ain’t stolen nothing from you!”
She didn’t believe him. The look in his eyes told her that he was lying. “My lunch has been missing about every other day. Exactly on the days that you pretended to work here.”
He shrugged. “Lunch,” he puffed. “That was just your way of taking care of me.”
“And there was twenty dollars missing from the cash register last week. The day that you worked here alone.”
Again, he shrugged, dismissing the theft. “What’s twenty dollars here and there between family?”
Violet was getting really angry now. “First of all, you’re not family. And secondly, it is theft. No matter how much or how little, you stole from your employer George.” She said the words calmly.
He dismissed her words. “It ain’t theft! You left me in charge! If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have taken a bit of money here and there.”
Violet was amazed that he honestly thought that he hadn’t violated the law! He was standing there admitting to stealing from her and he truly considered that he was entitled to taking cash whenever he wanted to.
She should have put up cameras in her store a long time ago! She’d suspected that he’d been stealing money, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Her mother had wanted to help this man and had loved him in some way. Violet had tried! She’d tried to emulate her mother’s compassion, but she just couldn’t do it! She hated this man! She hated him for hurting her mother, for stealing from her, and for all of the times he’d taken her lunch, the selfish bastard.
“And did you think it was okay to tell the man in my life,” she couldn’t call him her boyfriend, she thought, not sure how their relationship had evolved, “that I was for sale?” She had to breathe deeply so that she didn’t scream out the accusation.
“What?” George stammered. “You’re talking crazy now,” he said and sputtered out a few more sounds.
“Creek Jones said that you pimped me out for five thousand dollars,” she challenged, watching his features closely.
George chuckled. “Is that what he said?”
“Are you denying it?”
“Course I am!” he roared. “You’re like my little girl! I wouldn’t sell you to nobody!”
He was lying! Violet saw the lie in his eyes and in the way his mouth crinkled ever so slightly. “You didn’t take a five thousand dollar check from Creek last week, payment for services rendered?”
George blustered a bit more. “Is that what he told you?” He shook his head in disgust. “I’m glad I encouraged you to stop seeing that guy then!”
“I didn’t stop seeing him, George,” she replied softly. Memories of how Creek had tried to coax her out of a life of sexual favors flashed through her mind. “You went back to him after that first night, didn’t you? When you realized I was still seeing Creek, you went back, and ordered him to pay you for the other nights he was with me.” She said the words softly, but only because anything louder might break her.
George shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Violet, but I don’t like what you’re implying.” He huffed a bit more. “After all I’ve done to take care of you, this is the thanks I get?”
Violet was overwhelmed. She couldn’t believe all of this. “Weren’t you going to offer me a share of the money?” she asked, fighting to keep the tears away. She absolutely would not cry in front of this disgusting man.