She could tell something was up, though, when she saw the way Daddy and I were trying to suppress our giggles. We shared a secret that had consumed us ever since our first night of passion.
"Would you pass the asparagus please, Abbi, and then tell me what the hell you two are laughing about?" Sasha demanded.
That made me giggle even more.
Later in the summer, the fall semester of our freshman year was set to begin when I realized I had not gotten my period in a while. Five weeks had gone by, in fact, meaning I was late. I know I should have been incredibly nervous, that having a baby is no laughing matter, but the truth is I was not worried at all. In fact, I madly wanted to give my Daddy a little baby of our own. With a boy or girl for us to raise together, I'd never have to leave him, never have to say goodbye.
I bought a pregnancy test at a drugstore on the other side of town, where no one would recognize me. The condescending store clerk eyed me suspiciously, but he took my money all the same.
That night at dinner I was quieter than usual. My stepfather knew me inside and out, literally. He could sense that something was weighing on me.
"What's bothering you, baby?" he asked.
"Daddy," I replied, searching for the right words.
"I have something to tell you. Something important. Something that is going to change our lives forever … "
I paused, before blurting it out. "You're going to be a father again!"
Joy washed over his face as he took me in his arms. I knew from personal experience that he would be the best father a girl could ever have.
The Brat & the Beast
"Be my wife, and bear my children. All my riches will be yours."
Naive little Sofi is all grown up and ready for college. She can't wait to say goodbye to Beast, the hardened criminal and alpha billionaire who raised her in his luxurious beachside villa.
Beast gave Sofi everything she ever wanted. Now he wants something from her in return. If Beast's sweet, little princess won't submit to his indecent proposal, he's prepared to banish her from their life of riches forever. Nervous and confused, Sofi must decide whether to give herself to Beast-giving him an heir to the family fortune.
I.
My stepfather may be a billionaire, but he's also a brute. Don't ask me how my mother was ever attracted to such an absolute monstrosity of a man, let alone marry the thing. Obviously for money. That's a touchy subject.
///
People call him Beast, a name that fits, but he told me to call him Daddy when he and Mom got married. I was, like, seven years old. That was the end of the conversation. Even as a young girl, I knew better than to argue. Though he never laid a finger on Mom or me, I once saw him throw a man out the fourth-story window of our beachside villa. The commotion had woken me up, and I was watching through my own window on the second floor. The man screamed as he fell, his arms and legs flailing. Then he smacked the sand, bounced once, and didn't move again. One of my stepfather's "assistants" carted him off in a wheelbarrow, and we never saw him again.
If his manners weren't bad enough, my stepfather isn't winning in the looks department, either. Honestly, he's a hideous human being. A nasty purple scar runs down Beast's face, crossing his left eye and permanently gashing open his eyebrow and splitting the corner of his lips. Knife scars crisscross his muscled back and shoulders, too. The scars are only slightly obscured by the elaborate dark-green tattoos that cover his body. Those scars absolutely terrified me when I was a little girl. I didn't dare to ask Beast about them. When I questioned my mom, she would only say they were from a "different time in your stepfather's life." The tremor in her voice gave her away. She was obviously lying to me, unless "different time" meant "last week."
He's tall, at least 6-foot-3, and his barrel chest is wooly as a buffalo's. Instead of growing hair on his head, I guess it all went to his body. His head is shaved smooth and shiny. Male-pattern baldness. Very sexy, right?
Come to think of it, Beast looks a bit like a professional wrestler on TV, but only if the wrestler had survived a machete genocide or something. Thank God we look nothing alike. There is none of *his* blood flowing in my veins.
When Mom died, I was stuck with him. Not that Beast hasn't provided for me. But we lived alone in this huge house, and the only times he noticed my existence were when I had screwed up one thing or another and required his punishment. I remember this one time, when I was nine and my mom was still alive, that my friend Felipe and I decided we would both sneak out of our homes at midnight and go swimming in the ocean. Felipe was the gardener's son, and he lived on our estate.
I can still picture the way the full moon illuminated the waves lapping the beach. I sat at the water's edge, digging my toes into the sand and waiting for Felipe to appear. He was a no-show. After half an hour or so, I grew tired of waiting for Felipe, so I stripped down to my swimsuit and waded in. The water was cool against my skin, giving me goosebumps. My body rose and fell with the waves. I looked up to the bright, clear face of the moon and spent some time studying its light and dark patterns for evidence of the man who supposedly inhabited the surface.
"There's no Man in the Moon," I pouted.
I looked down, to the shore, and panicked. I was so preoccupied that I had not even realized how far the waves had carried me away. I tried to swim back. Every time I made a little progress, another crashing wave sent me farther back. Soon I would be lost at sea. I screamed at the top of my nine-year-old lungs, over and over, desperate that someone would come rescue me.
I screamed so much I swallowed a mouthful of the salty seawater, and I coughed, then was dunked by another wave. They had to hear me! I screamed as loud as I could, willing my voice to carry to the villa where my mother and stepfather were sleeping. I could see the villa in the moonlight, draped in shadows from the palm trees. A light flicked on! I screamed again, begging for someone to rescue me, but my little body was getting tired from all the thrashing of my arms and legs, trying to keep my chin above water.
It was no use. I would die out here, and be swept away by the morning tide. Still choking on the swallowed seawater, I quit fighting the waves and let them take me where they would. I closed my eyes. It would all be over soon.
I didn't even notice when my stepfather swam to save me. I had no memory of him wrapping me in one of his massive arms, using his other arm and his kicking feet to paddle me back to safety.
He lay my body on the beach, next to my crying mother, and pumped my chest. He put his mouth to mine and blew life-giving air into my lungs. I rolled over and coughed up salt water.
Beast turned to my mother, betraying no emotion.
"She'll live," he muttered.
My stepfather stood up, his hulking figure all dripping wet, and he walked back to the villa, leaving us on the beach.
II.
The next morning, Beast called me into my study. I had fully recovered from my misadventure in the ocean beside our villa. Even so, I was terrified. My stepfather had never requested an audience with me in the years that we had lived in the same house. When I entered the room he was sitting at his desk. A single streak of light cascaded from the window and landed across his awful face, illuminating his scar to an ugly purple shade, like raw organs. I trembled, just looking at that scar. I immediately turned my attention to his other eye, a dark brown orb beneath a furrowed brow.
///
"You disobeyed," he grunted. "When you disobey, you're punished."
Nearly drowning in the ocean wasn't punishment enough, not for Beast. All these years later, I still shudder at the memory of what happened next. He took off his black leather belt, the one with the metal studs, and used it to teach me his lesson. Never again did I sneak off to the beach by myself, at least not until Mom died and no one cared what I did.
That was nine years ago, but it feels like forever. I graduated from high school a month ago, and today is my eighteenth birthday. Hooray, me. It's a lazy afternoon and I'm lying on my bed, trying to decide whether to repaint my pink toenails, when there's a loud knock on the door.
"Sofi," announces Rubio, my stepfather's dapper henchman. "The boss wants to see you."