Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
Half an hour has passed since Fay left the room, and Kent is still laying on the floor, crippled with pain and anxiety. He presses his eyes closed against it, wanting quite desperately to be anywhere else, to be anyone else.
God damn it, but he hates himself right now. Hates every choice he’s ever made that has led him here, to this to laying in his underwear on the floor of his secret room, feeling like the absolute worst person on earth.
Because he knows he’s made a mistake that none of this is what he wanted, or how he wanted it, with Fay. But for the life of him, he doesn’t know how to not do precisely this.
As he considers that idea, Kent scolds himself, because obviously he knows how to not do this. He’s had sex with women in much simpler ways normal sex, good sex, in a bed without ropes and chains. Not every woman he’s ever brought home has been locked up in this room, restrained for him. He doesn’t need the kink to have sex sometimes it’s just an extra, a bonus that allows him to explore his obsession with control.
Because that’s what it’s all about, after all, Kent thinks ruefully. Control. Everything is about control controlling his life, his world, the underworld, his business ventures, the threats to his power and everything he and his family have built. He has to keep a tight fist around all of it absolutely all of it or it will fall apart.
And Fay
Somehow, fucking Fay
This wisp of a girl, this tiny, naïve, coltish thing who knows absolutely nothing about this world
Somehow, she is the thing that threatened to undo it all. Because she makes him absolutely lose control. With her, he has no idea what he will do next.
And the intensity of how he feels towards her how much he wants her… Yes, on one level it’s a physical desire but Kent is forced to admit, now, laying on the floor staring at his ceiling that it goes beyond that. That the magnitude of what he feels is not just a desire for a woman he seeks to control, but…
God damn it.
It’s a real, true pull towards her that he hasn’t felt since he first met his wife. And the pull it’s inexorable. Heavy, like the chain of an anchor wrapped around his feet. Like gravity, with Fay at the center of the earth.
And this, all of this? The scaring her, the need to break her, to make her submit it was all a fight against the power of that pull.
But deep down, he knows, it’s like the ocean fighting the moon’s sway over the tides. He can crash all he wants, but Fay is the force that calls the still waters within him to her. Makes them rise so high he thinks he might drown.
Give in, the voice inside himself whispers. Just swim down.
But god damn it, he can’t. He can’t.
Because if Kent gives in to just this one thing, the rest will fall like dominoes, or a loose string on a sweater. It will all fall apart.
And so Kent lays for hours on that floor, trapped, stuck like a bug pinned to a board, torn between opposing forces. The first desire, the stronger one, is to let it all collapse as he takes her in his arms. That desire’s insidious twin, however, still whispers into his ear that if he just pushes a little harder…he can break her. Make her fall in line. That he can have her in his world, just as he likes her that he can make her fit.
Kent agonizes over it, truly torn over the question of which path to take, because he knows that these are the only two paths in his life. Because any option that keeps Fay out of his life…
Well. It’s just not an option. Not anymore.
Kent has to come up with a plan. But all the while that he agonizes over his two options, a voice murmurs in the back of his mind that neither of these options really considers the true threat of the situation:
The very real possibility that Fay will break him first.
And take it all for herself.
In the early hours of the morning Kent comes through the door to the third floor dressed in his wrinkled clothes from the night before. He exhales a deep breath through his nose as he pulls the door shut behind him and starts downward, his eyes on his feet.
“What were you doing with her in there, dad?”
Kent jumps at the voice, his eyes fastening suddenly on Daniel, who sits at the foot of the third-floor staircase, his back pressed against the wall. Waiting for him.
Kent says nothing to Daniel, just stands frozen, staring at his son. Daniel looks exhausted as he slowly shakes his head. Has he been sitting there all night?
“I saw her when she came out last night, crying. You can’t bullshit your way past this one, dad.”
Kent’s eyes narrow at his son. What, after years of having no qualms or questions about his choices in women, suddenly he wants to be involved? Suddenly he wants to play the morality police?
“Go to bed, Daniel,” Kent commands, starting down the stairs again. “Don’t you have a test or some other bullshit to concentrate on today?”
“Dad ” Daniel protests, getting to his feet.
Kent whirls on his son when Daniel puts a hand on his arm to stop him. “Stay out of things you don’t understand, Daniel,” Kent orders, taking a step towards his son to glower over him.
“She’s better than this,” Daniel hisses through clenched teeth, holding is ground. “She doesn’t deserve to be treated like trash like you treat all of the women who ”
“Shut your mouth, Daniel,” Kent snaps, his voice low with warning, moving so close to his son that Daniel takes an involuntary step back. “You don’t get to say a god damn thing to me about this. She’s mine now.” Kent pauses, giving Daniel a second to process that fact. “Find yourself someone else to defend, and someone else to fuck. Not that you weren’t doing that already.”
Daniel’s mouth falls open as Kent turns away and continues calmly down the steps. Daniel knew, of course, that his dad found out about Jerome’s secret visit to his room. Whether or not Kent knew it was Jerome was another question. But this was the first time, ever, that his father had ever come even close to acknowledging his secret love life.
And Daniel realizes that Kent probably knows more about Daniel and Jerome than he was letting on. And that Kent is very willing to use it as a weapon if that information carves a path to getting what he wants.
And what he wants, apparently is Fay.
Daniel clenches his fists as he watches his father’s form disappearing into his office. Because Fay is his, not his dad’s she is the only good thing in this stupid world, the only thing that made Daniel feel at home. And even if he could never be a true husband to her, he still wanted her at his side as his wife. He knew he could make her happy, in the end.
And so, he was going to fight to get her back.
________________________
I groan when I hear a knock at my door.
I glance on the clock on my phone and see that it’s not even six o’clock. Who the hell could want my company now? I swing my feet off of my bed, heading to the door thinking that it’s even too early for my clothes to be delivered.
I pull open the door, yawning, and immediately freeze.
It’s Kent standing there, in perfectly pressed suit pants and a crisp white shirt.
Kent, who never comes to my bedroom in the morning who always waits to speak to me until I come down to the kitchen for breakfast.
I stare at him, shocked and a little afraid, as his eyes flick over me, quickly assessing my rumpled hair and my bare legs and oh my god
Ivan’s jacket.
Indeed, his eyes pause for a moment on the fine wool of the suitcoat, its long sleeves rolled up to my elbows. It’s way too big for me, and Kent would certainly recognize one from his own collection or from Daniel’s, so he certainly will figure out…
I see him put the pieces together as he clenches his jaw and moves his eyes back to mine. “Good morning, Fay,” he says, his calm belying the anger I can see roiling behind his eyes.
“Good morning, Kent,” I whisper, leaning against the doorframe, wanting the support.
Kent opens his mouth to say something but then snaps it shut, looking down again at the suit jacket and then turning his head to look down the hall. Or, at least that’s the direction of his gaze. I can tell from his unfocused eyes that he’s not looking at anything just staring into space as he puts together his thoughts.