Page 80 of Single Daddy Scot
‘Too fucking right I don’t understand!’ I yell. ‘How about you tell me how this came about? How I came to be sitting in that place with my fucking mates and how they’ve now come to know what you look like fucking naked!’
‘Oh, so that’s what this is about?’ she replies, something flaring in her gaze. ‘Not my reasons for doing this, or that I kept this from you, but that your precious friends might now have some inkling of what I look like under my sweater? You’re not interested in why I did this, or what this means to me. Just that your mates might now include me in their wank bank material!’
‘What it means to be watched as you strip? The virgin exhibitionist?’
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I’m regretting them. Scorning and contemptuous and just fucking wrong. Rightly so, Ella looks as though she’s been slapped. I’m a dick head. A fuck up and I don’t deserve—
‘Oh. I see. So you’re saying you don’t believe that I’m a virgin? Not that it has any bearing on this situation—of what this means.’
Her step mother’s words swim through my head again. Is she a virgin, or was this an excuse to keep my cock in my pants and her in a job? What difference would it make if she wasn’t?Only that she lied. Like she lied tonight.I’m instantly on the attack again
‘What it means to you to be a common stripper? Just because you have a few feathers and a fucking veil doesn’t make it any less sordid. Why would you do it? What the fuck would entice you to take off your clothes in front of strangers?’ My shouting sounds strangled on the last note, my hands digging through my hair as my chest physically aches. I feel like she’s punched a hole in my chest and lifted out my heart, leaving the cavity empty and bare.
My head feels as though it’s about to burst, fear and anger choking me, my molars clenched so tight I feel a shooting pain. I couldn’t help Annelise—Louis’s mum. She stripped to support our son, andImade her do that by not being there to support him.I’mresponsible for that, and fate is a fucking joke—is this my punishment? A cruel twist to make me pay?
‘And I suppose you didn’t enjoy watching. Did you keep your eyes closed?’
I don’t have a response beyond a growl ripped from the depths of my gut. Because I didn’t. And she knows it. And I’m a hypocrite.
‘What’s the point. You’re not going to listen. You just want to stand there and beat your chest like I’m some kind of possession. A-a chattel,’ she yells back, her dark eyes full of tears and anger.
‘But you’re not, though, are you?’ I say, stepping back. ‘You don’t belong to me.’ Her glare is the hand that twists the knife in my gaping chest. ‘Because you made that crystal clear in there.’ I point at the building—something to do with my hands, other than slide them around her shoulders to pull her closer. To push her away. To make her understand. To shake some sense into her—to fucking something!
‘Yes, well.’ She lifts her chin and squares her shoulders, her demeanour changing so spectacularly, it’s like she’s shedding a skin. ‘You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. My Uber is waiting. I think you should leave.’
