“I’ll delete them,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
He left without another word. It amused Aimee no end. She laughed in post-coital bliss, lost in a sea of endorphins.
It took her a few minutes to realise I was seething.
“I thought you wanted it too!” she cried. She followed me into the bathroom, her face pressed up to the glass as I took a shower.
“Not that, Aimee. You let another guy shoot his load in your pussy.”
“I didn’t think it would upset you,” she said. “I didn’t know!”
I couldn’t bring myself back down to rational thought. I was too fucking angry, even though I had no damn right to be.
“A rubber you said, always.”
“This was different! I didn’t think! It didn’t seem such a big deal.” She yanked the shower door aside and forced her way in. “I said I’m sorry, ok? I won’t do it again.”
“No, you fucking won’t,” I snapped, my head returning to sanity.
“Am I forgiven?” she asked, risking a smile.
I ached to say no and tan her hide with the belt, just because I could.
“Wash him the fuck off you,” I told her.
She grabbed the body wash and lathered it right the way between her thighs. I smiled as she grimaced. “Stings like a sonofabitch.”
“Was it everything you hoped for?”
She threw me a smile, a genuine glint in her eye. “More than I hoped for. Way, way better than I dreamt of.”
“Count yourself lucky, sweetheart,” I growled. “Because I’m not so sure I’ll want to share next time.”
“Wow, Daddy!” she laughed. “Are you jealous?”
I reached for her body, mashing her tight against my chest. “You’re mine,” I said. “All of you. I don’t want another man’s mark on you. In you. Only mine.”
She pouted. “No fun, spoilsport. You know I love you best.”
I lifted her up, pinning her against the tiles. “Say that again.”
Her smile was pure wickedness. “I love you best, Daddy.”
“Prove it,” I groaned.
She proved it all fucking night long.
“Is this really love?” she asked. “For you, I mean.”
Aimee was a very different creature from the girl I’d met six months earlier, even after a few short weeks. She looked up from her laptop, eyes sincere without the slightest hint of brat. I was at peace, finally. No guilt remaining. The time I’d spent with her had been some of the best I’d ever had. She laughed, and teased now in the most light-hearted of ways, much more like the twenty-year-old college girl she deserved to be. Sometimes the greatest transformations happen in the greatest darkness.
“Do you want it to be?” I smiled. “I’m twice your age. A greying, old bore with a penchant for filthy rotten sex.”
“You’re not a bore,” she said. “And I like the grey. It’s distinguished.”
“You don’t know me, Aimee, don’t know the things I’ve done.”
I’d been holding off the inevitable. Holding back the truths that needed saying.
She grinned. “Show me your diary, then. Let me into your darkest secrets, Daddy.”
I was out of time, and I knew it. We had only twenty-four hours before Louise was home. Time to come clean. Now or never.
“Let’s do it, then,” I said to her. “Let’s talk.”
She looked surprised, hearing the seriousness in my words.
“Sure. Ok.”
“My confessions are much simpler,” I told her. “I don’t love your mother. I never did.”
She pushed her laptop aside, attention all mine. “I just… wow. Why marry her, then?”
“Necessity,” I admitted.
“Necessity?” Her eyebrows were pitted, trying to understand.
Here it was. For real. Now or never.
“I’m a loser, Aimee. A wash-out. A complete and utter failure.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t lose the flow of my momentum, just kept on ploughing towards the truth.
“I was on my final warning with work when I took that trip. It was my last-ditch attempt to save my job and become part of the team again.”
“Did you steal some office stationery or something?” she smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Hardly stationery, baby.” I took a breath. “I overextended myself financially before the market collapsed, buying property to let like it was going out of fashion. I stood to lose everything, my houses, my car, my holiday home and all the trappings of status that went along with them. I was a desperate man trying to save my fortune, that’s why I did what I did.”
She didn’t even blink, just stared over at me with curious eyes. “What did you do? What is it that you did?”
“Gambling,” I said. “I was trying to catch a lucky break. Aren’t we always? Instead I ended up with massive debt and an addiction I couldn’t control.”
“Ladyluck69,” she said, her smart brain clicking together the pieces. “Your laptop password is Ladyluck69.”
“Yeah. It was my poker pseudonym. Didn’t turn out to be quite so lucky.”
“So you had a bad streak? So what?” she shrugged. “No big deal, right?”
“I’ve got nothing left, Aimee, just a poxy downgrade job with the management breathing down my neck every day.”