"No. This is between me and your father."
"He's going to be horrible. You know that, right? He's going to threaten you and try to intimidate you."
"Diamond." I turn,with a slightly over-confident grin. "I've handled worse than your father."
"You don't know him when he's angry."
"And he doesn't know me at all." I kiss her forehead. "Stay inside. This won't take long."
Charles Sterling is already in the living room when I get there. He's standing in the center of the room, feet planted, arms crossed. Waiting.
I haven’t met him in person until now. He's smaller than I expected, maybe five-ten, slim build, but there's nothing soft about his expression. His eyes are cold. Calculating. The eyes of a man who's destroyed competitors, crushed enemies, built an empire on the bones of people who underestimated him.
"Mr. Vega." He doesn't offer his hand.
"Mr. Sterling."
"Sit down."
"I'll stand."
His jaw tightens. He's not used to people refusing him. Good. He'd better get used to it.
"My daughter called me this morning," he says. "Told me she's been fucking the help."
I don't react. Don't give him the satisfaction.
"That's one way to put it."
"How would you put it?"
"I'd say your daughter and I are in a relationship. But you can call it whatever makes you feel better."
Something flashes in his eyes. Anger. Good. Anger I can work with.
"You were hired to protect her," he says. "Not to seduce her."
"I didn't seduce her."
"No? A scared young woman, isolated, dependent on you for safety, and you expect me to believe she came to you willingly?"
"I expect you to ask her yourself. She'll tell you the same thing."
"She's infatuated. She doesn't know what she wants."
"She's twenty-three years old. She knows exactly what she wants." I take a step closer. "The question is whether you're going to respect her enough to accept it."
Sterling's face goes red. "Don't you dare lecture me about respecting my daughter. I've given her everything."
"Except your time. Except your attention. Except any indication that she matters to you beyond being an asset to manage." The words come out harder than I intended, but I don't take them back. "You shipped her off here with a stranger because you couldn't be bothered to deal with the problem yourself. And now you're angry that she found something real?"
"Something real?" He laughs, harsh and bitter. "You're a convicted killer. You spent eight years in prison. You have nothing. No money, no status, no future worth mentioning. What could you possibly offer her?"
"Everything you couldn't."
The words land like a slap. Sterling goes still.
"I see her," I continue. "Not the Instagram persona, not the billionaire's daughter, not the scandal.Her.The woman who reads romance novels when she thinks no one's looking. Who cries alone at night because her mother abandoned her and her father checked out. Who's spent her whole life performing for people who don't give a shit about her."
