Queen for a Day (BBW Billionaire Romance) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Christa Wick
knots.
"Anders and the rest of the staff are gone for the night. The men who touch you--"
"Whoa-whoa-whoa." My legs were slow to snap together, but they closed like a vise when he said "men."
Clutching the shoulders of his jacket for leverage, I pulled myself up. His hands moved higher under my skirt. I did nothing to restrain them, my focus instead on getting out of the room. I had studied enough battles as a history major to know that they only way out of an ambush was through it. And if I had to physically go through Parisi to get to the door, I would.
"You intended to build a monument to your mother," Parisi whispered, his voice barely audible over the anxious, roaring pulse of blood through my body. "Are you really going to give up that easily? And over what? What fear is driving your refusal?"
I glared down at him, my eyes burning with frustration. "You don't get it. Women can't behave like this!"
Not just in business, I thought, but everywhere else. A woman could not own her sexuality without repercussions that echoed the rest of her life. What happened when she had children and their teachers found out? What happened when her future husband found out?
The bastard just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Then maybe only men should be the CEOs of real companies."
No longer touching me, Parisi gestured at the open door to his office with a tilt of his chin. "Go home, cara. Go run some little store and tell yourself that five years from now it will be national."
He stood and approached the bag Anders had brought from the guest room. Tucked down at the very bottom, I had placed the ancient Egyptian version of a negligee -- a split skirt comprised of six panels of semi-transparent scarves and a cup-less bustier that was only good for holding the breasts up instead of concealing them. He pulled them out and draped them over the bag.
"Then tell yourself again five more years after that. Or sell your designs to Gucci or Versace and let all the achievements be theirs while your mother molders in her grave."
Leaving me, he stopped at the room's threshold and looked back one last time. "But if you don't want to spend the rest of your life playing it safe, open your bedroom door at midnight and step into a new life, cara ."
********************
Back in the guest room, I paced and watched the clock. I packed and watched the clock. I stared into every nook and cranny the room had to offer and I watched the clock.
I talked to myself, too. First inside my head, then softly under my breath and then in a way I could no longer discern the actual volume of the words that escaped me. Was I really considering his offer? Could I live with myself if I so much as acknowledged the possibility that I might consider it?
With too many questions and zero answers, I went into the suite's bathroom a little before eleven. I felt dirty for the offer having been made and tried to wash the slimy sensation coating my skin and insides away with a brief, unforgiving shower.
Clean and wrapped in an oversized towel that barely contained my thick body, I stared at the long mirror above the sink. I stared at my face, looking for some hint of my mother in the features. I had my father's eyes, a bright aquamarine. Like my skin tone, my mouth was a combination of both parents. The overall width was narrow like my dad's, but the lips remained generous with a cupid's bow on top, the extreme arch creating a small gap at the center where my lips met that I had to consciously keep shut or look like I was begging for a kiss.
I dropped the towel and stared at my body, still looking for what parts of me came from my mother. Below the chin, I was all on my own. Both of my parents had been thin, my father a tall, pale reed who had to be reminded to eat on a daily basis, while my mother followed the dictates of her chosen profession with an iron will.
Snapping a hand towel from the folded pile next to the sink, I doused it with hot water and started wiping
"Anders and the rest of the staff are gone for the night. The men who touch you--"
"Whoa-whoa-whoa." My legs were slow to snap together, but they closed like a vise when he said "men."
Clutching the shoulders of his jacket for leverage, I pulled myself up. His hands moved higher under my skirt. I did nothing to restrain them, my focus instead on getting out of the room. I had studied enough battles as a history major to know that they only way out of an ambush was through it. And if I had to physically go through Parisi to get to the door, I would.
"You intended to build a monument to your mother," Parisi whispered, his voice barely audible over the anxious, roaring pulse of blood through my body. "Are you really going to give up that easily? And over what? What fear is driving your refusal?"
I glared down at him, my eyes burning with frustration. "You don't get it. Women can't behave like this!"
Not just in business, I thought, but everywhere else. A woman could not own her sexuality without repercussions that echoed the rest of her life. What happened when she had children and their teachers found out? What happened when her future husband found out?
The bastard just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Then maybe only men should be the CEOs of real companies."
No longer touching me, Parisi gestured at the open door to his office with a tilt of his chin. "Go home, cara. Go run some little store and tell yourself that five years from now it will be national."
He stood and approached the bag Anders had brought from the guest room. Tucked down at the very bottom, I had placed the ancient Egyptian version of a negligee -- a split skirt comprised of six panels of semi-transparent scarves and a cup-less bustier that was only good for holding the breasts up instead of concealing them. He pulled them out and draped them over the bag.
"Then tell yourself again five more years after that. Or sell your designs to Gucci or Versace and let all the achievements be theirs while your mother molders in her grave."
Leaving me, he stopped at the room's threshold and looked back one last time. "But if you don't want to spend the rest of your life playing it safe, open your bedroom door at midnight and step into a new life, cara ."
********************
Back in the guest room, I paced and watched the clock. I packed and watched the clock. I stared into every nook and cranny the room had to offer and I watched the clock.
I talked to myself, too. First inside my head, then softly under my breath and then in a way I could no longer discern the actual volume of the words that escaped me. Was I really considering his offer? Could I live with myself if I so much as acknowledged the possibility that I might consider it?
With too many questions and zero answers, I went into the suite's bathroom a little before eleven. I felt dirty for the offer having been made and tried to wash the slimy sensation coating my skin and insides away with a brief, unforgiving shower.
Clean and wrapped in an oversized towel that barely contained my thick body, I stared at the long mirror above the sink. I stared at my face, looking for some hint of my mother in the features. I had my father's eyes, a bright aquamarine. Like my skin tone, my mouth was a combination of both parents. The overall width was narrow like my dad's, but the lips remained generous with a cupid's bow on top, the extreme arch creating a small gap at the center where my lips met that I had to consciously keep shut or look like I was begging for a kiss.
I dropped the towel and stared at my body, still looking for what parts of me came from my mother. Below the chin, I was all on my own. Both of my parents had been thin, my father a tall, pale reed who had to be reminded to eat on a daily basis, while my mother followed the dictates of her chosen profession with an iron will.
Snapping a hand towel from the folded pile next to the sink, I doused it with hot water and started wiping
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