The Alien's Little Sister (Stolen by an Alien #8) - Amanda Milo Page 0,6

girl.” I walk all the girls to their cars unless they have a man who’s here to do it. It’s a rule. No woman goes out alone. We’re in a good part of town, but nowhere is a perfect town, and it’s dark as all fuck when we close at night, perfect for getting jumped if a group of guys circle back after doing a room here. You’d think puzzle-loving geeks would be a safe crowd, but get a bunch of guys together and I wouldn’t send my daughter, if I had one, out alone among them, and I’m not leaving any of my girls to the whims of the wolves either.

I hustle down the short hall, tugging my sleeve up and twisting my arm to check my watch face before I slip into my office, jerk open my desk, snatch my keys, slap my pocket for my wallet, and then I’m back out and snapping my fingers to catch my snarky receptionist’s attention. Normally, she’s like a puppy who desperately wants to race out of the house and book it in circles around the yard. I mean, without fail, twenty minutes before closing time, she’s almost always giving me the big eyes and whimpering, wanting me to call it an early night and cut her loose. Tonight, she’s so thrilled to chat up Inara that she’s nowhere near ready.

But I am. “Purse. Keys. Your ass waiting at the door. Now.”

“Yes, Dad,” Stacy responds.

“If I was your father,” I mutter. “I’d have beaten that sass out of you long before now.”

Stacy laughs and slings her purse’s strap over her arm. “Yeah, yeah. Ready to go.” She trots past Inara to stand by the door, giving me a pointed look, waiting for praise. Such a princess.

“Fucking thank you,” I tell her, because it’s important to acknowledge when kids follow orders, even if they still give you lip while they do it. That’s to be expected when they still live at home. Once they’re on their own paying their own bills, suddenly they respect their boss a lot more. I’m sort of looking forward to the day when Stacy is so scared of losing her job that she tries to bite her tongue. Emphasis on tries. It’ll be fun. So help me, I will call her mom and chuckle with her about it. I turn my attention to Inara. “Ready?”

“For?” Inara asks. “What are we to do?”

“I’m walking you ladies to your rides. Where you parked?”

“Oh, thank you—but no need,” Inara starts.

I catch Stacy’s deer-in-the-headlights widening-of-the-eyes, because she’s seen this play out with almost every new female employee.

“I appreciate your kind offer, but—”

“Not offering,” I cut in. “Where you parked?”

“Where ‘are’ you parked,” Stacy mumbles behind me, correcting my English.

Does she bust her boy-man’s balls like this? She’s dating a super submissive kid who I delight in creating pet names for. This, Stacy does not appreciate. The boy seems fine, but he can barely form two words in my presence (he’s afraid of me—something I like about him) so I worry about his intelligence. Then again, I’m not confident his diction is what she has him around for. Which reminds me: I’ve been meaning to have another word with the boyfriend. I don’t know if her mom’s had the talk, but this besotted puppy Stacy is seeing is seventeen and in love. They don’t neck in the parking lot anymore, we’ve already had the you-touch-her-wrong, You Die talk, and it went well. So well, her boy spooked and stopped picking her up here at all for a while and Stacy managed to avoid speaking to me for nearly a week, which isn’t easy when all I have to do is lean over my desk and we can see each other, and it’s her job to hand me the credit card receipts every night.

Turns out you can do that without a word and mean mug your boss like it’s part of your job.

Stacy’s too sweet to stay furious at me for forever though, and the little jagoff she’s dating got braver and eventually started picking her up from work again.

Unfortunately, it’s not legal for me to bar her from his vehicle. First time he showed up to take her home, I made them wait while I called her mother to verify that she’d given permission for this. She had. I don’t know what Stacy’s mom is thinking. But maybe she’s got our girl in an industrial-grade chastity belt. I didn’t ask, because questions