feet to the table. Lounging in wait with my arms extended out over the backrest, I stared at her in silent question.
What would the little bitch do?
She’d clean it the fuck up whether she liked it or not, just like I had to do when we were kids. If she tried to turn and run, I’d drag her back. Judging by her expression, she knew it.
Eventually, the tension bled from her shoulders, acceptance settling in the lines of her face. Snatching a small dustpan and broom from the cart, she walked over to the mess and began cleaning.
That would not do.
Pushing up to my feet, I closed the distance between us with two long-legged strides. She shrunk back, her bottom lip trembling, her hand clutching the damn broom so tight, I thought she might attempt to hit me with it.
I wrapped my fingers over the wooden handle, yanked the broom from her hold, and snapped the thing in two over my knee. There was only a small knot of wood left over the bristles that I handed back to her, the longer length of wood clattering against the opposite wall when I tossed it aside and moved to retake my seat.
Anger painted her cheeks a dusty red, and I smiled to see what she would do now that I’d left her with no choice but to crawl around on hands and knees.
Lisbeth’s eyes danced between the broom clutched in her hand and me, tears stinging the rims that she refused to shed. But rather than dropping to the floor, resigned to what I expected of her, she lifted her chin with a level of pride she shouldn’t have, given everything I’d already done to her.
But then, that had always been Lisbeth’s problem.
Her vanity.
Her belief that she was somehow better than all the others simply because of the family she’d been born into.
It was my intent that, by the time this was over, the woman would be more than happy to crawl.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to knock her down, but it was never an impossibility. Everybody had a breaking point.
Everybody.
Voice shaking and so damn quiet that I could barely hear her, Lisbeth met my stare while saying, “You could have just left me homeless and on the streets. It would have been a lot easier.”
But not as much fun, I thought, my fingers tapping over the backrest of the couch as I crossed one ankle over the other.
Her gaze flicked to the movement of my body, from my hands to my feet and back to my face. She scowled, and it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
“I know you hate me.”
Oh, she had no idea.
“And I know you must be angry for how I treated you when we were kids, but is this really necessary? Isn’t it enough that I ended up bankrupt and had to come crawling back? Doesn’t that appease you in the slightest?”
That would be a big fucking no. Not even a little bit.
Her eyes studied the floor at her feet, at the glass, the broken flowers, the fucking mess I’d made of it.
“I shouldn’t have been spying on you today,” she admitted. “And if this is punishment for that, then you should know I didn’t intentionally do it.”
She lifted her head and was met with my silence.
I glanced down at the mess and back to her, lifting a brow in question.
A breath huffed over her lips as she finally lowered herself to the ground.
Slowly brushing the mess into the dustpan, Lisbeth’s body trembled again, whether from fear or rage, it didn’t matter much to me. I was too busy enjoying the view, my body coming to life as I dragged my gaze along the arch of her back, over the round hump of her ass, down farther along the line of the backs of her thighs as she crawled along to sweep up everything.
She’d managed to clean half of the mess before tears finally slipped from her eyes, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs as she dropped the dustpan and broom to the floor and sat up with her legs tucked beneath her.
I’d thought her beautiful when she was young, but I never realized how much more the word could mean when watching her accept defeat.
There was true beauty in the way she kneeled with her face turned down and the tears slipping silently over her pale face.
And still, I wasn’t done.
I pushed to my feet and crossed the room to stand above her.