Free One Night With My Billionaire Master by Cynthia Sax

“When he asked you to suck his cock.”
    “Which you did,” Kayla adds. “Enthusiastically, allowing him to come on your face, licking his--”
    “Enough,” my father barks, a vein on his forehead lifting. My half-sister stops talking. Silence fills the room.
    My father rubs his hands over his weathered face. “Why, Arianna? I know the reason Ross did this. He wanted to humiliate me. But you?” His voice cracks. “I gave you so much, granting you my name, taking you in when your mom didn’t want anything to do with you, gifting you a piece of my business. Is this how you repay me?”
    “It wasn’t me in the video,” I insist, growing desperate. “Watch it again, all the way through, and you’ll see that.”
    “Stop.” My father slams his phone down on the table. “We have the proof in front of us. Don’t bother to deny it.”
    “Father--”
    “Were all of the rumors true?” He won’t allow me to defend myself. “The tennis instructor, the second-year economics professor, the contingent from Hong Kong?”
    “No,” I cry. “None of them were true.”
    “As this rumor isn’t true, either.” My father nudges his phone with his index finger, his hand trembling, a sign of weakness I’d never noticed before now. “You must have thought I was a gullible fool, believing your stories, defending you to my friends. Did you laugh at me? You and Ross? Did you snigger behind my back?”
    “There was no laughing and no sniggering.” I shake.
    “You were too busy moaning and panting,” Cindra quips.
    “That wasn’t me in the video,” I say, realizing no one, not even my father, will believe me.
    “Everyone saw you leave the gala with him.” My half-sister’s happiness at my situation twists my gut. “Will you deny that?”
    “You asked me to escort him out of the building.” I glare at her.
    “No, I didn’t,” she blatantly lies, her smile triumphant.
    And I know, as surely as I know I love Logan. She did this to me. My gaze shifts to Frederick. His lips curl upward, as does Kayla’s. They all orchestrated this, plotted to give my father the proof he requires to disown me.
    And they were successful. My proud stubborn father won’t watch the video. He will do what he’s threatened to do for years—throw me out of the family. I grip the back of a chair, needing to hold onto something.
    “I wouldn’t betray you like this, Father,” I whisper. “If you believe anything, believe that.”
    “You have no right to tell me what I should believe.” A vein in my father’s forehead pulses. “You’re nothing to me, not any more.” His gaze meets mine, the pain in his eyes almost bringing me to my knees.
    I don’t say anything because there are no words to fix this. An eerie cold sensation sweeps over me, starting from my fingers and toes, running along my arms and legs, up my spine, across my chest.
    This latest perceived betrayal has hurt him in a way that can’t be undone, and it no longer matters what is or isn’t true. Our relationship won’t be the same.
    “Give me your passcard.” My father holds out his hand.
    I fumble as I unclip my passcard from my blazer. My fingers are clumsy, numb, lifeless. The ice has penetrated my skin, wrapped around my bones. I place the plastic rectangle on his palm.
    “And your pendant.”
    He’s firing me, both as an employee and a daughter, and I should care, except I’m frozen, my heart, my soul, everything. I remove my necklace, lay the gold pendant on my passcard, feeling naked without it, exposed.
    “Her shares,” Cindra pipes up.
    My father hesitates and hope flares inside me, the warmth combating the chill. He doesn’t want to take this step, to cut me off completely. I rub my hands together, trying to revive the feeling in my fingers. He still cares for me.
    “Do you want Ross to have her shares?” Frederick pushes. “Because that’s what she’ll do—sell them to our enemy.”
    I should deny this, should tell them I’d never sell