My Super Sassy Dad: Stop Running Away, Mrs. Quinn!

"Ding." A few photos came in on my phone—Titus Quinn being plied with alcohol by several women, then going into a private room with them.

...

O’Connell Family.

Yulia O’Connell was holding a contract, looking a little dazed. It was one of the many companies under Cole O’Connell’s name.

An employment contract for a jewelry company.

"What are you giving this to me for?" Yulia propped her chin with one hand, lounging sideways on the sofa. Her nightdress only barely covered the tops of her thighs, and her long, dewy legs were casually draped there.

Cole had hesitated for a long time before taking out that contract. All these years he’d never even considered letting her get one inch out from under his nose; no man was allowed to get close to her.

Terrified that the little princess he’d raised with such care would get abducted again, that there’d be another Nathan Knight.

But these days, with her bit of freedom, Yulia had been getting happier and happier. Sometimes she’d even run up to him the way she used to and call him "brother" with that old look on her face, and that look made him not want to strangle her freedom anymore.

"You..." Cole paused, took a drag of his cigarette. "If you get bored you can go over to this company and poke around. I’ve put it under your name—when you’re bored you can play with it."

The corner of Yulia’s mouth twitched. Only the Quinn Family, the O’Connell Family, and The Rivers Family, those three powerful clans, would casually hand over their own companies for women to use as toys, like it was nothing at all.

"You don’t want to go?" Seeing her silent, Cole made a show of reaching to take the contract back.

"I’ll go." Yulia quickly hid her hands behind her back.

She looked just like she had at ten years old, snatching candy from his palm.

He’d said, "Kiss me once and I’ll give it to you."

Yulia had been coaxed and tricked into kissing him several times, randomly planting kisses on his nose and chin.

He even scared her, saying that when she grew up, if she didn’t behave, he’d eat her.

Back then Yulia hadn’t understood what "eat" meant. Only later did she figure out what he meant by that.

Yulia noticed his amber eyes growing darker and darker, just like every time he was about to kiss her. She immediately shifted her gaze away, and her heart actually thumped heavily twice.

Her hands unconsciously clenched. It was strange.

"I give you anything you want, and this is how you treat me?" Cole slipped his fingers through her hair and hooked them around her neck, his devilishly handsome face leaning in, amber eyes dropping to her ripe red lips.

Yulia understood what he meant. She looped her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him. She’d done this move no less than a few hundred times already.

"Is it sincere?" Cole stepped back, not letting her succeed.

Yulia said, "...Do you even care whether it’s sincere or not?"

"You only do it to get under my skin," Cole ground out.

"But every time I kiss you, don’t you really enjoy it? Every time you get turned on and pin me down and kiss me forever." Yulia was just stating the facts.

Cole: "..."

His big hand slid down from the back of her neck. He didn’t kiss her. He turned and strode upstairs.

"..."

She felt a bit disappointed!

Where had that come from?

It wasn’t the same as with Nathan Knight!

"Boom." It started pouring outside, thunder and lightning crashing.

"Ah!" Yulia screamed in fright, utterly repulsed by thunder.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and curled into a corner of the sofa, wishing she could hide herself completely away, her face chalk-white.

On the white, ornately carved European-style staircase, a tall, handsome figure stood silently, just watching her curl into the corner of the sofa. The cigarette between his long fingers was slowly burning down, wearing away at his patience.