He wasn’t gentle and it hurt, but the sting morphed into heat. And I was angry, so I had that fueling me. Yet his dirty talk made me hot and that made me wonder who I was mad at. Him or myself. Either way, I said, “I hate you.”

“In your deals with Macon to get your brothers to college, what did you offer?”

I squirmed, which only had me feeling every inch of how hard he was.

“We finished this downstairs,” I replied.

“Not even close, princess. Let’s start with South. He was a year after you in school. What did you give your father for South’s freedom?”

I gripped the bedding and stayed silent. He waited a second, then another, then began to spank me. Hard. One cheek then the other. “Jed!” I shouted, but he didn’t stop.

I saw Eddie on his bed, curled up and sound asleep. I wasn’t getting any help from him.

Jed was relentless.

The pain got to be too much and I had no idea if Jed would ever stop. “I switched majors!”

His hand settled on my hot skin. “Keep going.”

I was sweating and angry and turned on, which made me angrier.

“I wanted to study forestry,” I said. “To be a park ranger. But Macon wanted me in business, to take over. Said I couldn’t do that or get my MBA if I was fucking Smoky Bear.”

I loved the land. The wilderness. Jed didn’t know that it was my only escape. Hiking or horseback riding. Snowmobiling. I owned enough of it that I had it all to myself. Except every acre that belonged to me was only that, an escape. It wasn’t my life.

“So Daddy picked your major in trade for South to be an artist. What about East?”

I didn’t say anything, remembering back to that conversation all those years ago.

“Need a little refresher of who’s in charge here?” Jed asked. “You talk or I spank.”

I huffed, then turned my head. I was in an awkward position over his lap but fighting seemed useless.

“After my sophomore year, I came home from Harvard for the summer instead of working on the Cape like my friends. He put me in the mail room. I worked sixty hours a week in the basement of Wainright Holdings. Starting at the bottom.”

“Nothing wrong with the mail room,” he said, knowing there was more to this than just hard work.

“You’re right,” I replied. “I met the nicest people. Genuine, unlike Macon and his cronies.”

“You said Macon threatened to break East’s leg. He wasn’t doing it to fuck with your brother, he was doing it to get something from you.”