Daddy's Princess

Sera

I mulled over my options as I took a shower, washing the blood and grime and the feel of Gabriele’s skin from my body. Food had been laid out, but I hadn’t touched it. An assortment of cheeses, breads, and cured meats sat alongside freshly washed green grapes and dried apricots. The sort of meal I’d have ordered off a menu to share with a friend. Or with Jim on our date, had a date ever come to fruition. As soon as Jim’s name skittered through my mind my chest tightened.

Don’t think about him.

A nice older man, possibly a butler, had cleaned and bandaged my wrists and a few other cuts and scrapes on my head. I’d been worried about being alone with a strange man again, but he’d brought a maid with him.

He’d asked if I’d been… touched. I’d known what he meant. I only had the sense to shake my head and look down at the fresh, clean bandages covering the broken skin along my wrists as he gently told me I would heal. At least, my physical wounds would.

But my mind had been elsewhere.