My Father Forced Me to Be a Billionaire's Mistress

My father wanted to hand me over to Adrian Kingsley, the heir everyone in his Manhattan circle was desperate to please. I ran away with my boyfriend instead.

Then my boyfriend was injured in a hit-and-run. We had no money, and Adrian came to our rescue.

We were grateful. So when my father was diagnosed with a serious illness, I worked up the courage to ask Adrian for help again.

He took a drag on his cigarette and watched me through the smoke.

"Spend the night with me."

——

My father told me to become Adrian Kingsley's mistress because his real estate business was collapsing.

He also gambled. By then, he had creditors waiting outside buildings, and he sometimes went out in a cap and dark glasses to avoid them. Somehow, he still thought the family's most pressing problem was my failure to make myself useful.

"You go to their parties," he said. "Put in a little effort."

In his circle, everyone put in effort for Adrian.

The Kingsleys had old Manhattan money, businesses, and the kind of political connections my father mentioned in a lower voice. Adrian didn't need to ask twice. Often he didn't need to ask at all.

Once, at an outdoor party, a man had dropped to all fours beside a puddle and offered Adrian his back as a stepping stone. His family had owned a little grocery store. Now they had a chain.

Women who knew how to make Adrian laugh ended up with apartments and enough money never to work again.

I liked parties. I liked getting dressed up and taking pictures with my friends. I'd been to his gatherings, but that didn't mean I wanted to get down on all fours.

The rewards were wonderful if you pleased him. If you didn't, falling from a third-floor balcony could be the least of your problems.

I had seen enough to be afraid.

A man around our circle once said, "Who the fuck is Adrian Kingsley? Why should I crawl for him?"

Afterward, people began making trouble for his family's business. I never knew whether Adrian had ordered it. There were plenty of people eager to do things for him without being asked.

The next time I saw that man, he was on his knees in front of Adrian, apologizing and slapping his own face.

My friends and I had come out for a fun evening. We sat together without speaking while the slaps went on. His face was swollen before Adrian turned to the man beside him.

"What is he doing?"

Someone dragged the man away. I never found out what happened to him after that. I stopped going to those parties.

My father didn't consider that a good enough reason to refuse.

"Get dressed. You're coming to dinner with me tonight."

I nodded.

In our house, you didn't disagree with Dad. You could get in trouble just for talking too much.

I was one of his children from outside his marriage. My birth mother had left him after I was born, and he'd brought me home for his wife to raise. She was the woman I called Mom.

Mom never talked back to him either. He could bring another child through the front door and expect her to make room. He gave orders; the rest of us kept our mouths shut.

Losing his money hadn't changed that.

Adrian frightened me for the same reason my father did. In the men I'd grown up around, money and power came with the assumption that everyone beneath them should be grateful to obey.

I'd finished college, but I didn't have a job. Dad had been waiting to get a good return on me.

Apparently, tonight was the night.