Page 105

Like right now.

I swear, he gets a little better looking every day. His beard hides his jaw, but I know he’s gritting his teeth. That’s a habit he has when he’s trying to maintain his composure. I hate thatI’ve again put him in a position to have to save me from myself.

But I never thought he looked at me as anything other than the obligation left behind by his deceased wife. He’s my stepfather, my only family besides his mother. I’ve met her a handful of times; I love her, and it seems she loves me, but if she knew my secret, they both would expel me from their lives like a rotten piece of fruit.

The silence in the limo pulses around me. I tap my fingers on my knees. Drumming them back and forth, never missing a finger, and if I do, I wipe my palms together three times, splay my fingers, then start over.

I look down, staring at the flawless shine on Cade’s shoes. Then note the flash of lime green. I'm not sure how I didn’t notice his socks before now.

My heart flutters, and my belly topples over on itself. He’s wearing the cartoon avocado socks I gave him for Father’s Day last year. It was dumb, but he’s always making me avocado toast in the mornings, so I ordered him a set of these crazy avocado socks, because what do you get the man that has everything?

Avocado socks, that’s what.

Only, I’ve never seen him wear them until now.

“You’re wearing the socks,” I whisper, the silence too heavy for another second. “You wore avocado socks to the Oscars.”

I’m not sure anything has meant more to me in my life. Except, well, that little incident in the restroom where I’m pretty sure he dry-humped me to his own orgasm, and yeah, I French-kissed my stepfather.

Yeah, that felt pretty significant.

He nods, his eyes boring a hole through the limo divider. A vein in his temple looks ready to pop. My heart is breaking into a thousand shards of glass as I bite the inside of my cheek waiting for him to say something. Anything.

My eyelids prickle with heat and I’m sure he’s about to say what happened was a horrible mistake.

He’ll tell me, it was just the heat of the moment, the women throwing themselves at him earlier got him charged up and I… I was just there for blowback. A little relief.

I steal glances between looking down at my tapping fingers and noticing his body softening. The vein in his temple a little less bulgy. As though the anger from earlier is leaving him. He swallows then turns toward me, the intensity in his eyes remaining, but there’s something new. A lightness I’ve never noticed as though he’s seeing something for the first time.

I’m shivering, the cool jets of the ceiling A/C vents blowing my bangs around as his hand captures mine. He grabs them both, stopping the drumming of my fingers as the heat from his touch makes my core clench and the shivers turn to trembling. He clasps both of my hands between his warm palms. The leather squeaks under my ass as I shift and wiggle. His hands are rough and calloused from what I know was a working man’s life before he became the Cade Jamison I know. I also know he used to work on vintage cars and motorcycles in the garage at the mansion.

Our home.

That is, until the fire destroyed them all. His prized possessions were all gone the night I met him. A fire that took the garage also almost killed his mother.

Not the best start to a marriage. He never rebuilt the garage. He had the charred remains cleaned up and hauled away. Green grass grows now where he once housed his treasures.

Guilt chills me as I think of my mom. Cade’s thumb glides back and forth on my wrist, and I push away the thoughts of where those hands may have been on my own mother.

“Why were you alone in that room with that boy?” Cade’s voice is throttled, but I sense the tension in each word.

I have so much to say, but if I tell him the truth, he will hate me forever. Guaranteed.

“I was trying to sign him to the agency. At least… get a meeting with him. I would have turned it over to Davis, but I wanted to show you I could do something right for once. Make myself useful to the agency.”

Make you want to keep me around. I’m nineteen, and you could kick me out whenever you want. I need you to need me like I need you.

“Have I not told you how dangerous this world is? All the glamour and sparkles hide the darkest underbelly in this fucking world. I knew better.” He shakes his head. His voice is raspy and pained, eyes downcast, pulling his hands from mine, leaving me lost.

His touch, his kiss, the way he rubbed against me only embedded my need for him deeper inside me.

“Yes,” I answer, my mind rushing around the details of what I had hoped to be the end of the proof of my secret. Ryan Nolan was more than just some actor I was trying to sign.

I’ve known him since the night of my mother and Cade’s reception at the mansion. Two days after they came back from Vegas, they threw a huge party announcing their marriage and everyone who was anyone in Hollywood was there.

Ryan was a child star who was pivoting into a more serious adult actor, and I was, well, me. Awkward and unsure even growing up with my mother’s fame, it paled in comparison to the level she’d reached by marrying Cade. As they celebrated that night, I found a quiet corner, sat on the floor reading a century-old encyclopedia from Cade’s enormous library. Volume Ef – Ez. I was on Elephant when a young boy with blond hair and a California bright smile stood in front of me.

He was friendly. Kind. And he knew so much about Cade, and before long, he was telling me things about my new stepfather and my new home as I hung on every word. He told meCade’s only love, besides money and making deals, were classic cars and motorcycles. He’d been a mechanic when he was younger, like his father. He’d dreamed of owning an Indian 438 and a Ford Falcon when he was young and those were his first purchases when he found success. From there, he caught the bug and had an entire climate-controlled garage built on the back of the property that housed his world-renowned collection.