The Girl Next Door - Emma Hart Page 0,15

stop it,” I said to Dad, flicking a dishcloth in his direction. “He’s winding you up,” I added to Kai.

“Do you fish?” Dad asked, ignoring me.

“Uh, I haven’t in a while,” Kai said slowly. “But I used to go with my dad.”

“Great.” He clapped Kai on the shoulder again. “I’m going this weekend. Why don’t you and your dad join me?”

My eyes bugged, and Holley choked on her wine.

Kai ignored us entirely. “Sure. I know he had a job booked this weekend, but it’s only a small one. He should be able to pass it on to one of the other guys. I’ll call him tonight and let you know.”

“Sure. C’mere, let me get you my number.” Dad muscled him off to the back, muttering about fishing and how he knew the best spots on the lake for whatever fish it was he liked to catch.

Thank God we’d inherited a house on the lake from his parents. I didn’t expect Dad, Kai, or Kai’s dad to be home the same day.

“What just happened?” Holley asked, jerking her head to look between me and Mom.

I grimaced, shaking my head.

Mom sighed. “He found someone other than me to take fishing.”

And just like that, it seemed like my parents had accepted Kai into our family.

It was going to be so awkward when I had to tell them we’d broken up.

CHAPTER SIX – KAI

“My daughter is a terrible liar,” Simon said, pouring whiskey into two small crystal tumblers. “She likes to think she can fool me, but that ship sailed when she was sixteen and swore the size six boot prints on the porch roof weren’t hers.”

I said nothing. I had no idea where this conversation was going, but I was already pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it, so I accepted the tumbler of whiskey without a word.

“Jasmine likes to keep the peace. You might have noticed that her mother is what I would call, ah, slightly volatile,” he continued, sitting in the high-back leather chair in front of the large, mahogany desk, and stroked his dark gray beard. “She also has a tendency to ignore the obvious in the hope of keeping the peace.”

Ah. Now I knew where this was going.

“I know you’re not dating, much less engaged,” Simon said, cutting to the chase. “I also know it was Ivy’s knee-jerk reaction to her grandmother yesterday. You do know you don’t have to go along with it, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes, sir. But if it makes it easier for her right now, then I’m happy to.”

He raised one eyebrow. “You are? Don’t you have a dating life of your own?”

“Not particularly,” I replied slowly. “But even if I did, she and the baby would be my priority anyway, making any dating life non-existent.”

He leaned back in his chair and spun his glass so the amber liquid sloshed against the sides. “I’m not sure what to think about you.”

“You can think what you like,” I said honestly. “Just know that I care about your daughter a great deal, sir, and if us pretending to be in a relationship makes this easier for her, so be it.”

“I know.”

“Know what?”

“That you care about her,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “That’s more than a little obvious.”

I grimaced. Apparently, everyone knew I had feelings for Ivy except Ivy.

“Regardless of how I feel, this isn’t about me.” I kept my voice low. “It’s about her, and I’m not going to use this situation to push her into anything. I don’t want her to feel like this has to be real just because we’re pretending.”

“I’m sure.” Simon scratched his chin. “Either way, I won’t let it slip. Not even to my wife, although I’m sure she’ll kill me if she ever finds out that I know it’s not a real relationship.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, sipping the whiskey.

I wasn’t a whiskey guy, but it was the only polite thing to do.

Three knocks sounded at the door, and Ivy poked her head through. “Sorry, are you done? Mom wants you,” she said to her dad. “Something about that ‘goddamn Hillary and her toyboy’ being in the bar.”

Simon sighed. “I’ve told her I can’t kick them out just because her arch-nemesis is bringing her new twenty-two-year-old lover in.”

“Ew. She actually has a toyboy? She’s, like, fifty.”

“As is your mother,” he replied dryly.

“Yeah, but she’s not dating a college graduate,” she replied with the same wry tone. “Anyway, she wants you to get them out of her damn sight, and she’s