cool down.
I can’t help staring—he’s so freaking handsome. I met him for the first time at dinner a week before the wedding. I honestly thought he was a movie star or something until Mom told me that he works with stocks and commodities. My mistake—but it didn’t help that he’d been dressed in a tuxedo at the time and that everyone at the restaurant knew his name.
Mom’s so lucky. I can’t wait to find someone as good looking, charming, and intelligent as Mr. Bale. I’d marry him in a second.
No, it’s Wayne. He’s asked me so many times before to call him by his first name.
He makes his way back to me, but instead of going to sit in his chair, he passes it and comes to stand beside mine. I nearly put a crick in my neck craning to look up at him, and then turn wide eyes on the beautiful tumbler he hands me. Creamy liquid swills against the glass, and a few ice cubes tap against the side when he twists his wrist.
“You’re operating at a massive advantage,” he says.
My fingertips prickle in silent warning.
“I…I uh…probably shouldn’t,” I murmur. My blush deepens, and he shakes his head, eyes wide as if he’s just noticed my discomfort.
“Crap, I forgot,” he says. “You’re starting school tomorrow.”
New school.
New friends.
I’m scared and excited. I’ve missed a lot of school over the years while Mom and I hopped from state to state.
Wayne retracts the glass. I’m on my feet a second later, snatching it back.
I catch a faint scent of ice cream, and I’m desperate to know what it tastes like. Desperate to prove that I’m sophisticated enough to enjoy a nightcap.
He laughs when my hands close over his, although his are twice my size, and releases the glass. “You sure? I don’t want you getting in trouble.”
I nod, bite the inside of my lip, and gingerly take a sip from the crystal tumbler.
My eyes flutter closed. God, it tastes just like ice cream too. With a bit of a bite to it, of course, but…hmm…
“Candy for my Candy,” Wayne says.
My eyes pop open, and a laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “I know what you’re doing.” I point at him as I take my seat, moving as gracefully as possible. “But I’ll kick your butt even if I’ve had a few.”
He shrugs broad shoulders, a smile ghosting around his expressive mouth. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he says.
I keep sipping at my delicious drink as he sits down opposite me and studies the chessboard. I let out a happy sigh into my glass, rippling the surface of the liqueur with my breath as my stepfather tries to puzzle out his next move.
When Mom first said she’d met someone, I thought it was just another fling. Oh, she’d claimed Wayne was different. That he was successful—a real man—and nothing like the others. And boy, had she had a lot of friends over the years. They weren’t all bad, but none of them came close to Mr. Bale.
It’s no wonder she married him as soon as she could. In fact, I think he proposed the day after our two families met for dinner that one night.
I couldn’t be happier for her.
But, honestly? I couldn’t be happier for me. A guy like Wayne doesn’t throw you out of his house because he thinks you snorted the last of his coke. He doesn’t throw your mother around the room because she wasn’t in the mood to suck his dick.
No. A guy like Wayne? He’s the kind of guy that holds you tight as he whispers, I love you’s into your hair.
I squirm in my chair and press the back of my hand against my cheeks. I wish I had enough guts to ask him to open a window—with the fire blazing in the corner and everything closed up tight, it’s way too hot in here.
But the last thing I want to do is inconvenience him by asking him to open a window or to put out the fire. I slip out of my cardigan and lay it over the arm of my padded leather chair.
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” Wayne muses quietly, as if to himself.
I giggle and quickly drown the sound with a gulp of my drink. A milky ice cube bumps against my lips. Wow, that went a lot faster than the glass of red wine Wayne lets us have at dinner each night.
“Aw,”