Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,34

down in another, and the wall of windows.

Growing up, I’d been around the world.

From Sweden to the Caribbean, New York to LA, Mexico to Canada. I’d stayed in five-star hotels, Italian villas and even an ancient castle.

But I’d never seen anything quite like this place.

It was as if we were on top of the world.

Walking to the windows where a slider door led out to a narrow deck, I wondered what the view would look like in the summer. I couldn’t imagine the tall pine trees without snow on their limbs. Despite feeling so isolated and almost trapped, I didn’t know if I’d ever seen anything more picturesque.

Beautiful to me had always been the white sand and sparkling clear turquoise waters of Miami Beach. Beauty was the smooth trunks and feathery fronds of royal palms swaying in the ocean breeze. Home had always been the scent of ocean air and summer rain.

But up here, the mountain air that smelled like cold and faintly of pine was all at once unfamiliar and peaceful. I’d never been anywhere so quiet or smelled somewhere that was so pure. Maybe it was the snow or being so far away from civilization, but the place definitely fit Shade. The solitude alone seemed to match something soul deep in him. I could see how the mountain’s natural seclusion would appeal to him.

The front door opened, and with it came a rush of cold air.

I turned.

Shade stomped his boots off in the small entryway, then locked the door behind him as he held a pile of dry wood in one arm.

“I’m surprised it’s not wet.” I nodded at the wood.

“Again with the innuendos. Now you’re just fucking with me, princess.” He walked past me toward the fireplace and squatted.

Heat hit my cheeks. “I’m princess again?” Not that I completely hated it, it was growing on me, but I liked it better when he called me woman. I liked the tone his voice took on when he said it. His already deep cadence would dip, and he’d say it like he meant it only for me.

He tossed a couple logs in the fireplace. “You’re always princess, woman.”

Still wearing his leather jacket, I crossed my arms against the chill in the cabin. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

He crumpled up a few sheets of newspaper from a pile on the hearth and shoved them under the logs. “Then change it.”

Something in the past few seconds had shifted without me. From his second mention of sexual innuendos to now, he’d become colder. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was me who had become warmer and I was only imagining what I wanted to see. “I’m not the one who nicknamed me that.”

Grabbing a few sticks from a pile next to the newspaper, he broke them over his knee and added them to the crumpled newspaper under the logs. “You know what I’m talking about.”

I couldn’t read the tone, or lack thereof in his voice. “I can’t change the fact that I’m Leo Amherst’s daughter.” Or that I had a trust fund I’d gain access to when I turned twenty, ensuring I’d never have to work a day in my life if I didn’t want to.

“Can’t or won’t?” he challenged.

Defensiveness hit, and I fired back with words that would never change the fact that I was who I was. “What’s that supposed to mean? Just walk away from everything my father has done for me?” Suddenly upset that we were talking about this, that the conversation had even turned in this direction, but even more upset that I was defending my father, I stupidly kept talking. “I’m not doing that.” I didn’t dare admit to him that I’d thought about it for years.

“I didn’t say to walk away from your trust fund.”

My back stiffened. “Who says I have a trust fund?”

He smirked. “You don’t?”

“That’s irrelevant,” I snapped.

“Sure, babe.” He let out a half laugh that was all at once condescending and judgmental. “You won’t have to ever bust a nine to five, but that’s not relevant.” He wadded up one more piece of newspaper and shoved it under the log with enough force to tell me he was as irritated with me as I was embarrassed.

My stepmother had been drilling into me since I was little that I needed to either work or go to school or do something like she did with her charity. And until this very moment, I hadn’t seriously considered how I looked to the