by Sorcha Black
Our dad might not have been the best parent, but my sister and I’d had each other, not to mention all of the other neighborhood kids. I’d had Ariel and Ellis since high school. I’d had girlfriends and buddies and teachers. I’d even had Mr. Poulin, who’d lived across the street the whole time we were growing up and who yelled at me for stealing his apples, but also showed me how to change a tire and fix a roof. I’d had a community. It seemed like Aberdeen had been raised in a glass display case, only brought out to show off on special occasions, then stored again like a piece of expensive jewelry.
No one had given a sweet damn about this girl except the household staff.
“I’ve only talked to Jake twice since he moved,” she admitted, not looking up from the hospital corner she was making. “Be honest…should I leave him alone? Am I bothering him?”
“He’s trying to give you both distance and time to adjust. You know he calls me every few days, right?”
“He does?” She looked up at me, startled.
“Like clockwork. I always call him back when I’m on a break, so I’m not neglecting you. It’s like he only lets himself call that often. He asks a hell of a lot of questions for a man you think isn’t fond of you.”
She nodded, biting her lips together and looking hard at my eyes as if trying to see if I was lying. I wasn’t. She nodded again and blinked, turning away to start putting groceries into the cupboard, but I didn’t miss the way she wiped at her eyes when her back was turned.
I let her complete the task without help since she seemed to need the privacy, and I wasn’t about to stop a woman from nesting when she was exactly where I wanted her.
“Where’s the fridge?” she asked, turning in a complete circle.
“That’s what the ice is for,” I replied. I took the cooler out of the corner and dumped the ice and perishable food into it.
She raised a skeptical brow.
“Does that work? I thought that was a movie thing.”
“It works.” I chuckled. “We’re not going to die of food poisoning on my watch.”
“I didn’t even think…” Her eyes rounded. “You know how to cook, right?”
“Obviously.”
“There’s nothing obvious about it. I’ve never opened a milk carton, let alone made toast or cooked an egg. I wasn’t allowed to hang around in the kitchen.”
“You can help me make meals, okay? I’ll teach you the basics. Getting takeout would be a bit of an excursion.”
She frowned. “But what if I start a grease fire and we die because there are no firefighters?”
“First of all, we won’t be using much oil for what I bought. Second, I’ll show you what to do if there’s a small fire while you’re cooking. Third, if worse comes to worst, you get out of the cabin and go down to the boat and drive away. The island isn’t even close enough to the forest around us to worry about starting a forest fire.”
“How would I drag you to safety? You’re too big for me to lift.” She started to hyperventilate. “I don’t even know CPR.”
“Shh, baby.” I pulled her into my arms. “I promise not to need CPR while we’re here.”
She nodded against my chest.
I chuckled.
“Wait, you can’t promise me that. It’s not like you have control over everything that could happen.”
“People go camping all the time, Aberdeen. They usually don’t die from it.”
“Usually,” she said pointedly. “Usually isn’t the same as never.”
“If camping was that dangerous, you’d hear about it on the news all the time. There would be PSAs on television telling people not to do it.”
I patted her head then let her go, and she rested her forehead against my chest as if there was a magnet holding her to me. Maybe that feeling was just me projecting what I felt onto her. It felt like my heart was tied to hers…or something equally sentimental and mockable. Oh well, it wasn’t like I was going to tell anyone.
We stood that way for a moment.
This relationship was such a bad fucking idea, and every extra day we were in it felt like careening downhill with no brakes—picking up speed with no earthly way to stop ourselves.
Eventually, she pulled back and slumped into one of the chairs at the rickety table. I wanted to pick her up and kiss her breathless.
“I really don’t know anything about anything. I didn’t even know how buying gas worked.” Tiredly, she rubbed a hand over her pretty face.
“Now that you know there are gaps in your learning, you can take steps to remedy the situation.”
“But how am I supposed to know I don’t know things if I don’t know that I don’t know them?”
“Maybe it’s time you insist your mother slackens a bit of her control over you.”
Her mouth twisted. “I was working on that around the time you got hired. It wasn’t going well.”
“Then I guess you have to insist a little harder. Maybe you could get a job somewhere, or volunteer to get some experience.”
“What I want to do is get my own place.”
“That’s a bit difficult when you have no money.” And I wasn’t going to offer to let her move in with me when I got my own place. Absolutely not.
“I’ll be twenty-two in a few weeks.”
“Don’t remind me.”
She rubbed absently at a speck of dirt on her leggings. “When I turn twenty-two, I get my inheritance from my grandmother.”
Her gaze sought mine, but I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. The fact that she was inheriting money wasn’t much of a surprise, but the fact that it hadn’t happened yet, or that her mother hadn’t been left in charge of managing it, was.
“Mother has been pushing for me to invest it in the company, of course, saying that it’s the safest thing to do, but I could do anything with it. I could buy a house or something. I could learn to be independent.”
I avoided the temptation of jumping on that statement and pushing for her to do just that, even though it would make an ongoing relationship between us less complicated. I couldn’t have her basing big life decisions on her silly temporary crush on me.
“What are your plans for the future?”
She raised her brows. “Well, I have my business degrees, but my mother’s plans for me are vague. Supposedly, she wants to work me into the company at some point—at least that’s what she’s always implied. But aside from getting me to be the family representative at unimportant fundraisers, she hasn’t let me do anything. Sometimes I feel like an extra pawn on her chessboard. She doesn’t know what to do with me yet, but eventually I’ll probably serve some purpose.”
“Is she planning on handing the reins of the company over to you at some point?”
“That’s what I was raised to believe, but she’s got a strange way of training me. She does everything herself, and isn’t interested in showing me how to do things, or in giving me responsibilities of any kind. I mean, I’d be happy enough to be one of her assistants, but she doesn’t have the patience for me ‘bumbling around,’” she said with air quotes on the last part of the statement.
I took one of the other chairs and sat too, our knees almost brushing. “I’m sure she plans on showing you how things work sooner or later.”
“I think maybe you’re giving her the benefit of the doubt because she pays you.” She frowned at me in mock suspicion.
“I’m already a bastard for getting personally involved with you—I’m not going to poison you against your mother. She must care about you if she hired me to protect you. Maybe she’s been more concerned about the possibility of you getting abducted than she has been about you learning how to run a company.”
She rubbed her finger back and forth over her lips.
Such pretty lips. I loved kissing her.
My cock twitched, as though remembering it had been between those lips only yesterday. Ugh, why was I such an asshole? I could be thinking sweet thoughts about her one minute, and the nex
t my mind turned X-rated.
I’d never been one to care whether my partners had been with a few people or a few hundred, but knowing I was her first filled me with a weird, guilty satisfaction. Like I’d claimed her in some primal way, which was ridiculous. She wasn’t a piece of property for a man to stick a flag into and claim.
Even so, the idea made me feel strangely possessive. I didn’t want her to have a second lover…ever.
I tried to focus on the guilt I should be feeling instead of how much I wanted her again.
Impatient, I cleared my throat, hoping it would remind my dick to behave.
“If you have your own money coming, you could always choose to do something entirely different. With your education, you could go into business for yourself. I know that’s not what your mother wants for you, but sometimes we have to make our own choices in life.”
“I wonder what my father would have wanted for me if he was still alive.”
“Are your paternal grandparents still around? Maybe they could answer questions about that if he ever discussed it with them. You were so young when he passed.”
“I never knew my grandfather, and my grandmother died just before my father did. I’m sure he would have had opinions about what I should do with my life and the money his mother left me.” She fiddled with one of her curls. “He was in charge of managing my inheritance. I remember my mother saying that she missed him but was glad he hadn’t had time to waste my money before he died.”
“He was bad with money?” I could just imagine her mother telling her this as a cautionary tale to make sure Aberdeen invested her inheritance the way she saw fit. It seemed to be her modus operandi. She’d been groomed her whole life to obey her mother.
Then again, maybe that’s what most families were like, to a greater or lesser extent. Lord knew my father had expected complete obedience, even though he hadn’t given us an ounce of respect or affection.
“I’m not sure. It’s been sort of hinted at that he’s the reason I was kidnapped, but the details have been vague. Like maybe he had shady business dealings or owed money to the wrong people? Maybe Mother is worried I’ve inherited his criminal genes and wants to keep an eye on me so I don’t get influenced by the wrong people.”
“Or maybe she just enjoys your obedience.”
“That’s possible.” She smirked, suddenly looking bratty. “You don’t seem to mind it.”
“Like you’ve ever listened to me?”
“Oh, I listen. You just have to make me.”
And just like that, we went from a serious conversation where I was feeling highly protective of her, to our normal sexual tension where I wanted to bend her over furniture and whisper threats in her ear.
Although I loved disciplining her, I never wanted her to quit misbehaving.
“You like it when I make you obey?”
“I like it when you get a little rough with me. Is that bad?”
“Not when it’s what we both like.” My voice had gotten lower as my interest grew. “Maybe we should cool it a bit, though. You know this thing between us can’t last.”
She smiled a secret smile and got off her chair, approaching me like I might book it out of the cabin and swim for shore. “Is that why you wouldn’t do me in that parking lot yesterday, Daddy? Or at the hotel last night?”
Without waiting for an answer, she crawled into my lap and sat sideways, not that my cock cared she wasn’t straddling me. My dick was pretty convinced it could make this position work. Her pussy was hot even through her thin leggings. I had a pocket knife on me. It would take half a second to slice through the fabric and get into her. Hell, I could probably rip the seam with my bare hands.
“We’re running to keep you safe. I have to stay sharp.”
“That’s not why you wouldn’t have sex with me.”
I inhaled, needing to have this discussion with her again, possibly more for me than for her. “We’re doomed, you know. This can’t go on long-term. I don’t know if that’s what you were hoping for, but I like you too much to lie to you.”
She didn’t cry or argue, which is what I’d half expected.
“So, it’s not that you don’t like me enough to see where things go, you’re just trying to make sure I don’t get too attached. You’re protecting me.” She gave me a sad smile. “Or are you protecting yourself?”
“It might be a bit of both.”
She nodded. “I’m not as immature as you think I am, you know. I like teasing you and calling you Daddy, but I’m not a child.”
“I should hope not.”
“We haven’t known each other for that long, and it’s not like this is a normal relationship. I mean—if you consider it a relationship at all and not just…”
“A bit of fun?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not just casual sex to me, Aberdeen. I never would have crossed the line into being unprofessional if I didn’t have feelings for you that I couldn’t ignore.”
She nodded, looking reassured. “We aren’t necessarily doomed, you know. We could make it work.”
“Do you think for a minute your mother wouldn’t run me out of town or have me murdered if she found out what’s going on? She’s not going to allow you to get involved with the help.”
She raised her chin, looking adorably stubborn. “I’m a big girl. She doesn’t get to tell me who I can fuck.”
“Language, Aberdeen Arabella.”
“If you don’t like it, maybe you should do something about it.”
I tapped her nose. “You’re not distracting me from this conversation—not with brattiness, and not with those sly little wiggles of yours.”
“Shh. You weren’t supposed to notice that.”
I weaved my fingers through her hair then gave it a gentle tug.
“Stay on topic,” I admonished. “Your mother may not get to tell you who you can go to bed with, but she can make your life difficult. You live under her roof, and I’m sure you don’t want to piss her off and get disinherited. Your money is only going to go so far, and if you’re going to inherit your mother’s company someday, you need her to teach you how to run it.”
“She can give her company away to charity for all I care. I can’t let her control me indefinitely for the sake of money. I only have this one life. What if she controls me until I’m sixty? Seventy? Should I let her ruin my entire life?”
“Maybe she’ll back off as you get older.”
“Like maybe she’ll stop trying to control what I read and what I listen to when I’m thirty? She’ll start letting me choose my own clothes when I’m forty—after I’ve married the guy she picks for me and popped out a few heirs for her dynasty?”
She had a point.
“Once you have your inheritance, you can buy your own music and books,” I pointed out lamely.
“She wants control over all of that money. She expects me to invest it all in her company.”
“Maybe she’s afraid you’ll run out, and she wants to make sure you’re set up for life.”
“Even if I’m horrible with saving or investing money, do you honestly think I’ll burn through two point three billion buying books and Happy Meals?”
I stared at her, stunned. Obviously rich families passed around big money all the time, but it had never occurred to me the inheritance from her grandmother would be so vast. I’d been thinking along the lines of a million and a fancy clock or something.
She went on, not noticing my astonishment. “I could probably live off the interest pretty comfortably, couldn’t I? I don’t need a big fancy house and servants. I just want a quiet life.” She looked around the cabin. “Although maybe not always this quiet.”
“It’s your money and your decision. Does doing what you want with the money mean enough to you to risk your relationship with your mother?”
“My freedom is worth the risk. I didn’t even realize the extent of what I was missing until you came along. I’m embarrassed that I was so comp
licit in my own…captivity?” She made a wry face. “So, yeah…our relationship may not be as doomed as you think.”
I opened my mouth but wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “You shouldn’t disregard your mother’s opinions just because you like fucking your bodyguard.”
“My god, Blue. I’m not a rebellious teenager. I’m an adult. I want to make my own decisions—to get some say over my own life. You’re one of those choices, right now. You’ve made me see how deeply messed up my life is, but that doesn’t mean we’re fated to ride off into the sunset together.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I blew out a breath in relief. We hadn’t been together long, but the fact that I was her first relationship made me worry she wouldn’t be objective. She shouldn’t make serious decisions about her life based on our fledgling relationship.
“Talk about a man with an inflated ego,” she teased. “The sex is good, but it isn’t that good. Then again, my memory of it is fading fast. A lot has happened since then.”
I swatted her thigh, and she wiggled in my lap, looking smug.
“Ohh, is that why I had to see to myself in the parking lot? I hadn’t realized old men took so long to recover from sex.”
“Aberdeen,” I warned.
She cackled evilly.
Fuck, I loved this girl. From what she’d been saying, it didn’t sound like she was in love with me, so indulging myself was safe enough, I supposed. Only I would suffer in the end.
“We could do this as long as we liked, though,” she pointed out. “If I got my own place, we wouldn’t even have to be sneaky.”
And what would happen when she got bored of me and moved onto her next conquest? Could I turn over her protection to some other man and trust that he’d care enough to be as diligent?
However, the idea of staying and watching her with some other man—even if it wasn’t Courtland—even if it was months or years from now and she’d had her fill of me…it might just kill me.
