by Naima Simone
“This way, Cypress.” Dan’s voice reaches me a second before his hand settles on my back, guiding me forward.
He leads me to a room across the hall, closing the door behind us. Gathering my thoughts, I scan the cozy den complete with brown leather couches, a large coffee table, a flat, big screen TV mounted in an old-fashioned entertainment center, and a desk and chair in the far corner. The car and sports magazines littering the table clue me in on who spends the most time in here, as does the cigar box and cutter on the desk. A whiff of the underlying sweet, dark-cherry scent permeating the room carries me back to my childhood when Dan would end his day sitting on the living room couch, beer in one hand, cigar in the other, his squinted eyes pinned to the baseball game.
An unexpected and unwanted twinge spasms in my chest. I cross my arms to prevent myself from giving in to the urge to rub the hint of soreness away.
If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more. Author Erica Jong’s words run like a ticker tape through my head, and I grab ahold of them. I might be here risking my pride with Dan, but what is at risk if I don’t is even worse.
“Thank you for coming to dinner,” Dan says, sliding his hands into his pockets. A wince crosses his face, and he shakes his head. “And I’m sorry for the way it ended. There are some things going on…”
He trails off, and I don’t question him about the “things.” Not interested. Okay, maybe I’m a little curious about what changed Simon from GQ Smooth to Mr. Freeze. Or why Katherine bragged about one son and not the others. And whether Knox’s absence today had anything to with why just the mention of his name had plunged the room to sub-zero temperatures.
If the “things” had anything to do with what drove Jude into the bar—and to me—last week.
Dan sighs. “Anyway, you needed to talk to me.”
“You know why I’m here.” Dropping my arms, I cross to the couch and perch on the arm. “I need the money you set aside for my college education.”
“Right.” He cocks his head to the side. “Money you told me eight years ago you didn’t need or want from me.”
I would have to be deaf not to catch the flat note of resentment there. I’m not going to apologize for it, though. I’d earned my full ride to USC, and making my way on my own without his help or interference had been important. It still is. If any other option short of selling my ass was available to me, I wouldn’t have suffered through the dinner from hell or be here now practically begging him for money.
God, if only the sale of my condo in California wouldn’t take another month, I wouldn’t be here. I could pay Mom’s medical debt, give her a cushion with the household bills, and still have enough to start over. Hell, if Dan’s flipping out now, how would he react if he knew I planned to return to school? To abandon the career I’d built the last four years and begin from scratch at twenty-six?
I give my head a mental shake. If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. I’m trying to do what Dolly Parton suggested, backhoeing a new path in my life. But hope, even if it’s fragile and uncertain, is still a dangerous, painful thing when it dies. Which is why I’ve barely admitted my plan to myself, forget confiding it in anyone else, even my sisters.
No, I’m hoarding my secret close for a while longer.
“I didn’t then,” I reply to Dan’s statement. “But this is now, and before I left for college, you told me if I changed my mind and needed it, the money would be there for me. Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“I set aside that money for each of you girls. Ten thousand dollars out of my 401k for school, for your future. Dara attended art school and didn’t finish. Jesse”—he throws up his hands—“Christ, I have no idea what she did with it. So what do you plan on doing?” he pressed, his lips thinning in a grim line. “Live off it since you quit a great job with a future? Jesus, Cypress. Out of all my children, you were the one who always had her head on straight, was doing something with her life—”
Anger flares inside me, a hot and, blazing flame. “I’m not talking about Dara and Jesse.” And his accusation isn’t fair. Dara might work at The Rabbit Hole, but she’s a brilliant and passionate sculptor. Jesse’s twenty-four and still figuring things out, but by no means is a secretary at a legal firm not “doing something with her life.” Just goes to show he doesn’t know a damn thing about any of his daughters. “And what decisions I make about my career are mine to make, not yours.”
“What career? You walked—”
“Not talking about it,” I grind out, gripping the couch arms. The need to lash out, to remind him he has as much of a right to have an opinion about my life as my mailman. Hell, the mailman might have more since I see him more often. Dan walked away. Dan was satisfied with a monthly child support check, not insisting on seeing me when I refused to come over to stay with his new wife and stepsons. Dan didn’t attend my college graduation because he couldn’t bring Katherine, since Mom was also attending.
Those were all his choices, so no, he doesn’t now get a vote in the direction of the life he’d willingly checked out of.
All that sits heavily on my tongue like a red-hot poker. But my common sense—and desperation—douses it. Enraging Dan when I need his help is not only irrational, but stupid.
“Look.” I drag my hand through my hair, inhaling a deep breath and focusing on the reason I’m here. Just the reminder of my mother and the stack of steadily increasing bills on the hall table succeeds in erasing the bite from my tone. “You asked what I needed the money for.” I pause, battling down the trickle of bitterness creeping up my throat. “Mom. Her insurance covered a good portion of the bills from the heart surgery and hospital stay, but not all of it. Even though she’s now back at work, there’s no way she can get caught up on what’s left. And then her doctor’s talking about another surgery that is fairly new but is seeing success with giving heart patients a longer life span. But because it’s new, insurance doesn’t cover as much for it.” Even before her heart attack, I’d been helping Mom with her monthly house bills. Without my assistance, she’s struggling just to stay on top of those. “With the ten thousand, I can cover the co-pay for the surgery she needs now, before it’s too late, and pay the remaining debt off.”
It’ll be a start, and the sale of my home in California should cover the rest. Hopefully. But I’ll worry about that later.
“Your mother know you’re asking me for help?” he asks after a moment.
“No.”
But I’m not telling her for the reason he probably assumes. If I informed her he’d given me money for her bills, she’d take that as a sign that he really did love her, and it would send her spiraling into one of her euphoric moods. And when she finally realized he wasn’t returning to her, the crash would be devastating. I’ve endured this cycle too many times to count over the years. So, no, I intend to keep her in the dark about all of this, whether he agrees or refuses.
“I’ll pay you back if that’s what you want. I just need a month or two,” I tack on when he doesn’t reply with an agreement or denial. Desperation skitters through me.
Yet I don’t explain how I’ll reimburse him, something keeping me from disclosing the pending sale of my Los Angeles home. I don’t want to give him any reason to pity me—or reprimand me for my life choices like he did at dinner. Either way, Mom’s situation doesn’t have a month or so. Some of the bills have already been turned over to collections. I need that money now. According to the past-due date on the last one I opened, I actually needed it four weeks ago.
Helplessness and the awful, straight-jacket stranglehold of powerlessness twists around me, momentarily trapping me. Against every vow I’d made to myself after I left UHG, I again find myself at the mercy of another man. Instead of my employer holding my job over my head if I refused to fall in line, it’s my father holding my mother’s welfare hostage. And at this point, whatever he wants from me, I’ll surrender it because I need him more than he needs me.
&nbs
p; I hate being in this position again. Weak. Brought to my knees.
“I’ll give it to you,” he finally says, and I almost wilt in relief. By sheer force of will, I stiffen my shoulders so I don’t tumble back onto the couch cushion. There’s no holding back the air that bursts past my lips. Or the cool wave that washes over my overheated skin. “I have a couple of conditions, though.”
Anger whips through the relief, crackling like a live wire on rain-soaked ground. Conditions? Really? Yes, Mom is his ex, and evidence of the last thirteen years has proven he very much doesn’t give a rat’s ass about her, but damn, the woman had a heart attack.
Dragging in the breath I’ve just released, I remain silent, seething but trying not to show it.
“One. Send me the bills, and I’ll take care of them,” he instructs.
Okay. I can do that. That he doesn’t trust me because I left what he considered a good job still stings, but whatever. As long as the debt is paid.
“Second,” he continues. “I don’t know for sure if there’s anything going on between you and Jude, but you’re to stay away from him outside of this house. If I find out that you two are involved in any way other than the way a stepbrother and sister should be, then I stop paying the bills. No discussion, no second chances.”
Shock barrels into me, a juggernaut-sized fist to the torso that sends its freezing touch travelling through my veins with icy fingers. I blink, gaping at him, that same cold paralyzing my vocal cords.
He stares at me, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed just as they’d been earlier at the table. The same suspicious contemplation shadows them, as does resolve. Both have my stomach churning with panic, rage, and fear.
“Are you kidding me?” I rasp out when my throat thaws enough to speak. Only the fact that he assisted in creating me stops the “What the fuck?” from dropping from my tongue.
“No, I’m not.” If possible, his expression hardens, his mouth firming to the consistency of granite, his eyes dark blue flint. “Do you think I didn’t notice the looks that passed between you two? There’s something there that you both aren’t being honest about, I just know it. Are you going to tell me there isn’t anything between you and Jude?”
“Yes,” I practically hiss, lying. But not lying. There isn’t anything between us now. That one night had been it. I haven’t spoken to him since, and he hasn’t reached out to me, either, not even coming into the bar. “Not that it should matter,” I snap. “This stipulation is”—utter bullshit—“ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.” He shakes his head. “You don’t know what’s happened to this family the last few months. It’s almost been torn apart. And devastated Katherine. I won’t allow anything else to hurt her. Not if I can help it. And you being involved with one of her sons, one of your stepbrothers, would definitely harm her. No.” He shakes his head once more, more emphatically. “I’m dead serious about staying away from Jude. If there’s nothing between you two, then you’re absolutely correct—it shouldn’t matter,” he says, throwing my words back at me.
I push off the couch, trembling. Rage is a living, breathing, screaming thing inside me, shoving against my skin, demanding to be loosed. But underneath the crimson and black swirl is a thin thread of blue, of reason reminding me that as effed up as this condition might be, I still need his money.
Goddamn.
“Fine.” Somehow my voice doesn’t crack under the weight of the emotion battering me like the loser in a heavy-weight fight. “I accept your conditions. I’ll make sure to mail the bills for both surgeries out first thing in the morning.”
Walk away. Turn around and walk away. I heed that warning voice, and even turn on my heel, heading to the den’s door. But then I snap to a stop and pivot, facing Dan again.
“I haven’t asked you for one thing since I was sixteen years old. It’s taken everything in me to come to you, to ask for your help, and it’s not even for just myself, but for the woman you spent over a decade with—the mother of your daughter. And what you tell me is not rocking your wife’s boat is more important than unconditionally offering me support. More important than me. Thank you, Dan, for the reminder of what I’ve already known all these years.”
At least he has the grace to flinch. But he doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t take back the ridiculous stipulation.
Doesn’t stop me as I once more turn and exit the room and his house.
Chapter Seven
Jude
I follow the silver Mercedes Benz C-Class off of I-90E onto the Ohio Street E exit, keeping two cars between me and it. Not that I think Cypress is aware I’ve been following her from Edison Park for the last thirty-five minutes. She didn’t seem to notice me fall in behind her seconds after she pulled out of Mom’s driveway. Because if she did, I have zero doubts she would’ve pulled some tactical evasive moves that would’ve made cops look like Driver’s Ed candidates. We need to talk, but it’s safe to say she’s avoiding me.
Not that I can really blame her.
Shit. My stepsister.
I’m still stunned. I should be more freaked out than I am, considering I screwed Dan’s daughter. Instead, I’m just…hard. Yeah, I can’t deny it, I’m hard as hell. Have been from the moment she walked into the room with my stepfather.
Cypress had been sexy in her jeans-and-T-shirt Rabbit Hole uniform. But goddamn, in that classy black dress that skimmed every curve of her beautiful body and those heels that took her long, sculpted legs from gorgeous to spectacular, she was…stunning. That night, I’d had the impression that she didn’t belong in that bar. Seeing her today only fossilized that belief. Part of me is a little surprised she let my big, scarred, calloused hands touch her. Get inside her.
She hasn’t left my mind since the night we were together. That sounds so anemic. Since the night we damn near broke ourselves from the fucking. It was that hot, that raw, that dirty. And after the shock of her true identity ebbed, my next thought had been, I want more. Even knowing that was impossible with our newly discovered relationship. But that impossibility only deepened, sharpened the hunger, the craving to be surrounded by her again.
Every time she didn’t succeed in evading my gaze, I glimpsed the same need in those denim eyes. Saw the same memories darkening them. But I also spied the rejection of those desires.
Given the way Dan studied her and me through the most awkward dinner in history, denial is smart. He isn’t a dumb man, and I tried to cover my reaction to seeing her, but I wasn’t successful. He might not know anything for sure, but he suspects. And that’s good. That suspicion will keep my dick in check. She’s off-limits. And her being my stepsister is only one reason. A major one, definitely, but there’s also the fact that I’m leaving in a couple of months and getting involved with anyone before then is on my no-way-in-hell list. Even if I intended to remain on American soil, I would still avoid relationships right now. Between what’s gone down in my own family and my own experiences—Ana, being the latest—it currently feels like only an idiotic masochist would willingly go down that road.
The phone on my lap vibrates.
Speak of the “latest.”
My jaw tenses, and my fingers curl tighter around the steering wheel. I don’t need to glance down at the screen to figure out who’s calling. It’s the same person who’s been calling since this morning and who texted all through dinner.
Ana.
We broke up four months ago, but she refuses to get over it. Get over me. Another reason for me not to start anything new with someone. No woman enjoys being screamed at or bum rushed by the crazy ex.
Eden calls her a stalker, and I suppose how she randomly pops up at the shop or my apartment, calls incessantly, and demands to know why I won’t talk to her crosses into that territory. I drag a hand down my face. Every time she says she can’t live without me… Logically, I know Ana’s being dramatic, but it hauls me back into my worst nightmare. I’d be lying if I claimed putting thousands of miles distance between her
and me isn’t part of London’s allure.
Ahead of me, Cypress turns left on N. LaSalle Drive, and I ignore the continually buzzing cell to focus on her. Minutes later, she pulls into the parking lot of a motel that probably has a high percentage of pay-by-the-hour customers. What the hell is she doing in a place like this? The neon red blinking sign is missing at least five letters, and I’m pretty sure the one-level building was the scene of a murder on an episode of The Last 48. If not, it’s only a matter of time, because this is definitely the kind of place where drug transactions, prostitution, and murder go down.
She pulls into a free parking space, and son of a bitch. Her late model, luxury sedan stands out like a fur coat in a pile of hoodies. What the hell is she thinking? I’m surprised her car hasn’t been stripped to the frame. Probably the only thing that’s saved her is people thinking it belongs to a dealer.
All thought of remaining in stealth mode disappears under a wave of anger. Anger at her utter lack of self-preservation and ignorance for her own safety. A woman who looks like her, driving a car like that? She might as well as hang a “HIT A LICK” sign around her neck and invite getting robbed.
Slamming into park in the space right next to hers, I turn off my Charger and get out just as she exits her own car. Her head swings in my direction, those soulful eyes widening.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demands.
“I could ask you the same question,” I snap. “As a matter of fact, I’m asking. What the hell are you doing here?”
The shock evaporates from her gaze, and those elegant dark brows pull down in a frown. I can’t believe I didn’t notice the resemblance between her and Dan before. Granted, she’s a much prettier version of him, but the brows, the stubborn line of her jaw, even the dimple in her chin belong to him. The eyes must be all her mother, though.
