by Amy Brent
The door opened before we had even climbed the three steps that lead to the porch and a tall man in a tailored gray suit appeared at the threshold. Although I tried to remain polite and hide my reaction, my eyes widened with a bit of panic as I took him in.
Over the past few days, Mom and I had talked a lot about Ben. She had told me about the conversations they had had, how smart and interesting he was, and as much as she knew about his life and company. But, since it wasn’t relevant to their deal, she had never described his appearance. For that reason, the sight of the man’s protuberant stomach, puffy face and cotton-ball white hair made me feel sorry for my mother. She was such a beautiful woman and deserved better—even from a fake husband.
“Welcome to Walker Mansion,” he greeted us in a friendly but proper tone. I stole a look at my mother who made no move to greet the man and looked back at me with confusion in her eyes as well. With a smile—probably at the dumbstruck looks on both our faces—the man added, “My name is Geoffrey, ma’am. I’m Mr. Walker’s—and soon to be your—butler.”
Although it had nothing to do with me, I sighed a breath of relief that Cotton Balls wasn’t my new daddy. Whew . . .
“Oh, of course,” mom said, trying and failing to sound casual. “Nice to meet you. I’m Pam, and this is my daughter, Jessica.”
Geoffrey welcomed me as well and then invited us to follow him inside. A little out of place but trying hard to belong, we followed him through a vast foyer that was decorated in shades of light gray and white. At the middle of the space was a round table with a huge vase of beautiful fresh flowers that filled the room with a delicious perfume and bright colors. Facing the front door and lining the back wall was a massive curling staircase framed by matching archways on each side.
Not allowing us enough time to admire the beauty of the home, the Butler led us through the archway to the right and into a sitting room that was just as beautiful and opulent as the rest of the house.
“Please, make yourselves at home,” Geoffrey instructed as mom and I walked further into the space. “Mr. Walker is just finishing a phone call in his study and will be right with you.”
We thanked him for his attention and, after a discreet bow, he turned around and walked away. As soon as we were alone, I started to wander around the room. My fingers grazed the lush fabric of the couches, the rough wood of the mantel and the silky finish of the grand piano, as my eyes admired the fine art that hung from the walls and the gorgeous view from the windows. To be honest, the room wasn’t necessarily welcoming and homey, but it was undoubtedly the most beautiful living room I had ever seen in my life, and I could barely believe that by the end of the day it would be mine.
My renewed enthusiasm over this whole arrangement made me confused when I looked at my mom and saw uneasiness in her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking back across the room toward her.
She sighed and, with her eyes locked on mine, said, “Am I doing the right thing, Jess? Do we really need all of this?”
“No, we don’t,” I replied honestly because that was the truth. We really didn’t need to live in that house and have five million dollars. Although short on money, we had a good life and that was enough. However, before she got any ideas, I quickly added another nugget of truth, “That doesn’t mean we should throw away a good opportunity.”
Mom nodded, but her expression remained worried and pensive. Then, after a few moments of silence, she whispered, “I’m not going to quit my job, Jess. I may cut back on my hours but I’m still going to work, and that means I won’t be here to watch over you. You’ll be alone and living with a man we barely know.”
“I’m twenty-two years old, mom,” I reminded her with a smile. “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to watch over me anymore.” She gave me one of hers ‘are you sure?’ glances, so I smiled and gave her the reassurance she needed. “As long as this place has a cleaning lady, I’ll be okay. I really don’t think I would make a very good Cinderella.”
Mom’s laughter filled the room, and she wrapped her arms around me. Happy I was able to provide some comfort to her always worried mind, I laughed as well.
Suddenly, a deep, sultry male voice interrupted our chuckles. “As much as I hate to admit it, my dad was right. Having a family laughing does make a house feel less empty. I think I’m going to actually enjoy this arrangement.”
His words ceased our laughs and made mom and I part our embrace. We turned to look at my mother’s fiancé, and my breath literally got caught in my throat.
Ben Walker was tall with wide shoulders and thick muscles that filled his navy suit like a sports star. His hair was a shade of dark brown that looked almost black and lightly dusted with gray at the temples, and his eyes were the most intense blue I had ever seen. His straight nose, chiseled jaw and high cheekbones were so perfect and symmetrical they seemed to have been carved by an artist and not created by genetics and nature.
He was, without a single doubt, the most handsome man I had ever seen and I couldn’t, for the life of me, peel my eyes away from him. For some unexplainable reason, he wasn’t taking his eyes away from me either.
Those bluer than blue eyes slid down my body from head all the way to my shoes. Although he was discreet—thank goodness, after all, the last thing I wanted was my mother throwing a fit and taking me away from him—I could feel his gaze like hand grazing my skin. It was hot and intense, and it awoke that same hungry need I felt while watching the couple fucking on TV.
I pressed my thighs together just as my oblivious mother took a few steps towards her fake fiancé. “I’m happy you think you’ll enjoy our time together because we’ve just decided that so will we.”
Ben raised a brow as he finally peeled his eyes from me to look at mom. “You’ve just decided that?”
“Yes, we did. As long as you have cleaning people, Jess and I have decided we’ll enjoy this place,” mom said playfully as she stepped in to give Ben a kiss on the cheek and added, “Hi, Ben. Your house is lovely.”
He chuckled at mom’s words and tilted his head to the side. At the same time, my hands involuntarily clenched at their closeness.
“Although I have no idea what cleaning people—which I do have, by the way—have to do with anything, I’m happy you’ve decided to enjoy this place. It’s your house now too,” he said in a casual tone. Then, with a smile that was more polite and friendly than sexy and flirty, he added, “And the only lovely thing here are the two of you.”
I blushed bright red at his compliment and nearly gasped when instead of waiting for my mother to introduce us, Ben turned his eyes to me and extended a hand. “You must be Jessica. Your mother has told me a lot about you.”
Trying my best to contain the wrong, lustful thoughts I was having towards him, I reached my hand to touch his. As our skins collided, a chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure if the feeling was a warning for trouble or a prelude to something great; all I knew was that I had to get my skin away from his as soon as possible.
“She’s told me a lot about you as well,” I informed with a sweet smile as I abruptly pulled my hand back from his. A light crease formed between his brows at my rudeness. Hoping to soften the blow, I playfully said, “I’m thrilled to finally meet you…daddy.”
Mom chuckled, and Ben’s lips curled up into a smirk at that last word. For anyone watching, his expression was just a display of mirth over my joke, but I could see right through it. The way his lips pulled harder on one side and his eyes narrowed as he held my gaze told me that there wasn’t even a hint of amusement in his expression.
“So am I, baby girl.” Those words hung heavier than they should between us, but Ben quickly turned his attention back to my mother and said, “Okay, if you girls are ready, we should head on over to City Hall. I’ve asked my chef to prepare us a special meal for when we come back.”
Eager to get this whole thing over with, Mom agreed, and we both followed Ben out of the house. As we drove
to City Hall, I sat on the back seat of Ben’s Bentley and tried to ignore the little glances he threw my way through the rearview mirror.
Fake marriage or not, Ben Walker was about to marry my mother, and I was too busy building a future for myself to be jealous of her—no matter how hot and bothered her future husband made me feel.
Chapter 9 – Ben
The weeks following the wedding went according to plan. I introduced Pam to the board as my wife and, just as I had imagined, they loved her. She was pretty, smart, polite and, most importantly, of a proper age for their square asses, and with her by my side securing my place as CEO and chairman of the board was a piece of cake.
At home, however, things were a bit more complicated. Although Pam and I got along better than I had anticipated, Jessica was a problem. A huge fucking problem.
From the moment, I laid eyes on her I knew that I was utterly and completely screwed. Considering that Pam was a beautiful woman, I had always imagined that her daughter would be pretty as well.
However, never in my wildest dreams had I considered the possibility of my step-daughter being the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my life, but that was the only description I had for her.
Her oval face was delicate and soft like an angel’s, and her shoulder length hair framed her face like a golden halo. She had large and round green eyes that held equal amounts of innocence and mischief whenever they met mine, and her lips were full and pouty like sin itself. If her face wasn’t enough to shake me off my game, her curvy, long-legged body certainly did the trick.
For the duration of my wedding and every day that followed, all I could think about were her long legs wrapped around my waist as my mouth feasted on her large tits and my cock pushed in and out of her pussy. I imagined her calling me daddy again, but this time while I filled her with my seed. Though it was just a fantasy, it was also sexier than most of the sex I had had in my life.
But it was wrong, and I knew it.
She was my wife’s daughter, and though I didn’t give a shit about my wedding vows, I cared—a lot—about not giving Pam a reason to divorce me before our year was through. As much as I wanted Jessica, my company was more important, and I had to think about it first. For that reason, I kept our interactions to a minimum and tried as hard as I could to keep my distance from her—especially on the days Pam wasn’t home, and the temptation to approach her and make her mine was stronger. Since I hardly ever saw Jessica around the house, I imagined she was doing the same.
However, about two weeks into my marriage, I arrived home from work at around ten at night and saw Jessica seated on the living room floor with a mess of papers and a beer bottle on my seven-thousand-dollar antique coffee table and an open pizza box on my ten-thousand-dollar Persian rug. I looked around the house for Pam or a member of my staff, but the rest of the house was dark, and no one was around.
Immediately, I saw three options. The first—and smartest—was to walk away and continue to ignore Jessica as I should. The second—less prudent, but still effective in keeping my distance—was to walk up to her and give her a piece of my mind for putting my valuable furniture in jeopardy. However, since I was too tired to fight against the magnetism that pulled me toward the one girl I couldn’t have, I chose the third option and pushed all thoughts of prudence, bottle rings, and grease stains away from my mind and just approached her like a normal person.
Jessica was so engrossed in the book propped over her thighs she only noticed my approach when I spoke. “Hi,” I said.
Visibly startled, she peeled her eyes from the page she was reading and looked up at me. There wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her beautiful face, and she was wearing a pair of short shorts and a spaghetti strap top that I assumed were pajamas. Involuntarily, my gaze dropped to her cleavage and my tongue ran across my lips with a visceral need to taste her soft, creamy skin.
“Oh, hi. Did you just get home?” she asked after a few seconds, commanding my gaze to bounce back to her gorgeous face. The blush on her cheeks was a clear sign that she had caught me staring at her tits, but to my delight—and worry—she made no move to further cover herself.
I nodded. “Yeah, we’re closing a big deal this week, and I had to look at some numbers and projections.”
“Sounds boring,” she said in a teasing tone that made me chuckle. “Want some pizza?”
I glanced at the greasy treat beside her and smiled. “Actually, I would love some. Haven’t had a slice in forever.”
Trying to act casually, I loosened my tie and walked around the couch to sit on the floor beside her.
“Shut up,” she blurted out with wide eyes as she passed the box over to me. “How can you live without pizza?”
I shrugged and picked up a slice. “I have a personal chef.”
“I know that. I’ve had his food. It’s delicious, but pizza . . .”
Despite how hard I was controlling myself to keep some distance between us, I couldn’t help but laugh and scoot a bit closer to her. Holding her gaze, I took a bite, and a soft, pleased moan escaped my lips making me quickly agree with her. Joe’s food was great and all, but pizza . . .
“I had forgotten how good this is,” I told her as I chewed.
A sideways smirk curled on her lips as she reached for her beer and passed it over to me. “Try with a swing of this and you’ll understand why they are my two major food groups.”
Holding her gaze, I swallowed and took a gulp of her cheap ass beer. It tasted like piss to my well-trained palate, but it paired surprisingly well with the pizza.
I rested my back against the couch and asked, “What are you doing down here?”
“Studying. I have a major exam tomorrow, and it’s not on my favorite subject.”
I asked her what was her favorite subject and finished my slice of pizza while she told me about her passion for biology and pediatric surgery—a subject she was still years away from studying but already knew to be her ultimate professional goal. Her enthusiasm was captivating and made me strangely happy to be paying for her loans and tuition.
Once she was done, I complimented her on her passion and then asked, “But what are you doing here? On the living room floor?”
Jessica’s cheeks turned a cute shade of red, but her voice was very matter-of-fact when she explained, “I like to study on the living room floor when I’m home alone.”
“Why?”
She shrugged and chuckled. “I don’t know. Makes me feel less alone, I guess.”
Genuinely curious, I pressed, “Again, why?”
“After mom finished her flight attendant course, she got a job as a trainee at a small airline,” she started with a hint of a smile on her plump lips. “It paid shit, but it was enough to finally get us out of my grandma’s house and into our first apartment. The place was a one bedroom shoebox that cost a fortune, but mom wanted to stay in my school district so I wouldn’t have to change schools.”
I nodded to assure her she had my undivided attention and went in for a second slice as she continued. “Because my mother is the greatest, she let me have the room so I would have my own space like all the other little girls in my class and spent six years sleeping on a pull-out couch in the living room. Whenever she wasn’t home and I missed her, I would sit there on the floor of what I considered her room and study as I waited for her. I guess the behavior stuck.”
The expression on Jessica’s face was warm and resembled longing. It was strange to me—especially considering that she was talking about a time where they were clearly struggling—but it was a good and refreshing type of strange. Despite her modest upbringing, she seemed happy about the life they had, and it made me respect her.
I had met many women in life who were after nothing more than money and fame. They were never satisfied with what life offered and were always after more. Jessica, however, seemed perfectly content with her life and though she was living in my mansion and driving the fancy Cadillac SUV I had bought her, she was still ea
ting on the floor as she had her entire life. In addition to that, she wasn’t waiting around for the millions I had promised her mother, she was studying to make a life for herself.
Although I was never one to be attracted—or even pay attention—to a girl’s personality, I was drawn to hers, and that was yet another problem to my already fucked self.
Hoping to steer this moment into safer directions, I brought her mother—my wife—into the conversation. “You and Pam are very close, aren’t you?”
Her smile doubled in size, and she nodded. “Yeah. My deadbeat dad bailed when I was a baby, and my grandma died when I was eight. We’re all we have in the world, so we stick together.”
“You guys have me now,” I said without thinking and for reasons I don’t fully understand.
Jessica gave me a small, shy smile but didn’t reply to my comment. Instead, she said, “What about you? Were you close to your dad?”
“Yeah,” I started. “But we weren’t like you and Pam. We were close at the office and friendly for the most part, but our views of life and happiness were a lot different. As a result, we argued quite a bit.”
