The Deal (Dangerous Desires #7)

1. Summoned Home

SUMMONED HOME

MARY KATE

My mattress is a raft in a sea of textbooks.

I sit cross-legged in the dim lamplight, thumb tracing the conjugations of Italian verbs while the damp corners of a dog-eared Rick Steves guide jab my thigh.

From the living room, someone’s shriek of laughter careens down the hall, ricocheting off the cheap drywall—Stella, or maybe Kayleigh.

Even with my door closed, the apartment’s baked-in aroma seeps through: jasmine incense, stringy cheese from last week’s pizza, something older, sour and sweet, that clings to thrifted carpet like a ghost of college parties past.

I roll my neck side to side, trying to unknot the muscles there, and page deeper into the textbook, searching for a phrase I could actually use if I ever made it to Italy: Mi scusi.

Per favore. Vorrei un caffè doppio. The fantasy of Rome is the only thing with a pulse in this cave of a room, and even that is on life support.

My phone vibrates, a little shudder in the pile of sheets beside me. The screen is upside down, but I don’t need to look to know it’s my mother. She never texts, only calls, as if typed words aren’t real unless they’re spoken aloud and clamped into existence with her sharp vowels.

I thumb the phone over, squinting at the blue-lit display. Jeannine Ashton, my last name appended by habit or warning, as if I might have confused her with another Jeannine.

I answer on the third ring, out of spite or submission. The voice on the other end is low and deliberate, each sentence opening with a breathy inhale like a talk show host stalling for drama.

“Mary Kate, sweetheart. You have a minute?”

I pull the guidebook free and drop it onto the pillow, smothering the picture of the Colosseum with my palm. “Sure, Mom. What’s up?”

A long, practiced pause. “I need your help.”

I pause myself.

“Yeah of course. What’s up, Mom?”

Jeannine lets out a dramatic sigh. “It’s about Kent. Your stepfather. He’s not doing so well right now. I—” She breathes in. “He needs someone around the house for a while.”

I pick at a scab of sticker residue on the spine of the textbook, refusing to let my voice betray the heat I feel along the back of my neck. “What do you mean, he’s not well?”

Jeannine sighs theatrically again. “He’s not dying, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s just compromised. Forgetful, sometimes a little confused. The doctors think it’ll stabilize, but until then, someone should keep an eye on him. The house is too big to be alone in.”

My heart races because my stepdad’s a successful physician himself. If other doctors are saying it’s bad, then it must be bad.

“But what does he have?” I ask. “What’s so serious?”

“It’s long and complicated, baby,” my mom says in a hurry. “I’ll explain in detail when you get here.”

Okay, that sounds fishy, but I take a breath because what’s more important is that I figure out the contours of this assignment stat.

“So for how long do you need me? You know I’m sharing an apartment with Kayleigh and Stella right now, and rent’s not cheap. Andie moved out, so we’re only splitting the rent three ways now.”

Another beat. Then: “I don’t know how long, but I need you to move back home asap. It’s only temporary, so I’m sure you can keep your apartment in the meantime.”

A warmth blooms in my chest, something equal parts dread and forbidden thrill. I press the heel of my hand hard into the guidebook, letting the edge bite into my skin.

I say, “But aren’t you there? Why does he need me too?”

Jeannine’s tone is airy.

“Oh yes, I’ll be around, but he needs more than one person.” Another pause, longer now, as if she expects me to fill it. “And Kent—he listens to you. He always did. You’re the only one who can talk sense into your stepfather.”

I laugh, a brittle sound. “He’s not exactly the ‘listen to reason’ type. He’s a successful, experienced physician, Jeannine. He’s definitely not listening to a college co-ed who’s never even had a full-time job.”

But my mom’s not dissuaded.

“Come home, Mary Kate.” Her tone is a closed door. “Please. I need to know he’s not going to burn the house down.”

I picture the mansion: the endless, echoing staircases, the kitchen where everything is polished steel and nobody ever eats, the patio dripping with wisteria.

Kent’s kingdom, bought in full after he and my mother married, my own old room preserved like a specimen.

My high school posters, the stack of Sweet Valley Highs, the pink desk lamp collecting dust.

I pull the phone from my ear, setting it on speaker. I listen to Jeannine’s voice through the tinny grill while I rub circles into my bare thigh. “What exactly do you want me to do? Medically, I mean?”

A sigh, long-suffering. “Just be there. Maybe some meal prep, make sure he takes the pills. Keep him company. Kent gets down, sometimes.” She lets that hang, a pendulum ticking off all the nights Kent drank scotch in the dark, speaking to no one. “You know how moody your stepfather can be.”

I look at my textbooks, the list of essays due on the wall calendar. “What about my classes?”

“You can commute. It’s only a half hour. I’ll cover your gas.” Her voice sharpens, the way it does when she senses I’m going to resist. “You always said your apartment was too crowded anyways. Stella and Kayleigh and their ‘adult sleepovers.’”

I can’t argue. Last week, Stella’s boyfriend—I think she’s seeing two guys, actually—tripped over my backpack at two in the morning and vomited into my laundry basket.

Kayleigh just laughed and Snapchatted the whole thing.

I spent the next morning scrubbing puke from my bras and contemplating the abyss.

Still, my body tenses at the thought of leaving, as if my limbs have grown roots into the shabby sheets.

I squeeze my eyes shut, searching for a reason to say no. And I have one, a secret reason, perched just at the edge of my teeth. But before I can spit it out, the memory hits, as sudden and violent as a slap.

It begins with rain. Not a gentle drizzle, but a biblical onslaught—water streaming down the library windows in trembling sheets, a drumline of thunder somewhere over the lake.

The library at Kent’s house is absurd, a cathedral of rare woods and gold-leaf spines, but tonight it glows, soft and womb-like, the world beyond the glass a wash of storm and slate.

I’m perched on a footstool beside the hearth, the fire snapping and muttering, legs drawn up under a cashmere throw.

Kent is standing at the mantle, a lowball glass in one hand, my battered Italian phrasebook in the other, thumbing through it like an artifact he means to dissect.

The room smells of old paper, wood polish, and the whiskey he’s nursing—notes of honey, moss, and smoke.

He leans against the mantle, jeans and an oxford shirt—blue, the color that makes his eyes pop. A few buttons undone. His dark hair still damp from whatever errand he braved outside, stray droplets glinting in the firelight.

He closes the book on his finger, glances at me over the rim of his glass. “Do you actually remember any of this? Or is it all for show, Miss Ashton?”

I stick my tongue out, trying to play it cool, though my face is already flushed with the heat from the fire and something heavier beneath my sternum. “I know plenty of Italian,” I say, voice sharper than I mean. “Ask me anything.”

He sets his glass on the mantle, tucks the phrasebook under his arm, and walks over—deliberate, with a prowl that makes me shiver. He sits on the ottoman next to me, knees spread, close enough that the hem of his shirt brushes my elbow. The air between us crackles with ozone.

Then he fixes me with a lazy smile. “Say something then, sweetheart. Anything. Show me your language skills.”

I swallow, tongue thick and clumsy, and glance down. The sentence that jumps into my brain is mortifying, but it’s that or freeze. I clear my throat.

“Lei è molto bello.” My mouth trips over the syllables, vowels like syrup. Oh no, oh no, did I actually say that? No no no!

He grins, one eyebrow arching. “What’s it mean?”

I try to defuse the situation. “Oh nothing. It just slipped off my tongue.”

But a gleam in Kent’s blue eyes tells me there’s no deceiving him.

“Tell me,” he commands in a deep voice. “I want to know, sweetheart.”

My cheeks flush red as my nipples harden. Then, a flash of bravado: “You’re very handsome.”

He laughs, a low rumble, and for a second he looks startled, like he’s not used to being complimented. He taps the book in his hand. “Your accent’s perfect.”

My heart is pounding—crazy, ridiculous, little-bird frantic.

I want to fold in on myself or fly apart, and Kent’s so close, his forearm braced on his thigh, the pulse in his wrist visible just above the cuff.

He smells clean, like good soap and rain.

But this man is my stepfather, so how can I be having these thoughts?

Nonetheless, my thighs press together as my pupils widen, taking in the handsome man.

The gorgeous physician leans in, the phrasebook slipping from his grasp to the rug, and I can see the faint lines around his eyes, the dark stubble sharp against his jaw. “Say it again,” he murmurs.

I do. “Lei è molto bello.” It’s barely a whisper.

He cups my jaw with one hand—gentle, but absolute—and the world tilts. His thumb strokes the angle of my cheekbone, slow and deliberate, and then he kisses me. It’s not chaste. It’s not experimental. It’s a promise and a dare.

For exactly one heartbeat I go rigid, shocked by the audacity, by how right it feels, and then my lips open and his tongue sweeps in, tasting of whiskey and fire. The beard burn on my chin is immediate, and I can’t help the sound that comes out of me—half whimper, half moan.

He drinks it in, his hand migrating from my jaw to the nape of my neck, threading into my hair. I clutch at his shirt, feeling the hard muscle beneath, the warmth of his body radiating through the thin cotton.