Scott
Iinched the door closed slowly, slowly, slowly, careful so that the click wouldn’t disturb anyone if they were awake at this ungodly hour.
Me, I’d rather be sleeping. Preferably next to the gorgeous, warm body I’d just left, but I also had some degree of decorum, and sleeping in another woman’s bedroom in my soon-to-be-(not) in-laws’ house seemed like something I should keep on the downlow until things were appropriately sorted.
So sneaking out at the crack of dawn it was.
Turned out the sneaking didn’t matter. As soon as the door latched, I looked up to find my father in his dressing robe standing outside my parents’ bedroom, a decided scowl on his face. He’d always been a fitful sleeper, prone to wandering the house in the early morning.
But the odds of him being in that exact spot at this particular moment... Come on, really?
The question would have been directed at God if I didn’t truly believe that any deity that possibly existed was on the Sebastian payroll. Too much fell in their favor to not have a higher power on their side.
My side.
Most days it felt more like his side. My father’s side. I was just another one of the army of pawns he shuffled around at his whim.
I was just another one of a hundred minions trying to win his esteem. Made no difference that I shared his DNA, he still made me work for it. Honestly, he might have made me work harder.
The instinct to please him was so innate, my initial thought was to cover. Tell him I’d been wandering myself and accidentally went in the wrong room. Maybe he didn’t even know which room I was supposed to be in.
Not likely. Very little escaped Henry Sebastian’s notice. It was one of his gifts.
Well, fuck him. He could disapprove all he wanted, that hypocrite. He was openly unfaithful to his wife. And I wasn’t marrying Kendra anyway. Which he didn’t know yet.
The look on his face said this might not be the best time to bring that up.
Besides, it was a conversation best had with my mother in the room. I’d learned over my lifetime that he was slightly more reasonable in her presence. I’d talk to them later this morning, when the sun was up. Kendra too. Stop this whole engagement fiasco before it got too far out of control.
First, I needed sleep. I’d gotten very little of it in Tessa’s bed, and after two nights in a row of our extracurricular activities, I was exhausted. Even the sofa wasn’t sounding so bad.
And if I had to pass my father to get there, so be it. I held my head high, unwilling to let him turn my escape downstairs into a walk of shame. If anything, it was a walk of pride. For once in my life, I had something that he had no part of. Someone he had no part of.
There was nothing he could do or say to take that away.
“Oh, Scott. I didn’t know you were in here.”
I sat up blinking and put my hand up to block my eyes from the sunlight. Leila Montgomery stood at the side of the window, her hand hovering over the button to draw the curtains.
“I’ll shut them again,” she said apologetically. “I wouldn’t have opened them if I’d seen you there.”
“No, no, it’s good.” A glance at my watch said it was a quarter after nine. Another blink, and my head cleared. She’d caught me sleeping on her living room couch, still wearing my clothes from the night before. There was no way she didn’t have questions.
There was a list of people that had to be spoken to before I could give her suitable answers.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I lied. “Came down here, and I guess I crashed.”
She gave me a look that said she was sure she could see right through me. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
I hesitated. Had she seen me sneaking out of Tessa’s bedroom too? Or was she simply letting me know that she was aware my relationship with Kendra was a sham?
Thankfully, she explained. “I’m her mother, Scott. I know better than anyone that she snores like a chainsaw. Well, maybe not better than you.” She chuckled. “I’ll get you a pair of those noise-canceling earbuds that Martin gave me for my birthday. You’ll sleep through a hurricane.”
Maybe she didn’t know the truth about me and Kendra after all.
“Thanks, but please don’t bother. I already have a pair. Just forgot to bring them with me.” I stood up and stretched, noticing now that the woman was dressed up. Not in evening wear, but in an outfit far less casual than my parents generally donned on Sunday mornings.
My body tensed. If there was another event thrown on me without my knowledge, I was going to hit the roof. Last night had been bad enough. There was no way I was sitting through a brunch while a bunch of rich bitches I’d never met congratulated me on a wedding that would never happen.
But before I could get thoroughly worked up, a horn honked.
“Hold your horses, Martin,” she yelled at the window, as though he could hear her through the glass.
She turned back to me. “I’m sorry we’re running off.
Normally, I’d skip church when we have guests, but we’re both on the board, and today the minister is informing the congregation of our latest budget.
We need to be there in case there are any questions. ”
“Completely understandable.” A blessing, in fact. It would be so much easier to sit down Kendra and my parents without her parents hovering around. “Go, please. I don’t want you to be late.”
She fluffed the back of her highlighted blonde hair and smoothed down her skirt.
“There’s a small buffet set out for breakfast in the dining room.
Nothing much. Pastries and fruit and coffee.
Kendra’s already up and out for her run.
I recommend you eat the lemon poppyseed muffin before she sees it.
She really needs to avoid carbs if she’s going to fit into a wedding dress. ”
I followed her out to the foyer, glad she was in front of me so she couldn’t see my eye roll. “Sure thing, Leila.”
“Now you know I told you to call me Mom.”
No. Nope. I had not and would not call her any such thing. The sooner I ended this, the better. “My parents—are they up and roaming about yet?”
She paused, the front door open, and gave me a startled look. “Oh, I figured you knew. They left bright and early. Your father said something business-related came up. Probably wanted to give you lovebirds some alone time since K’s been out of town.”
More likely, he had a tee time he didn’t want to miss.
More importantly, fuck.
The conversation I needed to have with them would have to wait until I was back in the city. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Another honk from Martin prompted Leila back into motion. “Gotta run. See you two back here soon, I hope?”
“Sure. Soon.” I ushered her out the door, refusing to feel bad about breaking the woman’s heart.
Okay, I felt a little bit bad. Leila Montgomery was a decent woman, extremely kindhearted. She didn’t deserve to be snowed like she had been. My parents might be shrews with not a romantic bone in their bodies, but at least I didn’t have to lie to them about a marriage of convenience.
And though I really wanted to be, I couldn’t be mad at Kendra for not telling her parents the truth. With all the backbending I’d done in my lifetime trying to please a father who was impossible to please, I was the last person who could throw judgment on a dysfunctional parent-child relationship.
Not for the first time, I wondered what Kendra was getting out of our engagement. Besides the notoriety of being a Sebastian. For all I knew, my parents had made a side deal with her. If they had, there was no way she’d be allowed to tell me about it.
It also meant I didn’t know where her loyalties lay.
If I broke things off with her before talking to my parents, she could go behind my back and tell them before I got the chance.
The conversation was going to be hard enough regardless.
I needed every advantage on my side if I was going to come out of this situation with minimal damage. My best chance was to hit them blind.
In other words, I couldn’t tell Kendra this marriage was off until I talked to them.
With a sigh, I watched out the foyer window as the Montgomerys’ car pulled away. So I’d have to remain engaged a little bit longer. A nuisance, but no big deal. Tess knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.
I hadn’t quite convinced myself, but with no other option, I went in pursuit of coffee.
As soon as I crossed the dining room threshold, my worry drained away.
It was impossible to feel anything but bliss when Tess was in the room, and there she was, fussing with the espresso machine, her back to me.
Unlike me, she’d gotten a shower in, and even from behind I could tell she looked much less ragged than I did.
She must have sensed my presence because she turned then and met my eye. A sly smile played on her lips as I stalked toward her. Then, when I was practically at her side, the smile disappeared, and she swiftly turned her attention back to the coffee in front of her.
“You’re blushing,” I said.
“You can’t tell that.”
It wasn’t true. Her darker skin made it harder to tell, but not impossible. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not?”
She tried to hide it, but even in profile, I could see the twitch of her mouth.
My cock twitched in response.
What was it about her? What was it about this woman that made me want to tear her clothes off every time she was in the same room with me?
I’d been attracted to plenty of women before, but I’d always been in control.
With her, I felt like I was spinning. Or rather, with her I noticed that I was spinning, that I’d always been spinning, like I was on a merry-go-round or a hamster wheel, and she was standing tall and steady on the ground, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to get off the wheel.
I wanted more than the ride. I wanted to stand steady. With her.
And I wanted the dirty stuff too.