4. Jacob
Four
Jacob
The sun is just starting to peek above the horizon, but I’ve already been up for two hours, as usual.
I’ve worked out, showered and gotten dressed, answered emails and skimmed headlines and reports.
I’m on my second cup of coffee, pretending to be deeply invested in making notes on new strategic initiatives when really, my ears are listening for any sound of Camryn.
She shocked the hell out of me by showing up here yesterday, but I have to admit that it was good to see her. We hadn’t had any reason to stay in touch after her mother and I split up four years ago, but I’ve wondered about her over the years.
To say I’m stunned by the woman she’s grown into is the understatement of the century.
I sip my coffee as I stare unseeing at my laptop screen, the words and figures fuzzing into an incongruous blur. I think back to that night over four years ago when I found Cam crying alone in the darkened living room. When my heart cracked at the sight of her, so hurt, so defeated.
I would’ve told her anything to cheer her up, but I meant everything I said that night.
All of it. That she was a lovely, extraordinary girl who’d have the world falling at her feet in no time.
That she could always turn to me for help.
And I continued to mean it even as my marriage to her mother fell apart.
Sylvie and I were always a bit of a mismatch, but I thought our differences would complement each other.
She liked her freedom, and I liked to work.
Ultimately, though, she liked her freedom too much, and I liked working too much, and we grew apart.
For the last several months of our marriage, we were more like roommates than anything else.
When Cam came home crying from prom, the writing was already on the wall.
When we split, I assumed I’d never see Camryn again.
But she remembered the promise I made, and fuck if that doesn’t mean something to me. If it doesn’t twist something agonizingly sweet deep in my chest. She took me at my word, and then showed up when she needed me. Even though we hadn’t spoken in years, she still came to me for help.
I don’t know how I feel about it. Happy. Relieved. Unsettled. On edge.
I’m still turning over my feelings when Camryn walks into the kitchen.
She’s wearing a black sweater dress with a light blue collared shirt underneath, her legs bare from the knee down.
Her blond hair is piled into a messy but chic bun at the crown of her head, several wavy tendrils falling loose around her face in a way that doesn’t look accidental.
My mouth goes a little dry at the sight of her. I smile at her, pushing through my discomfort at how attracted I am to her.
I can’t be attracted to her. She’s half my age and I used to be her stepfather. If ever there was a no fly zone, Camryn is it.
She shoots me a grin that hits me right in the chest and walks over to the espresso machine. I watch as she chews on her lip, studying the barista-grade contraption. She touches a few knobs carefully, moves a lever, and then turns to me, a gut-wrenchingly adorable expression on her face.
“Um…help?”
“Of course.” She steps aside and watches as I make her a coffee, my hands moving as if on autopilot because I’ve done this a thousand times.
I grind the beans, tamp the grounds, lock the portafilter in place all without even thinking.
And it’s a good thing I could do this in my sleep, because my focus is entirely elsewhere right now.
I’m distracted by the sunlight spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making her hair look like spun gold.
Like honey. Like something soft and warm I want to bury my fingers in.
Not something I should be noticing. Just like I shouldn’t be noticing how soft the skin on her neck looks, or the way her sweater dress hugs all of her curves.
But I do. Fucking hell, I do.
The machine lets out its final gurgle, and I pass the cup to her, our fingers brushing. I ignore the zing of heat that races up my arm.
“Sugar’s in the bowl there,” I say. “And there’s oat milk in the fridge.”
“You drink oat milk?” she asks, glancing over at me as she spoons two heaping mounds of sugar into her coffee.
“No. I had some delivered earlier this morning. For you.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she blows steam away from her coffee over the rim of her mug. “You remembered?”
“That you like oat milk? Yes. I remembered.” I stop talking before I tell her that I remember everything about her, from how she takes her coffee to the way she bites her lip when she’s nervous.
“Thank you.”
I nod, swallowing thickly. I turn away and suck in a deep breath, then sit back down at the table. The kitchen is silent as we sip our coffees, and there’s a tension in the air. Like static electricity, humming around us, making the hair on my arms stand up.
Distraction. I need a distraction.
I turn my attention back to my laptop and start reading emails. They might as well be in another language, though. I’m not absorbing a damn thing. I’m just moving my eyes over the screen as I pretend I’m not hyperaware of the twenty-two year old bombshell sitting across the table from me.
I glance up at her, just once. She’s sipping her coffee and scrolling on her phone. The clouds outside shift, and the sunshine flooding the kitchen gets even brighter. Golden light shimmers around her, making her look like something out of a dream. Angelic and ethereal.
Untouchable.
I’m openly staring now, but I can’t seem to make myself look away. Especially when she bites her lip and frowns at the screen. Just that frown as something dark and protective tightening my chest.
I force myself to look away. It’s the only sane thing to do.
I give up on reading emails and start scrolling through the news, hoping the sorry state of the world will be enough of a distraction for me.
But it’s not. I can’t stop thinking about the girl I knew—sweet, uncertain, soft, warm—and the woman she’s become.
There’s a confidence in the way she carries herself, a fiery edge buried beneath the softness that’s still there.
She’s become everything I knew was possible. And the fact that I might’ve played a role in that…fuck if that doesn’t make me feel a bit possessive. Like she’s mine.
I close my laptop and take a long sip of my coffee. I’m staring at Camryn again. I can’t seem to stop, and I’m not a man who normally struggles for control. In anything.
She shifts in her seat and sighs, still chewing on that lip. I have the insane urge to reach out and tug it free with my thumb.
I cannot be thinking this way about her. It’s wrong. It’s taboo. She used to be my stepdaughter. She’s twenty-six years younger than me.
I’m still staring.
She takes a sip of her coffee, and I watch her pretty throat work as she swallows, and suddenly I’m wondering what it would feel like to press my lips there, right in the dip of her collarbone.
I force myself to stand up from the table and move away from her. But when I look back, her frown has deepened and she’s still got that plump lip caught between her teeth.
“Everything okay?” I hear myself ask before I even realize I’ve opened my mouth.
She sighs, her shoulders slumping as she continues to stare at her phone screen.
“The building manager just sent an update. The flooding was even worse than they thought. They’re saying I won’t be able to get back into my apartment for at least two months.
” I can practically feel the tension radiating off of her.
She swallows thickly, her fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around her phone.
I study her, marveling at how composed she is—another reminder of how much she’s grown up. She’s still a young woman, but she’s not the trembling, uncertain girl she used to be.
“Two months,” she says again, setting her phone down and leaning back in her chair. “What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to stay here, for as long as you need. I meant what I said yesterday. Your old room is yours, for as long as you need it.”
She looks up at me, a watery smile on her face. “It was one thing when I thought it was gonna be like, a couple of weeks. But we’re talking months now.”
“You’ll stay here for as long as you need,” I repeat, my tone sharpening and leaving no room for argument.
Her eyes hold mine, as if she’s searching for some kind of reluctance on my part. She won’t find any.
“Okay. Thank you.” She blows out a long breath and some of the tension leaves her body.
“What’s your schedule like today?” I ask.
She blinks at me, caught off guard by my abrupt change in subject. But as far as Camryn staying here goes, the matter is settled.
“Uh…I have classes all morning. I’m done around one.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up on campus. We’re going shopping.” I slide my phone out of my pocket and fire off a quick text to my admin, telling her to clear my schedule for the afternoon.
Camryn stares at me, eyebrows raised. “Shopping?”
“Your things were damaged in the flood. You’re not going to get by for two months on whatever’s in that small bag you brought. You need new clothes.” I pocket my phone and adjust my cuffs, straighting them and aligning the cuff links.
She opens her mouth like she’s going to challenge me, and I shake my head.
“No arguments. We’re going shopping. My car will meet you at the front gates of campus at one.”
Her mouth curves up in a small smile, something warm glinting in her eyes. “Well, okay then. I’m not going to argue with a man who seems eager to spend his money on me.”
The laugh comes from somewhere deep inside me, and I turn away before she can see the satisfaction in my eyes. I can’t have her—not in the depraved way I want, as much as I might try to deny it—but I can take care of her. And she doesn’t need to know how much I’ll get off of that.
I set my coffee mug in the sink, gather my things and then turn back to Camryn.
“I’ll give you a ride to campus,” I say, rocking back on my heels. I’d told her I was going to arrange for a car. I didn’t tell her it was my car.
“Okay,” she says breathily. “Thank you. I’ll just grab my things.”
I meet her in the foyer, and the elevator ride down is quiet. Tension hums in the air around us, just like it did upstairs in my penthouse. She stands close enough to me that when she moves, I catch her scent. I’m not sure if it’s her perfume, or her shampoo, but it’s floral and soft.
I clench my jaw and stare straight ahead, willing the elevator to move faster.
My driver and Town Car are waiting at the curb when we step out of the lobby and into the fresh, early spring air.
I hold the rear passenger side door open for her, and she slides in.
I try to ignore the way her dress rides up her ample thighs as she does.
I shouldn’t be staring at her thighs and imagining how they’d look bruised up from my fingers.
I shouldn’t be getting turned on at the way she smells.
I feel like a rope, fraying bit by bit as I go back and forth—being attracted to Camryn, and pushing those thoughts away, over and over.
I slide in beside her and tell the driver to take us to campus first. He nods and puts the partition up before he pulls away from the curb. I wish he hadn’t done that. I could tell him to lower it back down, but I don’t want to do anything to give away what a mess I am over my stepdaughter.
Former stepdaughter, I remind myself. As if that’s somehow supposed to make everything I’m thinking and feeling less depraved.
Camryn smooths her fingers over the hem of her dress, her knee bouncing slightly. I glance over at her and find that she’s already looking at me, her eyes flicking away the second they meet mine again. Then back again.
Like she can’t help herself.
I don’t look away this time. It’s like a jolt of electricity goes through me every single time our gazes collide.
She huffs out a breath and pulls her phone out, scrolling through TikTok, which she continues to do until we arrive at the main university gates. The car rolls to a stop, and she reaches for the door handle, but I stop her with a hand on her wrist.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have touched her. She’s so warm. So soft.
“I’ll be back at one,” I say. “I’ll meet you right here.”
She nods, eyes flicking down to where I’m still touching her. Her chest rises and falls, pink spots appearing on her cheeks. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you later.”
Then she’s out of the car, generous hips swaying as she walks away. I watch her go, my fingers tingling from that momentary skin-to-skin contact.
The car starts to pull away as I see multiple guys watching Camryn as she passes. They stare at her, open lust in their eyes. Male heads swivel in her direction as she moves through the gates, and ice forms in my stomach.
I’m jealous. I’m possessive and protective over a girl I shouldn’t want. A girl I can’t have.
I am so utterly, completely fucked.