Possessive Stepdad's Size Difference Obsession (Possessive Stepfather #7)

1. JAMIE

JAMIE

"I'd like you to come get me please. If you do, I promise I will owe you my life."

The words come out steadier than I expect, considering my hand won't stop shaking around my phone.

My bag sits by the door—packed two hours ago, before I worked up the nerve to make this call.

Before I scrolled through my contacts and landed on a number I've never dialed, a name I've spoken maybe three times in my entire life.

"Who is this?" His voice comes through low and rough.

"It's Jamie. Coleman. Your—Alice's daughter.

We met at the courthouse last year." The words tumble faster now because this is the part where I have to explain, and explaining means reliving, and I've been trying very hard not to relive anything for the past week.

"I know we don't really know each other.

I know this is—God, this is so weird. But I need someone to come get me.

The owner of my school, he's been—he's been harassing me for two years and it got worse and I told my mom and she didn't?—"

My voice cracks. Splits right down the middle like badly tempered chocolate.

"Where are you?"

That's it. No interrogation. No why me, why not her, what did you do to provoke this. Just where.

I give him the address. My dorm, not the school—I will never set foot in that building again if I can help it. He doesn't ask me to repeat it.

"I'll be there."

The line goes dead. No goodbye, no timeframe, just those three words and then silence.

I sit on the edge of my bed, phone still pressed to my ear even though he's gone. The knot that's lived in my chest for weeks—tight and hot and constantly pulling—loosens. Just one notch. Just enough that I can breathe without it catching.

The view from my window shows the school three blocks down.

Red brick, white trim, the sign out front advertising GREG'S PASTRY INSTITUTE in letters that looked so promising two years ago.

Professional. Legitimate. A place where I could learn to turn sugar and butter into something people would pay for.

The smell hits me before the memory does—burnt sugar and his cologne, that specific combination that makes my stomach turn. My brain doesn't wait for permission. It drags me back.

First semester, second week. I'm working on pate sucrée at station four, and my tart shells are coming out of the oven perfect—golden, even, the kind of color that makes you want to take a photo.

Greg circles the room the way he always does, hands clasped behind his back like he's surveying an art gallery instead of a kitchen full of stressed twenty-somethings trying not to burn things.

He stops behind me. Too close. Close enough that I can feel him there without turning around.

"Someone's been practicing," he says, and his voice does this thing—drops lower, gets syrupy. "I like a girl who's good with her hands."

The girl at station five, Marissa, glances over. Her eyes meet mine for half a second before she looks away. The guy at station three—Josh, I think—laughs. Not a real laugh. The nervous kind that says I heard it but I'm pretending I didn't.

I force a smile, the kind that shows teeth but means nothing. "Just following the recipe."

"Oh, I bet you could teach me a thing or two." Greg's hand lands on the counter next to mine. His pinky finger brushes my wrist. "Private lessons. Something to think about."

He moves on to the next station. I stare at my tart shells and try to remember if his finger actually touched my skin or if it was the edge of his sleeve. Try to convince myself it doesn't matter either way.

It was the sleeve. It had to be the sleeve.

Different day. Different semester, maybe six months in. I'm tempering chocolate—the real kind, not the compound stuff—and it's cooperating for once. Glossy, smooth, snapping clean when I test it on parchment. Greg materializes at my elbow.

He smells wrong. Not rotten, not unwashed, but wrong in a way that makes my hindbrain scream danger. Too sweet, too chemical, like someone melted artificial vanilla extract and air freshener together and decided to bathe in it.

In the enclosed space of the kitchen, with the heat from the ovens and the bodies packed close, it concentrates. Thickens. I taste it at the back of my throat.

"Beautiful work, Jamie." His fingers close around my upper arm. Not a brush this time. A grip. Five points of pressure above my elbow, his thumb digging into the soft part. "You've got real talent. We should talk about your future here."

I freeze. My whisk stops moving. The chocolate in the bowl keeps spinning, momentum carrying it in slow circles.

"Thank you," I manage. Polite. Neutral. The tone every woman learns to use when a man's attention curdles from flattering to wrong and you're trying not to provoke anything worse.

His hand stays. Squeezes once—not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough that I feel each individual fingertip—and then slides down my forearm as he steps away. Slow. Deliberate. Like he's petting something.

Morales—one of the chef instructors—is six feet away at the demo table. He's looking right at us. His jaw does something, this quick tightening, and then he turns back to his mise en place.

The chocolate seizes in the bowl. Grainy, broken, ruined.

Last week.

The memory lands like a punch. I'm back in my dorm room now—present, real, the sun slanting through the window—but I can't stop it from unspooling.

Greg called me to his office. Not asked. Called. Sent Marissa to my station with a message: He wants to see you. Now.

I knew. Some animal part of me knew before I walked down that hallway. But you don't say no to the man who owns the school where you've already sunk two years of tuition and all your plans.

His office is on the second floor. Small, windowless, crammed with filing cabinets and stacks of paperwork that probably should've been digitized a decade ago. A desk. Two chairs. A door that closes.

He closes it.

"Have a seat, Jamie."

I stay standing. My hands lock together in front of me, knuckles pressing into knuckles.

"I've been watching your progress." He settles into his desk chair, leans back, fingers steepled like he's about to deliver a performance review. "You're one of my best students. Real potential. But potential doesn't mean anything if you don't have the right... opportunities."

The smell is worse in here. Concentrated. No ventilation, no space for it to dissipate. It coats the inside of my nose.

"I'm doing fine in class," I say. Careful. Measured. "My grades are?—"

"Grades." He waves a hand, dismissive. "Grades are one thing. Real success in this industry? That's about connections. Mentorship. Someone who believes in you enough to invest."

He stands. Circles the desk.

Every instinct I have is screaming. My feet want to move—toward the door, toward air, toward anywhere that isn't this room—but my knees have locked.

"I could do a lot for you, Jamie." He's in front of me now. Close. Too close. "Private lessons. Advanced techniques. Maybe even a recommendation when you graduate." His hand lifts, and I watch it rise toward my face like I'm underwater. "You just have to be willing to?—"

His fingers close on my jaw. Turn my head. His breath hits my mouth—coffee and something sour underneath—and his lips are an inch away when my hands finally remember how to work.

I shove. Both palms flat on his chest, all my weight behind it. He stumbles, hits the edge of the desk, catches himself.

And I scream.

Not words. Just sound. Loud enough that it echoes in the stairwell, loud enough that running footsteps pound up from the first floor.

Morales bursts through the door first. Another instructor behind him—Patterson, older, balding, the one who teaches bread. They stare at us: Greg against his desk, me pressed back against the filing cabinet, my hands still raised.

Greg straightens. Smooths his shirt. And his face does this thing, this instant transformation that would be impressive if it wasn't so nauseating. Shock. Hurt. Confusion.

"I don't know what—" He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair. Looks at Morales with wide, wounded eyes. "She asked to talk privately about her grades. I was trying to help and she—she came on to me. I pushed her back and she started screaming."

The lie comes out smooth. Practiced. Like he's said it before.

Morales's jaw goes tight. That same movement I saw months ago in the kitchen, like he's biting down on something that wants to come out. His eyes flick to me—just for a second, something in them that looks like apology or maybe just shame—and then he's looking at the floor.

Patterson shifts his weight. Clears his throat. Doesn't look at me at all.

"Jamie." Morales's voice is careful. Gentle in the way that makes my stomach drop because gentle means I'm already buried. "Are you... okay? Do you need anything?"

Do I need anything. Like I scraped my knee instead of almost getting?—

"I'm fine." The words come out flat. Dead. I don't recognize my own voice.

They leave. Both of them. Patterson first, then Morales, who pauses in the doorway long enough to give me one more look—guilty, useless—before he disappears.

The door stays open. Greg leans against his desk, arms crossed, and smiles.

It's a wet smile. His lips are slightly parted, tongue touching his bottom teeth. Satisfied. Like he just won something.

"Careful, Jamie," he says softly. "You're going to get a reputation."

A car pulls into the parking lot below my window. Not my stepfather's—just a sedan, someone else's life happening in the background of mine. But the sound pulls me back. Drops me into my body.

I grab my bag. Head outside.

The school is behind me now, red brick and white lies, and I position myself at the curb where I can see the street. Late afternoon sun slants across the pavement. My phone says it's been forty minutes since the call.

A truck turns the corner. Black, massive, the kind that makes other vehicles look like toys. It pulls into the lot and parks three spaces down.

The engine cuts. The door opens.