12. Graham #2
I don’t want to mess up the made bed—the crisp corners of the sheets, all the pillows in a neat little line. Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.
Ding-dong!
My heart starts racing. Who is ringing the doorbell at this hour? If it were my brother, he would have called. Or did he?
It’s something out of the ordinary, and breaks in an established routine always mean trouble.
I check my phone. It’s not my brothers, at least.
Ding-dong!
Concierge: Your dad is here. I sent him up.
For a second I want to puke or scream. Stuart escaped? He’s here?
Dani…
But no—it’s just my stepfather.
Shit. My stepfather.
Ding-dong!
I rush to the door, pivot, then rush back to my bed—throwing off the pillows, rumpling the sheets, pulling back the covers.
Then I run into the guest room.
Dani is sprawled in the middle of the bed, in her robe. The TV is going, her hair is all over her face, and a blanket’s half wrapped around her bare legs. Her dog is snoozing next to her chest, snoring softly.
I scoop the whole mess up—girl, dog, blankets—and rush her to my bedroom.
Ding-dong!
Dani screams, “Help! Someone help! I’m being kidnapped! Hel—”
Ding-dong!
“Oh—Graham?” Dani blinks at me. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”
“Shh.” I lay her in a pile of blankets and pull the covers over her.
“I need water.”
“I’ll get you water.”
“With the good ice.”
“Dani.”
She pats my head. “Imma sleepy right meow.”
Ding—
“What took you so long?” my stepfather demands as he brushes past me into the penthouse when I open the door.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Is it Mom?”
He doesn’t respond. His eyes search the penthouse like a detective’s.
“I just don’t believe it,” he tells me. “There aren’t any photos of you two up. Is she even here?”
“Don’t you know my generation doesn’t hang up photos?”
“I saw that Instagram post. It’s the first time Dani’s posted anything about you two. Bridget says that’s weird.”
“I’m a billionaire—I asked her to keep this under wraps.”
“You can’t be controlling,” my stepdad barks at me. “I warned you.”
“I’m not.” I try to keep my heart rate down as I follow my stepdad through the house. He sees her pens, which I lined up neatly on the coffee table while she took the world’s longest bath.
“She’s asleep,” I tell him.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He’s already storming up the stairs.
I rush after him, reaching the landing in time to position my back to the open guest room door a few feet away. I keep my face neutral as I silently pray my stepdad doesn’t go into the guest suite.
I stand there the way my brothers and I used to with Dad when we didn’t want to draw his attention to something we didn’t want him to destroy. Like that mouse.
Thankfully, Frank takes the bait and heads to my bedroom.
I know the drill. He does this sometimes—especially since I started to really hit puberty, got taller than my mom.
He was always checking my phone, tracking my whereabouts, trying to find any evidence of a lie.
All it did was make me good enough at tech to outsmart the FBI. Which was more than enough to get rich.
Frank’s footfalls are heavy as he walks like a soldier down the hall and throws open the door to my bedroom.
“Hello?” Dani calls sleepily.
Lulu barks when Frank turns on the light, his eyes searching, searching.
I reach over to flick the light switch off.
“Nothing, darling.” I add, “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay. I had too many cinnamon rolls. Don’t let me do that again.”
“I really think it was the scotch,” I tell her and softly close the door.
“Happy?” I ask Frank in a low voice.
He stares at me for a long moment. It’s a tactic—people want to fill the silence and end up revealing something incriminating.
I keep my mouth shut.
“Kraig thinks you’re hiding something.”
“Since when did he work at Svensson Investment?”
“Stop trying to change the subject,” Frank snarls.
I shrug. “Fine. Go ahead and accuse me of whatever you’re going to.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he spits.
“Really? Because it kind of feels like you want to ask me if I have any weird desires to chain her up and fuck her up the—”
“Don’t be crass.”
He’s furious. Looks like he wants to punch something. Instead he swallows his anger and adjusts his baseball cap.
“I’m warning you. I’m watching you. I won’t let you become your father and break your mother’s heart.”
I let him back into the private elevator lobby then rush back upstairs to Dani.
She’s propped up, scrolling on her phone when I step into the bedroom and lean my back against the closed door.
“Do you do anything other than scroll on that damn phone? I have a library here, you know.” I breathe heavily as she looks up at me.
“I didn’t know you were getting surprise houseguests in the middle of the night. And I thought my mom was bad about not knocking.”
“Sorry about that. He just wants to make sure I haven’t kidnapped some innocent girl.”
She stares at me for a moment, her lips parted.
For a horrible second I want to kiss her.
Then she glares at me.
“Very funny.” She slides to the floor. “I’m going back to my bed.”
“No, you’re going back to mine.” I grab her.
“I thought you didn’t want me in your space.” She jerks her arm.
I back her up so her knees buckle and she lands on the edge of the bed in a poof of robes and blankets.
“I don’t want you in my closet, and definitely not in my bathroom. Your hair is everywhere.”
She stands up. I watch her rush to the door. “And I want my own bathroom.”
I pick her up.
“Hey! Put me down!”
“Then stay put.” I toss her onto my bed. “My stepdad will probably double tap.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
Right. This is weird.
“Sorry, Dani, he’s just—”
“Hey, no need to explain to me. I’m not judging you. If you sleep over at my parents’ house, you’ll catch my granny sneaking in her hobosexual of the week.”
She flops back down on the blankets. “Get in here, roomie.”
“I’m not sharing a bed with you.” I feel my face contort into a scowl. “Don’t get your hopes up—that will never happen.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
But I’m already leaving, going to make up the room in the guest suite.
Don’t go in there, I warn myself when I’m done and find myself standing outside the closed door of the master bedroom.
I crack it open.
She’s asleep in the middle of the bed, her leg thrown over one of the pillows. She doesn’t wake when I sit down next to her or when I slowly run my fingers along the curling planes of her hair.