Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
I hate everything about her. The sounds of her soft-spoken voice, the look in her always guarded eyes and the way she pushes her too big glasses up her small nose. I despise it all and now I can’t get away from her.
Elianna Montego is my new stepsister, living in the room next to mine. She is there when I wake up, she’s there at school, and seemingly every other place. I just can’t get away from little Elli.
I guess the only thing I can do now is make sure she is as miserable as I am.
***Unhinged Love is book three in the Wicked Falls Elite series but can be read as a standalone. No cliffhanger.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
Carter
I hate a lot of things, but what makes me grind my teeth the hardest is hypocrisy. People who smile to your face but wish they could stick a knife in your back. I would always rather know the truth about how somebody feels about me, and I hate pretending to like anyone I can’t stand. It’s a waste of time.
So why am I sitting here, forcing a smile that feels more like a grimace?
Oh, right. Because this is the first so-called family dinner with my new stepmother and her daughter.
Correction: my new gold-digger stepmother and her gold-digger freak of a daughter.
Before now, I would never have called my dad stupid. He’s the chief of police, for one thing—not a position a stupid man could handle as successfully as he has. He’s got a talent for seeing through people that makes him a real pain in the ass to anybody on the wrong side of the law. It’s something I have always admired about him, even if I don’t usually admit shit like that. Not out loud.
So why the fuck can he not see through the woman sitting across from him, laughing at his lame jokes like they’re the funniest thing she’s ever heard? “You are too much,” she coos, batting her fake eyelashes.
Fake like her Botoxed face. Fake like her hair extensions, and her enormous cantaloupe tits. I don’t think a single thing about her is real, including her so-called feelings about Dad. The second I met her, I knew what she was in this for. She lives an expensive kind of lifestyle, and she needs a man who can support that.
How is he so blind? How can he look at her with love shining in his eyes? The dumb son of a bitch thinks she actually loves him.
If I thought he would listen, I would sit him down and tell him what he needs to hear.
But that’s the thing—he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t want to. And I would end up being the bad guy who doesn’t want his dad to be happy.
I do want that, I guess.
Why the fuck does it have to be with her?
“What do you think is taking Elliana so long?” Dad asks, looking toward the arched doorway that gives us a view of the hall. “I would hate for the food to get cold.”
Another thing he can’t see—the way his supposedly loving wife’s eyes go from wide and innocent to cold and hard the second her daughter is mentioned. “I’m sure she’ll be down any second. It’s been a big day, moving everything in.”
Dad gives her an indulgent smile. “It’s been a great day. Finally, this house can be full of life.”
What? Did I fill it with death? What the fuck?
He has no idea how stupid he sounds. He can’t possibly.
Because if he did, he would staple his own mouth shut before turning to me and coming up with something even stupider. “Carter, why don’t you go up and see if your sister needs help?”
My sister? I don’t have a sister. I’m an only fucking child. Why does he have to go overboard? He has no idea how pathetic all of this is.
Irene’s smile goes tight until it’s about as sincere as the smile Dad told me to wear tonight so my new stepmother and stepsister would feel comfortable. “Carter doesn’t need to do that,” she murmurs, batting her eyelashes at me. She better be careful—one of them might fall off onto her plate if she doesn’t stop. “If Elliana cannot be on time for dinner, she will eat cold food alone at the table. I’m not going to spoil her now.”
Well, at least we agree on something.
We shouldn’t have to sit around and wait for that weird, awkward girl who barely looked at me today when she got to the house and didn’t say a word, even when Irene tried to prompt her.
Dad laughed it off—later, I heard him murmuring something to Irene about Elliana needing a little time to adjust, telling her she has all the time in the world.
This whole thing is one big joke.
“Then I guess we’ll dig in.” Dad leans over to cut a piece of lasagna from a large pan. Really, it probably doesn’t matter that we’ve waited so long—there’s still steam billowing up from it when he plates his piece, and adds sides from various cut-glass bowls arranged in the center of the table along with a huge bouquet of white roses and candles that offer flickering light.
Irene heaps salad onto her plate and barely tips the bottle of dressing to get a few drops out before setting it back in place. “I have to watch my figure if I’m going to fit into my dress, of course.” She giggles.
Why? Because it’s not bad enough that you eloped after only a few dates?