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)
It’s a good thing I’m so good at shutting down.
He doesn’t say anything as he finishes and pulls himself together. What could he say? What would I even want to hear from him?
“Tell me you’re not going to remember that and wish I would do it again.” With a smirk, he backs away, snickering. While all I can do is wait for him to leave so I can get up on shaky legs and go to the bathroom to clean myself up.
He’s right. Now that I know how that feels, I’ll have a hard time not craving it. And he knows it.
That’s not the worst part. It’s not enough that he knows it. He takes pride in it. And he’s not going to let me live it down.
THIRTEEN
Carter
I can’t believe it.
Here we are, the happy family, surrounded by happy so-called friends. Not friends of mine, of course. I doubt Irene has any actual friends. These are all acquaintances of Dad’s, colleagues, people he felt were important enough to join us during the rehearsal dinner.
It didn’t matter when I reminded him the rehearsal dinner is supposed to be just for people involved with the wedding. Hell, even I know that. “Irene wants to meet as many people as possible before the wedding,” he explained when I tried to be helpful. “So she won’t be at a loss during the reception when everyone inevitably comes up to wish us well.”
Pretty big-ass assumption there. Really, I’m proud of how I’ve managed to bite my tongue over and over throughout this process. No matter how much I want to point out to Dad how obvious Irene’s gold-digging is, I have kept it to myself. He wants to be happy? Let him be. Let him delude himself into thinking this is what he needs. I can only try so hard to keep him from making a total fool of himself. Besides, he is the father; he is the one who’s supposed to have the answers, not me. If anything, I resent the fact that I have to be the one to tell him what’s so blatantly obvious.
That’s just one of so many things I resent as I sit at a long table in a small banquet room at the country club where the ceremony and reception are being held tomorrow. It’s not enough that I have to sit here and watch Elliana pulling her scared-rabbit routine while she sits across from me.
I have to deal with the girl whose leg keeps brushing against mine under the table—Jocelyn Reid, daughter of Senator Martin Reid, somebody Dad is vaguely acquainted with. It didn’t matter to Irene that they’re not very close. As soon as she heard Dad knows the guy, she was dead set on having him at the rehearsal. “It’s not everybody who can have a senator at such an important event,” she reminded Dad more than once, to the point where I wanted to scream at her to stop being such an obvious opportunist.
The senator is sitting to Dad’s left while Irene sits at his right, hanging onto the man’s every word. That leaves me with his daughter, who happens to be my age and who has no problem letting me know she’s interested. Extremely.
“We should get out of here early,” she murmurs in my ear, sliding her foot up my leg where no one can see. “We can make some excuse or another. Believe me, nobody is going to mind if you’re seen leaving with me.”
She’s right about that, and the thought makes me bristle. Yes, that is exactly what Dad wants. “Jocelyn is the sort of girl I would love to see you become involved with,” he informed me earlier tonight when he told me she would be sitting next to me at dinner. “She has a great future in front of her. She knows the right people. You could go far with a woman like that in your life.”
Maybe I should remind him I’m nineteen and nowhere near ready to settle down with anybody. Not even a girl with Jocelyn’s big, baby-blue eyes and enormous tits. She’s dressed modestly, and her dress covers all the interesting bits, but it’s tight enough that it doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Wearing a smile that I hope looks polite, I turn my head in Dad’s direction when he asks a question. “What was that?” I ask since I didn’t hear him with Jocelyn whispering at me.
It doesn’t really matter what he says. That’s not what I’m interested in. No, what interests me is the way Elliana doesn’t fix her face fast enough. When my gaze slides past her, it’s dead obvious she’s paying close attention to Jocelyn and me—and staring holes through both of us. Jocelyn mainly, almost glaring at her.
Interesting. Maybe the senator’s daughter has a purpose, after all.