Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Sissy gave her a pointed look. “Excuse me? That was not the reaction—”
“Oh, my God, no. The ring is beautiful.” She jumped from the chair to launch a hug at Sissy that squeezed the air out of her in a wheeze. “Thank you so much, this is amazing.”
“O-okay, let me g-go,” Sissy stuttered.
She did.
“Sorry.”
Sissy gave her a look. “What was all that swearing for?”
“I forgot about prom.”
Sissy’s eyes widened, and her stare dropped to the floor, and likely the woman waiting down there. “Let me say now, so you are well forewarned, someone else did not.”
•••
Frankie tiptoed into her stepmother’s master suite the same way she used to do as a young girl. Except this time, she wasn’t trying to sneak into Carina’s vanity to stare at all the pretty bottles of perfume or admire the rows and rows of display drawers for her jewelry. Carina caught her once, and she didn’t yell or throw a fit at all. She just sat a young Frankie down and explained that she could look all she wanted, but touching was only by permission.
She still remembered the conversation. One of a few that she cared to.
“Consent is important,” Carina had stated calmly, making sure every word was heard and understood. “Even if you’re only asking to touch someone else’s things. Do you remember when we talked about that last time?”
Soon enough, she found Carina.
“Hey,” Frankie whispered, leaning around the entry to the massive closet. “Sissy said you were looking for me?”
Carina glanced up from paperback of Hamlet by Shakespeare and promptly put the book down on the cream-colored chaise at her side. “I said when you had time this morning, no rush.”
“Oh.”
“You think you’d be happier today, turning eighteen. What’s with the pout?”
Frankie cringed, knowing good and well what she said next would likely start something with Carina given she’d asked her stepmother to help with getting ready for prom. She wondered how to go about spilling the news that she’d totally forgotten it was just two days away, and to put a cherry on top of the cake, she no longer had a date.
“Um, I have something to tell you, and you might be pissed, but—”
“Oh, my God,” Carina interjected, scowling, “you know, don’t you?”
“Know what?”
Carina’s jaws snapped shut instantly, muttering, “Nothing.”
That’s weird.
Frankie eyed her stepmother a little more closely as she stepped beyond the threshold to properly enter what could not be considered just a closet. Not even a walk-in closet properly described the space that stored Carina’s many possessions.
Not only did it have two floors, a spiral staircase, a balcony leading to a private sitting area outside, and two bathrooms, it also included a built-in safe room for the most expensive bags and jewelry in Carina’s collection.
Frankie looked beyond those things to see telltale signs of what Carina might be trying to hide. Just the fact that she woke up to the woman being in the house for three mornings in a row, weeks before graduation, gave her one hint. The thing that really clinched the deal, though?
The open door.
Not the one Frankie entered earlier. Rather, a separate exit to the humongous closet leading to a short hallway where another set of stairs would take someone straight up to her father’s private wing, including his bedroom.
It only locked from her father’s side, not Carina’s.
He had to do that. Or, also possible, Carina stayed in his room and used the stairs as an entry point to her closet. Both meant the same thing.
“You’re sleeping with Daddy again, aren’t you?” she asked Carina.
A sigh answered her back.
Frankie shrugged. “I mean, it’s okay.”
“Well, he is my husband. Since someone thinks I need permission.”
At that, she outright rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant, don’t be a bitch.”
The two half-glared, half-sized one another up for a good minute or two. Frankie couldn’t decide whether she even had the energy to start the war it would be to get into a yelling match with Carina so early in the morning over this.
“I’m not a bitch, I’m just...a lot to handle sometimes,” Carina finally said, breaking their staring contest.
“Yeah, me too. I guess.”
“You’re not mad, are you? I will stay in the city, if—”
“It’s fine,” she answered. “Really. Besides, if the two of you get into another fight, I’m just going to my penthouse. That’s the deal now, okay? Keep it in mind.”
Her stepmother grinned, showing off perfect white teeth while her green eyes glittered. “You know, I think you and I are going to get along a lot better now that you’re older. I mean, it did get better the older you got, but now...Do you think it’ll be different for us?”
“Are you asking if I want you as like a mother, or something?”
“God, no.”
“You looked so disgusted right then.”
Carina didn’t look the least bit ashamed. “I never wanted kids. Your father and you, by proxy, were essentially a punishment for me. A demand I was given without a real choice in the matter. But before that, and even after, kids were not on my radar. I was never meant to be a mother. I didn’t have one of my own to teach me how to be one. I’m not sure you realize, but I was adopted by a young couple as a baby. They were barely beyond twenty, childless despite trying, and it looked good on them to take in a baby abandoned at their Catholic church just a year after their wedding. They weren’t ready to be parents, either. When I got older, well...”