Reed sits up and leans against the headboard. “Aw, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” I grumble. “It was the worst.”

“What was the worst?” Easton asks from the doorway, then barrels into the room.

“Dude, you need to learn how to knock,” Reed tells his brother in exasperation. “What if we were naked?”

“Naked implies you’re having sex. And we all know you’re not.”

I stifle a sigh. I should probably be used to the frank way Easton discusses Reed’s and my sex life, but I’m not.

“You weren’t in Chem,” Easton informs me, as if I wasn’t aware of my own absence. “You and Val skip?”

“No.” I grit my teeth. “Steve pulled me out of school for some father/daughter bonding.”

“Ah. Gotcha.” Easton flops down on the bed next to me. “Didn’t go well, huh?”

“Nope,” I say glumly. “I don’t get him.”

Easton shrugs. “What’s there to get?”

“Him.” I run a hand through my hair in frustration. “He’s like a man-child. We had breakfast at the pier, then took a drive up the coast and had lunch at this restaurant on top of a cliff. I swear, all he did was talk about cars and how much he loves flying planes. Then he told me about all the times he almost died on his crazy adventure trips and how he wishes he was still a Navy SEAL because he loved blowing shit up.”

Reed and Easton snicker. They’d stop laughing pretty darn fast if they heard the comments Steve had made about Maria, but I don’t want to poison that well, so I concentrate on the other weird stuff. And there was plenty.

“He changes subjects so fast it’s impossible to keep up,” I say helplessly. “And I can never tell what he’s thinking.” My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek as I look at Reed. “He knows we’re together.”

My boyfriend nods. “Yeah, I figured. We weren’t exactly trying to hide it.”

“I know, but…” I swallow. “I got the feeling he doesn’t like it. And that’s not even the worst part.”

“Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a badass day?” Easton pipes up. “I want to eat on a cliff.”

“He wants me to move in with him and Dinah.”

That shuts Easton up. Both he and Reed go stiffer than the bedposts.

“Not happening,” Easton says.

“According to Steve, it is.” I moan unhappily and climb into Reed’s lap. His strong arms instantly wrap around my waist, anchoring me. “He didn’t push the issue about me staying at the hotel with them, but he said that the second the police release the penthouse, he expects me to move in. He asked me if I had any design ideas for his interior decorator. He’s hiring someone to decorate my room!”

Reed tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Dad won’t let that happen, baby.”

“Your dad doesn’t have a say in it.” My throat tightens to the point of pain. “Steve is the one who gets to decide, and he wants me to live with him.”

Easton makes a growly sound. “It doesn’t matter what Steve wants. You belong with us.”

He’s right. I do. Unfortunately, Steve doesn’t agree. At lunch, he even asked me to consider legally changing my last name from Harper to O’Halloran. If I was going to change it to anything, it would be Royal, but I didn’t say that to him. I simply nodded and smiled and let him babble and babble for hours. I honestly think he just likes hearing the sound of his own voice.

“Stop stressing,” Reed advises, running one hand over my lower back.

“I can’t. I don’t want to live with him and that bitch. I won’t.”

“It won’t even come down to that,” he promises. “The thing about Steve—he’s all talk and no action.”

Easton nods fervently. “It’s true. You totally nailed it when you called him a man-child. Uncle Steve is a big kid.”

“Easton’s right. Steve has all these big ideas but he never follows through on any of them,” Reed admits. “He gets distracted.”

“Yeah, by his dick,” Easton says, and I cringe at that. “He could be in the middle of a board meeting and you put a hot chick in front of him and he’s outta there.”

Yeah. My father sounds awesome. Not. “Please don’t talk about my dad’s penis in front of me. That’s disgusting.”

“He’s just caught up in this whole I’m-a-father thing,” Easton says with another shrug. “Once that wears off, he’ll probably forget you exist.”

I know he’s trying to reassure me, but he only succeeds in bumming me out even more. Every new thing I learn about Steve brings a new knot of anxiety to my stomach.

And now I’m scared again, but not at the idea that Steve might not like me.

I’m afraid I won’t like him.

14

Ella

Since Val doesn’t have a car, and I don’t have a job anymore, there’s nothing stopping me from driving her home after school on Friday. I was hoping we would catch up during the drive, but she’s surprisingly quiet, so at the next red light I glance over and come right out with it.

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

Her gaze flies to mine. “What? No! Of course not.”

“Are you sure?” I say anxiously. “Because I’ve been a really crappy friend this week. I know I have.”

“No, you’ve been a busy friend.” She smiles sadly. “I totally get it, Ella. I’d be distracted too if my boyfriend was being accused of murder.”

“I really am sorry I haven’t been around. Life…sucks.”

“Tell me about it.”

We trade grim smiles.

“What’s going on with you and Wade?” I ask as I drive through the intersection.

“Nothing.” Her tone is vague.

“Nothing? Seriously?” They’ve both been super cranky every day this week, barely even looking at each other at lunch. That’s not nothing.

I turn onto Val’s street and slow down in front of the Carrington mansion. Before she can escape, I click the locks so she can’t open her door.