I hadn’t talked to him the whole time, fully entrenched in my peak teen years of attitude. We’d had one moment when we crossed paths in the kitchen.
“Nice nose ring,” he’d said.
I’d given him my signature smirk and walked away.
“What about Todd and my friends.”
“Todd?” Dad asked.
“My boyfriend.”
“Please,” Mom scoffed. “If you expect me to think you’d want to stay for Todd, you must think I’m dumber than rocks.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Dad asked. “Since when? Have we met him?”
“Since before I left. He came to my graduation party.”
My dad’s face screwed up when he remembered the polar opposite of me. “The football player?”
“If Todd can be your boyfriend,” Mom added air quotes for good measure, “while you’re overseas for six months, then he can handle you going to college.”
“Listen, Arabella,” my dad said, ready to bargain to make it end. “You put in an honest effort at school, earn half the money for a decent car and we’ll pay the rest and make sure you have an apartment by summer.
At this point it was all a waste of time to argue. Even my own stubbornness had its limits. And the apartment didn’t matter—it was the promise of freedom and independence.
“Fine. I’ll pack this week, but I’m heading out to enjoy my last Saturday with friends.”
“Be back by midnight,” my mom called to my retreating back. “And we still need to talk about the tattoo I saw in one of your pictures. As well as the topless beach.”
“Topless what?” my dad screeched.
I chuckled but kept walking to grab my things.
All-in-all, maybe leaving home earlier than expected would be good. After having a taste of freedom, every rule that used to be my norm felt like a shackle tying me in place.
So, I’d move to Cincinnati with Uncle Willem and utilize the roof over my head. He could stay home and sip his tea by the fire while he read a good novel on how to tie the best Windsor knot. I’d be out and about and working my ass off to afford a place of my own.
I just needed to keep my eye on the prize and hope good ole Uncle Willem didn’t try to control me like some misplaced father figure.
As far as I knew, he was single with no kids. So, it’d be just him and me. I planned on not being there as much as possible.
Two
Willem
“I can’t tonight, Tessa. My niece is coming in.”
“Niece? Since when do you have a niece? And how have you not told me about any family? We’ve been together for almost a month?”
By together, she meant fucking. We’d been fucking for a few weeks—on occasion. It was time to cut ties, and maybe having Arabella here would be the perfect excuse. I should have done it sooner, like the first night I realized how incompatible we were. I’d tested her limits and lightly fisted her hair, and she’d winced with a whine that damn near stole my erection. It wasn’t like I wanted to tie her up and cane her, but I was a big guy with a big appetite, and I liked a woman who could handle both sides of me—the one that tortured with soft touches and teasing kisses and the one that gripped so hard I left bruises as I fucked you into next week. I liked a woman who wouldn’t cave to me throughout the day, only to kneel and beg me for release later that night.
“She’s my stepbrother’s kid. A stepbrother from my mom’s last marriage. Not technically my niece,” I found myself explaining anyway.
“Well,” she huffed. “If you ever need to escape the brat, just come on over here. I’ll help you relax.”
She said it like Arabella was a ten-year-old girl with pigtails in need of a babysitter. I almost snorted at the thought but shoved it down.
“Yeah. I’ll let you know.”
I quickly got off the phone and rubbed a hand down my face, my mind wandering back to Arabella. Part of me wanted to laugh at Tessa’s accurate description of Arabella. Harry said her trip to Europe helped Arabella grow up. Sort of.
But that wasn’t the biggest problem. No. The bigger problem was that Arabella looked nothing like a little bratty girl. I’d pulled up her Instagram and, after realizing I’d been scrolling for ten minutes, I’d shut it down faster than a kid being walked in on jerking off.
Only ten minutes, and I’d kind of lost myself a bit. I’d lost myself in admiring how bold she looked—free…sexy.
Long gone was the snotty teen with braces who’d refused to acknowledge I existed at Thanksgiving. Even further from the girl I remembered when I’d visit between trips abroad.
For those ten minutes, nothing else existed except the girl in Instagram worthy pics all over Europe. She rarely smiled and wore her attitude—or brattiness as Harry explained—hooked on the corner of her mouth that tipped up in a smirk in almost every picture.